Simulating pickups and guitars?

  • About 10 years back I was involved in development of Guitar Suite (Amp modeling and pickup modeling, room acoustics etc). unfortunately The Lead Developer had health issues and had to call it a day due to the sheer amount of stress we all had to endure.

    I might have a newer build of that plugin in one of my archive drives, However here is version that might have gotten released : http://www.vst4free.com/free_vst.php?plugin=Redshift&id=2408

    Having said that: if you are too keen of experimenting:

    try out some guitar pickup IR (impulse responses) followed by an Eq to further shape the tone. To use with kemper you might need to use a hardware IR loader for negligible latency , or you can bring your audio interface into the Kemper Loop, but might have to endure some latency.

    I have some pickup IR's that I captured back in the day. Let me know and I will try to put them up somethere.

    - Too Many Synths and Way too Many Guitars :rolleyes:

  • The easiest way IMO to mimic another guitar is with a carefully set EQ in the first Stomp slot. Each effect and amp profile responds sort of how it responds to the target guitar that way.

  • A Simple Eq is not mostly adequate enough to do a transformation, you'd end up using all 4 slots with eqs and yet be wanting for more eq.

    an IR (impulse response / Convolution) methodology is much more feasible however having said that there are certain aspects that one needs to address that has mostly prevented mass production of such devices).

    A Major One of them is a a consistent base (source) profile. Since Each user has a different guitar / pickup, this variance base profile opens a can of worms. Companies Such as Line 6 (Variax) and Roland (VG) have addressed that by having a consistent base. They know the guitar and the pickups they are using thus they can mass produce the products with consistent results for the user base. I haven't read their tech papers so I can't comment on exactly how or what they are doing (complete modelling or some hybrid DSP techniques).


    I myself tested some IRs with Kemper (through a Hardware IR loader (Nux Cerberus/NUX mini IR loader ...) in first slot and the results can be very promising once you get the base profiles for your guitar and target guitar sorted out. I liked some acoustic conversions.


    So anyone wanting to go this route, here are few things to try IIRC.

    1. Profile your guitars:
      1. Create a small D.I recording of the pickup while Slowly playing open E chord and few other notes/strings to capture sonic profile of your own guitar and save as wav.
      2. Repeat above for the target guitar and pickup.
    2. Build The Transformation EQ Profile
      1. Use a Eq Matching Plugin to generate a matching EQ curve. (logic match eq, Voxengo CurveEq spectrum matching).
      2. Refine this eq curve so that your Source Guitar through this Eq matches as closely to the target.
    3. IR profile this EQ
      1. Use IR creating tools to create an impulse response for this eq profile.
      2. Deconvolve the profile to get the resultant IR.
    4. : Apply the IR Profile
      1. Load the IR profile in the first stomp slot with external loop and IR pedal. ( I do not recommend connecting the guitar directly to IR hardware pedal unless you are using active pickups or the pedal has high impedance input.
      2. Alternatively you can bring your computer audio interface into the slot be connecting the send to audio interface input (say in 3) and taking its output say (out3) and feeding into Kemper return.

    Now this maybe good enough if you don't need to buy any external gear to get this done, but if you are going to be spending on it along with investing a lot of hours, Buying a Line-6 Variax or a Roland G-5 for about $1000-$1500 USD does not seem that bad in economic sense.


    Btw the above procedure is same if you want to capture the tonal character (eq) of a OD/DIST/Mic/Console.. or pedal that you own with obvious limitations.

    ~amit

    - Too Many Synths and Way too Many Guitars :rolleyes:

  • Not sure I follow this but the suggestion is why can we not profile guitars?


    Years ago we would have said that profiling an amp would not be possible because of the complexity. so its probably possible but...the big factor is the base hardware. The KPA is the blank hardware designed to run those profiles.


    The issue is to change the base hardware first i.e. the guitar and therefore a block of wood and flat pickups...the issue for me is that 95% of the interest of a guitar is the look rather than the sound. interesting concept and as mentioned Roland and Line 6 have had a go..

  • an IR (impulse response / Convolution) methodology is much more feasible however having said that there are certain aspects that one needs to address that has mostly prevented mass production of such devices).

    A Major One of them is a a consistent base (source) profile. Since Each user has a different guitar / pickup, this variance base profile opens a can of worms. Companies Such as Line 6 (Variax) and Roland (VG) have addressed that by having a consistent base. They know the guitar and the pickups they are using thus they can mass produce the products with consistent results for the user base. I haven't read their tech papers so I can't comment on exactly how or what they are doing (complete modelling or some hybrid DSP techniques).

    I can't speak for Roland 'cause I haven't owned one, but Line 6 doesn't appear to have used this method.


    There are 4 models in the Tyler series (LP-style, Strat-style, '80s non-trem metal and trem-metal) as well as the Shuriken and Yamaha model/s, and they all use the v2.x software; the FW updates are identical for all models. I've owned all 4 of the Tylers so I'm 100% certain of this. The only "unique" updates I've seen are preset additions like the "JTV-89 Mags Bank" one.


    IOW, they couldn't have used a single baseline due to the vast differences in the natural tones of the guitars. Bypassing the DSP and using the standard PU's of all models confirms the differences.


    Listening to the models had me thinking from the get-go that the signals from the bridge piezos (one for each string) were undergoing more than just simple transformations; it sounded as if they were being replaced as opposed to just processed.


    Of course, there's a possibility that baseline flags are built into each model as identifiers, thus allowing unique responses whilst utilising the same firmware, so to be fair all we can do is guess what's going on.


  • –> Seems lime a solution coming close to what I thought of. ?

    Like a first feasibility study.


    And then you do the same with the target guitar?


    What's missing is how to transform the baseline guitar to the target guitar, or did I miss something?

  • with both guitars recorded, you run a matching EQ on them in DAW. That will generate an EQ profile required for the source profile to sound c;ose to the sonic character of target.

    Once that is done, you can run sweep through this eq profile to generate an IR.

    - Too Many Synths and Way too Many Guitars :rolleyes:

  • with both guitars recorded, you run a matching EQ on them in DAW. That will generate an EQ profile required for the source profile to sound c;ose to the sonic character of target.

    Once that is done, you can run sweep through this eq profile to generate an IR.


    It would be nice to see ckemper view on this topic.


    Guitar modeling is some years around, Line6 Variax with Helix integration and their power cab, shows that they are aiming to an end to end solution.


    If ckemper can profile an amp, change virtual speakers with the Kone, and soon enable an acoustic simulator as stomp, maybe he could find the way to profile a guitar, by taking snapshots of its different pickups settings and placing them in slot A. Profiling vintage guitars sounds appealing.

  • Do You mean You would like a tool like this Already integrated in Kemper?

    Exactly, this is not a guitar pickup modeler but a Guitar Profiler.
    It would be cool to have it integrated in the Kemper, to avoid tap dancing.


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  • I have one for the last couple of weeks and have 'profiled' a few of my guitars ( Suhr Custom,Charvel GG,Godin A6 and Danelectro 59x ) with brilliant results.


    I'm not sure how it could work with the Kemper really as each 'source' guitar is first profiled then a separate guitar is set as the 'target'.


    I assume that the 'algorithm' somehow calculates the difference between them and then adds that to the source guitar input.All of this is before the guitar signal even gets to the amp.

  • Get the principle of the XT-1 although still don't understand how it works, i.e. Do you profile you're current guitar to effectively make it neutral so that you can apply the "profiles"? Otherwise the input would be so variable that the output can't be that accurate ??


    Becuase I couldn;t hear any change in the demo e.g. tele sounding like a Les Paul, difficult to understand if its effective..

  • Exactly, this is not a guitar pickup modeler but a Guitar Profiler.
    It would be cool to have it integrated in the Kemper, to avoid tap dancing.

    Yes! it would really be Cool.

    It's a Guitar Profiler so it means that 'potentially'* once you've profiled Your favourites guitars and amps You can leave them go!

    (of course like in the Kemper world, You can Buy other's giutar profiles, share them for free and so on..)


    To be honest since I've got the Kemper I've sold some amps and cabs, and pedals, Not immediately but I did it.

    (just to have the money to get other giutars..)

    I've just kept my Very fav. ones, even if must admit that I rarely turn them on ... I've profiled them and usually I play them through the Kemper... it's faster, safer and also easier to manage the sound.


    *I don't have the SIM-1 but I don't think It will be Exactely the same thing With Guitars.. because I like the physical interaction between me and the guitar.. different body shape, controls position, shape of the neck, frets.. it gives a sort of Physical/Emotional feedback You Can't reproduce anyhow else than actually Playing That particoular guitar.

    Anyway for sure I would sell Some of my Les Pauls (at least 3 on 10 I suppose) : once I've profiled them there's no need to Keep them all. They are all 'the same guitar' with just some small differences in suond.


    Maybe the Acousitc simulation that Kemper is going to release it's somthing similar to the SIM 1 concept..

    Maybe some day we'll be able to set in the in the input section the 'Source guitar' and in the output section the 'Target Guitar'; or this information could be assignable for every singol Rig of our Kemper.

    Actually the're no 'Magical Process' in Sim 1 that can not be included in Kemper...I guess ..AFAIK.

    We'll see.

  • Get the principle of the XT-1 although still don't understand how it works, i.e. Do you profile you're current guitar to effectively make it neutral so that you can apply the "profiles"? Otherwise the input would be so variable that the output can't be that accurate ??


    Becuase I couldn;t hear any change in the demo e.g. tele sounding like a Les Paul, difficult to understand if its effective..

    Thats it yeah.You profile your own guitar then the processor applies necessary changes to that to make it sound like the target guitar ( e.g. - Tele,ES335 etc.... )

    Trust me , its very effective once its set up properly.

  • I can’t comment by myself but I know this product sells well and had a solid reputation here. https://keyztone.com/

    I have this product as well as an older line 6 variax. I found the keys tone exchanger to be a handy sculpting tool and it does a pretty good job of making hum bucker sound a lot more single pole like I really like their P90 pick up setting. I hardly ever use the variax as it is one of the first series and the actual guitar doesn’t play as well as a lot of my others so I end up gravitating to my higher end guitars in combination with kemper and the Keystone exchanger for pick up simulations. YMMV.