My Kemper profiled itself!

  • I have seen the question about "profiling my own Kemper" pass by several times here on the forum. One cool thing about the Kemper is that you can profile an amp with an overdrive boosting the front end. However, when you (like me) don't own these amps yourself, you're still stuck carrying your entire pedalboard with overdrive/distortion pedals with you. Another possibility would be to profile an amp profile + Studio EQ in the X slot, saving you one slot in the future, as the EQ is then contained within the profile.


    I couldn't sleep yesterday and was thinking about a way of letting the Kemper profile itself, with the pedal in front. I figured that the noises that are sent through your amp during the profiling session can be recorded in your DAW. You could then reamp the "profiling noise" through the Kemper with your favorite profile and the pedal added through the loop in a stomp position. The last step is to start the profiling procedure while sending the reamped noise to the Kemper's Return Input. If the Kemper always sends out the exact same noise, this procedure should work just fine and we would trick the Kemper into thinking it is profiling an amp!
    Unethical to trick the Kemper? Think about this: the Kemper is already tricking us for many years into thinking we are listening to tube amps while we're not!




    A more thorough explanation of the steps I made:


    Step 1 - Record profiling noise
    - Connect Direct Out/Send to your audio interface input.
    - Setup Guitar Rig 5 with a (dry) distortion profile. Make sure to turn off reverb ánd the noise gate! Choose the input that the Kemper Direct Out/Send is connected to.
    - Send the output of the Guitar Rig 5 track to the Kemper's Return Input.
    - Go to Profiling Mode on the Kemper. Get ready to start the recording. You need to start the recording in your DAW and the profiling session on the Kemper at the exact same moment (well not exact, but close enough, you get what I mean...)
    - Don't mess with the starting point of the recording anymore.


    Step 2 - Reamp the profiling noise
    - Setup the Kemper for reamping, either through the Return Input or the Alternative Input (Return Input is used as the return when the loop is activated)
    - Choose your favorite amp profile.
    - Turn off any effects the Kemper cannot profile like delay, reverb, chorus or other time-based effects. Also turn off the noise gate!
    - Add a distortion pedal (or EQ, Comp, whatever you like) in the loop of the Kemper (in one of the Stomp slots, before the amp model).
    - **find a way to set the reamp volume**
    - Send the recorded track (the profiling noise) to the Kemper.
    - Record the reamped signal from one of the Main Outputs or the Monitor Output to your DAW.


    Step 3 - Profile your own Kemper
    - Go to Profiling Mode on the Kemper again.
    - Send the output of the reamped track to the Kemper's Return Input.
    - Start the profiling and at the same moment start playback of the reamped track


    During the profiling session, the Kemper needs to get a signal back from the amplifier or it will stop profiling. Furthermore, it detects if the amp is clean or distorted and uses a different signal to profile these. That's the reason I used Guitar Rig 5 with a distortion profile. If you would want to add some EQ to a clean profile, use a clean Guitar Rig amp or no amp at all.




    I can confirm this method works as I have quickly tried it today. I simply took a factory Marshall Plexi profile and did the whole procedure without adding any additional effects. The resulting profile sounded similar, but not yet quite the original. Anyway, the sound turned out to be totally useful in a musical way!


    The problem causing the sound (and gain) difference might be the volume setting for the reamping, I did not yet come up with a solution to do that in a systematic way. Maybe S/PDIF is the way to go?
    Another problem could be that the Kemper might dynamically adjust its "profiling noise" to the amp it is profiling.



    It would be cool if we could figure out together how to do this the best way possible! That would probably save us all 2k as we do not have to buy a second Kemper!

  • I guess only mr Kemper knows if each profiling process uses a fixed and consistent routine everytime or perhaps there are some "auto" adjustments or variations that take place during profiling, maybe adapting the profiling process to respond to the contours and nuances of the device being profiled.


    Ultimately if it sounds good it is good so, therefore, does it matter either way...?

  • I did this in late 2014 and got great results. I took a Framus Cobra profile, tweaked it until it sounded close to the guitar tone on The End of Heartache (Killswitch Engage), matched the frequency response and then made a profile out of it. Try it out!