Discussion with Michael Britt about studio vs merged profiles

  • Hello,


    maybe after more than a year something's changed since Michael Britt has posted this video, but as he answers a question about Kemper at 15:57, he seems not to be satisfied with the D.I. and the Merged profiles that much. Also he seems to be caring more about the sound he's sending to FOH than what goes through the cab on stage. Can anyone explain please why there seems to be noticable difference in tone of Studio profiles and Merged profiles? I would really like to send great miked sound FOH but also have a chance to feed my cab with signal normal amp has at it's output so it reacts exactly like an amp.


    Thanks


    Again the time of the question is 15:57


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  • Recently I bought a number of Top Jimi profiles, and some of his newer packs have both Studio and Merged profiles of the same amp settings. While trying to clean out unused profiles from the Kemper, I did some critical listening with headphones of the Studio and Merged profiles of the same amp and settings, and could not hear any difference at all. It was so impressive that I ended up deleting all of the Studio profiles and keeping only the Merged ones.


    I also did some listening with an external cab of the Top Jimi Studio and Merged versions of the same amp/settings, disabling the cab with each. In every case the Merged profile sounded much more natural and less harsh than did the Studio version. That leads one to guess that the Direct profile process might have better results than the Studio process with the cab disabled. However this leads one to think that there may be something additional in the processes, as the Merged profile procedure requires a Direct and Studio profile of the same amp/settings. You'd think that the Merged and Studio profile should sound the same with the cab disabled in each, but I found that not to be the case.


    I haven't had much luck in the past making Direct/Merged profiles, but over Christmas break plan to try playing with it some more. It's been awhile since I tried and there have been multiple software upgrades since then. Studio profiling has always worked flawlessly.

  • Hi MKB,

    thank you very much for the response and have nice Christmas holidays! It would be great if you could inform us how your further Direct/Merge analysis went.


    Thanks!

  • I tend to go back and forth and I've compared the waves in a ProTools session of the same part through a studio and merged profile and they look and sound almost identical. I went to using merged profiles for a few months last year as the cab disabled monitor out did sound more realistic through my guitar cab onstage. It was just that after a few months of doing it that way and the fact that not every profile I was using had merged versions because I had profiled them before that process was available, etc. that I began hearing the merged and studio profiles side by side sometimes. There was something inherent in the merged profiles I had done and perhaps it was just my process and profiling technique, but I felt there was a "feel" difference between the merged profile and the studio profile.


    I know that when I would do a merged (direct) profile of the same settings as the studio profile, the Definition parameter would read different values and it took a little massaging to get them to sound identical. I also know that using different D.I.'s yielded different sounding profiles so I concluded that the D.I. imparts some amount of "tone" to the overall finished product and after hearing those differences my ears began to hear the D.I. through the merged profiles and the studio profiles just sounded smoother. The merged profiles sounded a little bigger most of the time and a bit more separated and less compressed, but there was a finished product kind of feel to the studio profiles even though the overall eq was nearly identical. I'm not sure how much of it was in my head and I tried doing blind tests with myself but I just ended up going to the studio profiles and not concentrating as much on the merged ones after a while. Option overload, really. I tried to simplify things so I could start worrying about my playing again and less about splitting hairs. If I were in a situation where my onstage cab had to sound "right" and if I wasn't on in-ear monitors, I might start using merged profiles again for that reason.


    I can see how some people would really like the merged profiles as they do have a different feel and punch through guitar cabs. I just opted for the finished sound of the studio profiles for my foh sound. It's a constant circle of second-guessing and trying to compare, though, and there is no definitive answer. It's just how I hear it on certain days, but I just chose not to add any additional variables as I really like the Kemper's profiling algorithm. It still sounds way more realistic than the other amp modelers on the market to me. The fact that you have these sorts of options is what sets the Kemper apart and you're not just locked in to someone else's perceived model of a particular amp. With all of the profile makers on the market and the ability to easily create your own profiles, especially direct ones, it's an almost limitless pool of guitar sounds to pick from.

  • Didn't touch the amp settings between direct and studio profiling. They didn't sound identical to me once merged as the definitions were different so I would adjust definition and eq to get them sounding as close as I could.

  • I'm not sure what I meant with the "fo" in my previous post (do or for?), but I guess you could understand it anyway? ;)


    I am guessing that maybe the kemper would be able to get a more accurate "reading" of the definition parameter while doing a DI profile rather than a studio profile - so the difference in definition could maybe be explained by that.


    I think what I was alluding to is that if you tweak the amp (and mic placement etc etc) while the DI box is in between the cab and the amp, you should get a studio profile which sounds pleasing in the in-ears, translating to a merged profile with the same characteristics. That's at least the intended functionality. As you say, the DI boxes do colour the tone a bit, so I guess it's necessary to set it up like that to get optimal results.


    That said, there will be some part of the DI box colouration in the amp section of the profile and some part on the cab section. The latter will not be part of the sound when going directly from the Kemper to the cab. I don't know if there is an appreciable difference in reality.

  • Yeah. I know I did some that way because it was easier to leave everything connected and just switch inputs on the mixer to choose between mics and DI. The tone difference is minimal and it was more of a sustain/feel thing for me. I may do more at some point.

  • I dislike merged myself, the low end always comes out flubbier and always misses something that the studio has. They're good but - studio is better but that's my opinion.

  • Hello,


    thanks for all the answers.


    It would be really interesting to see some scientific experiment (with white noise or something for example) with several d.i. boxes, cheap ones as well as boutique ones like Radial, Avalon, A-Design, Neve, Countryman, Universal Audio, Suhr, Rivera, SPL Audio and Millennia.


    It would be great to see how much the d.i. box itself contribute to sound change when doimg merge profiles as well as which one does the least coloration or which of them color the sound in the most "pleasant" way (probably cannot be determined on the white noise though :D ).


    Thanks

  • This is a great discussion. Not that I'm an expert, but I personally couldn't hear a difference between the Studio and the Merged profiles I've made. I'm using the Kemper D.I. box to create these profiles. Could it be that Kemper's D.I. box is more transparent than other 3rd party ones?

  • And I don't want the OP's title to imply that I'm bad-mouthing merged profiles. It's just a personal taste thing and the differences are pretty minimal and I just choose to focus on studio ones.


    On a side note the Kemper DI is the best sounding DI I've tried. The Radial was good too but probably my least favorite thing in the world is listening to a direct sound from an amp in earbuds millimeters away from my eardrums. Haha.