My First Direct Profile

don1960lp · June 25, 2019 at 4:51 AM

20 watt Friedman Pink Taco. Pretty hi-gain using a strat with vintage style pickups.

Most everything flat (tube shape 3.3) so you can adjust to your liking. I used a OwmHammer Raw 15 from the GNR pack in the Cab section and it sounded pretty good.

Would love feedback of any kind. Being my first shot I need to learn how to refine DI profiling. (my place is WAY too small to mic a cab properly)

Name: Friedman Pink Taco DI-1

Author: Don

EDIT. Not sure why the the file has the gain at 0. I increased it to 6.4 which is about right.

spikey · June 25, 2019 at 5:30 AM

THanks! I will give it a try soon

hafi19 · June 25, 2019 at 7:09 AM

Thanks. Will try it too.

Monkey_Man · June 25, 2019 at 10:59 AM

Thanks for sharing and congrats on your first effort, Don.

don1960lp · June 25, 2019 at 4:21 PM

Does anyone know why the profile came out with the gain set at 0? Should I have pre-set a level before profiling?

Again, setting gain at around 6.4 on the DI profile brought it back to match the original profiled tone/gain.

Monkey_Man · June 25, 2019 at 4:31 PM

I've heard Kemer say that the gain is set automatically, Don, so no, I don't see how pre-setting the level would've made any difference.

It's strange to me that it was auto-set at 0.

don1960lp · June 25, 2019 at 4:35 PM

Hopefully someone sheds some light. It sounded like an unplugged guitar loading the profile stock from the exchange with the gain at 0. I'm gonna get a lot of 1/2 star votes, if any!

Michael_dk · June 25, 2019 at 4:36 PM

Did you by chance tell the kemper that it was profiling a clean rig rather than an overdriving one?

Don't know if it would make a difference, but that's all I can think of at the moment...

Monkey_Man · June 25, 2019 at 5:17 PM

Good logical thinking, Michael.

don1960lp · June 25, 2019 at 7:08 PM

Quote from Michael_dk

Did you by chance tell the kemper that it was profiling a clean rig rather than an overdriving one?

BINGO!!!! I remember seeing that as a soft button option and in hindsight it was lit - I should have shut it off. THANK YOU!

What's really cool is the amp got back it's natural growl voice when the 'gain' was added back in. Now I'm going to compare

the Kemper 'clean' profile against how clean I can get the amp. If the Kemper is cleaner and retains the Taco flavor I may have

accidentally stumbled across something pretty cool!

don1960lp · June 26, 2019 at 4:14 PM

Quote from Michael_dk

Did you by chance tell the kemper that it was profiling a clean rig rather than an overdriven one?

Was thinking about this last night. Why is the default when profiling a <clean profile> which you then have to toggle off? This should be the opposite.

As noted, once I turn the gain up the profile sounds just like the amp does. So it profiles a gained amp and is somehow able to remove the distortion (while saving it to put back if you want to) and give you a clean representation of the amp. Does anyone understand the tech that's going on here?

Is it that once the amp is profiled the software just defaults the gain knob to zero if you leave <clean profile> on?

Dimi84 · June 26, 2019 at 6:37 PM

Quote from don1960lp

Was thinking about this last night. Why is the default when profiling a <clean profile> which you then have to toggle off? This should be the opposite.

As noted, once I turn the gain up the profile sounds just like the amp does. So it profiles a gained amp and is somehow able to remove the distortion (while saving it to put back if you want to) and give you a clean representation of the amp. Does anyone understand the tech that's going on here?

Is it that once the amp is profiled the software just defaults the gain knob to zero if you leave <clean profile> on?

I cannot recall a case, in my experience, where choosing "clean" resulted to a profile that seems to be a gainy profile with "gain" control turned down.

If there was distortion in the source tone, kemper detected it and acted accordingly. The result has been the same as having "clean" off pre-profiling, all other things being equal.

Are you sure that the profile you are getting "sounds just like the amp?". How are you comparing? Maybe what is described as the possible explanation does apply -- I've just never seen this, profiling for quite a time.

don1960lp · June 26, 2019 at 8:57 PM

Quote from Dimi84

(1) I cannot recall a case, in my experience, where choosing "clean" resulted in a profile that seems to be a gainy profile with "gain" control turned down.

(2) Are you sure that the profile you are getting "sounds just like the amp?". How are you comparing?

(1) You may have misunderstood the issue that let to the discussion: I direct profiled a gained amp and was puzzled why the profile came out with the Kemper gain setting at 0.0 and a super clean tone. I had to increase the gain manually after-the-fact to make the profile sound like the amp. That question has been answered - my error during profiling.

(2) Yes. I've been playing it for 2 days now with the real amp in-between and I can't stop smiling. I did swap the OH cab with one I had saved: a 3P 2x12 cab from one of MBritt's Heritage files. This picture shows my setup. Having the KP monitors down low makes things a bit more comparable.

(I have a separate set of speakers at ear level for music/DAW, etc.)

Dimi84 · June 26, 2019 at 11:59 PM

Quote from don1960lp

(1) You may have misunderstood the issue that let to the discussion: I direct profiled a gained amp and was puzzled why the profile came out with the Kemper gain setting at 0.0 and a super clean tone. I had to increase the gain manually after-the-fact to make the profile sound like the amp. That question has been answered - my error during profiling.

I understand what happened.

What I'm saying is I've never seen this occur, profiling stuff for a relatively long time -- so I'm not sure choosing "clean" is what resulted to the profiling coming out like this. Maybe it can still happen in some rare cases or just hasn't happened to me. Just personally I've always had kemper identify whether the source tone was distorted and still produce a "normal" profile. Whether I've chosen "clean" pre-profiling or not has never made a difference. If there's been distortion in the source tone, and I've chosen "clean", kemper has identified the amp being distorted, and produced a profile with gain control where it should be.

Also reducing the gain on any random distorted kemper profile can make it ultra clean. That's how the gain on kemper works. This isn't an "modelling" emulation of the amp per se, anyway. If what happened here is kemper made a "normal profile" (which of course matches the amp gain), and then for some reason reduced the gain control to 0, that's what would likely happen, I assume. You'd be able to increase gain control on kemper and match the source tone.

What I have seen is a couple of cases where kemper produced a clean tone from a distorted amp -- BUT "clean" being on pre-profiling had no bearing on that. The profile also was not too close to the amp when you'd increase gain on the unit. This is the reason I asked about whether you are certain profile is as close to the amp. At least myself, I'd use similar monitoring, cab, cab emulation, to be certain about how close profile got (and possible to compare direct amp signal with direct profile without cab emulation of course).

In the scenario that the profile matches the amp well enough, as described, I suppose kemper shot an ok profile of the distorted tone... but then for whatever reason gain ended up at 0. It'd be easy to test whether the "clean" setting being on caused this, of course, at least assuming it'd do the same again if on.