Difference in sound between commercial videos and pack itself

In my headphones (Beyer Dynamic DT770), the YouTube video sounds like it has:

- a Stereo effect on

- more gain

- more bass (which can come with more gain)

- at :36 he turns on another effect to get even more gain and a little more presence

Any stereo effect will sound much better on studio monitors.

But overall the tone is not completely different and out of the ball park.

POST AMP EFFECTS

On every Hi Gain profile I always add Natural Reverb Ambience. Then dial the time down to .2 sec. Then you can tweak the Low/Hi decay values to push certain frequencies. I took a hint from Line6 as this is built into every mic/cab setup. The Kemper has many ways to achieve this doubler, space, reverb, etc.

Next I add this STUDIO EQ after the amp:

Low: 160-200Hz +3 dB

P1: 550Hz - 3DB Q=.707

P2: 3000Hz +3DB Q=.707

HI: 1200Hz +1.5 dB

I also add a TREBLE BOOSTER after the SEQ but it is not always good for Hi Gain stuff.

PRE AMP EFFECTS

- A compressor set to 5.0, 2.5 mix 85% and Vol 1.5.

- I have had good luck with the Kemper Drive using a lower mix value to thicken things up.

- A graphic EQ as first stomp to dial in my pickups and select which freqs get the most distortion. Lets you punch up the mids and use a 80 Hz LOW CUT so you dont get muddy.

Quote from Johndoebh

Thank you all for the feedback!

Indeed i am using passive pickups and have no eq besides the profile itself. I managed to make a "reset of the KPA and done a init global settings. Funny that when i did that Pure cabinet came into play at an intensity of 3.0, but turned it off. Somehow it seems to sound better after the reset. Sounds more fuller and better, more rich in the harmonics section. For my taste maybe i want a more trebly tone.

Also, after taking the tips from all of you, i recorded the tone and listened to it afterwards. Indeed it sounded more like everybody else's recordings (once i had the problem of recordings sounding much worse than the tones that i heard from playing directly, latter on it was the problem with the audio interface).

From your point of view, do you think that for example the profile that i choosed to play could make it on a record? I mean, is the source good enough for a starting point in mixing? I tend to add all the frequencies together in a tone not thinking about my other bandmates guitar tone (having a bassy/trebly tone and the other one having a midrangey tone).

Thank you for all the feedback

I do think this is a factor.....the difference between hearing someone else play and yourself. So many times I've played my rig and thought, "it sounds OK"....someone lese plays my guitar through my rig and it sounds amazing...some of that is the playing but some is psychological.

Tone hunting is important, but sometimes you just gotta relax and play

Is the sound you recorded good enough? I think the answer can only be....depends. Depends on the other instruments and the sound they make, depends on if you double or quad track, depends on the sound you want....whilst some of this is science, much of it is art. Some of the worst sounds make the best records...

Quote from Johndoebh

Thank you all for the feedback!

Indeed i am using passive pickups and have no eq besides the profile itself. I managed to make a "reset of the KPA and done a init global settings. Funny that when i did that Pure cabinet came into play at an intensity of 3.0, but turned it off. Somehow it seems to sound better after the reset. Sounds more fuller and better, more rich in the harmonics section. For my taste maybe i want a more trebly tone.

Also, after taking the tips from all of you, i recorded the tone and listened to it afterwards. Indeed it sounded more like everybody else's recordings (once i had the problem of recordings sounding much worse than the tones that i heard from playing directly, latter on it was the problem with the audio interface).

From your point of view, do you think that for example the profile that i choosed to play could make it on a record? I mean, is the source good enough for a starting point in mixing? I tend to add all the frequencies together in a tone not thinking about my other bandmates guitar tone (having a bassy/trebly tone and the other one having a midrangey tone).

Thank you for all the feedback

I don't think Colin made them as just as play rig pack. Of course they will work in a mix but which one(s)is up to you. It might be the one(s)you like the least that suits best in your mix.

Quote from Johndoebh

do you think that for example the profile that i choosed to play could make it on a record?

You might look into reamping for your recording. Then you can use whatever sounds best to you while recording the track, But having recorded your raw guitar, you can then reamp that back through the Kemper to hear it through any profile and tweak it however you want to make it fit.

just go to output section on kemper and find a pure cabinet and turn off to pure cabinet. I had a same problem and i was a crazy about it. it just releated to pure cabinet. I really dont know why kemper orginal settings includes pure cabinet 3 .

I was disappointed with the CR pack as well. There’s way too many 6505 profiles with little variation. I noticed the absence of ANY Rectifiers which were pretty popular with metal bands in Colin’s heyday, especially Cannibal Corpse. The Lasse Lammert profile packs are better value.

I had another thought on this topic today. I always run a 4:1 Noise Gate. And it seemed to dull the sound a touch. Very small amount. With the gate off the sound had more gain and felt hotter.

Could be one of those little things the videos do is tweak the INPUT noise gate instead of using the noise gate effect. Maybe it has less effect on the overall tone.