Harsh freq at around 2200 hz in all profiles - or is it just in all amps?

  • All good info - and thanks for posting those amp-stack EQ points, I'd seen them a while ago, and couldn't find them since!


    The only thing I wouldn't entirely agree with is "For high gain you should always use the EQ as PRE AMP" - I have experimented with the amp-stack as "pre" and never managed to get good results - not saying it can't be effective, but personally what I find works best is studio EQ before amp (and I find this needs to be kept fairly subtle or it takes all the life out of my pickups - and often, if the problem is that profile is a bit dull, the treble booster does a better job) - then use amp-stack EQ post amp to make broad strokes (again needs to be kept subtle, or it starts to sound unnatural - with the exception of the bass knob, which seems to be fine with quite large adjustments) - then, post amp/cab, more surgical EQ-ing to get rid of any muddy or harsh freq's and boost any sweet spots (which I do in the DAW with ProQ, but Kemper studio EQ in X slot would also work) - this is where I set up hpf/lpf too, hpf usually between 80 and 110hz, lpf usually between 6 or 8k. Many ways to skin a crocodile tho - if we all end up with a killer tone, it's all good!

  • The only thing I wouldn't entirely agree with is ...

    I can agree with everything you said. There is no perfect solution for every profile. I was being too general. I do that sometimes.


    I also usually run an EQ as first stomp, Pre/Post EQ, Treble Booster after amp, Studio EQ.


    My point with running the AMP EQ before gain is that it has less effect on the sound. So if those particular filter freqs are causing issues set it to PRE and flat to solve a lot of issues.


    Really some form of parametric EQ in the Amp section would be best case scenario. But I am not smart enough to know what phase errors you could create with it. May be why Kemper is using fixed values. So people cant possibly screw it up.


    "You setup some crazy filters on the Studio EQ and it sounds bad, that's on you brother. Turn it off. " - Kemper probably

  • just a bell curve with steep-ish Q and few db gain reduction, just enough to tame the harshness without killing the overall character of the sound. And I do think it most likely that this harshness is simply there in distorted amps, and typically does need cutting, similar to how there's always some "mud" around 250-300 hz. But if no-one else is hearing what I'm hearing at this freq range, then maybe it is my Kemper...

    these are very standard EQ adjustments of mic'ed amps that would happen in pretty much any mixing scenario.
    2-3k is a very sensitive area of the human hearing and the 250-300Hz area is where the muddy lo mids live.


    no amp goes on a track 'as is' - mixing engineers genrally don't care how much EQ they need to apply to make a sound work - and in my experience it's more than you think.
    In modern metal productions this gets even more extreme

  • This is going off topic a bit, but seeing as the my main question has been resolved, thought'd I'd add a bit more on this post/pre EQ thing, as I've been doing a bit more testing over the last few days.


    On profiles where I'd found Studio EQ very effective placed pre-amp/cab, I decided to see if I could get similar (or even better) results using the amp-stack EQ in "pre" mode instead. In every case tho, it didn't work anything like as well - for one, the studio EQ allows you to be much more precise, and also, the Prescense shelf in the amp-stack EQ doesn't seem to be of much use use pre-amp (tho it definitely is post amp).


    What I was more surprised about tho was this: as Studio EQ was clearly working much better than amp-stack EQ before the amp, I thought I'd better also try the Studio EQ post amp instead of the amp stack EQ - tbh I've never actually tried this before - have always just used amp-stack EQ, tho it has often bothered me that I might be being a little lazy here... However I found that post amp I much preferred the amp-stack EQ to studio EQ (which I was also quite relieved to find, otherwise, I'd feel compelled to re-EQ all my profiles!!). Why this is I'm not sure - you'd think Studio EQ would be inherently better due to being able to set it more precisely - but maybe the fact fact you have 2 high shelves in the amp-stack EQ (at 2.4k and 10k) is part of it, and/or all the EQ curves are just very well designed to suit the purpose. Whatever it is, having experimented with this makes me appreciate the amp-stack EQ even more - and have concluded I will stick to the formula of: Studio EQ (pre) --> amp-stack EQ (post) --> ProQ for filters and any surgical EQ-ing.


  • Hello, the same thing happens to me, in most of the rigs that I have (especially those with a lot of distortion), I hear that hiss that you mention. Is there any way to remove it without cutting that frequency?
    v


  • Hello, the same thing happens to me, in most of the rigs that I have (especially those with a lot of distortion), I hear that hiss that you mention. Is there any way to remove it without cutting that frequency?
    v

    have you tried the pure cab function in the output menu? It is a tool to reduce the sideeffect that a close microphoned cab produces.