Cameron Aldrich DI Profile - Cab Added

    Quote from LiamThompson

    As quick and simple as I can explain it, 99% certain this is all correct (I think don't hold me to it) as I'm a keen modded Marshall enthusiast.

    • Mark Cameron is an amp tech who used to work in a guitar shop in the USA, the shop purchased a lot of amps from Jose Arrendondo's sister I believe after his death that were left in his shop or uncollected by rock stars after he'd modded them. Mark had a keen interest in the 80's hot rodded Marshall tone of his heros. To him this was like finding a goldmine of great information. He opened up these amps to see what magic was in there and traced/remembered/learned what made it all work. One amp in particular was a Marshall with the badge missing with Atomica sprayed on the front which sounded to him and everyone who heard it as a holy grail of EVH/80's Marshall tone. The rumours were that this was an amp Eddie was working on with Jose before his death that was never finished. Other rumours were it belonged to an LA band called Atomica. But obviously the EVH connection and story makes it all the better haha.
    • Jose Arredondo owned a shop called Arrco Electronics, which fixed electrical appliances like vancuum cleaners etc. He also modded and repaired amplifiers on the side.
    • A little known guy called Eddie Van Halen was friends with Jose and had him service (or mod depending on what you believe) his Marshalls. To help Jose out he "leaked" in a guitar magazine that Jose tweaked his amps.....next thing you know, every LA guitarist is down at Arrco asking for their Marshall's modded.
      Typical Jose mods included:
    • Pre amp tweaking for more gain and tighter more modern gain structure
    • Diode clipping via zenner diodes or transistors
    • Post phase invertor master volume
    • Valve fx loops
    • Insert loops before the cathode follower to be able to act as an extra gain stage if you inserted something like a cranked Lexicon Rack unit in there.
    • Negatve Feedback tweaks
    • Extra master volume control with zenner diode clipping volume positioned before the tone stack rather the typical Marshall post tone stack pre phase invertor
    • Mark Cameron then started to offer his own mods primarily based on Jose's work, giving guitarists the chance to obtain these tones again.
    • Now to your actual question - I'm pretty certain the "Aldrich Mod" is a Marshall JCM/JMP circuit with the pre amp tweaked for more gain and a 4th gain stage added by doing away with the cathode follower and using that side of the 2nd pre amp valve for the 4th gain stage. No cathode follower anymore in the circuit it is now a plate driven tone network. It also has a resonance control added. What I'm not 100% certain on is if it used any diode clipping. If the base for the mod is a non master volume Marshall Super Lead like I'm certain Doug's was the gain stages will need to be cascaded and a master volume added making it basically a JMP Master Volume/JCM 800 amp with tweaks. It is supposed to sound half way between a Mesa and a Marshall.
      There are also John Suhr and Martin Golub versions of the Aldrich mod, which I believe is slightly different, which Doug has used at different times. I think Golub's version uses and extra valve for the forth gain stage and keeps the cathode follower intact although I couldn't swear by this at all.


    Wow, Liam...amazing write-up. Thank you for the background and history on this...much appreciated, mate. :thumbup:

    Quote from Webb

    Liam covered it much better than I could, but it is a Marshall mod that Doug Aldrich made famous with Dio and Whitesnake. Mark Cameron was one of a handful of amp builders to offer this mod. My particular amp is a Marshall JCM 800 that Mark modded.
    I found the following description of the Aldrich mod on another forum:

    Mark works the preamp section of the amp and steps up the gain quite a bit. Again, the amp has plenty of gain but without being harsh. Mark also adds a resonance control on the back of the amp that greatly affects the amount of Bass coming from the amp...It gives the amp More Punch and ooomph lol!! The sound coming from this mod is huge.


    Thanks for the additional info., Webb.

    I probably need to get better at this but I tried a few different IR's from other profiles, including the one Ash suggested (from the merged Tonehammer profiles), and the low end is just too round for me. It's making me wish I had a traditional cab lying around to try and plug it in direct.

    Mkay, well try Sin's Friedman if you have it?? that was suggested in the other thread. :)
    If no good have fermented hops on hand for cool down :D

    Ash

    Have a beer and don't sneer. -CJ. Two non powered Kempers -Two mission stereo FRFR Cabs - Ditto X4 -TC electronic Mimiq.

    Quote from MementoMori

    I probably need to get better at this but I tried a few different IR's from other profiles, including the one Ash suggested (from the merged Tonehammer profiles), and the low end is just too round for me. It's making me wish I had a traditional cab lying around to try and plug it in direct.

    MM, do you have Till Schleicher's CabLab pack?

    Quote from MementoMori

    I probably need to get better at this but I tried a few different IR's from other profiles, including the one Ash suggested (from the merged Tonehammer profiles), and the low end is just too round for me. It's making me wish I had a traditional cab lying around to try and plug it in direct.

    Did you try it without the EQ? I like to boost the low end a bit when playing through a guitar cab to give it a little more punch, but usually disable the EQ when playing through FRFR. I'll add one of my cabinet profiles to the DI and post it in a few.

    Quote from ashtweth

    Mkay, well try Sin's Friedman if you have it?? that was suggested in the other thread.

    Unfortunately not. I don't have any IR's outside of profiles.

    Quote from Tritium

    MM, do you have Till Schleicher's CabLab pack?

    Negatory. The Kemper does cabs well enough that I've never been tempted by 3rd party IR's, plus I'm seeing issues where the conversion is less that savory.

    Quote from Webb

    Did you try it without the EQ? I like to boost the low end a bit when playing through a guitar cab to give it a little more punch, but usually disable the EQ when playing through FRFR. I'll add one of my cabinet profiles to the DI and post it in a few.

    I don't think so. I'll check that later when I get home. Awesome dude, you're the shit.

    Quote from MementoMori

    Negatory. The Kemper does cabs well enough that I've never been tempted by 3rd party IR's, plus I'm seeing issues where the conversion is less that savory.


    Hi MM,

    You may not be aware...

    Till's CabLab are not IRs (impulse responses). They are actually Merged Profiles of 3 different 4x12 Cabinets (with different speakers) using various mics and mic positionings. There are 58 profiles in the pack. Since they are Kemper Merged Profiles, you can import them as Cabinet-only presets, in .kipr format. That is really the point of the pack...to be a pool of Cabinet presets which you can save in your KPA, and then mix and match to any of your favorite amp profiles.

    Cheers,
    John

    Edited once, last by Tritium (May 8, 2017 at 6:05 PM).

    There's both Till's CabLab, which are great:
    https://www.tillschleicher.com/tills-cablab/

    And also his free pack, to get your feet wet:
    https://www.tillschleicher.com/tills-cab-pack-free/

    All of these are kemper cab profiles, not converted IRs.

    There may be something about the free ones not having gone through the "merge" process, so the kemper itself estimates where the amp stops and the cab starts - but if it sounds good, it is good, right?

    If you like the ones from the free pack, buy the cablab pack to support the good work! :)

    Tried the new profile, low end was still too round. Put on the EQ and seemed to affect everything except the round low end.

    Also imported some of Till's Cablab samples from his site to try these out but couldn't find them as selectable in the cab section. Even mined into the presets to try and figure out if they could be used as anything but presets but no luck. Ended up deleting them as it's too confusing (still no idea how in the hell to make use of them) and they weren't useable presets for me. Oh well.

    Anyone have a chance to try the one with the cabinet added?

    Here's a quick (and by quick I mean QUICK) test mix using the Aldrich 5/7 T2 Marsh profile. 2 guitars left and right straight to the Kemper through the same profile with no post processing. Pretty much just put the levels up and bounced it out.

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    And here is an excerpt with guitars only...

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    Quote from MementoMori

    Tried the new profile, low end was still too round. Put on the EQ and seemed to affect everything except the round low end.

    Also imported some of Till's Cablab samples from his site to try these out but couldn't find them as selectable in the cab section. Even mined into the presets to try and figure out if they could be used as anything but presets but no luck. Ended up deleting them as it's too confusing (still no idea how in the hell to make use of them) and they weren't useable presets for me. Oh well.


    MM,

    You import the cab preset .kipr files just like any other file, which you have downloaded and stored onto your USB flash drive.

    Once imported, you pull up any amp profile, and then hit the CAB module to bring up the CAB menu. Once the CAB menu is displayed, turn the BROWSE knob. You should see then see all the available KPA CAB presets populate the screen, including the Till Schleischer Cab presets (provided you have successfully imported them).

    Hope that helps. Give it another try. :)

    Cheers,
    John

    Edited once, last by Tritium (May 9, 2017 at 5:45 AM).