Struggling with the sounds..

  • Hi All,


    First time Kemper user but not at all new to the modelling game. Im a session guitarist from the UK and i was that guy that got laughed at for being such an early adopter of modelling rigs. Right back from the early line 6 stuff to where i ended up for the last 6 years on the AxeFX2. I have a helix too but the main thing for me was to have somthing light for festivals etc where its short trips travelling light and working with fast stage changes. SO the Stage was ticking all the boxes for me and i know so many of my pals are using the kemper to good effect. Now i really do miss the editor but i can see that's on route so no great shakes, ill wait. The bigger problem for me is the sounds. Ive bought a ton of packs from various sources like M Britt and Tonejunkies etc, and looked all over the rig exchange but im really not getting the desired effect..

    Now my main workhorse is a PRS custom 24 with the coil tap, and my sounds are mainly nice warm cleans that dont cut too much and again warm overdrives where the guitar sings through rather than smothered in gain (though i like those sounds too!). Im one of those players that backs off the volume knob on the guitar a lot to vary my tone and compared to the fractal it just seems like i cant get the same sparke when doing that. Im also finding the gainier sounds pretty harsh with strange overtones higher up the fretboard. Anyone else finding this stuff? Is ther a way to adjust the guitar input, impedance etc like the fractal?

    Pedals-wise i see there are many built in to the OS but are they programed to work as a model or as a mini profile? What i mean by that is with the green scream for instance (which i take to be the tube screamer) on my other modellers of that pedal and the ones i have in real life, you can back the gain off to be virtually nothing or just light in what it adds on top a clean sound, but on the kemper even with the drive dialled to zero there is way more gain added than there should be.. again is that just me?

    I have a few weeks to lay into this thing and try to get close to what i like before perhaps returning it if i fail, but i hope that im just missing something.. i love the feature set, the morph especially is very cool for live use. Any help would be appreciated.

    Thanks,

    NJ

  • 1. The mix control on the Green Scream (and others) is your best friend.
    2. Before going to bass, mid, treble, presence... the Definition parameter. Small tweaks there can make the difference.

    3. Don't throw more money a profiles. Like buying IRs, it turns into analysis paralysis. There is plenty of gold in the free Rig Packs in RM to help decipher which maker agrees with you. Personally, I've not found Tonejunkie to my liking. Well done, just not my thing.

    “Without music, life would be a mistake.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

  • You should definitely be able to get the cleaned up amp by rolling back the guitar volume to work perfectly. I use it all the time and it’s one of the main reasons I chose Kemper over Helix because the Kemper was much more amp like to my ears.


    The MBritt and Tone Junkie profiles should certainly be ideal for your kind of sounds so it seems like something is off somewhere.


    To answer your direct questions -


    no you can’t tweak the input impedance


    The FX are models not mini profiles. The Green Scream doesn’t seem to go all the way to no gain line the real pedal does but you can get close by reducing the mix so the gain just sits behind the direct signal and adds a little hair.


    Try reducing the Clean Sens a little as it has a due purpose off balancing clean and dirt levels but also being an input gain control

  • Welcome to the forum! Search for the rmpacheco Morgan AC20 rig on the Rig Exchange.

    THIS!!! I use it for just about everything live, it works especially well at edge of break up. Try adding an eq stomp and set some hi cut to get rid of the fizzle or try out different cabs. I'd only check the Clean Sense to make sure you aren't permanently in the red. Pure Cab is a matter of preference. I use mine at 10 and permanently on but many players, and alot of Profiles for that matter, hate it. Good luck!

  • Hi, welcome and have fun here in the forum and with your Kemper!


    All the friends here have already made a lot of good points to check. Only few things to add. I can recommend Rhett Shull's free profile of a Skylark Trem amp. That one is beautiful with the volume knob in your hands and takes pedals quite well.


    With the "ton of packs" you bought (seeing the sources you took) you should defnitely come to where you want to be. That is great stuff and as well some great gems on the RigExchange.


    In the early times with my Kemper I had a few problems to understand the beauty of highly rated profiles (free and especially commercial ones) which were typically mentioned as a goto profile. But after a while and a lot of trying things out I got it and found my stuff.... which makes me happy in studio and on stage. And that contains both, great free profiles but also some of the best reputation commercial ones which I really like now. Overall I do not use really many profiles. It was about getting to the point to identify the few which made it through. So stay tuned and don't give up too early please :)

  • These are not general approved tips, but they work for me:


    I'm also not super happy about my volume knob behaviour, but what generally helps in that regard is increasing compression within the amp menu (hold down amplifier, and I think the parameter is on the 1st or second page).


    Ruefus already mentioned the Definition parameter, which is quite powerful. It does more than just increase treble when turning clockwise. Don't hesitate to increase it by several points (it's virtual, so what can go wrong?). It works really nicely to brighten up profiles and acommodate them to humbuckers. Tonejunkie has a great youtube tutorial on this specific parameter (and lots of others btw).


    How do you monitor? Headphones, monitors, guitar cab, frfr cab? Huge impact here! I switched headphones and things sounded much better after that. I also plan to invest in Genelec monitors as I'm not super happy with my Yamaha HS8 (but that needs to be validated by wife first). I'm really looking forward to the Kemper Kabinet, which has been announced to Q3-Q4 this year. With the introduction of the stage and the programming sprint of the editor, I very much doubt that this will happen before 2020, but I don't care. As long as it comes out at some point ;)


    Volume / loudness is also really important. You need a certain loudness for profiles to come alife.


    Commercial profiles:


    I have what feels like a gazillion of profiles. Actually, it's a bit more than 2.500 profiles I believe. I filtered out a lot and have around 50 on my Kemper right now, which is still too much for my taste. I want to narrow that down to 20 max. My personal experience with Mbritt and Tonejunkie was also kind of meeh... I had to tweak a lot to make them sound good. And some packs just didn't work at all. When I discovered the loudness thing, I tried some MBritt profiles again and the sound was great. Kind of cool to rediscover awesome new profiles, which I filed away as meeh.


    My favorite profile maker though is Bert Meulendijk. I just love his stuff and I almost do no tweaking to his profiles. As soon as he brings out a new pack, I buy it without even thinking about it. His last filmo pack has some sick clean / edge of breakup sounds in there. Bert has his rig pack in the righ manager, which is not super big (I think it's about 10 profiles), but it'll give you a quite good idea about his work. His first 2 packs and the Wisseloord pack contain my all time favorite profiles. In his rig pack, there's a fender showmaster which works great for me.


    As mentioned above, these are just my personal opinions. The things I mention work with my guitar and give me sounds that I like.


    Maybe some of these things will help your too!

  • Volume / loudness is also really important. You need a certain loudness for profiles to come alife.

    Yes, yes, yes! And the ones which sound nice at bedroom level turn out to be harsh or trebly at rehearsal or gig volume. That's such an important one.

    My personal experience with Mbritt and Tonejunkie was also kind of meeh... I had to tweak a lot to make them sound good. And some packs just didn't work at all. When I discovered the loudness thing, I tried some MBritt profiles again and the sound was great.

    Same here. I played not loud enough first time and was a bit disappointed in the beginning.

  • Well what can i say.. You guys are just awesome!


    This is all brilliant advice and i shall now spend the evening going through these valuable tips.


    As for the monitoring situation - I work pretty much 99% of the time on in ear monitors, but those are really great and balanced sounding 5-driver custom molds, so i really need to set my sounds for them. Every time i get it right in those its pretty close to spot on out front (certainly from live videos ive seen and from hearing back desk recordings through other monitoring sources etc.) The FOH guy always says it good, but when do FOH guys ever say their sound wasnt amazing out front? :P


    Thank you all so much for your input, i've note all the details and the suggest amps to go try out. It certainly seems like i need to be working a few layers deeper in terms of tone shaping, as mentioned things like defenition/pure cab/clean sense etc need addressing so ill get stuck into those and report back.


    just the support here is enough for me to stay:)

    Feeling positive, ill keep you all posted!

    Many Thanks,

    NJ

  • You'll need to spend some time with the machine, but I can tell you that it's really rewarding. And to be honest, once you know how to adjust the profile to your guitar and your playing, it actually is quite quick. It's still quicker than dialing in an AxeFX. Not saying the Axe doesn't sound good, but I would just spend so many hours on tweaking rather than actually playing. It made me nuts.


    Let us know how it works out!

  • As for the monitoring situation - I work pretty much 99% of the time on in ear monitors, but those are really great and balanced sounding 5-driver custom molds, so i really need to set my sounds for them. Every time i get it right in those its pretty close to spot on out front (certainly from live videos ive seen and from hearing back desk recordings through other monitoring sources etc.) The FOH guy always says it good, but when do FOH guys ever say their sound wasnt amazing out front? :P

    Welcome dude..


    Just one comment, I've never managed to get the sound in my IEM's like my live sound, its always a compromise (not only with my Kemper but any amp - in fact Kemper always sounds best).


    I take the fact that yours are custom 5 driver IEM's, mine are only 3 driver, but wondering how much of a factor this is. Not saying its not important either, but for me to audition profiles FRFR speaker at volume has been best.


    Just a thought :)

  • Totally vaild point, sir!


    and I would say you're absolutely right about a good FRFR. My studio monitors are pretty good on that front and since taking some advice on here im definitely heading in the right direction now, which is great news!

    The only difference in my, of course subjective world, is that the i'm very familiar with these IEMs and usually ill try to strike a balance between the two monitoring scenarios. The results have always been good so i think it will work out, hopefully. I tend to lean towards getting the in-ear sound as good as possible and then letting FOH dial the last bits out front. The premis being is if the sound is rocking in my ears, i'll have a way better gig.


    Not sure i made much sense there? haha


    Cheers,

    NJ

  • Not sure i made much sense there? haha


    Cheers,

    NJ

    You totally did :). My standlone IEM sound can be a bit of a mixed bag but sounds good in teh context of a band mix...I agree if you can get it rockin in your IEM's, its likely to be very good FOH.


    I think the good news, compared to an amp, there is more consistency. However, with more parameters, it might take a little more time to truly nail it...


    Let us know how you get on...

  • +1 for Meulendijk.

  • neilius Hey, try the 3 Monkeys Orangutan by Feck on the Rig Exchange. It has all of the qualities you mentioned liking. Also check out Big Hairy Profiles Matchless, Orangutan, Supro, Diaz and Silvertwin. I really wish I'd known of them when I got my Kemper, since they've become my go to profiles.