Humbucker vs Single coil sound

What are you using for amp/speaker with the Kemper? IEMs?

On-axis is brighter than listening to the tube amp and guitar cabinet off-axis, and the difference is more evident with single coils, because they have more high end in their sound.

Have you tried slightly adjusting the Monitor EQ in the Output section of the Kemper to reduce this? You may be able to reduce it, without changing the humbucking high end.

I haven't really noticed this. Could you post some clips for us?

I play live with IEM and use both HB and single coils.

What kind of HB and single coils do you have? Are they very "hot"? Have you set clean sense correctly?

I always adjust the "definition" parameter in the amp section to get the guitar to align my profile. HB needs a little more definition than single coils.

I use IEMs to and haven't noticed this either maybe try and adjust the parameters like what's been mentioned above. I'm sure they might help you out

If I dial in an amp for HBs and make a profile, it is near impossible in an A/B-test to hear the difference between what comes out of the mic in front of the AMP and what comes out of the KPA. Dial in the amp for SCs, then profile, and the result is the same. Impossible to hear a difference. Now, if i take the HB-profile and use it with SCs it may sound a bit harsh. In some cases it is possible to compensate with EQ, but not always.

The controls on the KPA are unable to accurately model the behaviour of the controls on the real amp until the KPA develops robotic arms so that it can twist the amps knobs as part of the profiling process and incorporate those variations in the model.

Somewhere down the line Kemper may extend profiling into modelling to possibly be able to combine a set of profiles to achieve more of an amp-model than the current snapshot. To create and combine a large number of profiles that reflect every possible amp-setting into a complete amp-model would be a tedious process, but could be very useful to those creating and selling commercial profiles.

Quote from drandall

I run it though the PA live and IEMs, but I get the same result on that, or headphones, or studio monitors. To me it seems like an algorithm or something that doesn't compensate for different pickup outputs & voltages the way they react with a real tube amp

first of all, the Profiler has no issues whatsoever reacting to a certain pickup - in fact it's one of it's most beloved features right from the beginning. Humbuckers, SCs, P90s, SC-sized HBs, actives... it's all good.

you use the exact same amp setting for HB and SC?
(seems a little odd, especially with a machine like the Profiler, but why not...)

when you make the profile, wouldn't you notice a difference when A/B-ing the sounds on SC?
refining the sound with the SC as well might help.

like I said, there is absolutely no reason the Profiler wouldn't replicate even subtle differences in pickups - on the contrary, it's one of it's best features.

Have u tried refining the profiles using the SC's?

Can you record clips of reference vs profile?

Btw, i really like your profiles, particular the cleans. Im using an ebmm jpm with crunch lab and liquifire, and use the split inner coils for middle position. I do find sometimes SC settings can get a little nasty, but i dont have a real tube amp to test. I find vox amps do really well with that nasty high end distortion.

While not the ideal solution, maybe try adding a studio eq in front the amp and use the high shelf to bring down the highs around 4 or 5 khz

Try adjusting the definition. More for HBs and less for SCs. Works great for me. Also try the clarity.

Hopefully I can resurrect this thread. I am also having trouble going from hums to singles. Running my Carvin CT6 with humbuckers thru the Kemper sounds godly. When I switch to my strat, I hear what Drandall probably best described as an algorithm issue. Where the humbuckers are smooth and defined, I get this harsh almost metallic sound using my Strat on the same profiles (Top Jimi and M Britt). This bugs me, because my ears have always heard single coils as sounding smoother than humbuckers thru a tube amp because they aren't pushing the amp so much, especially on gain. Not many people seem to hear this on the Kemper. But its a drastic difference for me when switching to my strat or tele.

Anyone found the magic formula?

I mainly use two Tom Andersons with different single coils, but same HB in the bridge. I dont have the Issue. Its important with a SSH setting that the pickups are balanced. I can feel the sonic difference and character of the two guitars as good on my Kemper as on my tube amps! I have doubble wounded singlecoils, and can run them in serial or paralell. I have notised that the bass strings are not as sharp and twangy on the Kemper as on mye favourite tube amp. I compansate with always adding a bit boost on my cleans.
Generally a new world was open for me when i started tweaking sence and definition. I can realy get som realy Fenderish tones from my setup now.

When you are using two different guitars with completely different setting tonewood and output, you will also get this differences on a tube amp or a transistor amp too!

Quote from Jburd77

Hopefully I can resurrect this thread. I am also having trouble going from hums to singles. Running my Carvin CT6 with humbuckers thru the Kemper sounds godly. When I switch to my strat, I hear what Drandall probably best described as an algorithm issue. Where the humbuckers are smooth and defined, I get this harsh almost metallic sound using my Strat on the same profiles (Top Jimi and M Britt). This bugs me, because my ears have always heard single coils as sounding smoother than humbuckers thru a tube amp because they aren't pushing the amp so much, especially on gain. Not many people seem to hear this on the Kemper. But its a drastic difference for me when switching to my strat or tele.

Anyone found the magic formula?

generally speaking, HB are much more mid heavy than a typical SC, so brighter sounds from a SC are absolutely what I would expect.

When you are profiling, you can easily A/B the profile against the reference amp with different pickups, but since the guitar doesn't play a role in the profiling anyway, this is more to show that the Profiler behaves like a tube amp when switching PUs or turning down the gain.

first, make sure you don't have any odd INPUT settings - DS for example should be @ 0.
next, make sure there are no boosts active, no compressor stomp or a EQ stomp (acting as a booster) in front of the STACK which could result in more even gain levels. Also check the Compressor parameter in the AMPLIFIER section - default after profiling is '0'.

hth

My advice is to tame the highs of the sc's with some eq in one of the slot blocks. Try a -6db cut and scan center frequencies from 2k to 5k to see where the resonant peak of the pickups are and tame that. Change the size of the cut to as small as possible.

Also try pure cab

Oh also have you tried refining twice, once with each pickup, before finalizing the profile?

Try "Definition" in the Amp section

Ha ha ha...

Christoph's post was... definitive.

(Sorry for this text being sooo long, but I need the time and space to explain my experience and hope I can help others with the same problem…)
I am playing several Strats and they differ a lot in tone structure and behaviour. Two of these Strats use Kloppmann SCs (a German guy), great products but with a lot of highend and dynamics!
Especially with these two guitars I experienced very unpleasant distortions of the higher harmonics of the tone. I play (nearly exlusively) with very light and light distortion. Especially when playing a dampened bass string the harmonic distortion is not harmonic Also on the fading out of tones you can exactly hear this very annoying effect. It also occurs with high-gain profiles and it also depends on the profiles..

As this was really driving me crazy, I invested many days (!) to try to solve this problem but I could not find a solution. I thought my profiler was defect (bad A/D converter?). I read the forum, called Kemper and also spoke to them on Musikmesse but the tipps I got were not helping. I think they know the effect and its background but do not want to get too much into these discussions in public, but that’s only my guesswork, maybe I am totally wrong.
So: It has nothing to do with the sensibility adjustment (about which has been written too much, imho), EQ settings (wherever in the chain), it has nothing to do with my converters (Lavry) or internal digital distortion (although it sounds a bit like digital distortion). You can unnecessarily invest a lot of time if you follow these roads.

So, where do these annoying sounds come from? The most critical and difficult task for an emulation is the change from clean to distortion. Using the high gain sound (or even metal) won't reveal this phenomenon as clearly because there is so much distortion going on anyway (but it also does.) Even when switching off everything except the amp it is always there. I never experienced this when miking an amp. The dynamics of the relations of the differnet overtones is the reason.
Profiling a sound means measuring its amounts of basic tone and harmonics dynamically. The relation between the basic tone and its overtones at a given point in time defines the sound and the profile. Now, if you profile an amp you profile it with the guitar and your cable and whatever somebody might tell you: this profile will depend on that whole constellation. In the real analog world when changing guitar, cable or pick the same amp will sound different but still good or at least acceptable but never so unpleasing as decribed above. I have never had this effect when changing a guitar with a real amp whatever adjustments I used.
My statement is:

1. A profile should sound totally natural.
Exactly like the real thing. Not pimped in any way. (Many profiles from the rig exchange do exactly that: Too much lows or highs, little headroom, postprocessing.)

2. If a profile is that perfect, the disharmonious effect can only originate from system‘s limitations.
At the moment I believe that is the case, because when I lower the guitar‘s dynamic cabability (volume down = less dyn peak, PU down = also less dyn peak) I can minimze the effect, in many cases to zero. But the sound changes. Maybe evelope filters could help, I do not know.

At this point in time I mainly use Michael Britts profiles and so the profiles werde made with his guitars. He profiled so well that in most cases my critical strats nearly show the normal analog behaviour when switching e.g. from my Ruokangas Unicorn (2 HBs) to my „critical“ Strats. They sound a bit duller than profiles from other suppliers but they sound very natural. That is nearly how a guitar sounds over a studio monitor without being pimped.

I am available to show the effect to the Kemper guys if they are interested. I am very happy with my profiler and would be even happier if they could improve that item. The rest is perfect …

Record a sound clip?