Hi fellow tone chasers,
I know the subject of "harsh tone" has been discussed in this forum at length, and I have done my best to educate myself by reading all the threads I could find, watching tutorials and reading the Kemper manual before opening another discussion. And yet, it seems like I am missing something.
Disclaimer: I am really new to recording and still have a lot to learn about the Kemper as well, so please bear with me. I am doing my best and will happily provide a write up of a solution in this post in case we figure this out together. It seems more people have the same or a similar problem.
The situation:
- I am getting a great tone from my Kemper Kabinet for a Mesa Boogie JP2C profile (and others, but let's use this one)
- I am recording this profile with an interface (Studio24) into my DAW (StudioOne). I am using the Main Out of the Kemper with a jack into the interface.
- Current result: Tone sounds very compressed when recorded, without the roundness of a natural tone as I perceive it. Same result over headphones (Beyerdynamic, directly plugged into the Kemper) and when streaming live over Zoom or Skype with the same setup.
Quick side note: I do know that Kemper profiles represent a mic-against-the-cab tone vs. the amp-in-the-room I am hearing when I am playing it. And yet, many people here seem to achieve a very naturally-sounding tone when recording. So there must be something I can do better.
Things I have tried so far:
- Interface: Lowering the input volume of the channel, and lowering the overall volume of the interface. No noticeable effect.
- Kemper Output volume: Ensuring that -12db (as seen here) was set in the main out (it was), and then lowering the output volume to -20db in addition. No noticeable effect.
- Direct Mix: Set Direct Mix to 4.5 (as suggested in this thread). It did help making the sound a less compressed and gainy, and was probably the biggest impact of any change I made.
- Clarity: Set clarity to about 2-3. Small difference.
- Reverb: Added more reverb (as seen in this great thread with contributions by viabcroce , which did help with the in-the-room feeling, but still kept the harshness in the tone.
I did get a better recording tone by rolling down the Kemper gain knob a bit / adding even more Direct Mix, BUT: When I played, it sounded really thin and weak to my ears over the cabinet, to the point where it was hard to really get a good feeling and vibe.
So the big question for me: Is it possible to achieve a great recording tone and also sound great with the same profile over the Kemper Kabinet (or any other cabinet)? I would hope that this is the case, since I want to like my tone over the cab while recording, and at the same time have the recording sound good.
Here I have included all my settings, which hopefully gives you a good picture in addition to what I have written. I would like to thank all of you in advance for you help and time