I've been using the Kemper for around 6-7 years now and I have NEVER been able to get a profile to sound even remotely close to what it sounds like when I hear it on YouTube or elsewhere. At first, I thought I must be doing something wrong. But I've checked every setting on my Kempers (I have two, so I know it's not a faulty Kemper). I've tested the profiles through ATH-M50x headphones, through my Yamaha HS8 monitors and through our live PA setup (all QSC bins and tops). I've recorded them as single take guitars and double-tracked through my Clarett 4Pre USB interface into Reaper. No matter what I do, they never sound like what was advertised. And it's more than just the difference in tone from fingers.
For example, the Top Jimi VH packs sound nothing like what I hear when I listen to the demos. They're all quite thin and muddy/dark. TAF profiles all seem to have way too much low end. MBritt profiles don't have enough top end. I use Charvel Guthrie Govan signature model guitars; so I'm not using some cheap $400 guitar with garbage pickups. So that's definitely not the problem.
So I've given up on trying to recreate the sound of what is advertised. I usually now just start with something that is close, and tweak until I like it. MBritt seems to be the closest starting points for me and usually, just adding some high end clarity gets those to a usable state for me.
Don't get me wrong, I still love the Kemper. The pros of having everything I want in a small, transportable unit FAR outweigh the cons. I've got a bunch of sounds that do sound really good live. I just wish I could get sounds to be more similar to what I hear advertised online.
Specifically, re the Top Jimi VH pack—I had the same experience. Bought the Kemper primarily on the strength of the promise of getting ‘perfect’ Van Halen tone, just like I heard in so many different demos, but in my hands, it was thin, weak, with not enough gain. I had to boost the profiles’ gain in the Kemper and tweak and supplement in other ways. This was all with an EVH Wolfgang guitar, so it wasn’t like I was trying to match my results with the wrong guitar…..
I ended up selling that guitar, for other reasons. I just wanted to build my own version of a Frankenstrat-ish thing. I put a Pasadena Black pickup in it. And Boom—that guitar makes those Top Jimi profiles sound exactly as they’re supposed to. Stock. No tweaking.
It’s a very hot pickup, and I guess it’s significantly hotter than the stock Wolfgang? Maybe there’s another way to equalize/normalize pickup outputs with Kemper settings—but I didn’t get these types of results with the methods I tried.
So, to you and theplayer —the OP— pickups may be extremely important if you are really critical in nailing tones. Not just pickup types, but the other more nuanced characteristics, as well.
The OP referenced getting tones like from Joe Bonamassa’s Les Pauls… but needs to be aware that the Kemper doesn’t model guitars. You have to feed it a Les Paul for it to sound like a tone that uses a Les Paul. If that was already obvious to him, I apologize, but it’s clear in other discussions that not everyone knows this.
Further—and specific to the Tone Junkies reference… it may help to identify one profile maker as your source. Because it becomes easier to recognize if their profile demo tones are realistically attainable for you. Tone Junkie is my primary source when I buy. I am able to use similar guitars to what they show in their demos and pretty closely recreate those results. You just get familiar with what you need to tweak to match a tone. But I will use profiles from where ever. I have a LOT of profiles, and if I am looking for something specific in a search through the rigs I already own, I will audition ten or so without really caring who made them. Usually I will choose one because it needs no tweaks.
That’s where the fun starts, though. I find 9/10 times that if I’m really loving a profile, if I experiment with swapping in one of my own IRs, I’ll find an IR I love and then if I go back to the normal/stock IR, and A/B them, the stock one will sound pretty lame in comparison. IRs are fantastic for making a great sound even better.