A bunch of questions regarding flexibility

    I have been playing for many years, have had gear in all shapes and sizes so buttons and manuals don't bother me. However I have some questions I thought that could be easily answered here.

    There are some amps that are out of production that people have made profiles of that make very very interested. In my case for one example is the Mesa Boogie F100 amp with profiling available on Choptones.

    https://www.choptones.com/prod…ogie-f100-kemper-profiles

    So I want to recreate "my sound". I have a Mesa Boogie F50 going through a Celestion C90 Black Shadow but there are profiles that exist for the 100 watt version on the Choptones site. Dirty channel from 50 to 100 watts with the greater headroom is obviously highly desirable.

    Now on the Choptones website they list:

    - 10x cabinets
    - 7x mics

    - 8x overdrive pedals

    I'm presuming:
    1. These are the pieces of equipment used to profile the amp?
    2. You can combine any one of these items to get the tone you want?

    If this is true then I can't use other overdrives and cabinet impulse responses?

    or

    These items are added to my library of digital items I can mix and match with as I like in a Kemper?

    There is also the idea that the F series of Mesa Boogie have a "Contour" mode and Spring reverb built in. I'm guessing the spring reverb just isn't there and the Contour mode is on whether or not the person profiling the amp decided to have it on or off? Personally I hated it, it was a preset and locked V curve EQ after the preamp like their Mark Series. No sliders. But it instantly scooped everything into sounding like a pastiche of Nu Metal.

    So I'm going to let my imagination go wild and ask if I can do the craziest thing I can think of:

    Guitar > Volume pedal (kemper? regular?) > Kemper > Kemper Profile my Analogman Silver modded Tubescreamer > Kemper Noise gate (I'm guessing it's just their own one?) > Choptones Mesa Boogie F100 preamp - Contour Switch OFF > MXR 10 Band EQ in effects loop > Virtual Power Amp - Experiment with VHT, Soldano - Mesa Boogie etc. > Split into stereo signal for two cabs. One being a Mesa Boogie Widebody with a C90 and a Diezel 4x12 with Celestion K100's. Mics SM57 and Rode NT1A

    So how much of this is immediately, easily or compromisably possible?

    Is it just the case of swapping out different things in the signal chain or does the software lump things together when profiles are made? These things are very important because cabinets wise I hate vintage 30's and only like certain speakers. The same with overdrive pedals.

    Thanks for any responses. Kempers make so much sense in many ways but I keep hearing people say things like "I tried a bunch of premium packs I didn't like but tried free ones I loved". Which makes me think, not all Kemper profiles of the same amp are made equally to the same standards or fidelity..... But if I really can create my dream rig in a kemper then recording and doing a ton of other things became very easy. Including rehearsing and gigging ideally too. Things get stolen really easily during shows, less stuff means it's loads easier to keep your eyes on things.

    Many thanks

    The pedals and speakers are "baked" into the rig during profiling, so you can't use them independently of the rig.


    You can still apply other distortion Stomps or use physical stompboxes. The flexibility is massive.

    What are you using now to get "your sound"? Have you ever mic'd up your cab to go to FOH? If you did then that's all you need to do to get your sound into the Kemper. You can still use your own stomps in front of the Kemper too if you wish.

    Larry Mar @ Lonegun Studios. Neither one famous yet.

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    Quote from Finally

    The pedals and speakers are "baked" into the rig during profiling, so you can't use them independently of the rig.


    You can still apply other distortion Stomps or use physical stompboxes. The flexibility is massive.

    Does that mean the settings for the amp and the pedals are baked in too? So no tweaking of overdrive or amp settings, what you get is what you get?

    Or does the amp just approximate everything and creates some sort of modern amp interface to play with the tone? So you profile the amp and whatever you profile settings wise it estimates where everything is on your Treble, Middle, Bass, Presence etc?

    My dry signal is currently Guitar>Analogman Tubescreamer>MXR Smart Gate>Preamp Mesa F50>MXR 10 Band EQ>Mesa F50 6l6 Poweramp> Mesa C90 Open Back Cab

    If the smart gate is engaged during the profiling does it factor that in easily or do you have to profile with the noise gate off?

    Why is it they won't let you profile each element separately? Too much data on the internal storage? Too RAM intensive?

    Do you imagine the tech is going to reach the standards mentioned or hinted at in this thread or someone else is already doing it? I'm not as up to date on the guitar tech world as I used to be with modelling having taken such a gigantic leap forward.

    Choptones do DI packs, so you could grab the DI pack of that amp, and then find some 3rd party IR's of the speaker/cab you want. Actually, I far prefer this method over trying to find a studio profile where everything (amp/speaker/cab/mic/mic position) all happens to be set up exactly as you want, and in a way that suits your pickups. e.g. I've got several Choptones studio packs, and not found a single sound I liked in any of them... However, using their DI profiles (paired with mainly Celestion IR's) I have some of the very best sounds on my Kemper. Just gives you far more control over the exact sound you're after, which seems to be what you want.


    Also, I really wouldn't get hung up on 50w vs 100w, or different models of the same amp - in fact often I find the sound I'm looking for from one amp from a completely different one! e.g. never quite found the mid-gain JCM 800 crunch I was after in any JCM 800 pack(and I've tried tons!) - but recently bought a pack of Laney GH50R DI profiles (from Choptones actually) and, combined with a G12M65 IR, at last the JCM800-style tone I've been searching for since I first got my Kemper!


    btw I have a thread on this section of the forum about DI's plus IR's if you want to read a bit more about that approach.

    btw, I think TMS profiles have a Mesa F50 - with multiple cabs, but also DI profiles if you want to combine with IR's, so very versatile - not tried this particular pack, but have got great tones from some of their other packs (and they're all very cheap) so this one might be worth checking out too

    You can tweak the profile, but not the overdrive or amp individually if they're baked in.


    There is no attempt to simulate the profiled amp's interface. A profile is a snapshot of the amp at specific settings. It makes no attempt to estimate where an amp's settings might be. The bass, middle, treble and presence controls function the same way across profiles. If you think about it, mimic'ing the tonestack would be a pain. Each amp behaves very differently. A Fender, Marshall, Boogie...etc....they all react differently.

    What's more, something like an AC30 doesn't even have a middle control. Some Boogies have a 5 band slider (or two in the case of a Petrucci model). Some amps have bright switches, some don't......on and on.


    There is no practical way to keep track of that on a per-amp basis. The user experience would be a total nightmare.


    An important distinction is that the Profiler is not a modeler. It uses a very different technology. Modelers imitate every component in an amp digitally and assemble them to create an approximation. The Profiler takes a snapshot of the real amp at that moment in time with whatever settings the amp has. That's why you'll see several profiles of the same amp. Some like a Deluxe Reverb mostly clean.....other situations call for the same amp to be on-the-boil. YMMV.

    You can profile dirt boxes by themselves, but then they'd occupy the Amp block. In truth, you don't need to bother. The Kemper Drive and Kemper Fuzz stomps let you dial up just about any overdrive/fuzz sound you can imagine.


    Yeah - there is a learning curve with all of this. That's unavoidable. You can't treat it like a regular amp, or even like a modeler. It's easy to work with, but takes some exploration to sort it out.

    “Without music, life would be a mistake.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

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