Getting most of extreme metal tones on the KPA?

  • Hi everyone,


    I had a question, I have some of the best profiles for metal that you can get. All of Sinmix profiles, Sonic Underground, Lasse Lamert, Merrow, Englund etc but while they sound fantastic I cant help but to feel something is missing from my setup. I am wondering if its my guitars or maybe the profiles need to be tweaked for my guitar? I have always just loaded up a profile and just played. I hear other guys doing fantastic recordings with the same profiles I have. I play through Mackie M8 studio monitors. Would I get better results playing through something like a FRFR setup instead of my studio monitors?


    I use Carvin guitars and I am wondering if my pickups are just not that well equipped for the extreme metal I like to play. They are great for your standard 80's type metal but they just seem to lack some 'balls'' and clarity of notes if you know what I mean?



    I've played Carvin guitarists pretty exclusively for about 20 years now. I am thinking I might get a new guitar, maybe an Ibanez.



    Is there any general guideline for tweaking profiles? Maybe thats what I need to be doing to my profiles.

  • What do you feel is missing from your sound? Many of those high-gain profiles you mentioned are meant to be used in a mix in a band situation. They don't always sound the best just noodling on your own. They are also usually quad-tracked (2 each side panned hard), with a very thick bass guitar right down the middle in the mix.

  • Victor, you mean that you don't even tweak eq?
    I would start tweaking all I can tweak, before going on the hunt for a new guitar. Eq first, then amp parameters. Make sure you understand each parameter before tweaking, tweaking blindly might in the end just confuse you.
    If even that doesn't work, what is missing exactly? A pickup switch for instance might solve your problem, with no need of a guitar change altogether. I never had the chance to play a Carvin, but I hear they're excellent.

  • You didn't tell us what exactly was wrong with your sound, but:


    From experience and what I've read online, Carvin guitars are as a general rule really bright sounding.


    I had to sell my DC747 since I just couldn't make that guitar sound good no matter what pickups I swapped into it. Shame really, it had the most playable neck that I've come across.


    I don't tweak the profiles either, I use post eq in daw, much more conttrollable since you can't hear the stacking effect when going in. You'll easily end up with something that's way too bright when quad tracking. I usually put a big high shelf cut around 12kHz with the Stillwell 1973 eq on the guitars.

  • Hello...
    Just adding my 2 cents, but I thought I'd join in anyway...


    Could you clarify what exactly you do mean with "missing/lacking"?
    Is it sonic quality (sound is close but not quite there) or is it the way
    the profile responds to your playing? If the latter is the case...


    I guess I totally understand what you "feel". A profile might totally
    sound right for what you try to achive, it just doesn't "feel" right
    when you play it. It just won't "talk to you", is that what you mean?


    Not all profiles perfectly interact with and respond to ones personal
    playing style. Now, instead of going on and on "about what to tweak"
    and "how to improve" I'll give a simple little tip. Look for profiles that
    "feel" awesome to you, regardless of their gain stage, voicing etc.
    Look out for those gems that FEEL special and right to you from
    the beginning on, no matter if they are a little (or even far) off from
    what you originally had been looking for. Then start to tweak those.
    See how far you can go with the tweaks before you start to take
    away from their original special quality. For me personally, the
    magic happens mainly in the Amplifier and Cabinet sections.
    Play around with the Clarity and Definition, Tube parameters and
    Sagging. Try to revoice the cab with the Shift and Character
    parameters. Or scroll through the cabs until you find one that "shines".
    It's all there mate, and it's all yours. You'll learn how to find your per-
    sonal faves quickly, and how to finetune those even more to your liking.


    All the variety and options can be a bit overwhelming first, but if you
    filter cleverly (means trust your feeling), you'll be finding many sounds
    which, as I call it, "talk to you".


    Can't even tell how many times I tend to catch myself grinning like an idiot
    while playing the KPA, thinking "this sounds so kick-ass, and it FEELS even
    better!"


    So look for the ones that really "feel alive" in combination with you guitar and
    playing style. Oh, a little tip on extreme sounds. I recently found two profiles
    which feel superalive to me. (Might work for you or totally disappoint you, but
    try em). The Beau McKee HC 01 and HC2. To me they feel like a Ford GT40
    driven at Mulsanne Straight on the rev.-limiter :) Extremely lively, close to the
    point of getting out of control. They mimic the feeling of standing next to a
    brutally cranked high gain amp very well for me. Had to tame them a bit, gain
    and volume wise, and I also revoiced them via the EQ, but they simply FEEL
    great in combination with my guitar setup and my playing style.


    Hope this will help you to get the most fun and inspiration out of your KPA.
    Go for the ones which (for you) deliver the most feel, then the rest will happen
    by itself.


    Danny "Terraformer" Young

  • I just wanted to say that I had a similar reaction to the OP -- when I first started using the Kemper to practice/write/play I had a lot of trouble achieving an "amp-in-the-room" sound, but after receiving plenty of tips/advice on these forums I was able to come very close. Nothing is going to perfectly simulate a 4x12 cabinet in the room (but you can certainly run the Kemper through a cabinet)! What the Kemper does seem to perfectly simulate is the sound you get from recording a 4x12 through a microphone -- which is what we want when we're recording!


    I think the biggest thing is that the profiles the OP has been using are designed to be used in a mix -- they're not meant for just jamming. You will rarely ever hear a single-tracked rhythm guitar in a mix -- double or quad tracking is what will give it that thick sound you're looking for.

  • Thanks so much for all of your tips and comments, I really appreciate them. I think Terraformer and Glaurung pretty much described my problem. It's the way the profiles respond to my playing while jamming and trying to achieve amp in the room sounds with profiles that are meant for a mix. One example is I am a huge fan of DEATH and was hoping I could achieve that classic Death guitar tone with SInmix new Marshall 8100 profiles. They do sound great but not huge like I was hoping (probably because they are meant for a mix) I found that my pinch harmonics were kind of weak and my tapping for The Philosopher was just not very fluid sounding. That can also be said for alot of my other profiles. Thats why I thought it may be that my pickups are not high enough output. I do have the highest output pickup you can get from Carvin and it's great for regular metal but not the extreme modern metal sound I am trying to achieve. Due to the routing on the guitar I cant really get any other pickups without alot of work modifying my guitar. Dont get me wrong, I do have alot of great profiles but recently I found myself playing almost exclusively Sinmix, Black Stymphalian and Sonic Underground profiles. They do sound extremely awesome but while playing them I miss that huge in amp room sound. Now that I know they are intended for use in a mix and not really jamming it all makes sense. :)


    So it sounds like I will need to do what Terraformer suggested and start tweaking some of my favorite profiles and mold them into what I want. I've been more of a plug and play player so far, I dial up the profile and play, maybe fiddle with the EQ knobs a bit but that was it. I'll take some of your suggestions and go deeper into the parameters and explore all the magic the KPA has to offer.


    One last thing, is there anything I can do to tweak profiles that are meant for a mix and make them sound huge almost amp in the room sound?


    Thanks again!


  • One last thing, is there anything I can do to tweak profiles that are meant for a mix and make them sound huge almost amp in the room sound?


    That is very easy. One of the most common techniques to create great ambience or room sound for guitar when mixing in a studio daw is to take the dry recorded guitars and add algorithmic reverb from a plugin or hardware. Not long wet reverb but short room ambience reverb. You can easily add this ambience in the kemper too. When using headphones add the kemper "space" or short room reverb and hear the big difference from a dry sound.
    Delay can also be used for other interesting results, and if you want a wall of guitars they must be tracked several times because a single tracked guitar can't do that. Also, a guitar sound with eq for one persons taste in a mix might have a very different eq that you want so adjusting eq is something we all must do to get the tones we want no matter what gear we use. We all have personal preference of how guitars should sound so turn those knobs.

  • Thanks for those great tips HappyKemper. I've already started tweaking some profiles and wow what a difference. It seems I'm always learning something new with my KPA and it gets better and better! :)


    Thanks again for everyones help.

  • Have you tried my Individual Thought Patterns or Spiritual Healing tonematches? :)

    Hi Nakedzen,


    Oh yes I have them and they are great! I rediscovered them in my huge batch of profiles when I got Rig Manager installed and have been playing them. I made a folder for all the Death Metal and Black Metal profiles you made. They are all so great! If you ever make any more that will be great!


    I still am on the lookout for a solid profile to get that authentic sound from Deaths TSOP album.

  • Hey VictorRattleHead, another huge fan of DEATH here ;) TSOP is one of my favorite albums ever!
    Back to your "hugeness" problem: I seem to understand that you monitor the kemper through some Mackie M8, which I never tried, but it seems from the specifics that they have 8 inches cones.
    Now, an 8 inches cone cannot possibly reproduce all the low range frequencies that a 12 inches (which is normal for guitar cabinets) cone can...it's really just a physical limitation, which I could never explain properly (if anyone can please chime in), but put it bluntly: large wavelengths are easily "eaten up" by the air in the back of your speaker. Hence, the larger the speaker, the lower it can go. (no wonder bass amps use even 15 inches cones)
    So, moral of the story: I think the lack of hugeness comes from the lack of bass content. You won't fixing by boosting the bass, though. Get to try your KPA with a 12'' cone, maybe even with a tube power amp in between. You'll hear the hugeness then ;)

  • ^THIS


    The only thing that's going to get you what you feel you're missing is a larger speaker (or speakers). I know exactly what you mean. A lot of the more popular high gain commercial profiles are what I'd call "mix-ready" profiles. They sound great when double or quad-tracked in a mix but can seem thin and even somewhat harsh when played solo. Tweaking EQ can help (boost mids and bass, cut highs, reduce definition, etc.) but it's still not going to give you that feel of power and hugeness you get from playing through a larger speaker.


    A new guitar or new pickups is not the answer. Certainly your tone and the way things feel will change a bit with a new guitar or pickups and you may even consider it an improvement but you're not going to notice a massive difference that will equate to what you describe in your original post.

  • Quote

    A new guitar or new pickups is not the answer.

    True!


    Mixes different bands, different DI, different guitarists, recorded on different guitars. I only use my own profiles - better / worse but it always works. I think the problem may be even mixing skills. Below is a 4 guitars reamped on Kemper via SPDIF. Raw profiles no eq etc ... And later these tracks in the mix. My sugestion - I know it's metal - but do not use too much gain, especially when you have 4 guitars! In the mix I use only eq and sometimes C4 with Andy Sneap presets.



    https://www.dropbox.com/s/z7ob…xcb/acept_evh_guitars.mp3- Nothing Special :thumbup: good sounding raw profiles ;)


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    I really want to help :thumbup: please record for me/us a cover of Death, drums midi, 4 guitars tracks (DI), bass and send me this track - I'll see what I can do :thumbup:


    Stay Metal!