I've been profiling a lot lately. I started with a Friedman BE-100 which came out good the first time, even better the second time. I think the reason I had success is because I read the manual, watched several videos, and read a lot on this forum. There were also things I noticed about using different guitars, speakers, pickups -- and how it all compared to all the commercial and rig-exchange profiles.
One of my main complaints about a lot of profiles is that they seem to be done in a way which is geared towards the profiler's personal preference. That's completely understandable. I mean, after all, one of the greatest benefits to having a Kemper is the fact that you can profile all of your amps and not have to carry them all around. However, they don't always translate to what I'd consider neutral enough profiles to be more generally useful. Maybe with more experience I'll think differently, but at this point, I'm really enjoying only handful of direct profile packages and my own profiles.
Set a certain way and with certain pickups, mic position, and volume, there seems to be more flexibility in how much you can change things like gain and EQ without losing something in the tone. For example, there are some great clean profiles loaded at the factory and on Rig Exchange, but a lot of them seem to go to crap once you raise the gain past a very short range. I couldn't find a Hiwatt profile that I thought was good enough until I finally downloaded a commercial Hiwatt set, and that was so much better. It allowed more tweaking to the profile. Some profiles have a crappy low end that aren't like the real amps, and some lack the low end that the original amps have. Those kinds of things are a point of frustration for me.
Another thing I noticed is the volume at which profiles are made. Some seem to be done at very high volume and others seem to be done at lower volume. In the profiles that I've been doing seem to be best at a moderate volume level, a little bit above the point where it gives you an error message that there's not a loud enough signal. When I try to record with a loud amp, no matter how mic placement goes, it seems to feel less dynamic and sounds a bit dryer. Even if you fiddle with settings like tube and pick, it doesn't quite do it. Maybe that's just my perception but I've noticed that.
Anyway, the point is that I'd like to hear some tips for profiling that you learn through a lot of experience and how you can maximize the authenticity in tone and feel - as well as the tweakability of the profiled settings.