Reverb setting to match a real close mic'd amp

    Quote from Michael_dk

    Not true :) there is such a thing as mono room mics, also on drum recordings etc etc. Space is more than just left to right


    Yes! After a while, when you know a room really well you can definately guess where the sound source is located in the room....by just a mono microphone. It's the early reflections that gives it away.
    I've recorded bands every week in the same room for 8 years now and i can definatley tell!


    I agree some profiles lack what i guess is the tail of early reflections, returning to the microphone out of phase. But some of it does actually stick! I find the new Michael Wagener pack oozing of this magic...And i think it's what he (and maybe we) are looking for, but he seems to do a mic blend to capture just that ;)

    hjscheffler is correct though, in the true sense in order to actually determine where a sound is coming from within a space you do need stereo sound. The predelay on each side is going to be slightly different if we're talking a "true" sense of amp in the room/air total realism, this is what gives you those early reflections.


    But it's also true that creatively for recording, for getting the Kemper to sound just like the real deal as it was recorded we only need mono. After all most times you don't record an amp with a stereo mic, but just a mono one. If the Kemper captured the room's reverb and resonance/standing waves etc then you would have a totally identical recalled sound to the original recorded in the room. WHich would be incredible.


    In a way this is two separate things, one an effect the other a part of capturing a complete profile. The first that hjscheffler is talking about would be part of the reverb slot, an effect or "enchanced room" mode which took an IR or similar and allowed you to place a virtual mic in a 3d space. The second would be an extra cab option, just before things go stereo in the signal chain, the real "room" on/off or percentage control.

    Only my 3 cents.
    The room sound is not only an early reflections but resonances (vertical , horizontal and their combinations) its called frequency mods.
    You can capture those by MLSSA (maximum length sequence) technique (noise bands over spectrum) or sweep tone . Then the responses can be deconvolved to IR.
    KPA alien sound have some common points with those techniques.

    Quote from DamianGreda

    Only my 3 cents.
    The room sound is not only an early reflections but resonances (vertical , horizontal and their combinations) its called frequency mods.
    You can capture those by MLSSA (maximum length sequence) technique (noise bands over spectrum) or sweep tone . Then the responses can be deconvolved to IR.
    KPA alien sound have some common points with those techniques.


    Good point - if I understand you correctly :) Are you talking about stuff like different frequencies decaying at different rates (like what can be seen in waterfall plots of room measurements)?


    So for example, say that in a particular room there is just a slightly longer decay of frequencies around 80 Hz, giving some extra chunk in the low end on palm mutes, which could be desirable. So a guy or gal doing a profile here will set the amp controls to where it sounds awesome, takes a profile, and sure enough, it sounds identical - IN THAT ROOM. However, once in another room, that lovely chunk is not there because that other room does not have the chunky "slight ringing", and the kemper has truncated the room response?


    If you made a recording in the first room, the chunk would be there, but the kemper lops it off when doing a profile.


    Is this what you're talking about?

    Michael_dk, you're talking about playing it back through the original cab, which isn't a good test-bed.
    The room's response is captured by the mic on the cab, and doesn't exist when playing the Profiler through studio monitors in the control room.
    You can try and compensate for it by tweaking, but fact is profiles done in livelier rooms often don't sound quite like the original amp. Especially true for bass amps, btw.

    "But dignity is difficult to maintain
    stamina requires constant upkeep
    repetition is boring
    and you pay for grace."

    Quote from Quitty

    Michael_dk, you're talking about playing it back through the original cab, which isn't a good test-bed.
    The room's response is captured by the mic on the cab, and doesn't exist when playing the Profiler through studio monitors in the control room.
    You can try and compensate for it by tweaking, but fact is profiles done in livelier rooms often don't sound quite like the original amp. Especially true for bass amps, btw.



    I wasn't really putting a lot of thought as to what to monitor on - it was just a simplified example to understand what Damian was referring to, and my point was that there IS a time-related component to the audio that - I think - the kemper does NOT take into account currently, whereas a mic would. EVEN when close mic'ing.


    Micing a cab farther away and getting the room reflections that are more "reverb-like" I still think is very relevant as well. It's the only true shortcoming of the Kemper, IMO. It's simply patently untrue that "no modern recordings are done like that", as some people claim. I'd much rather have that captured via the Kemper (with the option to turn it off for those profiles done in less than ideal rooms) than having to fiddle with all sorts of dials to get something that might approach a realistic/useable sound. I mean, I got the kemper rather than the axe-fx because I am NOT a tweaker.

    Quote from Michael_dk

    Micing a cab farther away and getting the room reflections that are more "reverb-like" I still think is very relevant as well. It's the only true shortcoming of the Kemper, IMO. It's simply patently untrue that "no modern recordings are done like that", as some people claim. I'd much rather have that captured via the Kemper (with the option to turn it off for those profiles done in less than ideal rooms) than having to fiddle with all sorts of dials to get something that might approach a realistic/useable sound. I mean, I got the kemper rather than the axe-fx because I am NOT a tweaker.


    Agreed.
    I don't mind tweaking, i'm just not a good enough tweaker to get an algorithmic reverb to sound like my favorite room. Somehow, i feel i'm not alone in this.

    "But dignity is difficult to maintain
    stamina requires constant upkeep
    repetition is boring
    and you pay for grace."

    Like 1

    In my impression this is just theory.
    In real life the profiling process truely captures the most important aspects of the room, that is room modes, phase cancelations, frequency responce added by the room.
    The only part that is not captured is the residual tail of the room, that gets mostly masked by the direct speaker signal.


    As far as I remember we have no single report of users stating that the profile sounds more dry than the real amp in the direct A/B comparison. But that's what realy matters, at least for us.
    No A/B clips have been recorded and posted showing such a phenomenon in four years. Anyone?

    Quote from ckemper

    In my impression this is just theory.
    In real life the profiling process truely captures the most important aspects of the room, that is room modes, phase cancelations, frequency responce added by the room.
    The only part that is not captured is the residual tail of the room, that gets mostly masked by the direct speaker signal.


    As far as I remember we have no single report of users stating that the profile sounds more dry than the real amp in the direct A/B comparison. But that's what realy matters, at least for us.
    No A/B clips have been recorded and posted showing such a phenomenon in four years. Anyone?


    There have been reports of profiles being inaccurate, with descriptions that could be explained by lack of reverb (sharp or dry comes to mind).
    Of course, there may be other explanations, but it is an option to consider.



    I recently profiled an Ampeg SVT-4 Pro in a live room.
    The profiler sounded dry and a little un-compressed compared to the actual mic'ed signal, which could very well have been lack of low frequency reflections.
    It's a shame i haven't recorded it when i was there.

    "But dignity is difficult to maintain
    stamina requires constant upkeep
    repetition is boring
    and you pay for grace."

    Quote from ckemper

    In my impression this is just theory.
    In real life the profiling process truely captures the most important aspects of the room, that is room modes, phase cancelations, frequency responce added by the room.
    The only part that is not captured is the residual tail of the room, that gets mostly masked by the direct speaker signal.


    As far as I remember we have no single report of users stating that the profile sounds more dry than the real amp in the direct A/B comparison. But that's what realy matters, at least for us.
    No A/B clips have been recorded and posted showing such a phenomenon in four years. Anyone?



    No clips here - and this is not about close mic'ing, but still about room reverberations etc. But here is a recent quote:


    Quote from and44

    Hey Mike.Well Im oldschool, so perhaps I might be on my own when I say this... but..To get great clean/breakup recordings, they are never done with direct close mics, because depth has to play a big part in that. - in my studio to get that tone when using real amps, I'd use fat condesor mics paired with ribbon room mics and of coure rear mics too. - you'd have most basis covered at this point. can get a Hugh tone that way, but the Kemper cant do this (neither can any digital unit) - its one of the major things lacking for me in any modern" recording with digital gear..So adding Space is simulating it to some degree, but its still not the same... whilst the idea is, the sound is not.

    Quote from ckemper

    In my impression this is just theory.
    In real life the profiling process truely captures the most important aspects of the room, that is room modes, phase cancelations, frequency responce added by the room.
    The only part that is not captured is the residual tail of the room, that gets mostly masked by the direct speaker signal.


    As far as I remember we have no single report of users stating that the profile sounds more dry than the real amp in the direct A/B comparison. But that's what realy matters, at least for us.
    No A/B clips have been recorded and posted showing such a phenomenon in four years. Anyone?


    Tell you what, turn it on it's head. Show us a comparison that captures both and one that is just the current situation, lets see if we can discern which is which here on the forum. And of course which sounds better/more accurate to the source.


    In every AB example that i've done or heard the digital one has been spotted because people notice the lack of the real room verb and resonance. So my experience is the opposite. It's maybe the missing 2%.


    Basically i want to point out that room resonances are important too and hard to capture with standard ir (because of small energy in Impulse). It seems that KPA capture the "transfer function" of the room. It's a advantage i think over the standard IR.

    With Profiling, the lack of a reverb tail does not change the frequency responce or dynamics.
    Of course, if you try to capture a clearly audible room tail, it would not work, and the difference would be clearly audible by the (sic!) lack of the reverb tail, not by any other effect.


    If a reverb tail cannot be created sufficiently by the internal algorithms and not in a DAW, we should discuss the present reverbs instead.


    There is no need for us to prove the authenticity of close mic'd profiles, as it is proven by uncounted users.
    As you know, we have improved the profiling a bit during Version 2.5 to 2.8. Still there is situations possible where profiles are not spot on, especially when the amp produces power amp distortion. This is what happened to Andy, as I remember.

    Quote from ckemper

    If a reverb tail cannot be created sufficiently by the internal algorithms and not in a DAW, we should discuss the present reverbs instead.


    There is no need for us to prove the authenticity of close mic'd profiles, as it is proven by uncounted users.
    As you know, we have improved the profiling a bit during Version 2.5 to 2.8. Still there is situations possible where profiles are not spot on, especially when the amp produces power amp distortion. This is what happened to Andy, as I remember.

    So, would it be possible to discuss these?
    Whatever it is that we are sometimes missing can probably be solved by a purposeful reverb algorithm (low/high decay and maybe a different modulation algorithm as the present one is slightly too 'chorus-y', IMO),
    and some rudimentary 'poweramp grit' simulation to complement the already great 'power sagging' and 'tube shape'. On this much, i agree.

    "But dignity is difficult to maintain
    stamina requires constant upkeep
    repetition is boring
    and you pay for grace."

    Like 1

    I would just like a no-brainer option, it captures the accurate tail and sound during the profiling process, then only gives you an on/off switch (or a blend parameter) on the cab itself, a mono verb, more complex than the "Space" parameter, but not as complex as the other reverbs.


    As someone said earlier the reason I used the Kemper is simplicity, and yes I cannot fineagle the various onboard or DAW verbs to really mimic a natural room sound.


    I do love the onboard verbs, but just not for this task, they're too smooth, too clean, too lush, it always sounds like an effect. The DAW ones offer some other interesting flavors, but even my best IR based ones like Ocean Ways somehow don't sound the same as the amp recorded in the actual room, again it sounds like a flat "room like" verb, but still too even, no real resonance there, too perfect, it sounds again like an effect rather than the natural real thing..