Hi guys,
I've had my Kemper for a couple weeks now, and as much as I love it, I'm going through something that has been a consistent problem for me: Finding a nice tone for recording. I own a good pair of headphones (Audio Technica ATH-M500) and am aware that recording and mixing through them is usually not ideal, but in my current situation I have to keep things quiet and can't afford studio monitors.
So far, I have been able to find great tones for just doodling around. I have found that while most of them sound great through speakers, they tend to sound fizzy through headphones. One thing to remedy to this is the "Amp in the room with headphones" trick, which pretty much consists of adding reverb and turning it all the way up in the mix to get the illusion that you're sitting in a room in front of a speaker. However, you obviously don't want to use that for recordings... But without that trick, my tone goes back to being this fizzy mess, and EQing helps but doesn't quite cut the deal. Some will say lower the treble/presence, but although it reduces the fizz, it doesn't get rid of it (unless you turn the treble all the way down) and makes the guitars in the mix sound lifeless.
I have heard many demos of the Kemper,
both full mixes and guitars only, and they all
sounded amazing
through headphones. None of them had that fizz that I'm getting. I have also tried presets that have been proved to sound great (Keith Merrow's new rig pack and Ola Englund's triple rec for instance). Same thing.
What advice could you guys give me so that I can get a good tone for recording? I'm after Mark V or Dual Rec metal kind of tones.
TL,DR: Heard tones that sounded amazing through headphones, can't get one myself. Too much fizz unless I use "amp in the room" trick. Can't record with them.