Are High Gain Profiles More Difficult To Profile? Tips Please?

    I've been trying for the last couple of days to profile my 5150 III 100S and have had a terrible time trying to get an accurate profile.

    I'm running the head into a 4x12 loaded with Greenback RI speakers (an old Egnater cab from the days before Rocktron and their modern offerings) and I've tried a variety of mics through a Chandler TG2 preamp or straight into my Roland-Octa Capture.

    Interestingly, I was able to get some great profiles of my Egnater TOL100 (which I'll be testing, tweaking and sharing soon if they sound as good at the gig as they do at home) even on the highest gain settings... but even at the highest gain settings on that amp, it cannot compare to the gain that 5150 will put out... it's a beast.

    With every scenario I tried (with the 5150,) the resulting profile had considerably more high end content and a somewhat "phasey" character to it. The low end and more scooped mids of the 5150 just weren't there.

    I tried "refining" several times and played dozens of chords for several minutes. And while it got closer, it just never got there.

    So I guess this question is for you guys that have done these super high gain profiles... what's the trick to getting them to come out right?

    is your cab isolated in a different room than you are monitoring? and how are you monitoring? IE - how do you know the profile's sound is different than what the mic is hearing, vs. what you are hearing (mic sound + direct sound from the cab)?

    Another thing worth trying is to lower the gain just below full saturation, then turn the gain back up after profiling.

    I have also found setting clean sense at 0.0 as well as distortion sense can help for accuracy. and of course make sure the KPA's output block doesn't have any EQ changes dialed in. I've had cases where these changed after upgrading FW.

    Hi Guys, thanks for the input... I see I forgot to mention a couple of things.

    I've had this happen in 2 case, one in which I was micing a cab in the other room with a single TUL G12 mic, the 2nd going through my Torpedo WOS Plugin. In both cases I'm monitoring on my Presonus Eris 8 monitors, Atomic CLR monitors, and my Shure 535 IEMs just so I'm sure of what I'm hearing.

    In the case where I was micing the cab, I also profiled my egnater with the same setup and it worked like a champ, the only variable was the amp head.

    I did have my clean and distortion sense lower because I was using my Les Paul and was hitting the red on both input and output lights. Maybe that's the culprit.. though again it didn't seem to be an issue for the Egnater which is no slouch in the gain department either, just not like that beast of a 5150.

    I'll play around some more and see what I can discover. I'll put the clean and distortion sense back to 0 and use a guitar with lower output and see if that helps. Thanks.

    Clean Sense I don't think makes any difference once you have the KPA gain above about 4 or 5. It may matter when making the profile, though. I did have one bad session, and changing Clean Sense back to 0.0 may have helped fix my issues - not sure if that was the only change though. However, if the resulting profile creates a Gain parameter of above 5, which I would assume it does, Clean Sense shouldn't cause clipping, regardless of whatever guitar you use. If you lower Gain below 4 or 5, or switch to another rig with such low gain, then yes, it could certainly cause clipping.

    On a high gain profile, change Clean Sense and see if you can actually HEAR a difference, regardless of what the input LED does. I did this, and I couldn't tell any difference between - 12 db and + 12 db on Clean Sense.

    Output clipping is more troubling. You are getting output clipping directly after profiling, without any effects on, and without raising the cab or rig volume? The profiling process should normalize the volume level, so that at the default rig and cab volumes of 0.0 (noon), there is no output clipping.

    I remember one person remarking trouble with the profiling process, noting that his Mark V profiles could not get the tight bass he had dialed in on the amp itself. The "return volume" setting before profiling seemed to always get set too high after profiling to the point where it would clip the KPA. So something was wrong, not sure if hardware or a bug with the profiling algorithm, where it may be detecting the incorrect return volume and profiling a clipping signal. He did say that he opened a support ticket and ended up sending it in for repair, but not sure what the outcome was. Maybe something similar is happening here...hopefully not.

    Quote from gtrgriff3

    With every scenario I tried (with the 5150,) the resulting profile had considerably more high end content and a somewhat "phasey" character to it. The low end and more scooped mids of the 5150 just weren't there.

    I tried "refining" several times and played dozens of chords for several minutes. And while it got closer, it just never got there.


    first of all there is no 'trick' needed to get accurate high gain profiles, in fact even refining isn't mandatory.
    to make things simpler I would advise to use a mic directly into the Profiler, no preamp.
    When you say 'phasey' I immediately think there are two signals present in your daw, resulting in comb filtering.

    Quote from DonPetersen


    first of all there is no 'trick' needed to get accurate high gain profiles, in fact even refining isn't mandatory.
    to make things simpler I would advise to use a mic directly into the Profiler, no preamp.
    When you say 'phasey' I immediately think there are two signals present in your daw, resulting in comb filtering.


    If that were the case, the same rig with the other head would have exhibited the same symptom and it did not.

    get what you're saying, but I can assure you that's not the issue. It's not a phase cancellation sound I just don't know how else to describe it. In any event I'll try and get some time later this week to try again.

    I would disagree that refining isnt necessary. Probably 90% of the profiles ive made have different frequency balance than the source until i refine. After refining, they are spot on. This is mostly profiles with chugging bass - if the source is more midsy and crunchy rather than djenty and bass heavy, they are just ab perfect without refining.