The Acoustic Simulator

  • ckemper Not sure how much work went it this but for me this Sim is one of the biggest game changers for me.


    I haven't got it fully dialled in yet( controlling the hiss ) and not tried it live but so far its great! Any on going pointers on getting the best out of it would be great. Had a few issues with RM ( new version yesterday seems to have massively helped) has slowed me down with the "tuning" but so far means I don't have to look to get a peizo fitted!

  • EdwardArnold - very nice demo. I wish I could get my PRS to sound anywhere close to your acoustic sounds. Even by using your settings, mine just sounds like a different clean electric. Not sure what I can do to improve on this. Any suggestions would be welcome. I think I am understanding that you're NOT using any specific profile, is this true? If you're disabling the amp and cab and turning the gain to zero I expect it wouldn't make much difference if you're using a profile at all. Correct me if I'm wrong on this! Congrats again!

    Gary ô¿ô

  • 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.

    I hear your point Nicky and thanks for clarifying. My real goal IS a "true" acoustic tone, but without having to take 2 guitars to a gig. Even if the newer Variax sims are truly fantastic, I'd still be taking multiple guitars because their "electric" sounds are not what they were made for, and can't hold a candle to a real electric. That's why I was so looking forward to the AC SIM in the Kemper, only to be unsuccessful so far at getting close to an authentic acoustic sound.

    Gary ô¿ô

  • I wish I could get my PRS to sound anywhere close to your acoustic sounds

    I just tried my full hollow jazzbox on buckers, I managed to get lots of different tones on neck HB BUT tweaking clean input sense ( down to minus 5) did help a lot to lose some of the electric guitar character to a more acoustic guitar.

    Try playing with the guitar vol & tone pot , it should also help.

    You also have to adapt your play , it's very weird for my brain to have my strat sounding like a folk, but once I start strumming without a pick , I can focus on the tone from my speakers.

  • I just tried my full hollow jazzbox on buckers, I managed to get lots of different tones on neck HB BUT tweaking clean input sense ( down to minus 5) did help a lot to lose some of the electric guitar character to a more acoustic guitar.

    Try playing with the guitar vol & tone pot , it should also help.

    You also have to adapt your play , it's very weird for my brain to have my strat sounding like a folk, but once I start strumming without a pick , I can focus on the tone from my speakers.

    so for the AC-Sim it would be great to have an Input Volume Knob to simulate the Vol-Pot of the guitar and an Output Volume Pot to get loud again

  • BUT tweaking clean input sense ( down to minus 5) did help a lot to lose some of the electric guitar character to a more acoustic guitar.

    I'll give these a try, thanks. I had already being playing with pots and different pickup choices.

    Gary ô¿ô

  • Things I have noticed/learned...



    If you want to use parallel path to morph from acoustic to electric, put the AS in slot B. Putting it in slot C or D seems to make the parallel path mix control work backwards.

    Bumping up the parallel mix, mixes in the amp choice along with any post stack effects such as delay/reverb.

    prsgary If you have no need or desire to parallel path/mix/morph then the best place for the AS is in slot X (first one after the amp/cab stack). Make sure parallel path is off, otherwise you'll just hear the amp, not the AS. This position is best for stereo applications IMHO.

    Use Rig volume to bring the AS volume up to other rigs in a performance. Add a Pure Booster as well if you need to.

    So far that's it for my discoveries.

  • very nice demo. I wish I could get my PRS to sound anywhere close to your acoustic sounds. Even by using your settings, mine just sounds like a different clean electric. Not sure what I can do to improve on this. Any suggestions would be welcome. I think I am understanding that you're NOT using any specific profile, is this true? If you're disabling the amp and cab and turning the gain to zero I expect it wouldn't make much difference if you're using a profile at all. Correct me if I'm wrong on this! Congrats again!

    Thanks very much Gary. I think that bold EQ cuts are going to be the answer. The Eggle I’m using has a coil tap - does your PRS? Using the full neck humbucker I struggled to get something convincing, but I’m sure it could be done if you put an EQ before the AS to filter out a chunk of the mids/low mids. If you want, you can drop me a dry recording of your PRS and I’ll run it through match EQ in logic or similar to see where it differs to what the Eggle is producing and have a go at it.
    One thing that undid the AS for me was compressing before it. A fast attack seemed to tame the high end transients before they could get excited by the AS and form much of the timbre of the acoustic instrument and slow attack emphasised mids that made it sound more like an electric again. In the end I didn’t feel the need for any compression, but if necessary put it after and use sparingly. The sound I got is admittedly the Kemper plus some EQ after recording it into Logic. I was perfectly happy playing without this, but listening back on other speakers it needed more top and less bottom due to the settings I had chosen. In the explanation on page 8 there’s a screenshot of this EQ, which I will go back and implement with the Kemper’s Studio EQ instead. The most significant part of this is the high pass filter set to start rolling off around 110 Hz so that I could get plenty of body without flooding the low end. I did some sweeping around with band pass filters set to boost to find components that were preserving the ‘electric’ mid-focused sound, then cut them.
    You are correct, I am not using a profile from somewhere else - I loaded the default Crunch profile then turned the amp and cab off as my start point.

    Ed / Audio Systems Engineer / Kemper Stage + Fender fan

  • The Eggle I’m using has a coil tap - does your PRS?

    Hi Edward, no my PRS does NOT have a coil tap. I'll be happy to send you a dry recording of my PRS to see what you might discover, thanks so much for the offer! Just so I'm clear - I'm not really interested in what the EQ in LOGIC or any other DAW can do to my sound, I want this EQ to emanate strictly from the Kemper for live, NON-laptop playing. I hope that makes sense. I am a live player and don't want all that computer gear to haul around. I can just use my Taylors in my studio for precise acoustic recordings. I'm looking to turn the Kemper into my only go to amp with only my PRS to drag around. I'm sure that makes sense. Can you give me your email in a PM and I can sent my dry stuff to you? I'll also send you what, so far, is my 'best attempt' to make my axe sound acoustic. Thanks again for being willing to help out!!

    Gary ô¿ô

  • Hi Edward, no my PRS does NOT have a coil tap. I'll be happy to send you a dry recording of my PRS to see what you might discover, thanks so much for the offer! Just so I'm clear - I'm not really interested in what the EQ in LOGIC or any other DAW can do to my sound, I want this EQ to emanate strictly from the Kemper for live, NON-laptop playing. I hope that makes sense. I am a live player and don't want all that computer gear to haul around. I can just use my Taylors in my studio for precise acoustic recordings. I'm looking to turn the Kemper into my only go to amp with only my PRS to drag around. I'm sure that makes sense. Can you give me your email in a PM and I can sent my dry stuff to you? I'll also send you what, so far, is my 'best attempt' to make my axe sound acoustic. Thanks again for being willing to help out!!

    He already stated he was going to redo the EQ he used in Logic in the Kemper itself.