Issues when profiling DI semi clean tones

HI,
I've had my Kemper for awhile now and I've been successful making great sounding mic'd profiles with all of my amps. But I'm having a tough time creating DI profiles with my 1968 Reissue Fender Vibrolux modified by Allesandro. I've tried several boxes like the Countryman Type 85, Beheringer GI100. When I profile the Vibrolux set at 5 for example, it sounds dark and distorted. The same thing happens with my Plexi's also set at 5. It seems like the Kemper can't handle bright mildly distorted tones. I was able to successfully make DI profiles with my high gain amps like my PT100 and BE100 with different gain settings but when I lower the gain to a mild distortion the DI profile sounds muddy and distorted. I have many great sounding distorted DI profiles from all my amps, but I need a tone like my Vibrolux on 5 or 8 or my Plexi set on 5 with a nice bright top end. I also noticed that sometimes my profiles sound slightly darker than the original so I have to add some presence.

If anyone has any idea what's going on I would really appreciated.

Quote from Monkey_Man

Georgie-boy! Glad you're still alive, bud.

Are you using any power-amp gain in combination with preamp drive? I once had the original Vibrolux for a few weeks but can't remember what the gain options were...

At any rate, if you're combining the two, that might be the problem. In this case, you'd have to lower the power-amp drive to, say, around 4 and see how you go.

Nice to hear from you! My Vibrolux has no master volume or gain. I'm profiling the same way is described in the manual, just using the DI with the speaker out of the Vibrolux into the DI and the Speaker out into a speaker cab. I'm trying to duplicate the tone of the Vibrolux at a volume setting of 5 to 7 which gives you a very mild overdrive tone with the typical brightness you get from a Vibrolux and a Strat. It seems like the Kemper can't handle profiling a mildly distorted tone from my Fender or my Plexi. It ends up sounding dark an overly distorted tone while making a DI profile. It works with higher gain type of amps.

I tried using the TRS input instead of the XLR on the Kemper, but I got the same results. Perhaps there's something wrong with my Kemper. It keeps crashing when switching performances quickly or sometimes for no reason at all. As you know, I've been making good profiles successfully for awhile and I really need to make mildly overdriven tones for my band because I don't like the ones that are commercially available.

Quote from Dean_R

Are you checking the signal going into the Kemper to make sure you're getting enough input. The input light should be green. In the profiling screen you have an option to increase the input. if that's not the issue there's also still the possibility that you might be clipping the DI so you might want to engage a PAD on the DI to reduce volume.

Thank you for your reply. I tried all that. I even tried using my Suhr Reactive load at low level which is not recommended but I got the same result but getting a good DI profile of a higher gain amp, but a dark distorted with a non master volume amp. Many of the non master volume amps don't start sounding the way I like them to sound until you go pass 5 and above! It makes no sense that it works with a higher gain but not with a non master volume amp. I just did 50 new mic'd profiles with all my amps and the profiles sound great including the ones with my Vibrolux and both Plexi's from volumes at 2, 4, 5 and up.

I like having both DI and regular profiles because I want to have the option of using FRFR or a tube power amp through a 4 x 12 cabinet when I play live.

Quote from Dean_R

Have you tried to get a merged profile? combining the DI with the "studio profile" using identical amp and mic settings? If you can get good studio profile that's clean, the resulting merged profile should be identical in sound but with the ability to disable the cab to use the DI profile with a real cabinet.

Thanks for your response. I thought that you need to make a DI profile to be able to make a merged profile. The problem is that I need DI profiles of the amps and settings described above so I can have the option to use my tube power amp and 4 x 12 cab. The issue is that for some reason when I try to make a DI profile of a mildly distorted bright tone, the result is completely different from the source. The profile sounds dark and much more distorted than the tone of the amp I'm profiling.

Quote from deadpan

I've had similar results with ground loops or bad cables, even though they still work.

Mine are unusable! Is quite frustrating!

Quote from GRStudios

I have the same issues when I try to make DA-Profiles of my VOX AC30.

I also have an AC30 and I encounter the same issue! Any amp that has a great tone when slightly overdriven will not work. I wrote to Kemper and they suggested that I might be overdriving the the input from the DI, but I've tried many different elves with no luck! I was lucky a couple of times, but that was it!

Quote from JerryFJA

Hey George,
Shoot me an email [email protected] and I'll send you some I made to see if it sounds like yours. I just tried a couple of mine to see and they seemed OK. I tried a Fender Princeton Reverb and a Victoria Silver Sonic. Vic was profiled with some crunch, volume maybe around 6. Fender volume at 3

Made a quick video of the Victoria. DI profile thru a Peavey 6L6 tube power amp into the Marshall cab. Studio profile thru the JBL monitor. JBL sounds dark because my phone is below the tweeter. Considering the speaker differences in the combo and the 4x12 I thought they sounded some what similar.

Kemper test

Second video of the Fender volume on 3 just the DI profile

Kemper test 2

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How are you Jerry? It's been awhile! Hope thing are going well with you!
Your DI sounds clean. Mine sounds like a dark crappy distorted amp.No sparkle at all!!! Like I said before, my profiles with a mic'd cabinet sound amazing. I'll email you, thanks!

Quote from JerryFJA

I'm good George. I hope things are well with you too! I just sent some profiles. I used a Countryman DI for all of mine.

I'm glad you're good. I also have the same Countryman D! . I checked out a bunch of your Profiles and they're great! I usually change the cabs because I prefer a brighter speakers, but regardless of what type of speaker I use, they still sound amazing! . Since I like a Vintage JBL on Fenders I just switched to the cabinets from my profiles like a bunch of Scumbacks from my Fender profiles which are brighter. I usually play only Strats with single coil pickups with Fender amps to get a nice top end like Eric Johnson gets with his clean tones or Stevie Ray with his dirty tones. I can't believe I can't get the DI tones like you do and I use the same DI box. I tried everything I can think of!

I got the mic part down well, but I'm still having issues with the DI profiles. I use my Chandler Limited TG 2 mic preamps using 4 57 on a cabinet with 4 different speakers(Scumback BM75,M75,H55 and a V30) and a Roger 121 Ribbon mic on the BM<75 or M75. All the preamps get blended on an SSL mixer from the SSL XRack to blend what ever speaker or mic I want to use and then it goes into the Kemper. I'll send you a bunch of profiles and see what you think.