How much do you tweak?

  • Thanks a lot!!

    That's just weird cause as far as i understand, the profile is being captured with a certain cab - so how can we change it?

  • Thanks a lot!!

    That's just weird cause as far as i understand, the profile is being captured with a certain cab - so how can we change it?

    Its pretty cool how it works. Check out the manual and look for the section "Working with Amplifier Profiles, Cabinet Profiles, Power Amps, and Guitar Cabs" and the first section ("Cab Driver") explains how the amp and cab is separated in profiles :)


    But basically, there's something called CabDriver that separates the amp and cab in a Studio Profile. It basically guesses where the amp ends and cab begins and separates them so you can swap the cab sections of profiles. With Merged Profiles, the way that they're made basically makes the Amp and Cab section separated really accurately so, Cabs saved as presets from Merged profiles will be the most accurate representation of that cab and mic setup. But, using the cabs from Studio profiles sound really good and the Kempers' CabDriver algorithm seems to guess where to separate the Amp and Cab sections pretty well in my experience.


    I'm not 100% how all of it works but, hopefully some of my explanation made sense lol! :D


    I'd definitely recommend checking out the manual for some info on "CabDriver". And there's a lot of really good info in the manual too!:)

  • That's the order I'll normally go as well, however when I'm auditioning profiles I tend to look for one that has the tone I'm looking for and then adjust the gain (yes, even up, I know, sacrilege! ). My main go to rig at the moment is a profile I've pushed the gain up quite a bit. Whatever sounds good is good

    It's better to turn up the dist sens that the gain knob.

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

    Henry David Thoreau

  • It's better to turn up the dist sens that the gain knob.

    To quote a famous Australian saying, "Yeah, nah." (Yes I hear what you're saying, no I don't agree with you).

    I think we should give Kemper a bit of credit, that gain knob does work exceptionally well in both directions, different rigs may respond better than others though. Tweak it to your heart's content, what's the worst that can happen? (Aside from eternal damnation or going blind).

    Sometimes, your sound just need that extra push over the cliff, and where else are you gonna go?

  • To quote a famous Australian saying, "Yeah, nah." (Yes I hear what you're saying, no I don't agree with you).

    I think we should give Kemper a bit of credit, that gain knob does work exceptionally well in both directions, different rigs may respond better than others though. Tweak it to your heart's content, what's the worst that can happen? (Aside from eternal damnation or going blind).

    Sometimes, your sound just need that extra push over the cliff, and where else are you gonna go?

    I also think people don't give the Kemper much credit in that department. I think its very underestimated. In my experience, the gain knob has been pretty accurate sounding even when turned up.


    I think most people's negative experiences with turning the gain up are from trying to crank the gain a lot, or from trying to turn up the gain in a profile that was closer to clean to begin with. In my opinion, as long as the profile you're starting with has some of gain to begin with,you can usually get good results turning the gain up a bit(as long as you don't go too crazy and add a bunch of gain to a really low gain profile lol)


    Obviously, a super low gain profile will sound weird if someone's trying to get searing high gain sounds out of it lol ^^ But in moderation, usually turning the gain up has gotten me some good results.

    (Keep in mind, I don't turn the the gain up more than 3 or 4 past where it was at originally on the gain knob)


    But it's true that some profiles respond better to turning the gain up than others!

  • I never tweak.I "clean up the dirt" making a nice profile adjust to my guitars.Definition/presence/FX..that's it..


    What we have here are snapshots of amps.Some of these indeed catched the sweet spots of the profiled amps.Others don't.Why bother with these..;)

  • Besides all these very good recommendations here in the Forum I'd like to ammend another aspect for a newbie to "Tweaking the KPA"

    It's different to tweak the KPA compared to tweak a real Amp with Cabinet, because the KPA has a Pretty bunch of more Parameters which a real amp misses. But as already said above, you don't Need them all to achieve your sound-immaginations. There are Parameters which are more important and have a more intense Impact to the Sound (f.e. Amp-Definition, Cab-IRs, Amp-EQ and Stomp-EQs) than others. I personally needed a bit of time to get used to these parameter and their specific impact to the Sound.

    I always need to be Aware , that I don't listen to the amp's-in-the-room-sound when tweaking my KPA-live-Sound on our P.A.-System.

    On a real amp you normally just have gain-, volume- and EQ-knobs and sometimes presence and that's it. The rest is influenced by the cab's charackteristics with it's Speaker inside and reacts less intense and in a way smoother than the KPA.

    For example changing from a Strat-type guitar to a Les-Paul-type on a real amp, I just tweak the Gain-, The Treble- and the Bass-knob a bit. With the KPA I always first look what is active in the current Profile (Amp, Cab, Stomps, Output-EQ, Clean-/Distortion-Sense) before I choose a Parameter to adjust the Sound, because the different parameters interact between each other with partially huge effects to the sound.


    This affords a bit of experíence and may cause a bit of confusion especially in the beginning-phase and also in stressful live-situations.


    So finally I urgently recommend to tweak intensively just at least to become experienced to the KPA's capabilities and These are HUGE !!

    And also to have a lot of fun with your Approach to your personal Dream-Tone. :love:

  • Changing the volume, gain, presence or even eq isn;t really the type of tweaking I'm referring to.


    Im talking about difiction, amp sag, IR's etc which you rarely have that level of control on a tube amp.

    Interesting phrase "isn't really the type of tweaking I'm referring to." Personally I think (and I bet most would agree) any change you save with your profile means that it's been tweaked (it's no longer just out of the box so to speak), but that's just semantics, not important. The only thing that's important is that you're having fun getting sounds you enjoy playing!

    Gary ô¿ô

  • I also don't tweak, I 'll find the profile I like just by going over every single profile in a certain pack. I only have a stomp and effects preset that I copy into that amp ...


    Raf

    Kemper stage with 2 mission pedals (in a Thon line 6 FBV case) and a Zilla 212 (K-100/V30) , SD powerstage 700 poweramp

  • Interesting phrase "isn't really the type of tweaking I'm referring to." Personally I think (and I bet most would agree) any change you save with your profile means that it's been tweaked (it's no longer just out of the box so to speak), but that's just semantics, not important. The only thing that's important is that you're having fun getting sounds you enjoy playing!

    Yeah totally agree its not important but my logic is in comparison to a tube amp. No one buys an amp and doesn't touch the eq or gain. Is volume tweaking? Hence why I would not really include it, its the basics.


    Tweaking for me has always been other parameters but yep its only about the fun and the sound :)

  • I have found my go to profiles that only needed minor bass, middle and treble adjustments. Sometimes I encrease the compression in the amp menu. That's it. If a profile would need more I simply would use a "better" one. Life is too short for not making music but turning knobs., imo.

    Better have it and not need it, than need it and not have it! - Michael Angelo Batio

  • For the performances I use there is no single profile which I did not tweak. As always, people have very different opinions what a good sound is for them. As a classic and hard rock, also blues and rock'n roll player, I do not like and do not need high gain profiles. I have some Marshall and Marshall clones profiles which mostly came with mid gain. I always put the gain down to hear a clean tone, with a bit of crunch soundings when turning guitar volume up. I use this as the basic sound and then tweak with gain, volume, booster and distortion effects to get the louder sounds I need, often using morphing. Also I like to boost the clean tone with a compressor. And then mostly I have the graphic EQ after the amp stack.


    But remember: it is always up to you, what you want, what you hear, what you are looking for. So, there is no general rule for all.