The Acoustic Simulator

  • I am getting along really well with this Acoustic Sim. Tele Ultra. Neck pickup. Tone circuit is enabled with that slight click from full open on the tone control.

    Cheers guys. Really fantastic live and songwriting tool.

    Even doubling clean parts with an acoustic, I would be tempted to use this instead now just for the ease of use..... and I have my D28 in the studio for my most of my acoustic needs. Nice problem to have. ?

    Great work Kemper.

  • Interesting to see that some of you use the AC in combination with an acoustic guitar profile as a matter of course, and now discussing the shortcomings of introducing hiss into the game.


    Please be aware that acoustic guitar profiles and their sources (such as Fishman or Tonedexter) are tailored to tame some nastiness created by piezo pickups, and push that sound towards a mic‘ed acoustic guitar sound.


    Our Acoustic Simulator goes the same route, but while having the same goal, it starts at magnetic pickups and directly aims at the acoustic guitar sound (with more or less success, depending in the type of acoustic guitar and pickup). No piezo pickup problem or solution lays on this path.


    Thus taking the detour through an additional acoustic guitar profile dedicated for piezo guitar is not wise, as it does not target a known problem (?), but for sure it can produce all those unpredictable side effects that you describe.

  • Decided to record a mashup between the following:

    • Taylor 310 CE L7 with a 2004 Expression System (two contact mics and under-neck pickup)
    • Patrick Eggle Berlin with coil tapped Seymour Duncan humbuckers
    • Fender ‘Partscaster’ Tele with Bare Knuckle ‘Yardbird’ pickups
    • Fender American Professional Strat 2017 with factory pickups

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    I’m very pleased with the AS - I’m having much more success than I was with the Boss AC-3 I once owned. Particularly like the Tele, despite it still being obviously a Tele when digging in. Although I had an 8kHz noise at one point, it seems to have been external interference that is no longer in effect, or my ears have gone again. Free from hiss over here, as far as I can hear...! If not, don't tell me...

    Now that sounds better than I have imagined.

    Can you tell us about the signal flow in the Profiler and the pickup and Acoustic Simulator settings?

    Have you used additional equalizers?


    Thanks for mentioning at Youtube the dilemma of using additional profiles.

  • No, Nicky, the Majesty left that 1st gen in the dust. BUT it had design issues - placement of the pickup selector was (and still is I believe) right in the way of strumming, so you'd change pickups without wanting to... constantly. Very annoying! But the sim in it (Piezo) was excellent!.

    It sounds like you misunderstood my post, Gaz. I was simply flat-out betting that it was the 1st-gen Variax, which you've now confirmed to be true. I cannot overstate how night-and-day gen 2 vs gen 1 is, so I'd still recommend checking gen 2 out if you're not 100% happy with the piezo or acoustic-sim algorithm route.


    To be clear, the new Variax sims (I think there are 3 models provided) sound like mic'd acoustic guitar, not piezo feeds. World of difference. It may be that it's the piezo sound you're after; I'd assumed you wanted a "true" acoustic tone.


    Original quote for context / reminder:

    I had one of these, sold it because it was far below the standards of the PRS P22 and the MM Majesty piezo... Can you guide me to a better experience CK?

    Gaz, I'll bet my left knacker that it was the first-gen Variax that you used, which ran v1.x software. It sounded like the "plinkiness" bled through all the models, both acoustic and electric.


    EDIT:

    Just listened to Ed's demo. Superb!


    Seems like the new algorithm's a great alternative to piezo-equipped acoustic guitars.

  • I guess I should open a ticket. The noise I get with the Kone enabled makes the AS unusable for me.

    I get variable results. Some profiles I get the hiss you describe, others I don't. I don't think its a Kone thing as a I use a Kabinet.


    Try the Morgan profile, switch stack off and effects or other profiles as a base...no acoustic profiles as they often have treatment on them. It seems hyper sensitive to settings hence you need to play around a bit.


    Hope that helps...

  • Now that sounds better than I have imagined.

    Can you tell us about the signal flow in the Profiler and the pickup and Acoustic Simulator settings?

    Have you used additional equalizers?


    Thanks for mentioning at Youtube the dilemma of using additional profiles.

    High praise indeed - thank you sir! I used the bridge pickup on all three and rolled the high end off a little with the tone pots. Kemper signal chain was simply: Guitar > Kemper > AS > PureBoost > Legacy Reverb > Output EQ


    The AS settings used for the Tele I notice now were slightly different to the others, with more body as below:

    kemper-amps.com/wbb/attachment/12164/

    (I didn't use the compressor you can see in the chain)


    My past experience with other AS pedals was that the low end was left lacking while highs were over-hyped. Assuming you have some quite narrow-band filtering going on (in place of harmonic synthesis) I elected to go big on the body control - perhaps too much so - then filter off the low end afterwards. The other guitars had the Body control set to +3.5 rather than +4.3.


    Legacy Reverb (still my favourite):


    The output EQ on the Kemper was set to
    Bass -2.0
    Mid and Treble 0.0

    Presence -0.8


    The Pure Boost was set to +5dB. It would probably make sense to have another one in there. After recording the EQ I applied was as follows (see labels above each for Tele, Strat). The most notable bits:

    • Tele has 800 Hz cut reduce some of the quack (and this one really can be quacky)
    • Eggle may have benefitted from a flatter low end listening back, taking our that relative peak near 200 Hz (I wasn't taking a huge amount of time over this)
    • Overall I clearly needed more top end, so should have done that at source
    • High Pass filter for all is set to 106 Hz to clean them up


    I'm sure some of the EQ moves partially undid one another as I carried on tweaking, but perhaps it's worth noting that this was genuinely my first go with the AS and I dialled in settings just before recording the tracks with each guitar. I spent as much time adjusting the sound of the Taylor to get it sounding right as I did the electrics, which is interesting. I also spent more time enjoying playing through the AS than tweaking it, which is a good test to pass. Monitored through a set of Genelecs, checked on DT770 Pros and a Sonos Beam. The latter is surprisingly good at highlighting issues.


    All the best,

    Ed

  • Wheresthedug cheers fella! I do like this Taylor. I can't tell though whether the guitar is just mellowing, the ES system's piezo contact mics are ageing, or my ears are just shedding high frequency sensitivity after some abuse, but I swear it used to be less mid-focused. Still, a bit of mid scoop and some reverb and away she goes.

    Ed / Audio Systems Engineer / Kemper Stage + Fender fan

  • I get variable results. Some profiles I get the hiss you describe, others I don't. I don't think its a Kone thing as a I use a Kabinet.


    Try the Morgan profile, switch stack off and effects or other profiles as a base...no acoustic profiles as they often have treatment on them. It seems hyper sensitive to settings hence you need to play around a bit.


    Hope that helps...

    The hiss is one thing, but the worst of it is that an expressive/strong strum results in a high frequency, sharp, harsh, farty distorted sound. This only happens with Kone on for me.

  • The hiss is one thing, but the worst of it is that an expressive/strong strum results in a high frequency, sharp, harsh, farty distorted sound. This only happens with Kone on for me.

    Is this with magnetic pickups or are you running a piezo through the AS? I tried a piezo through it and it sounded like my speakers were screaming for mercy ^^ Before Christoph gives me row - I know it's not meant to be used that way but I was just curious:D

  • Is this with magnetic pickups or are you running a piezo through the AS? I tried a piezo through it and it sounded like my speakers were screaming for mercy ^^ Before Christoph gives me row - I know it's not meant to be used that way but I was just curious:D

    Have tried P22 mag (5708), 594 (5815), Mira (245), and Silver Sky with above results. Turn Kone off and it's fine.

  • I haven't done a video , but compared my higher end Takamine plugged in , its still a Takamine ;) but always did the job live , and got really great results with my Strat lowering a bit the Tone knob also , that i'm never gonna bring it to a gig ever again!


    One thing i did noticed is, playing an electric guitar affects how I perceived the sound obviously, but when I listened back without playing , it sounds like an acoustic plugged in no doubt.


    One thing i think that helps for me also is I use 11's on my guitar with a high action so i can play harder a bit like on an acoustic


    All in all, i think this AS is really great


    Thanks Again Kemper for making my life with less things to carry . Now if we can start gigging again