Please listen... is this the way Kemper should sound?? Problem with sound

    Quote from Nikos

    What;Using a clean sound with a distortion pedal for metal sounds;This way you will always have a lots of "work" to make it sound good with the KPA.I dont like this at all.Just does not sound good for me.Is this where you´re "comming from" before you bought the Kemper;Than just start to think about to change your "philosophy".. ;)


    A bit of a misunderstanding. :) The last thing you said in your last post was to take a considerable distorted rig and tweak from there, and I answered "Yes, that's actually how I try to do it always." So, THAT is how i try to do it.


    Thanks for the suggestions, I will check them out.


    Quote from Lokasenna

    4, 5, and 6 all sound perfectly fine to me.


    1, 2, and 3 sound like you don't have a cabinet module turned on, so there's nothing to filter out all the harsh noise and fizz from your pedal/amp.


    You can't just take any old clean profile, throw a metal distortion in front of it, and expect a good sound. There's a reason nobody in the real world buys a Metal Zone and plugs it into a Blues Deluxe. When metal guys talk about using a distortion pedal with a "clean" amp, they usually mean taking a good metal amp, like a JCM or a Recto, turning the gain down to be fairly clean, and then boosting it with a pedal. The amp and cab are still giving you the same voicing, but the distortion gets more clarity and the low end is usually tighter because the pedal is rolling it off beforehand.


    The cab simulation was on. But again, this was just to test if the distortion in my Kemper was functioning as it should. I thought a simple way to test it was just to take a 0 gain profile and turn on the gain, just to see if the sound alters according to the way a healthy Kemper should work. So, apparently it went just as it should.


    Thanks for your advice.


    Quote from hal2000

    Difficult to say whats going wrong there. In the past i had harsh tones with my Strat too. I change to Humbuckers
    and it was a different world.
    I you want, you can chose a free profile (which make harsh tones to you) and send me that saved profile. Also send
    a record made with spdif.
    Then i will load this profile and will do a SPDIF record too. So we can see if it is something with your Kemper or not.


    Thanks very much. I already made this with Kemper support and they received the same result with one of my rigs, so I guess my Kemper is working as it should.


    Best,
    Markus

    Quote from kukulkahn

    Also, in my experience, there are profiles so good, that will fit perfectly with my guitars without any need of tweaking anything in the kemper (not even stack eq adjust is needed).
    Hope you can get your axe deliver thunderous metal tones :thumbup:


    Thanks mate!


    Quote from ckemper

    Pleasr do a System Reset (not Rig Reset) and try a number of rigs.


    Yes, Kemper support adviced this, I did it, and after they reamped my sound they got same results as I, so it wasn't my unit's fault.




    The thing is with those Lasse Lammert's and Premier Profiles, that they do sound "ok" on their own, but put them in a mix and they just turn to boom, hum, harshness and fizz... in my opinion. I think in a mix they really show how in-organic they are.


    Now, I bought Guido Bungenstock and Tonehammer... and I have like 150 new rigs to test. :) I tested them quickly yesterday and they sounded good. But I really want to hear them in a mix before I get too excited.


    Best,
    Markus


    I connect with SPDIF, but also sounds the same (to my ears) with normal output.


    Output is not red... input, if I remember correctly, goes a little orange sometimes, maybe even red if I strum really hard, but not like constantly.


    Kemper support also suggested the Pure Cab. I remember that last time I tried it, I wasn't happy. But I'll give it another shot.


    Thanks mate,


    Markus

    Quote from MarkusUz

    .. input, if I remember correctly, goes a little orange sometimes, maybe even red if I strum really hard, but not like constantly.


    There's plenty of headroom at the input, as well as internally, so that's definitely not an issue, Markus.

    Dont worry about input as much as output. If output is ever hitting red, turn down a bit. Even if its just yellow, there are probably peaks you can see that are clipping.


    I use spdif and even when the meter for my interface is consistently between -2 and -5 db, I can definitely still hear clipping occassionally. I try to keep between -12 and -6 db.


    Its always worse for cleans, as the clipping stands out more and there are bigger peaks to deal with, but still applies to high gain.

    Quote from meambobbo

    Dont worry about input as much as output. If output is ever hitting red, turn down a bit. Even if its just yellow, there are probably peaks you can see that are clipping.


    I use spdif and even when the meter for my interface is consistently between -2 and -5 db, I can definitely still hear clipping occassionally. I try to keep between -12 and -6 db.


    Its always worse for cleans, as the clipping stands out more and there are bigger peaks to deal with, but still applies to high gain.


    Thanks.


    I don't think in this case it's about clipping. But that is still good advice. I always see that the Kemper output is not clipping. But I have to say I have went for more than -6 dB in the interface. Maybe I should lower that just to be sure.


    Can I ask, what level do you usually use for SPDIF out? I don't remember anymore what I had when I recorded those samples... maybe -10 or -5.


    Markus

    I haven't seen it here, or maybe I skimmed over it but M Britt profiles are always worth a couple of quid. I haven't bought a bad one for recording and performance. I'm not a sales rep for him by the way.

    A brace of Suhrs, a Charvel, a toaster, an Apollo twin, a Mac, and a DXR10

    Like 1

    I keep spdif at 0. No gain staging to worry a out with digital. If it clipped, it clipped before hitting spdif out on the kpa. So ill reduce rig volume if thats hot as viewed in my interface levels. Then in daw ill lower the track volume to fit the mix.

    I have made test recordings with all sorts of higher gain (from about 5.0 to about 8.0 gain) rigs from different manufacturers.


    In my humble opinion... there is something wrong with the sound of them... all of them. But it's not like one rig has one problem, and another rig has another problem. To my ears, all of them share a problem... a harshness... but I just don't know what is causing it.


    Could you please take a minute and just give a quick listen to the samples and give your opinion:


    EDIT:


    soundcloud.com/user-994759021/sets/kemper-tests



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    Edited 3 times, last by MarkusUz ().

    Hmm.. for some reason if I put the full address, just that image comes... you can copy this address I think:


    soundcloud.com/user-994759021/sets/kemper-tests


    *All samples are two guitars panned L and R
    *No tweaking on rigs, except reverbs and delays turned off
    *Pure cab off


    Sorry for the messy playing...

    OK, it's tricky at the best of times to tell with my Mac speaker, but I'm afraid the drums obscure the Rigs too much for any detail to come through; they're in the background, which on this lil' crappy, mono speaker, is a long way away! The drums are not only closer, but a lot louder too, which adds to the challenge IMHO.


    If you want us to hear the issue clearly, it might be an idea to render solo versions of those mixes.

    Can you provide a di file and a few lasse lammert reamps without any tweaking. I can reamp and compare.


    What is your spdif output set to? Master mono, master stereo, stack or mod stereo?


    Do you have your interface set to use an external spdif clock?


    What input is your reamp track recording? Spdif L only? Are you sure you are not mixing the stereo output of the kpa together into a mono track in the daw - with space on, thatd end up sounding weird.


    Finally have u tried doing a factory reset? http://foobazaar.com/wikpa/index.php?title=Emergency!

    I think they are not so bad but nearly similar. I can't hear the special sound of every amp.
    Like meambobbo said: give us a clean SPDIF file for reamping and we can make some
    tests for you...


    It has always been Master Stereo. I'm not sure what all the output options mean, but Master Stereo, Mod Stereo and Stack sounded all the same to me, and everything with the word "Git" didn't give any sound as I was reamping. (Maybe because I recorded just Left?)


    Interface is set to external SPDIF. Without this I would get a weird phaser effect.


    I record SPDIF Left.


    I have done all the resets adviced by kemper support.


    Quote from hal2000

    I think they are not so bad but nearly similar. I can't hear the special sound of every amp.
    Like meambobbo said: give us a clean SPDIF file for reamping and we can make some
    tests for you...


    I agree they sound too much alike. Like there is the same harshness, brittleness and lifelessness in all of them.


    I will try to give you some samples... I didn't realise how small they have to be to attach here...

    Quote from Michael_dk

    I'm wondering, do you have any previous experience with hearing a cab recorded through a microphone?


    I dismissed this in the beginning for the simple reason that I have never heard in any commercial recordings, or even adequate non-commercial recordings, anything that sounds as dry and unpleasant as my sounds. I do have experience of a close miked cab, but not in a professional studio. So, if these profiles are meant to sound like this... what can I say? In my opinion, they can't be mixed well.. they are so dry and lifeless that they will just destroy the mix.


    So, do you have any tips how to make them "wet" and smoother. I guess using the Space as well as adding some Reverb will help a little. Do you have any other tips?


    Best,
    Markus