[K&A Profiles] Introduction!

  • Hi everyone! Over the last year I have been working on putting together a collection of Profile Packs to make available to the public. These profile packs are now available directly through Reverb @ (https://reverb.com/brand/k-and-a). If you have any questions about the profiles themselves you can drop me a line through here. Anything else can go through Reverb support, thanks!

    Sound Clips:
    All clips are recorded direct with no post processing:
    https://soundcloud.com/user-404125930/sets

    Amps Profiled:

    - 1957 Fender Tremolux 5G9

    - 1960 Fender Deluxe 5E3

    - 1960 Fender Harvard 5F10

    - 1960 Fender Vibrolux 5F11
    - 1960 Fender Bassman 4x10 5F6
    - 1962 Fender Brownface Deluxe 6G3
    - 1964 Fender Princeton 6G2

    - 1965 Fender Princeton 6G2 x2

    - 1964 Fender Vibrolux

    - 1965 Fender Super Reverb

    - 1968 Fender Super Reverb

    - 1970 Marshall Superlead 100

    - 1978 Marshall Superlead 100

    - 2015 Marshall 2555x Jubilee

    - Peavey 5150 Blockletter

    - Morgan AC20 Deluxe

    - Vox AC30-6 TB

    - 1996 Matchless DC30

    - Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier Rev G

    - Mesa Boogie Tremoverb

    - Mesa Boogie Mark IIc+

    - Mesa Boogie Lonestar Classic
    - Orange Dual Dark 100

    - Orange TH30 Head

    - SWR California Blonde
    - Two Rock Signature Reverb

    Cabinets and Speakers used:

    - American Egnater (Mojotone) 4x12 w/ Celestion Heritage G12M Greenback speakers

    - Orange PPC 2x12 w/ Celestion Blackback G12H 75hz / Blackback G12M 55hz / Alnico Gold speakers
    - Mesa Boogie Rectifier 4x12 Slant w/ Celestion Vintage 30, Creamback H75, and G12-65 Rola speakers

    - Mesa Boogie Rectifier 2x12 w/ Celestion Vintage 30 speakers

    - Combos used with native vintage speakers.

    Microphones used:

    - Shure SM57 TAB Funkenwerk
    - Royer 121 Ribbon

    - Shure SM56

    - Shure Unidyne III 545

    - Shure Unidyne IV 548

    - Mojave MA200

    I'd love to hear feedback from you all!

    Regards, Morgan Cross
    K&A Profiles

    Edited 7 times, last by Valtiel ().

  • Seeing as we're getting into detail, preamps used? Maybe you can add them to the first post...


    Good luck with it, Morgan!


    Thanks for the well wishes! I initially profiled through my Metric Halo preamps but found that any minor difference that I thought I was hearing was nulled by even tiny mic placement adjustments, so I decided not to use them. Thankfully I did not need the extra gain for the Royer 121 since I was close micing.

  • Sounds promising! Especially the wide range of Fender amps - cool!

    What I suggest:
    1. Offer a small free rig pack (with a few selected profiles) for users to get an idea what they can expect

    2. Post / show pictures of the actual amps / cabs profiled

    3. Do a "everything bundle" or "big bundle vol.1" or something for the profile junkies out there ;)


    Good luck!

  • Hi Morgan,


    The range of amps is good and I liked the sound of the clips.


    I probably don't need any new profiles; however, what would tempt me would be, instead of single amp packs with far too many profiles than you'll ever need (or in most cases like), you could buy a single pack that covered all the amps in the following 6 sweet spots:


    • Clean - 1 profile at the single coil sweet spot + 1 profile at the humbucker sweet spot
    • Crunch - 1 profile at the single coil sweet spot + 1 profile at the humbucker sweet spot
    • Lead - 1 profile at the single coil sweet spot + 1 profile at the humbucker sweet spot.


    Whatever you decide, good luck!

  • Only 2 cents i have left (bought too many profiles lol) is to say if you can label it for single coils and or humbuckers that this immensely saves time and helps. :) MOST vendors profile for single coil and humbuckers and will do an equal set. (the good profilers any ways IMHO)

    I have found that this helps the most with saving time.


    Ash

    Have a beer and don't sneer. -CJ. Two non powered Kempers -Two mission stereo FRFR Cabs - Ditto X4 -TC electronic Mimiq.

  • Thanks for the feedback everyone! Let me weigh in on a few of your posts. :)


    1. I definitely want to do that if possible based on how they are going to be made available.
    2. I'm kicking myself for not taking more pictures during this process. Originally these were just meant for me so I wasn't as concerned with documenting them with photos. Most of the vintage Fenders belonged to a good friend of mine and he has sold half of them. Other amps were borrowed from friends etc. Hopefully this isn't too big of a deal for the general Kemper public and i'd be happy to provide lots of details (and character witnesses if necessary! lol) to verify the authenticity of these packs. I wouldn't ever dream of trying to mislead people in the way it sounds like some people are concerned about. I've updated my profile pic to show 3 of the Marshalls listed; the 70', 78' and Jubilee in a very non-earthquake safe configuration!
    3. Definitely planning on doing that as well as an "American Bundle", "British Bundle" etc etc. Thank you for mentioning that!



    Excellent idea, I had not considered a "highlights" pack but given the amount of 3rd party profile exhaustion that likely exists out there it would probably be a great idea!

    Only 2 cents i have left (bought too many profiles lol) is to say if you can label it for single coils and or humbuckers that this immensely saves time and helps. :) MOST vendors profile for single coil and humbuckers and will do an equal set. (the good profilers any ways IMHO)

    I have found that this helps the most with saving time.


    Ash


    Almost all of the clips are recorded with both humbucker and single coil tones designed to show each flavor.

    Beat me to it!


    The main guitar used for the clips was an Ibanez AT100 Andy Timmons signature as I felt it did the best job of showing both mid output bridge humbucker and fat single coil tones. The heavier amps were recorded with an Ibanez RG7620 7-string with a DiMarzio D-Sonic in the bridge. I will consider doing a wider variety of guitars in the future though!

  • Valtiel How does it come, that you own / have access to so many great mics and gear? Regarding that some of the amps in the list are really loud, do you have a studio? Can't imagine you did the profiling in your living room and the neighbours around going mad with the strange noises coming out of your flat ^^


    By the way, which mic preamp (or software) did you use? EDIT: Just noticed that you kind of answered the question. But there are dual miced rigs as well?


    Will there be different cab options with each amp? And did you make studio or merged profiles?

    Edited 2 times, last by Ibot39 ().

  • Yup, have merged /many cabs (different mics also if possible) and labelled profiles done especially for pick up sets and i think you will gain a few new customers ;)


    Ash

    Have a beer and don't sneer. -CJ. Two non powered Kempers -Two mission stereo FRFR Cabs - Ditto X4 -TC electronic Mimiq.

  • Valtiel How does it come, that you own / have access to so many great mics and gear? Regarding that some of the amps in the list are really loud, do you have a studio? Can't imagine you did the profiling in your living room and the neighbours around going mad with the strange noises coming out of your flat ^^


    By the way, which mic preamp (or software) did you use? EDIT: Just noticed that you kind of answered the question. But there are dual miced rigs as well?


    Will there be different cab options with each amp? And did you make studio or merged profiles?


    I used to work at a decent sized guitar shop in my hometown, I managed online sales and did quite a bit of repair. I had access to quite a bit of gear as a result since the shop would buy and sell used gear. The store had a separate building with a ground floor that used to be a studio that was converted into work space that I would use for profiling. I'd come in on my off days and spend the entire day profiling an amp with my setup. I could get as loud as I wanted since the building was separate and empty on the weekends. Both vintage Marshalls were at one time going through my Egnater 4x12 + the Orange 2x12 at full volume, quite an experience to say the least!

    I own all the cabinets, speakers, and mics. The amps were largely borrowed from fellow musicians I know and/or the shop itself. Lots of big time collectors and gear heads around that old shop. I considered renting other amps but it felt slightly unethical so I never actually did it. None of this would have been possible if I wasn't doing this in a purpose built studio space, especially with those old Marshalls, the Dual Dark 100, and the Mark IIc+ at volume, those amps could level an apartment complex!

    Regarding what would be made available; most of the heads were profiled with multiple speakers and cabinets. I mixed and matched until I found the combos I liked best. Sometimes only one cabinet/speaker was working for me and other times the amps played nice with a bunch of them. All profiles are single mic'd and are studio profiles. My focus was more towards recording but obviously they are just as usable live, just maybe not to everyone's liking without being merged profiles. I setup the mics in a multi-mic fashion but captured each individually instead of combining them. I found that locking in the blend of two or more mics is an incredibly personal and context sensitive thing that I would rather just put in the extra time to make them available separately so they can be tracked as such and blended to the engineer's/player's taste. Every pack utilizes the Royer 121, 90% of them also utilize the SM57 TAB and the others are sprinkled throughout as I felt they were useful. I spent months cataloging everything and making sure the metadata and accompanying .pdf material covers all the relevant details, it always bugged me that some other profiles I downloaded/purchased would have largely blank Amp/Cab/Speaker/Mic metadata so I made sure to take care of that.

    I'm also offering something else completely different (at least to my knowledge) that I will go into detail later once i've sorted more details out with how I am going to be selling these. Thank you for all the questions and suggestions though, please keep them coming as i'll be happy to answer!

  • Any update on this? Sound clips sound amazing!

    Almost there, the vendor I was working with had an employee change that meant my contact person switched and I had to reestablish comms. That has been done and I expect things to be rolling soon. Thanks for the compliment as well!