Special Keith Merrow Profiling Trick/Technique

    Hi all,


    I was listening to a podcast interview with Keith Merrow the other day where he went into his recording techniques in quite some detail. Some of the discussion was about his Kemper and how he profiles his amps. He mentions that his secret to getting his high gain tone was by profiling the amp just at the/past the point of breakup,and then adding the extra desired gain in the Kemper once the profiling has taken place. I've not tried this out, but I thought some peeps would be interested as a lot of people dig his guitar sound. I realise I'm posting this in the general discussion forum whereas it might be better suited to the tips and tricks section, however I was wondering if someone wouldn't mind testing this out? Perhaps also doing a side by side comparison of the different profiles, one with the gain coming from the amp pre-profile, and one with gain coming from the Kemper post profiling. Unfortunately I'm not able to profile my amps at the moment hence my reason for asking!


    Here's the link to the interview:


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    They start talking about the Kemper technique at 42:00.

    Edited once, last by MCVA444 ().

    Quote from MentaL

    so he's artificially enhancing the gain as opposed to letting the kemper attempt to capture it? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of profiling?

    Not if there's something to this marathon thread and the post-gain editing is actually more accurate. Seems the Kemper has trouble profiling high gain in exactitude, so perhaps Merrow has some tricks on how to accomplish this that are actually more satisfactory than what the Kemper profiles at full gain. Even Michael Wegener has techniques on how to capture a better Kemper profile that involve much more than just mic'ing and DI'ing.


    Admittedly, when I play high gain through my Mission Gemini, sounds really nice. When I record direct, I'd say about 80% of the high gain profiles I've tried sound terrible and get a lot of artificial, fizzy, digital static when palm muting that just drives me nuts.

    Quote from MentaL

    I think people need to focus more on the low end issue as opposed to the gain that's the real kicker .

    The unfortunate thing is whenever you try to have a conversation about working on something here. Certain users rather argue and completely derail any type of productivity.

    Quote from MentaL

    so he's artificially enhancing the gain as opposed to letting the kemper attempt to capture it? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of profiling?

    Yes, I suppose so. But he doesn't try to pretend that it's the most accurate way of profiling if replicating the tone of the amp is what goal is. Rather he goes on to say that it produces something unique, which he actually prefers to the original amp tone. Hence why it sounded like an intriguing idea to try out. If you're interested I'd encourage you to listen to that part of the podcast that I referenced as obviously he'll be able to explain better than I can.


    Edit:


    Just realised he talks about it at 42:00. Have updated the original post.

    Edited once, last by MCVA444 ().

    I've tried this and it sounds "ok" not as same as profiling at "desired" gain level but still ok. Also if you haven't tried this, try profiling clean amp and raise gain on Kemper, it adds distortion but in a very weird way.

    "When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth" :D