Preamp profiling mode

    I have made several profiles of my Quad preamp and I believe the current profiling process doesn't capture the tone of a preamp only, as good as it could. The manual says leave cab enabled. On or off it's still very easy to tell which is the kemper, and at this point, for live use it doesn't replace the quad. Was hoping I could profile the quad and swap it out with the kemper in my rack.

    I have also noticed on full profiles that the cab portion seems to be capturing more then the amp portion. If I take a good sounding cab lock it, and scroll through different amps it all sounds very similar, it makes every amp sound the same. I would expect / hope there would be a huge difference, but it's a slight difference.

    Same thing when running the kemper output through my Strategy 500 and v30 4x12 cab, all the amp sections sound similar with the cab off. I'm sure the strategy is coloring the sound, (presence and deep) but if the amp section had more weight in the profile, it would be more like when I swap preamps for real. Night and day difference.

    Everything that I've said is when working with Hi gain metal profiles. I haven't spent any time on clean or crunch profiles. I've only had it a few weeks, so hopefully I'm doing something wrong. I will say for direct recording using purchased profiles, it's outstanding!

    Hi there,

    you answered yourself already. The cab in a rig has a huge influence on an amp's sound, be it virtual or real world. There are some threads dealing with that topic just search this board. A special preamp-profiling procedure would surely fit the needs of many users though. Let's see what Kemper has up the sleeve for future updates.

    Open a support ticket here: SUPPORT

    For modern high gain amps most of the tone flavour comes from cabs (when recording from mic/pre too). Amp provides response (to playing) mostly and frequency/overtone range which (both things) in case of uber saturated amp hit with high output pickups don't make much difference.

    Kemper does model this behaviour quite realistically imo.

    Edited once, last by mdeeRocks (January 17, 2014 at 2:17 PM).

    Quote from mdeeRocks

    For modern high gain amps most of the tone flavour comes from cabs (when recording from mic/pre too). Amp provides response (to playing) mostly and frequency/overtone range which (both things) in case of uber saturated amp hit with high output pickups don't make much difference.

    Kemper does model this behaviour quite realistically imo.


    If I run a different rack preamp through my strategy 500 there is a substantial difference Hi gain or not. Heck I can change brands of tubes and hear a difference. Otherwise why not buy any cheap preamp if you have a good power amp and cabs. I'm talking about real tube amps. I don't come from a modeling background.

    You would think the Kemper would do even better capturing a preamp only as it doesn't need to simulate the rest of the chain, pushing of air etc. but it tries to and that is changing the tone. If it could be free to focus on the preamp during profiling without simulating something that doesn't exist, it might get closer.

    Like I said for recording it is outstanding. For popping in your rack to replace your favorite tube preamp for live use it's not quite there yet. IMO