Struggling creating my own Direct Profiles

  • I've been trying to capture some profiles of a Marshall 2061x head. I passed it on to a fellow Kemper forum member for some feedback and he made some good points. It sounds very thin vs other direct profiles out there...and the two profiles I took with humbuckers came out dark. I did one profile of single coils with jumpered channels and a couple with humbuckers. I boosted the tone knob for the humbuckers to around 9 and single coils were at around 6 on the tone. Gain was full on to 9. I did one with just the lead channel. Anyway, my chain went like this:


    Guitar --> Kemper Front Input --> Marshall input (coming from Direct Output) --> Kemper DI box (from Marshall speaker out at 8 ohm setting) --> split with speaker cable to 2x12 Port City Vertical OS w/ Scumback M75/H75 combo...and...XLR from DI box back to Kemper Return Input.


    I set the return level to match up the Kemper and Reference. It was around -5db. I also did use the refining process hitting it hard with both low end and high end chords and some single notes on both ends. Monitor Cab Off is checked and No Cabinet checked on the second page of the profiling process. When I'm profiling, I point the cab into the carpeted floor due to noise. Since I'm not profiling the cab in any way and it's only used as a load, I felt this wouldn't impact it. Maybe it does though? Are there any other gotchas?


    In comparing my 2061 profiles going through my Matrix/2x12 Port City combo to a couple of very similar amps tonally from MBritt (the Clampet and London Left Channel), the MBritt profiles sound fuller and have proper bite (keeping in mind these are not direct/merged profiles).


    One other odd thing worth mentioning...check out the default definition settings that my amp profiling kicked out. Two are "0" and the one that has a value is 0.8 which seems way low. Obviously I could manipulate those up to solve some of the darkeness but that combined with the lack of fullness makes me think I'm missing something here. I did do one other direct profile in the past. It was an Orange OR50 which is a darker amp and that profiled with 5.6 definition. I believe I made this one the exact same way including pointing the cab into the floor/carpet. Look forward to some feedback

  • Does this happen if you profile again?
    Once it happened that the direct profile turned out been very bassy, opposed to the trebly nature of my amp.
    I had to turn on and off the profiler to profile again, and this time everything went correctly.
    If this doesn't work, have you tried with different XLR cables?

  • I can tell you with my Marshall 2203 I made around 30 direct profiles last night and first thing I'd try is to not refine your direct profiles and see how that works first.


    I have yet to make a direct profile with every amp I've tried that hasn't altered the tone in a negative way significantly by refining. I always find it chokes and congests the mids, dulls the top end and makes the lows very flubby compared to the actual amp. This however never happens on studio profiles I make.


    Some other observations I made last night when profiling my Marshall was that the definition comes in lower when:
    1. You increase the mids -
    2. When you increase the master and the phase inverter and power amp starts to saturate, although depending on how the rest of the EQ is set this can also go the other way.
    3. You use less gain.


    I realise points 1 and 3 are not really viable to you using a Marshall 2061x


    Also similar to @Jimmyn says, I have took a profile touched nothing literally seconds apart and have had the final definition change from from say 7.7 to around 9.2 no problem, this is without rebooting, which really isn't right but I only really notice this on direct profiles barely seems to fluctuate on studio profiles when taking another straight after without changing anything.


    Another thing I have no doubt you didn't have any noise gate active when profiling but did you get a warning from the Kemper saying a noise gate was detected regardless as I've saw this happen and the definition comes in extremely low, re profile straight away and it shows no error and it can come back around 8.2 where I'd expect for the tone I'd be dialing in....go figure?!?

  • Thanks guys. I tried again tonight at a friends house and did a studio profile. We hooked up the 2061x to his Marshall 1936 2x12 and I miced it with an E609. It was better...but...definition still at 0. If I bring the definition up to 5 though it sounds really good. I tweaked it a bit and have something I can use out of this now...I think. Maybe the profiler didn't like this one. It only has Volume and Tone on each channel. I had the volume around 8 which I'm sure it pushing the PI and power amp. Anyhow. I got one profile out of it. It's an experience I guess! It does make me want to just do studio profiles though.

  • I tried to profile a Marshall JTM1 this week and the sound was close, but it was thin compared to the real miced amp on every profile I tried. This happening to me with every amp I try to profile and I sure it's not a problem in the studio. I have reported it and never found a solution with the support team.

  • @mtmartin71 I take back what I said about not refining direct amp profiles. Been running some more this morning and although I thought the profiles sounded good they always lacked the bottom end compared to the real amp when comparing the raw direct sounds. Tried refining just now and the full bottom end is there!


    Only thing I'm trying different is using less preamp gain than last time, when I have a much more distorted tone the refining was making a muddy mess of the resulting direct profiles.

  • @LiamThompson Interesting...it could be the topology of the 2061x made it more difficult to grab the mojo for whatever reason although I think I came out with a pretty good profile. It's modified a bit by me, but I kind of followed a similar MBritt profile in terms of amp parameters and of course my ear. It's out there on Rig Exchange.


    I'm not sure about doing my own profiles now. Two issues. First, I've now spent too much money twice to get it done. I've tried buying low and selling higher but in the end, my net loss with fees was more than it would cost to buy the professional profiles that are out there. And, it's a really loud process to make a studio profile. Even at my friend's house (who has a studio in his basement), then sound of the profiling was so loud his wife said it sounded like a spaceship landing on the house because it shook it so bad. Certainly not something you can do unless the circumstances are right! I'd have to borrow an amp and book studio time to make one the way I want. Still is going to cost more than buying profiles.


    Luckily I think the MBritt template is close enough for me. I would have liked if he did more profiles of different cabs because I think the sound gets homogenized between all the different amps by using just that one cab, but I do like it. I had hoped to like the TopJimi stuff but while it's easy to dial out the harshness, there isn't really a good way to make those profiles sound fuller for live use.


    Thanks to everyone on the tips.

  • @mtmartin71 Yes I understand exactly what you are saying. I was in the same boat trying to capture profiles. Either hire out practise rooms/studios for a few hours and capture some profiles as you know a 100 watt JMP Super lead is not something you can turn up in the house! or sneak a quick direct profile during a break at band practise and test later on at home. I found the best solution for me was to buy a Suhr Reactive Load. Now I can make direct profiles in silence whenever I want or also use it with a cab and use it as a standard high quality DI box.


    I know its not the ideal or "recommended" way to capture profiles due to the impedance curve etc but what I can say is the direct amp profiles are coming out much better using the reactive load and it's DI out than when I was using my actual cab and a Behringer Ultra-G DI box. I'd say the Suhr is the closest thing you can get to mimicing a real cab impedance curve and I've got to say I'm more than happy with the results. I then twin the resulting profile with either my merged cab I made or my impulse I made of it.