Profiling an Amp - what are you getting? A sound or an amp?

  • Apologies for what is prob well understood by most users - I did a bit of searching and watched a few vids…


    Just received my 1st Kemper (Stage) after drooling for years. When I profile an amp am I getting the specific sound being profiled or the full range of the amp; tone controls, master - non-master, cut controls etc.?


    TIA!

    Russell

  • Hi, Russell.


    Welcome to the community and congratulations on getting your PROFILER Stage.


    You are getting a sound - like a snapshot of your amp/speaker cabinet/microphone with the settings on the amp, when you profiled it.

    (not the full range of the amp; tone controls, master - non-master, cut controls etc.) However, you can get some very useful adjustments even if they are not emulations of the controls on the amp.

  • Hi and welcome ! :)


    You get the amp settings at that moment (a " snap shot" ) but it is tweak able to a certain degree afterwards 8)



    Cheers !

    The adjective for metal is metallic. But not so for iron ... which is ironic.

  • as others have said, you get a snapshot of a certain setting of the amp and speaker. However, it is worth noting that you also get the Mic(s) and any mic preamps/eq/mixing desk settings in the chain. So you can get a snapshot of a fully produced tone not just a raw amp. Many of the great guitar tones we are familiar with on recordings are heavily dependent on the post amp signal chain.

  • I don't like the term "snap shot". I prefer "copy". When you profile an amp, you create a copy of the amp as it sounds coming from a microphone and with the specific amp EQ and gain settings you used to create the copy. Once you have that copy of the "mic'd amp" in Kemper, you can shape the sound even further to your liking with Kemper EQs and Gain, etc.


    The important thing to remember is that every guitar you ever heard in a recorded song (from radio, streams, movies, etc) is the sound of a mic'd amp with it's specific EQ and Gain setting. You never hear the actual amp's cab on a recording.

    Larry Mar @ Lonegun Studios. Neither one famous yet.

  • The important thing to note is that You do the profile and the refine (play loud chords etc). Then you have a few adjustments available that can make that profile sound even better than the amp.


    In the AMP section you want to pay attention to the DEFINITION control. This will add/remove some of the bass from the signal BEFORE it goes into the amp section. Low settings for Clean Fender type bass and High for tight high gain amps. This should be the first thing to adjust.


    If you are doing clean amps you will want to add a little compression to even out the dynamics of the amp. This tries not to color the sound. Use the Compressor stomp to add some color (also useful for clean and slightly dirty). Use the Michael Britt settings (all dials on 12-1 o'clock) and adjust the mix to taste.

    I usually like to play around with the AMP CLARITY setting next to remove some hair on the sound and then use the AMP MIX to add a little clean sound to fatten up. Use small amounts of mix.


    Then you can adjust the CABINET hi/low and character to put the amps fizz in the right frequency range and make your speaker sound larger or smaller. Then I tweak the CHARACTER if the sound sounds too muffled or it in a tube. Lower to get rid of frequency effects of cab/mic.


    Then add a TREBLE BOOSTER after the amp if you want some extra presence and boost. Mix at a low value (5-20%) and adjust tone to get the presence you want.


    Add a graphic or studio EQ in the first stomp slot and you can dial in the sound even more. This tweaks what hits your amp front end so you can adjust it to tweak the pickup sound or boost the mids to get thicker gain from the amp.


    You should now have a sound that is even better than the real amp and you have not even played with effects, post amp EQ, etc


    Cheers

  • The important thing to remember is that every guitar you ever heard in a recorded song (from radio, streams, movies, etc) is the sound of a mic'd amp with it's specific EQ and Gain setting. You never hear the actual amp's cab on a recording.

    Well ... not really ... How about lined guitars into mix desk, guitars into preamps -> into mix desk, Guitar into LA2A Comp / Limiter -> mix desk,

    Rockman™ . Line 6 POD´s and other modeller´s and sim´s .... Acoustic guitars ....


    I know what you mean and I dont want to mark words , but that was a bit far out 8o



    Happy New Year !

    Cheers !

    The adjective for metal is metallic. But not so for iron ... which is ironic.

  • What about guitars straight into interface and into DAW plugin? ;) In the end they are all trying to mimic the mic'd cab sound.

    Larry Mar @ Lonegun Studios. Neither one famous yet.