Display Moreso maybe the technology available just isn't there yet for what I was hoping for.
The technology is there and there's nothing than can improve it or make it better as I have found first hand. The profiling process isnot updated with firmware updates and profiles made in 2012 are in the same category as new ones that are being made as we speak. The objective is to get the sound of a miced tube amp with the same feel. After watching countless videos demonstrating the accuracy of the profiling process, like you I took the plunge saying to myself, if this can duplicate my tube amps through a mic, that's all I need to know relaying on the fact that other users and studios with better equipment and mics will provide the profiles. I just needed to know that it works and that was enough for me.
I profiled my tube amps using an ISO cab and for all intended purposes it was identical with very small minor lack of tightness in the bass in some occasion but not enough for most to be able to tell the difference (see a recent video on youtube " kemper saves chappers")
The issue becomes is that some might not be used to the sound of the Miced amp if they normally play real amps (true cab tried to address that) but what's worse is when someone is used to Modelers that use algorithms and they try to play the KPA. At first it sounds and feels different, but this is how a tube amp sound and reacts if it's miced.
......... and most "lay" users don't have much of a chance of making "golden profiles".
If they have good mics (dion't even need Preamp) they can get Golden profiles using dynamic microphones. Studios on the other hand have better equipment and have more chances of getting better profiles.This is just the opinion of a new user who didn't spend much time lurking the forums prior to purchase and didn't know what to expect out of this thing really.
Everyone is certainly entitled to an opinion and sharing their experience.
Question - what's a studio profile? Just a "professional" one?
Studio profiles is in contrast to Direct profile or merged profiles: most profiles on the Rig exchange are studio profiles that most users. Merged profiles is identical to Studio profile but when you swap cabinets with other profiles, it's not approximated as in the studio profile. The studio profiles captures the whole thing, amp and speaker but if you swap the speaker and algorithm approximate the process. You can read more about in the manual if your interested.
Finally I'm glad to know that you're not giving up but keep in mind where you came from in this regard. Did you use other modelers? If that's the case, you certainly need to adjust an accept the Kemper as the authentic replica of recorded tube amps as recorded on you all of our favorite studio Albums. I came from Eleven Rack and it had tons of tube sag in comparison with real tube amps, and the other modelers didn't have the natrual sag you get from tube amp and the speaker interaction correct so even if it sounded good, it was just a mater of getting used to a sound that in the end of the day is not realistic., the Kemper solves that.
Help cleanup digital "hair" on profiles?
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jaybird666 -
November 30, 2016 at 10:44 PM -
Thread is marked as Resolved.
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I fully agree, Dean_R.
One comment to the statement above: the biggest part to get better might not be "excellent equipment". It dont hurt, thats for sure, but decent equipment is now available to all of us. The weak part of the chain is still the user - and especially his ears and fingers. I am not profiling, but there is this fine-tuning at the very last step, no? My assumption here: sloppy playing, i.e. fret noise artifacts by inproper acting fingers may well hurt the process. In addition I watched people going to the amp section and "helping" the matching algorithm with minor tweaking to get a perfect result.
What I really mean: a so-so guitar with a so-so amp in the hand of a guitar heroe will sound awesome. And a fool with a tool is still a fool.
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Hey Dean thanks for your thoughts. Yeah I have watched the Captain and Rob Chapman video before
So I am a long time tube amp user. I have had modelers as well, most recently I bought an Atomic Amplifire about a year ago. So I have both. I am looking for that amp in the room sound and feel I guess. I WANT to be fooled if you would that I am really playing the "X" amp for real. I know to really get that true feel, I would need to play through my 4x12 cab with enough volume, but I also know messing for a year with a current modeler what to expect out of studio monitors too.
Glad to hear that the profiling can be done w/ half decent knowledge and mic's as I have that and would profile my amps and some of my friends collections if I stick it out.
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I know to really get that true feel, I would need to play through my 4x12 cab with enough volume
My option with 18 inch sub + 2 x 10 inch and horn is *slightly* louder than a 4x12 stack
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Sounds like my story!
With the first L6 POD - the bean - I got instantly good sounds. Within the limits of that technology, of course. Later I upgraded to the HD-500 and based on the factory sounds it took many nights to just come close to the old POD! And endless more hours to make me feel that investment was justified.Back to the Kemper: for me also most of the rig exchange profiles just do not work. But: from the factory profiles (3.x) I got instant sucsess. I.e. a VOX AC-30 and Gundy Kellers stuff. Good right out of the box and excellent after minor EQ adaption to my guitars. ANd only lately I baught my first commercial profile, Top Jimis BE Friedman. Awsome, middy, vintage, raw sound. And again - practically right out of the box.
So for me the "stop endless tweaking" dream finally came true. And I grew up with real tube amps. And my sound now is consistently better than in the old and real times.
Sidenote: my biggest investment has always been monitors and room treatment. Add I do own a dozend of headphones to pick from. Thats is where any good sound really starts from.
" I would assume that a FRFR speaker would sound similar to studio monitors, but maybe not?"
Flat Response and Full Range - thats the definition of good studio monitors But for PA or guitar purpose they have to be so load that some (minor) comprimises in flatness have to be taken. But practically: yes, they will sound the same.
Thanks Spinner. Glad to hear you are / were in the same boat as me! Funny I do really like the sound of the real Friedman BE/ HBE stuff.
Question - where do I find those 3.x profiles you mention? My unit is running 5.0.3.x . Is there an easy way to search Rig Manager for those profiles you mentioned so I can check them out?
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My option with 18 inch sub + 2 x 10 inch and horn is *slightly* louder than a 4x12 stack
Well I guess that could work!!! I do have the matching sub for my LSR 305's so bottom end isn't an issue if needed.
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Well I guess that could work!!! I do have the matching sub for my LSR 305's so bottom end isn't an issue if needed.
Mine goes up to 120 Hz. That moves some serious air. Its really necessary if you really want to feel in front of a stack
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Question - where do I find those 3.x profiles you mention? My unit is running 5.0.3.x . Is there an easy way to search Rig Manager for those profiles you mentioned so I can check them out?
I cannot find it in RM. Let me see...
https://www.kemper-amps.com/downloads/10/Rig-Packs
Search for Gundy. In general: the rigs on that page are technically on the good side. Its a matter of tatse, of course.
Then: Kemper Amps (author) - Voice Ace Thirty (profile name) - its my vintage crunch favourite or slight breakup when strumming.
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My 5 inch studio monitors at my man's cave if I'm sitting in the proper point in the triangle push a little air around my face that I can feel whenever I play loud.
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... I am looking for that amp in the room sound and feel I guess. I WANT to be fooled if you would that I am really playing the "X" amp for real....
Pure cab is intended to get you closer to the amp in the room. It to a certain degree removes the microphone from the cabinet, so it does remove hair and the high frequencies artifacts that exist when close micing speakers, this would apply if you're using an FRFR system.
On the other hand if you're considering using real cabinets, the most authentic way would to use merged profiles withe cab disabled, or simply use Direct profiles that are available.
The third consideration is using the AMP parameters in the Kemper.. "Tube Shape" three and under changes the character towards Preamp and removes power amp character (that's were most of the sizzle and hair come from). Increase tube tube shape above three will bring more power amp distortion character (not the route you want to take if you don't care for sizzle). You can even try "Preamp only profiles", for high gain those are generally very tight and don't have sizzle when pushed hard.
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Here's a quickie clip from a ChopTones profile of a TSL Marshall. It's not the worst sounding one, but while I had a spare 10 minutes did a quick clip. But when you play for say 30 minutes your ears get really fatigued listening to a top end like this.
External Content soundcloud.comContent embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.Maybe it's just a profiling thing that you need to take care of the high end, or decapitate it like MBritt does ?
I definitely hear the fizz and it's excessive to my ears. You've got a lot of high-end energy going on at and above 8kHz, which can be tamed using a low pass filter. If you're getting this on most profiles, you could try adjusting the height of your guitar pickups on one side to increase the low-end or conversely lower the treble side.
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Seems to me lately that I've been having to significantly turn down the presence of many profiles and up the treble to compensate to get rid of this high frequency fizz. I know we've been told over and over that updates don't effect the tone of profiles, but I don't remember ever having to do this before.
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I definitely hear the fizz and it's excessive to my ears. You've got a lot of high-end energy going on at and above 8kHz, which can be tamed using a low pass filter. If you're getting this on most profiles, you could try adjusting the height of your guitar pickups on one side to increase the low-end or conversely lower the treble side.
Hey ColdFrixion,
It definitely seems profile related or the way that a large % of profiles react to my guitar and monitor setup anyways. Some profiles sound pretty good I've found, but many or most have some sort of issue similar to above. It's actually worse because the compression that Soundcloud does actually helped this sample as live the "ice-picky-ness" of the fizz is even more pronounced and annoying.
I am working on tweaking some of the Mbritt 70 Marshall profiles and Guidoist JCM 800 profiles to my liking and getting some decent results. Though today on the Mbritt profile when doing some bends I was hearing some weird synthetic sounding pitch modulation that I haven't been able to nail the source of yet, sigh :(. I disabled the stomps and effects and it was still there.
Getting closer to a "good spot" with this unit, but the struggle continues...
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Seems to me lately that I've been having to significantly turn down the presence of many profiles and up the treble to compensate to get rid of this high frequency fizz. I know we've been told over and over that updates don't effect the tone of profiles, but I don't remember ever having to do this before.
Interesting to hear that you're hearing a change. I wouldn't know because I started with 5.0.3 with my unit.
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Well, I solved my high frequency issues after seeing this thread
https://www.kemper-amps.com/forum/index.ph…upgrading-to-r5
Basically, downgrade then wipe the flash memory then upgrade back to v5. Any other combination of upgrade/downgrade, flash, etc didn't work for me and I tried them all.
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Well, I solved my high frequency issues after seeing this thread
https://www.kemper-amps.com/forum/index.ph…upgrading-to-r5
Basically, downgrade then wipe the flash memory then upgrade back to v5. Any other combination of upgrade/downgrade, flash, etc didn't work for me and I tried them all.
So being a noob here, what risk do I take doing this?
Will this procedure work?
- Take a backup (have to figure that out)
- Downgrade to 4.x
- Wipe Flash
- Upgrade
- Restore my backup
- Don't import any new delay presets??? Do I need to find those and delete them before I do my backup?
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So being a noob here, what risk do I take doing this?
Will this procedure work?- Take a backup (have to figure that out)
- Downgrade to 4.x
- Wipe Flash
- Upgrade
- Restore my backup
- Don't import any new delay presets??? Do I need to find those and delete them before I do my backup?
Only thing I didn't do on your list was restore the backup, I didn't want any remnants of the prior setup. I just imported all my profiles and cabs after going back up to v5. I have not imported the new delays yet, I'm getting rather fed up with it so I don't want to mess it up again. I've owned this thing for less than a year and I've already sent it back twice for repairs and countless hours of troubleshooting. Actually, I'm willing to bet I've spent more time trying to fix things than playing.
Hope the fix works for you
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I'm not sure if this issue depends of the ear fatigue or it's a real problem....
I have days that I love all my profiles and there are days that all my profiles sound trebly to my ears.....
I'm pretty sure that the hi gain profiles sound in that way when you pass a gain limit...... -
I'm not sure if this issue depends of the ear fatigue or it's a real problem....
I have days that I love all my profiles and there are days that all my profiles sound trebly to my ears.....
I'm pretty sure that the hi gain profiles sound in that way when you pass a gain limit......To know whether it's ear fatigue or a real problem, I, in the last two days, played the amps from MY POD HD500 that I'm using as a controller and compared. If you still have an old modeler I suggest you do the same.
There was definitely a problem in my firmware because the Kemper sounded terrible, no string separation no weight, harsh and muddy!!It was depressing that the POD sounded better in comparison, so I confirmed beyond any doubt, that I had an issue. The only unusual thing I did that might have caused this was in Rig Manager I copied over 100 profiles at one time and moved them to "my profiler" folder to send them to the KPA.
I
Only thing I didn't do on your list was restore the backup, I didn't want any remnants of the prior setup. I just imported all my profiles and cabs after going back up to v5. I have not imported the new delays yet, I'm getting rather fed up with it so I don't want to mess it up again. I've owned this thing for less than a year and I've already sent it back twice for repairs and countless hours of troubleshooting. Actually, I'm willing to bet I've spent more time trying to fix things than playing.
Hope the fix works for youThanks for posting this, I downgraded to 4 (the release version) and tested, the problem was still there so I deleted all profiles (I have them all backed up) and proceeded to upgrade to 5.03. and KPA was back to normal.
Next time this happens, I will contact support and hopefully they can isolate the problem, because it's a serious problem if My POD sounds better than the Kemper, not disrespecting the POD HD, but to illustrate that there's no way this was ear fatigue. I chose the KPA for amp modeling comparing it with other very expensive devices and I could hear substantial weight, clarity and muscles that aren't in any other modeler.
My favorite thing about the Kemper is how it interprets high frequencies in a very musical way, so what some people call fiz or undesirable hair, can be actually part of tube amp sound (Power amp saturation) and others call it desirable sizzle. Some players don't like that and in the Kemper there's a parameter that will help. If you lower tube shape from 3.3 to 3.0, some of that sizzle will be reduced.
I'm quite relieved that the problem was solved.
Thanks again.
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To know whether it's ear fatigue or a real problem, I, in the last two days, played the amps from MY POD HD500 that I'm using as a controller and compared. If you still have an old modeler I suggest you do the same.There was definitely a problem in my firmware because the Kemper sounded terrible, no string separation no weight, harsh and muddy!!
It was depressing that the POD sounded better in comparison, so I confirmed beyond any doubt, that I had an issue. The only unusual thing I did that might have caused this was in Rig Manager I copied over 100 profiles at one time and moved them to "my profiler" folder to send them to the KPA.
I
Thanks for posting this, I downgraded to 4 (the release version) and tested, the problem was still there so I deleted all profiles (I have them all backed up) and proceeded to upgrade to 5.03. and KPA was back to normal.
Next time this happens, I will contact support and hopefully they can isolate the problem, because it's a serious problem if My POD sounds better than the Kemper, not disrespecting the POD HD, but to illustrate that there's no way this was ear fatigue. I chose the KPA for amp modeling comparing it with other very expensive devices and I could hear substantial weight, clarity and muscles that aren't in any other modeler.My favorite thing about the Kemper is how it interprets high frequencies in a very musical way, so what some people call fiz or undesirable hair, can be actually part of tube amp sound (Power amp saturation) and others call it desirable sizzle. Some players don't like that and in the Kemper there's a parameter that will help. If you lower tube shape from 3.3 to 3.0, some of that sizzle will be reduced.
I'm quite relieved that the problem was solved.
Thanks again.
.Ok so I think I am going to try this then.
So what is the proper way to save my profiles and get them back into the Kemper after wiping everything? Do I need to copy them 1 by 1 or something, as doing a restore may bring back the problem? Being a noob, I don't want to reck anything , especially the paid profiles that came w/ the unit.
Man, this is a sh!tty way to start off my adventure , especially considering the price I paid for this unit
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