Help! Too many good tones to choose from. ?

  • When I had my Helix, I was constantly tweaking it because it always just sounded a bit flat. For the 3 weeks I had a Fractal FM3, I had to program it so much just to get it set up how I wanted it. Now that I have the Kemper Stage, I have a new problem - I have too many damn good rigs to choose from!


    I play mostly instrumental post metal stuff, so I tend to gravitate towards higher gain amps with nice bite and upper mids. Howrver I also love clean, lush spacey tones, and a good modded Marshall sound for leads.


    Just for high gain tones alone, there are some amazing factory rigs (5150, 5150III, Recto, Friedman). I've also bought some commercial rigs that are great. I can literally spend hours a day just tweaking tones because it's fun.


    How the hell do you all just choose some rigs and get on with your lives? ???

  • Lol!

    I know what you're saying. When I first got mine there were quite a few late nights. Still to this day I find it fascinating. Haven't looked back.

    For me I play in a cover band. I take rigs from one source and put them in a performance and adjust if required.

    Then I assign rigs to a song with MIDI.

    Then I practice... repeat...:)

  • that is my problem too ? there are just so damn many great profiles available.


    my strategy is to have a couple of basic do most things bread and butter performances for playing out. When playing at home pr recording I live variety so I open RM decide on an general amp style (Marshal, Mesa, Vox, Dumble etc) then pick a random rig and play with it all night. Next day I pick something else and enjoy that too. There are a few things I tend to gravitate towards and reuse but I try and mix it up as much as possible. I rarely tweak anything. If a rig doesn’t sound amazing straight away I just pick the next one in the list until one grabs me. Having said that, I tried out the new Bret Meulendijk II pack on the factory content. That Soldano S+L+O Crunch rig is awesome and its free content with the KPA !!!!! I could be playing this one for a few more nights ?

  • Yep.

    "This is the best Marshall sound I've ever heard"......... tries another profile....... "THIS is the best Marshall sound I've ever heard"...........tries another profile ........... "THIS is the BEST Marshall sound I've ever heard"...........


    .....and so on.

  • Here's a plan (which I use):

    Use performances to organise your profiles

    I use the low numbers for 'actual performances' - the ones I gig/record with

    and the upper ones as a 'library'

    e.g.

    performance 20 - 5 profiles of Fender amps

    performance 21 - 5 profiles of Marshall amps

    ... and so on

    so, I HAVE to choose only 5 profiles. usually in Clean/Edge/Crunch/Lead/Misc format.

    From time to time I have a review and some are replaced by the latest/greatest.


    It also means that I have a wide selection of amps 'upstairs in the Kemper' if I get caught out and am asked for something specific. I can just copy them down into my 'play area'


    I don't spend a lot of time in RM - maybe when there's an easy way of marking stuff 'tried that didn't like it' or just not seeing it again!

  • The first couple of months that was all I did, browsing profiles. But eventually I found some favv and was satisfied with that :saint:....Nah who the hell am I trying to fool? 8o After a couple of months I find a few other better favvs and...it never stops. :S

    Think for yourself, or others will think for you wihout thinking of you

    Henry David Thoreau

  • Its funny but I regularly go hunting for new profiles but always end up coming back to the ones I already have..


    My advice is:

    Focus on the sound type first - e.g solo, high gain warm blues etc and look for amps synonymous with those or those you like

    Limit tweaking to 5 mins

    Create a folder for ones that you like, leave until the following day and then listen again with fresh ears...you'll be surprised

    Avoid IR's - its just another rabbit hole

    Don't forget to play the guitar and enjoy it rather than tweak endlessly...unless that is part of your creative process...

  • that is my problem too ? there are just so damn many great profiles available.


    my strategy is to have a couple of basic do most things bread and butter performances for playing out. When playing at home pr recording I live variety so I open RM decide on an general amp style (Marshal, Mesa, Vox, Dumble etc) then pick a random rig and play with it all night. Next day I pick something else and enjoy that too. There are a few things I tend to gravitate towards and reuse but I try and mix it up as much as possible. I rarely tweak anything. If a rig doesn’t sound amazing straight away I just pick the next one in the list until one grabs me. Having said that, I tried out the new Bret Meulendijk II pack on the factory content. That Soldano S+L+O Crunch rig is awesome and its free content with the KPA !!!!! I could be playing this one for a few more nights ?

    Dammit!!! Now I have to try that Soldano rig! You devil!:D

  • ts funny but I regularly go hunting for new profiles but always end up coming back to the ones I already have..

    Same applies to me. There is some compulsion always seeking for better tones. I think every guitarrist playing for years knows this and in the past changed the amp after some years. And now with Kemper? you are lost, if you do not limiting yourself. I have 4 Rigs I use in performances with my bands, and have 15 other performances I still reconsider for some songs.
    But every time I test some new profiles/rigs, I get the impression: No, this tone is no as good as those I already have.

  • When I first got my Kemper, I was amazed that I rarely need any effects on it. I throw a little reverb on there, and set up the delay and boost on a morph, and that's about it. The days of adding "pedals" to a profile are now gone.


    On the modelers I used, I was always using the included "pedals" to shape the sound. No more.

  • After a few years of collecting WAY too many profiles, I broke down last week, and rented a rehearsal room with a PA. I spent a few hours auditioning profiles through a full blown, relatively flat PA at gig volume. It really made a difference. I have heard these profiles through IEMs, headphones, and several different FRFR and guitar cabinets and they all sounded good or great. But hearing them through a PA at gig (read "LOUD") volume, and from the audience's perspective, I could really discern the difference between the profiles that I thought were good, great, outstanding, and not so good. I was pretty draconian about getting rid of profiles that weren't either great or outstanding, in my opinion. For instance, I REALLY want to like small Fender amps, like Deluxes. But after hearing the profiles I had, I nixed almost all of the profiles of Deluxes. Now, instead of having a couple of hundred rigs and 40+ performances in my Profiler, I have about 70 rigs and 20 performances that I feel very confident in. I was also pleasantly surprised that some profiles that I really didn't think were usable sounded very good through the PA.


    Glad that I spent the money and time to do this. Just a suggestion FWIW. Oh, and wear a mask if you do this. Just sayin'. ;)

    Be Thankful.

  • Hey man, would love you to share your favorite rigs!!

  • Way too many profiles, and yet I'm still tempted... Now I'm more selective, though, and there's only a few vendors that do tempt me easily, Bert and Britt in particular.

    Never too old for rock'n'roll

  • It's a very good problem to have. Very grateful to Mr. Kemper for providing me (by way of my relatively small investment) a warehouse full of all the amps I could ever want, that fit into a small box and which I can access with just the push of a button. Well worth the "problem" of deciding on my favorite flavors - and those flavors would otherwise cost a fortune to own. I will gladly give up the endless trips out to audition amps, buying them, lugging those monsters up and down stairs, stuffing them in various vehicles, maintaining them, finding space to store them and eventually selling them for half of what I paid for them. My dream has become reality. My only issue is that now when something unpleasant comes out of that box I can only blame the sucky player.

  • It's a very good problem to have. Very grateful to Mr. Kemper for providing me (by way of my relatively small investment) a warehouse full of all the amps I could ever want, that fit into a small box and which I can access with just the push of a button. Well worth the "problem" of deciding on my favorite flavors - and those flavors would otherwise cost a fortune to own. I will gladly give up the endless trips out to audition amps, buying them, lugging those monsters up and down stairs, stuffing them in various vehicles, maintaining them, finding space to store them and eventually selling them for half of what I paid for them. My dream has become reality. My only issue is that now when something unpleasant comes out of that box I can only blame the sucky player.

    I could not agree more!! I know if it sounds crap its either my playing or how I've set it up. The KPA outstrips my capability :)

  • same here!!why i bough the Kemper,now i go to sleep late every night||

    Guitar: Fender Strat HSS<3 Schecter Custom Solo II

    Signal Chain: Kemper->AxeFX 3>Neural QC>Apollo Twin->M-Audio Monitors

    Computer:Mac Studio