In a recent post Vinny Burns gave an insight into a method of refining a profile to adjust the response. This really opened my eyes to some possibilities.
I did a quick test using four different playing styles / methods on a Pod HD setup and got these results:
- Test 1 - No refine used.
- Test 2 - Played harmonics only
- Test 3 - Played palm mutes only
- Test 4 - Played loud open chords A-G-D
I chose the PodHD because it was a direct profile with no microphones involved. This would remove any random noise factors that may interfere with the results.
The only noticeable Kemper settings changes were Gain and Definition:
- Test 1 - Gain: 6.9, Def: 10.0
- Test 2 - Gain: 6.9, Def: 7.4
- Test 3 - Gain: 6.8, Def: 8.9
- Test 4 - Gain: 6.9, Def: 6.9 *
* Clearly Test 4 is the best because it has the NICE values defaulted.
It is interesting to note that the resulting profiles get louder in direct relationship to the loudness played during the refine process. The apparent gain and fullness also sounds slightly increased. Test 4 is a little bassy. Since its DEF was 6.9 it could be increased to reduce the boomyness.
FURTHER EXPERIMENTS TO FOLLOW
In my mind the refine process was not related to the external amp being profiled. I assumed once you did the profile, the refine would be looking at the Kemper internal profile and your playing interaction. This is not the case of course.
When doing a refine for a mic'ed amp, I turned off the amp volume. The Kemper then did the refine process using only the mic picking up me playing acoustically and thru monitors in the room. The profile that resulted was extremely weird sounding.
This is a whole other area that could be used to modify profile results. Profile with one sound/setting. Then refine with another setting.