Recording organic rock distortion sounds

    Does anyone have any suggestions on getting an organic and warm rock kind of distortion sound with the Kemper while recording through Line-In?

    As we know amps are generally made for guitar speakers where they sound great. But when going straight into my audio interface and to my DAW the Kemper sounds awful.

    Pretty digital and glassy.


    I‘m using the 'Monitor Output'.

    So my chain is: Guitar -> Kemper Power Rack -> Roland Octacapture Audio Interface -> DAW.


    I just want to get more or less same sound as I hear through my guitar speaker (Fender Hot Rod).

    I‘m not aiming for a heavy metal sound which seems more easy to get with the given presets.


    Greets,

    Owen

    Quote from OwenLanger

    I just want to get more or less same sound as I hear through my guitar speaker (Fender Hot Rod).

    you are comparing a amp-in-the-room tone with a close-mic'ed guitar cabinet tone.

    close mic'ing is exactly how these 'organic rock distortion sounds' of decades of classic recordings were made.


    btw. there is nothing 'digital' sounding about it. a guitar amp, especially a distorting amp, creates a LOT of upper harmonic content that is partially filtered by the cabinet and then selectively attenuated or reproduced by the mic(s) and then further processed with EQ.

    Owen,


    A Kemper profile is the sound of an amp (incl. cab) recorded via a mic; therefore, when you record yourself playing a profile via an audio interface into a DAW you are recording the mic'd sound of an amp.


    This does not sound the same as what you hear when you are plugged into an amp and listening to the 'amp in the room' sound. If you have a Fender Hot Rod profile and want to compare it with your Fender Hot Rod, you should make a profile of your Hot Rod, so that you are comparing like for like, e.g. a mic'd amp with a mic'd amp.


    I think a lot of people that are used to playing via an amp in their room find it hard to adjust to listening to the sound of a profile; however, a mic'd amp is usually the sound that we all hear on the records we all love (although even The Beatles sometimes recorded their guitars direct into the mixing desk) and if you drop a recorded clip of a profile into the full mix, you'll find it works perfectly well (although most recordings usually include a bit of post recording mixing magic).


    Having said that, a lot of people might not intend to record anything and just want to jam using the Kemper and therefore to try and help produce a more 'amp in the room' sound, the Kemper Team implemented Pure Cab - you should experiment with this.


    Having said all that, it's not clear to me what you are actually recording. If you are recording direct from Kemper to your audio interface with the cab section of the profile switched off (because you usually play your powered Kemper via your Hot Rod cab), then it's definitely going to sound different to your amp.


    If you are recording a Profile with both amp and cab sections on then, as mentioned above, your recording should sound like a mic'd amp and hours of tweaking should not be necessary - just try another profile until you find one that works.

    Thanks guys! I totally got the idea with 'Amp in the room' vs. 'close-mic'ed guitar cabinet' tone.

    The real Cabs are cutting so many overtones that it seems warm and organic to our ears.


    It‘s weird that we still are used to the sound of the chain with mic'ed option. The Pure Cab function truly helps a lot.

    Now I don‘t even remember if it was on or off before but setting it on around 9.5 seems to be a good solution.


    But I still don‘t know which output seems to serve best when going LineIn the DAW.

    I‘ve read that the SPDIF out contains most of the full digital information?

    I record as follows:


    Guitar → Kemper (Studio Profile - Amp & Cab) → Focusrite 6i6 (via SPDIF) → DAW (Pro Tools on Windows 10)


    I have the SPDIF output set to Master Stereo @ 0 dB and use the volume within the Amp block to ensure the signal hitting my DAW input is at -8 dB (peak). I use a metering plug-in to check it's at -8dB.


    I have Pure Cab on between 1.0 and 3.5.


    I then use various plugins when mixing and mastering to produce the final track.


    It's just a hobby (as you'd probably see if you clicked on the link to my YouTube channel below), but that's how I set things up.

    Use your main output, (stereo or mono), or the SPDIF output, (stereo or mono). All this can be found in the Kemper OUTPUT section. Speaker IRs help get an organic sound also. M Britt has some very good ones. ML Sound Labs also. You can load IRs via your Kemper initialized thumb drive. Put the IRs in the SHARED folder and the Kemper will prompt you on loading them. With different IRs, one can really fine tune a profile. I swap IRs before I touch the Definition control. Good Luck!