Posts by RosboneMako

  • Tips for Profiling an Amp With Kemper Stage

    Quote from nwmusic32

    The profiles have been pretty good, but there's something extra people like Michael Britt seem to be getting beyond me.

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    MAIN IDEAS
    MIC TECHNIQUE
    Britt has a cool XYZ Table / machine that moves his mic around. So he can sit in the control room and listen to the sound of the mic'ed amp. This lets him get the mic in the perfect spot. On center, off center, 2 inches back, 8 inches back, etc etc etc. So he doesnt have as many bad frequency suckouts from a badly placed mic.

    ISOLATION AND ROOM ECHOES
    He also has a little room he shoves the cab in, so he cant hear it. This small room may actually hinder his final tone since the room is small. Bigger may be better.

    PREAMP AND EQ
    The next step might be to put the mic into a preAmp/mixer/etc. So you can tweak it to perfection. Again it helps to have the Amp far away so you cant hear the room sound. Just the EQ'ed sound the Kemper will be seeing.

    LESSER IDEAS
    EXPANDER
    I have also had luck with using an expander gate on the mic. The code the Kemper uses for the tube sim gets compressed really fast. If I use a gate setting of like 1.5:1 I get a better feel out of the profile. Closer to what the real amp feels like. The Kemper may complain a noise gate is in the line but it works fine.

    LOWER GAIN
    It is also sometimes better to profile the amp at a lower gain than you wish to have in the profile. This sometimes helps the Kemper figure out the tube/gain characteristics better.

    LESS AMP SAG FROM VOLUME
    It may also be good to try and profile at a lower volume and then adjust the amp sagging value in the Kemper. The whole point of the Kemper is to NOT do this. But it is worth a try.

    ROOM EQ WIZARD
    If you have a PC nearby you can download REW and then you can sweep the amp and mic setup. Then you can visually see if there are bad frequency suckouts from room echoes and mic placement. First time I tried this with a 2x12" cab I was blown away by how much the unused speaker was bleeding in and screwing up the response. Covered it up with blankets, etc and things got much better all of a sudden.

    DIRECT BOX AND IR/CABS
    You can also try using a direct box and profile the amp with "NO CABINET" selected. Then add a cab or IR later. This gets rid of the mic placement issue assuming the person who made the IRs was good :)

  • Frustrated

    If you have had two different units doing the same thing, the problem is probably on your end somewhere. Just going from the historical data, Kempers do not usually have issues. And if you are updating the Kemper regularly that would rule out software issues.

    A support ticket is the next step I guess.

    But I would question how you are hooking it up and what power source you are using. If you got it from Sweetwater you are most likely in the US? Meaning its running 120 VAC @ 60 Hz power.

    Where are you running this thing when it gets messed up?

    1) Are there some devices on the same power line that are putting out spikes. Like Pumps, refrigerators, etc.
    2) Is the dwelling properly grounded? Maybe it is failing during lightning strikes?
    3) Do you live up north and operate in dry environments? Static discharge is a dangerous thing in the winter months. Winter+Sweater=dead Unit.
    4) Are you hooking the unit up to -48v phantom power?
    5) Are you in an environment that has weird oils or something that are getting in the unit? Like candles, etc.
    6) Is it right next to your WiFi router or CB radio. Maybe you or your neighbors are smacking it with high power radio.


    All of these things are tested to a certain degree to get certification under UL and CE. So the Kemper is designed to deal with them. But maybe your situation is extreme.

    But you could be hooking it to an ungrounded tube amp and feeding voltage back into the unit. It could be something weird on the USB cable. It could be many things.

    Sorry you are having issues and best of luck.

  • Can’t get both high gain and low end without flubbyness

    Quote from Amcolan

    Do you place the geq before or after the amp/cab?

    When you said add some post Eq, are you referring to the geq block or the Eq in the amp block?

    The GEQ would be the first slot/effect. Meaning BEFORE the amp.


    You want the picture I posted earlier to be the guitar freqs going INTO the Amp. With NO BASS at all.

    Then the amp section does its magic distorting the sound. The result will have little to no bass.

    Since you removed the bass before the amp, you need to put the bass back in with the Amp EQ (Set to POST). If the Amp EQ is not enough you can run some other EQ AFTER the amp. Your final frequency response coming out of the Kemper should look something like this picture.

    See the bass (80-150 Hz) is now as loud or louder than the high freqs.


    REMOVE BASS -> AMPLIFY -> ADD BASS BACK IN

  • Can’t get both high gain and low end without flubbyness

    Quote from Amcolan

    If I dial back the bass and put a low cut on the cab it then sounds too thin and tinny. I can’t seem to find an in between.

    This turns down the bass AFTER the problem has already occured.
    I also wanted to mention that maybe the CAB/IR has too much bass in it. Trying other Cabs may help some but will start a whole new list of problems.

    Fixing high end hissy stuff is tough. If it is baked into the Amp and Cab/IR, it becomes really hard to remove.

    In the past I have tried the High Cut stuff to mixed results.

    Sometimes adding a Treble Booster after the Amp brightens things up in a good way but not usually High Gain stuff

    Using an EQ to make a cut around 1500 Hz then play with the Filter Q value .7-2.0 etc. Sometimes this tames the loudest part of the fizziness.

  • Can’t get both high gain and low end without flubbyness

    A high gain amp works by reducing the lows, drastically raising the gain(amplify), then apply some post EQ to bring it back to what it should sound like. If you dont remove the LOWs, the bass will dominate the distortion and go from flubby to a fuzz pedal.

    Flub comes from too much bass entering the gain circuit. Meaning the bass is too high BEFORE the amp section.

    The Kemper has a DEFINITION control in the Amp section that reduces the lows coming in from your guitar (before the amp). Most Marshall profiles will want the DEF around 6-7. Higher gain profiles may need to go all the way to 10. This also depends on how the profile was made. Sometimes the profile is a mess and has too much bass when it was made so Def needs to be at 10.

    If that does not help enough, you can use a Graphic EQ in slot #1 and reduce the bass values. The GEQ will also let you boost mids a little or do some high freq cutting to tame the highs.

    I would suggest starting with the DEF at 5 and going up slowly. At some point the guitar may start to sound clearer (it may still be too bassy). Then adjust the GEQ to remove the incoming bass.

    A high gain amp may setup the incoming guitar signal to have a freq response similar to this. As you can see the LOWS are all being turned down to reduce flub/mud/bass/rumble. So using the GEQ to lower 64 Hz(-3dB),125Hz (-1.5dB),and 250 is where you want to adjust.


    NOTE: I also like to put the noise gate AFTER the GEQ since lowering EQ values reduces some noise itself and makes the gates job easier. YMMV.

  • New to Kemper - Invest in Profiles or Level III?

    Quote from hallissyc

    ...

    You have not stated what you want from the Player. If a good amp sound is all you need check out the included Rig Packs from Rig Manager, etc as people said above. If you are playing in a church or doing some alternative music, the added effects are a much better choice for you.

    If your focus is amps, the rig packs will help you get started. Some profiles sound better in a live situation. Some are better for recording. And a lot depends on what you are using to monitor the sound.

    For example: M.Britt stuff is good for loud live situations. And he focuses each profile so they can be used together. If you are recording stuff, the profiles may sound too dark for your tastes. So sample the free stuff to get a foothold.

    There are also like 20k profiles on the Rig Exchange. Easy to get thru Rig Manager. I tend to look for a certain amp style and then sort by user votes. There are some real gems out there. The only problem is most people do things very differently so the profs are a wide variety of the same thing that don't sound anything like each other.

    The key with Pro profiles is they know how to mic an amp or have pro level IRs to make a DI profile sound good.

  • Sustainer?

    You would want a pedal or switch set to MORPH. Then you could morph some stuff like ducking on a delay or verb. Could also morph a compressor. There may be some hold options on verbs and delays also. Some delays also have a setting that lets the delay build over time, morph that also.

    I have never tried this but have played around with ducking and a fat EQ so the sound changes over time. Trying to get a long sustain to feedback type sound.

  • Have you ever mixed? Fun to try!

    The whole reason I bought a Kemper was so I NEVER had to mic a cab again 8o

    Sounds like fun if you have the time though. I usually play with the Kempers parallel path for this sort of thing. I also have two stereo paths in the VST I made.

    Since you are dealing with a mic and latency, there will be massive phase issues. Tweaked certain ways, it seems like you are getting fun results with it.

    That is what is cool about my VST, Helix, etc, STEREO parallel path. I like to put a cleaner stereo chorus in one path. The chorus moves things around so the PHASE issues are not constant.

    Also had some fun with putting a rectified sound (Line6 Bronze Master, Bronzer in my VST) in the quieter path for huge wide sounding metal riffs.

    Another option is panning them hard left and right if they are similar sounds. Will open the sound stage a ton.

  • Thread closing.

    I agree with not closing threads most of the time. I like to talk thru stuff mentioned sometimes.

    My only thought is the less active threads there are, the less time mods have to waste reading thru them to make sure nothing bad is happening?

  • Cab select option while Direct Profiling

    I have been doing a lot of Direct profiles lately. It would be helpful if we could select CABS while dialing in the amp so its EQ matches the Cab better.

    Could make this an option only if NO CAB is selected.


    I am always at a computer and have been using an external program and IRs. But I thought it might be an easy add on.

  • Bug when profiling direct amps

    I have no answers for profiles sounding weird AFTER saving. I have never ran into this. I have found that I get better results if I skip REFINING on Direct amp profiles.

    As for the fuzz issue, The Kemper puts out a much hotter signal when profiling. This may be over powering the barbershop. It may not have enough headroom for the louder signal. The Kemper needs to profile every possible input signal level.

    The Kemper also seems to put in more bass than a guitar may normally output. A Fuzz pedal is a distortion pedal that does not filter out the lows first. The lows clip badly and you never hear the other freqs.

    In the past I have tried using an EQ pedal before other pedals to knock down the volume and bass. With varying results as you would imagine.

  • Profile your Kemper with another Kemper - does it work?

    No.

    The Kemper will just average the gain of the two profiles. You will not be able to create two different tones in a single profile. But its always worth a try.

    You would be better off trying a parallel path on the JMP profile. On the INPUT section (Rig Manager) you can select parallel paths and it sets the first two stomps to the "clean" path (bypasses the amp section). Add a chorus or OD, and a reverb in the first stomps.

    I do this for some Alex Lifeson style stuff. Mid Gain sound with a cleaner chorus under it.


    Since the clean tone will have a lot of dynamic range, the cleans will ring out the louder you play. That is why an OD or Compressor may be a good choice for the first stomp. To keep the clean tone similar in dynamics to the gain tone.

  • Tony Iommi now using a Kemper......

    Quote from V8guitar

    I don't like the sound of me playing anything ha!

    I have such a soft spot for that one Laney amp...

    So where are the profiles of this sweet Laney? :P

    I bought an old heavily used ProTube 50/Lead (probably 1980s vintage) that never sounded right so I used it as weight in the back of my car during the winter so my tail end doesn't come around. One day I got bored and swapped out a preAmp tube and it sounds much better now. But still not good ;)

    I made a few profiles and they are meh at best.