[ML Sound Lab] Amp Packs with "ML Merged Rigs"

  • You are explaining NOTHING in the video. 100 % realistic, 100 % realisti, 100 % realistic... yeah, we get that now :* But again, you are explaining really nothing... very weird?!


    But please answer the simple questions (I have already asked above):

    1. In your first comparison video, did you use the Kemper direct profile and converted IR or is it direct profile into an IR loader with the original IR?

    2. How can you guarantee 100 % realistic sound, when using CONVERTED IR (using cab maker)? The converted profiles will NOT sound 100 % the same to the original IR you are praising - I think you know that?! That makes your whole concept questionable.


    So you are basically make "special" direct amp amp profiles and then just copy your already existing IR in - after you converted them with cab maker, which makes the cab part sound and feel different compared to the original IR (in my experience).

    And your secret method is only a benefit, if I want to change cabs in the same profile ("amp / cab separation") or maybe use direct profiles, right? Compared to common studio profiles (where no "separation" is needed) there is no advantage. Because other vendors simply profile the full signal chain for EVERY cab / mic combination and therefore I don't need to change cabs.

  • when using CONVERTED IR (using cab maker)? The converted profiles will NOT sound 100 % the same to the original IR you are praising - I think you know that?! That makes your whole concept questionable.

    What doesnt sound the same? Are you saying the IRs frequency response changes after using the cab maker?

    So original IR does not match the converted cab?

  • What doesnt sound the same? Are you saying the IRs frequency response changes after using the cab maker?

    So original IR does not match the converted cab?

    Yes, that is what I am saying. Converted cab are not 100 % the same sound - they feel and react different too, compared to the original IR. That's my experience.


    EDIT: That's why I want to know, if in the comparison video the Kemper cab was used or the original IR (with IR loader). The latter would make the comparison pointless.

  • Yes, that is what I am saying. Converted cab are not 100 % the same sound - they feel and react different too, compared to the original IR. That's my experience.

    If the IR is longer than 1.5 it does not convert correctly. Within that range its 100% accurate after being converted. IRs created using a sine wave do not work because they are too long.

  • LOL....25 percent off for "grammy affiliated artists"...I'm done with this....good luck!

    He's doing what so many else does: Pay them to say something nice about their product. Hey, in the book industry, they haven't even read the book they praise. But how cares as long as you get paid. :D

    Think for yourself, or others will think for you wihout thinking of you

    Henry David Thoreau

  • Here's a video of me showing and explaining the "ML Merged Profiles":


    External Content www.youtube.com
    Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.
    Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.


    I will be working on a new pack next week and while doing that I will try and create a "one off" ML Merged Profile for you to try out.

    Alright, almost 13 minutes I'll never get back. X/ I agree with Ibot39.You're explaining nothing in the video. All you did was claiming your merged profiles sound so much better than other profiles. Were they even merged or simply studio profiles? Who can tell? We can't even see them so who know if you just are trolling here? Anyway I'm out of here and I will never purchase any profiles from you. I believe you're just acting like a businessman should do, sell snow to the eskimo, sell sand in Sahara.

    Think for yourself, or others will think for you wihout thinking of you

    Henry David Thoreau

  • I'll start by saying that I'm not used to having to explain myself this much. Usually after people experience my work they don't ask these kinds of questions. I know I'm new here but if you Google my previous work you'll only hear positive things through over 5 years of creating guitar tones for professional gigging/studio musicians. And if you feel like "all he does is djent" based on my Periphery 3 and 4 collaborations, I'll remind you that I'm more of a blues/alternative guitar player myself.

    I was trying to avoid the "annoying marketing speech" which was the feedback I was getting from you guys and just show you because I thought it was very obvious in the video. I mean there is actual audio there which was the whole point of the video. Especially around 7:20 where I try out three merged cabinet captures by other profile makers I thought I made it very clear. One sounds far away, one sounds like treble on full and one sounds like all the honky mids on full. This was the message I've been trying to get across. You guys wanted proof so I did my best trying to do just that without offending Kemper or other profile makers.


    I'll admit that it is hard for me to get the message across because 1) if I explain my full process I would have to talk about "my secrets" and 2) the preconceptions people may have. The biggest false truth I hear is that "converted IR's don't work". First of all it makes a huge difference what IR's your using. Depending on your IR shoot method and knowledge on how to create clean captures, you will be left with power amp color in your IR which means that the IR has an EQ curve baked in it. So if you've tried IR's with the Kemper and they sounded bad, chances are they just weren't compatible with the profiles you were using because the power amp color is already a part of the profile and also the IR so it's got the same thing "modeled twice".


    About the IR conversion: Kemper states that it takes 1.5secs of information in the CabMaker, which seems a bit overkill since 500ms is definitely the maximum length needed for anything else than a reverb. According to my measurements I lose some of the low end resonance with the conversion process and the low end resonance is what requires a longer IR format which is still in the 200ms-500ms area. What you'll notice on all my profiles is that there's an EQ block right after the cab that's fixing this and luckily it's low end because that can be fixable with EQ. If it was the high end I would agree with some people about IR conversion not working. Even that being said the difference is almost completely inaudible but since it's measurable I have the EQ correction active.


    Like I said about a dozen times already these profiles need to sound 100% like the real amp. After all these profiles are done they still go through multiple bench tests before they're accepted. Here's a video sample of one of the high gain profiles being tested against a real amplifier and an Axe-Fx II: https://www.dropbox.com/s/i3hz…video-1548686445.mp4?dl=0 Measuring the difference while the same DI signal is being fed to all sources ensures that not only the EQ response is the same but the dynamic response acts in the same way. So in this example you'll see the the low end is a little bit off which is inaudible but it was fixed with the EQ in the ML rigs. This is just one of the tests these rigs go through.


    I'm here to answer any questions. Although there's a weird vibe here right now (which I assume is normal on every forum these days) I'm happy that the feedback from people who have actually tried these profiles has been completely positive.

  • You are here to answer any questions... but still you don't answer the simple question I asked how many times now? Do we hear the converted / Kemper cab in the comparison video or the original IR? Because you don't answer this, I have to assume you just use the same original IR with an IR loader and not the converted cab. If this is true, it would be at least misleading - kindly said.


    Almost all vendors have some "big names" they work with or well known musicians that used their rigs. Or they are themselves outstanding musicians. But their "marketing" is somehow... more likable.


    Why? Please watch your own video and count how many times you say "100 % realistic". "Dude". What do you think?


    And when you bring in cabs "by other profile makers" that don't fit your direct amp profile - what should that prove? That is so ridiculous... and you know that.

  • Hi all,


    usually I don’t defend people on forums, but I guess I’ll make an exception this time. During the years, I’ve heard Mikko’s stuff (both recorded and live) and he’s a legit guy. I also happen to know that he has lots of experience with both digital modelling gear and tube amps, including cabinet miking. I don’t know him personally, but he has gained respect and earned his position in digital amp world by doing hard work for years.


    IMO, it would be good tactic for him to provide free profiles for people to test before making purchase decision, but I’ll surely buy a profile packet from him if he comes up with any amp that intrigues me (I’m not a Mesa guy).


    Personally, I’m more than happy to see a guy like Mikko in Kemper forum offering profiles (even for not free). The guy is the real guitar sound geek for sure. I guess his timing was not the best one (the profiling market is already oversaturated and Kemper forum merrymaker Monkey_Man is currently banned). Of course good questions and informative conversation are always valid. But please, chill out everybody.


    -Jari

  • Let's see if he just answers the question - should be an easy move. Clear question, clear answer. Maybe the "arrogant" appearance is a big misunderstanding and a hipster thing I just don't get, dudes. And maybe he really is the first and only human in the world, who is able to make 100 % realistic profiles.

  • Finally had time to test it, it's a good pack, a little expensive for what offers. It's my opinion.

    The amp part works cool with my favourite Kemper cabs, cab part I think it's just an IR, not that great and for sure Kemper Cabs wins in this field.

    cheers!

  • I answered the two clear questions you had. I must've missed this third one. All the demos we put out are the presets loaded up in the units, I thought that would go without saying. Even the real amps in the comparison are actually the real cabinet miked up. No IR loaders anywhere. Like I said before, cab modeling is the ML IR converted. I measure just a little bit of low end missing in the conversion process so there's an EQ after the amp section correcting it. It's a very subtle difference though and actually if you could link me to the analysis of the Cab Maker conversion being bad I'd love to have a read because it's really not "that bad". Once again I would make the statement that the reason IR's in general may sound bad is because the separation between an amp and cab has not been completely successful.


    The other profile maker's cab comparison is proving exactly what I'm trying to explain here. There were "merged profiles" involved. If they were truly authentically separating the amp and cabinet they should sound authentic. They just don't and I know those profiles sound really good with the correct amp profile. IMO things can be done in a much better way so that people don't need separate profiles for different use cases because things can be done in such a way where the same profile will work with a powered Kemper and a real cabinet, SS power amp + real cabinet, SS power amp + FRFR cabinet or a powered FRFR speaker and obviously in the studio as well.

  • Thank you the calmness Jari and yes, I've been in this geeky guitar tone game for almost a decade now and boy has it been life-changing in a good way. I would like to think that being on forums through all this time has taught me to have a thick skin and respect everyone even when they're on the opposite side of the argument. My mistake was thinking that everyone would know me and my previous work and there would be no problem in me starting a conversation about "making your modeler better" because I've been doing that for other modelers for so long. Now that I think of it... that can definitely sound pretty douchey. I definitely need to give the Kemper guys a taste of what I do. Thank you once again buddy! So... are you a Marshall guy or? ;)

  • Finally had time to test it, it's a good pack, a little expensive for what offers. It's my opinion.

    The amp part works cool with my favourite Kemper cabs, cab part I think it's just an IR, not that great and for sure Kemper Cabs wins in this field.

    cheers!

    Thank you for the feedback! I'm actually surprised that you didn't like the cab, that's been voted as the best IR from the MEGA OVERSIZE Cab Pack that's currently "the talk of the town". There are a lot of big dudes especially in the modern/progressive/instrumental/djent/metal genres using it on big stages right now.


    When I get a chance I'll have to create video about Kemper Cab vs IR's. :) I haven't seen one yet especially that's apples to apples.


    Just for the sake of all the "IR hate" on this forum, here's a very honest comparison I made a while back for a client/friend who was questioning the IR format. The clip has a real cabinet miked vs an IR that's done by me (at home and not even at my studio) and then phase reversed in the end. For those who don't know what phase reversal does, it cancels out "the similarities" so when you get pretty much absolute silence as a result of phase reversing like in this case, it means that my IR shoot method is fully capable of capturing everything that a real cabinet is doing to your guitar sound. And since IR technology doesn't capture non-linearities, this means that EQ and phase is all that's needed for authentic cab modeling = cabinets have pretty much no effect on dynamics is what I'm saying in layman's terms. Try messing around with phase reversal to see how a tiny detail completely messes things up. F.ex. a Kemper profile vs a real amp will not give you results like I get with my IR shoot method. So... the Kemper Cabs that are "better than IR's"... IR's done right get pretty damn close to perfect results so I'm not sure how much better they could be. I'll try and get the comparison video done soon. Here are the clips as promised:


    Here's a link for the comparison in a mix:

    https://soundcloud.com/mlsoundlab/mic-vs-ml-sound-lab


    Here's the same clip outside a mix context:

    https://soundcloud.com/mlsound…-vs-ir-phase-reverse-test


    In the end you'll hear what the IR does not capture. First thing to note, notice how quiet it gets. And what you hear is me doing this comparison at home so you hear a click track, my acoustic strumming and monitoring echo and this is all because I'm literally 2 meters away from the loud cabinet.

  • Thank you the calmness Jari and yes, I've been in this geeky guitar tone game for almost a decade now and boy has it been life-changing in a good way. I would like to think that being on forums through all this time has taught me to have a thick skin and respect everyone even when they're on the opposite side of the argument. My mistake was thinking that everyone would know me and my previous work and there would be no problem in me starting a conversation about "making your modeler better" because I've been doing that for other modelers for so long. Now that I think of it... that can definitely sound pretty douchey. I definitely need to give the Kemper guys a taste of what I do. Thank you once again buddy! So... are you a Marshall guy or? ;)


    Nice, offering some free test profiles is smart move for every commercial profiler IMO. I'm looking forward to your explorations in Kemperland. And BTW, welcome to Kemper forum!


    Kemper has taught me to be very, very picky when it comes to amps... ;) But yes, I tend to like vintage Marshall type of crunch, also with some modern variations.


    -Jari

  • IR Hate :)nice expression. It's not that, I have a ton of Ownhammer commercial IR's and I like them a lot with other plugging, TSE X50 for example. Somehow when converted to Kemper I don't like them that much. Everything it's a matter of taste, just like the better guitar hero and so on, who cares? Better is always subjective. For me saving your Mesa cab part and comparing with, for example Lasse Lammert Mesa, it's a no match, at least for my ears. But again you can give me a mix context where I like your best, and the opposite, it depends of the application I guess.

    But liked the amp part :thumbup: and the price it's hight and didn't know about the promotion :) was not advertised in the site when I bought.

    But for a fair judge I could test the MEGA OVERSIZED CAB out of Kemper :Pjust need you to borrow me for 10 minutes

    Cheers!