Kemper - making an electric sound like an acoustic

ur2funky · July 27, 2017 at 1:24 AM

I just picked up Bert Meulendijk's Acoustic pack and was impressed enough to try and get some acoustic tones happening on my electric.

I added '3 Sigma Audio' acoustic IRs as a cabinet in the Kemper, and added the 8-band Graphic Eq as an effect and came up with these profiles...

Here's 5 different presets, one after the other, all in one clip...can you tell which is the real acoustic? Which do you like best?

https://soundcloud.com/user-948514052…coustic-patches

I'm playing a Suhr Classic (Strat style) #3 middle position single coil ML pickup, no SCII - Strung with .008's!!! No post processing.

MetalMauce · July 27, 2017 at 8:22 AM

Sounds awesome!
What really made the difference? The IR's or the profiles?

sercho · July 27, 2017 at 9:05 AM

I'd go for the 4th one.

londonjeepster · July 27, 2017 at 11:44 AM

hmm dont know, 1st or 4th ? but think i like 1st best, not much in it though....

Eltzejupp · July 27, 2017 at 12:38 PM

Did you try to play the profiles without a cab? There is a special sparkle imho when playing without a cab. I have done it and i reduce hights and presence and maybe amp definition in that case. Sounds awesome. I do that with most of my cleansounds.

ur2funky · July 27, 2017 at 2:51 PM

Quote from MetalMauce

Sounds awesome!
What really made the difference? The IR's or the profiles?

Quote from Eltzejupp

Did you try to play the profiles without a cab? There is a special sparkle imho when playing without a cab. I have done it and i reduce hights and presence and maybe amp definition in that case. Sounds awesome. I do that with most of my cleansounds.

Here is another clip. It's the same preset as #4 above. Phrase looped 3 times, different each time....

Soundcloud Kemper Test

-First time is Bert's stock patch (no cab)
-Second time is with the 3 Sigma acoustic IR added as a cab
-Third time is some additional EQ and a little Space.

All three are usable in different mixes.

Keep in mind Bert's acoustic pack had 30 profiles in it and the Sigma had about 3 dozen IRs. So you can mix and match those to what sounds good to you.
I messed with these for a couple hours to get to this point. I'm hoping some feedback on which of these sounds the best will lead me to continue to work on those.

candeisr · July 31, 2017 at 12:28 AM

I LIKED #2 THE BEST.

Sharry · August 1, 2017 at 10:02 AM

Quote from ur2funky

Here is another clip

Thanks - it's very informative

tntent · November 18, 2022 at 6:44 PM

#4 and # 3 are best imo. Some of the others are good back have that quack in them or too much audible compression

BayouTexan · November 19, 2022 at 6:59 PM

#5 (on original post) is the only one that sounds close to real acoustic. The others have way to much sheen on the high end which is what you get from solid body pickups.

What did I win?

waraba · November 26, 2022 at 1:06 PM

3 & 4 for me with 4 being the real one , or 5 real if you were using a piezzo output ??

djemass · November 27, 2022 at 9:07 PM

Number 2 is the best, the attack of strings sounds more natural.

Ruefus · November 28, 2022 at 7:30 PM

Holy Zombie thread, Batman!!!

Prior to this month....the most recent comment (#8) dates back to August.....of 2017.

BayouTexan · November 28, 2022 at 8:38 PM

Quote from Ruefus

Holy Zombie thread, Batman!!!
Prior to this month....the most recent comment (#8) dates back to August.....of 2017.

Well, some of us took that long to decide.

Ruefus · November 28, 2022 at 8:40 PM

Quote from BayouTexan

Well, some of us took that long to decide.

Dude....you weren't even *here* then. Heck, neither was I.

waraba · November 28, 2022 at 9:40 PM

lol , the plot thickens !! OP is still around , maybe ur2funky can enlight us ?

JedMckenna · November 29, 2022 at 11:55 AM

Necro thread... which I missed originally. All 5 sound pretty terrible and not very realistic imo - but maybe #1 can be salvaged with a lot of messing around? That being said, I used to use Bert Acoustic pack and it's great.

However, my practical take on acoustic now is that if it's a big stage, I feel it's easier to bring a good separate DI so that the FOH can adjust the channel independently from the electric. If it's a small gig, I use a Schlerter acoustic amp that sounds amazing and has an acoustic out. And if it's a recording, I obviously mic it naturally with proper mics. Therefore, no need for acoustic to go through the Kemper anymore.

dutch99 · December 3, 2022 at 2:04 PM

Number three sounds the best to me. I listened on an iPad though so take that for what it’s worth. It seems to have better body. Interested to see which one is the real acoustic.

I also have Bert’s pack. I use a Taylor T5 proZ custom koa Electric/acoustic to play acoustic gigs. It’s not a piezo system but a proprietary Taylor specific body sensor system. I found some of Bert presets (especially the strumming presents) really give me a great sound very reminisce to what I get with a real acoustic. Never could get a good enough sound using a electric to mimic an acoustic for more than an occasional song with my full band set up. Never could get an acoustic sound I was happy with with just a piezo Fishman system or the equivalent on my acoustics running through the Kemper or a TC helicon acoustic live with its body Rez algorithms.