Kemper Profiles of Tonex Pedal vs Amp

  • First of all I'm not trying to bash the Kemper, I've been using it for years and it's one of my favorite devices. I especially love Rig Manager and how easy the Kemper is to use make Profiles.


    I have a Bogner Helios 100 and I have created several Profiles of this amp over the last two years. This amp has never been able to Profile "perfectly". I recently picked up a Tonex Pedal and the Tonex software. I created an Advanced Capture of the Helios and the Capture was closer to the amp than the Kemper Profiles have ever been. Practically indistinguishable from the amp. (hold on to any comments about Kempver vs. Tonex and keep reading)


    I tried Profiling the amp three separate times this morning, refining each one and the Kemper never Profiled as close as the Tonex software does.


    So... I created a Kemper Profile of the Tonex Capture directly from the Tonex pedal and it is a "perfect" match.


    I'm running all of these through the AXE III and I can A/B/C the Profile/AMP/Tonex Pedal all back to back to back via a MIDI pedal and the Profile of the Tonex pedal is just as good as the amp and just as good as the pedal. You cannot tell which one you are playing through.


    I also did the exact same experiment with a 2018 BE-100 and it's the same result, the Profiles of the Captures sound more like the amp than the Profiles of the physical amp.


    Why would the Kemper be able to Profile the Tonex Captures from the Tonex Pedal more accurately than the physical amp? Digital to digital?


    I encourage anyone who has a Tonex Pedal and a Kemper to Profile a few of your Captures directly from the Pedal if you don't believe me.


    Very interesting.

  • A couple guesses off the top of my head:


    1) The Kemper signal is very hot when profiling. On my amps, it drives them into ridiculous amounts of distortion and mud. Many digital units have some form of compression/Auto-Gain circuitry that may alleviate this hot signal. This may keep the frequency response closer to what an actual guitar will make.


    2) Profiling devices cant actually reproduce what an amp is doing to the Nth degree. There are 100's of components all interacting. All they can do is look at the freq response and distortion levels. These two metrics will define 95% of the sound.


    When the ToneX is playing back a capture, you are hearing its "version" of what the capture sounds like. The way it represents(plays back) the sound is probably much closer to how the Kemper will be producing the same sounds. So it is possible a capture could sound closer to the real amp.


    Think of it like the ToneX and Kemper speak the same language. The amp speaks some foreign tongue.

  • Did you make the Tonex captures with a microphone or with the amp output connected directly to the Tonex Capture device? If it was direct then you have cut the one big variable (cab miking) out of the equation. I think the quality of mic(s), outboard gear and miking technique is what separates really good Kemper profiles from just average Kemper profiles. Most of my profiles I have made of my own amps sound ok but I never use them. I'm simply sticking a SM57 in front of the cab straight in to the Kemper. Since the Tonex Capture can eliminate that and seems to do it quite well the Kemper is then able to make a faithful profile from that capture. That's my guess.


    It would be interesting to compare direct and miked captures on the Tonex of the same amp.

  • Just tried this and the results were very interesting.

  • Funny you say i only just found about the X today an went on rig exchange to see if any profiles of it up. Those dumble tones sound real good an im sick of kemper not getin the profiling right. Us with dog ears hear the mid wooly cardboard artifact that hangs around a profiled note. Im still trying to make profiles that sound real. Hey i would love DI profiles of that dumble? I have a modded tube powered kemper an i love the thing but tring to profile my sound, a matchless hotbox into a single ended amp sends me nuts. Kemper does not get the levels of the diff frequencies in a note right. The dynamics. Hey id love to have the dumble profile to check out?

  • I know what you mean...have you ever found a way to tame that? I haven't yet.

    Im into DI profiles only as I think a pro IR going to give me better that what i can make but profiling with a high watt speaker seems to help me. An there is a youtube of a guy showing a eq trick to clean it up. But It does not work on all profiles. For me I do not want to eq anything I want the amp as it should sound

  • Did you make the Tonex captures with a microphone or with the amp output connected directly to the Tonex Capture device? If it was direct then you have cut the one big variable (cab miking) out of the equation. I think the quality of mic(s), outboard gear and miking technique is what separates really good Kemper profiles from just average Kemper profiles. Most of my profiles I have made of my own amps sound ok but I never use them. I'm simply sticking a SM57 in front of the cab straight in to the Kemper. Since the Tonex Capture can eliminate that and seems to do it quite well the Kemper is then able to make a faithful profile from that capture. That's my guess.


    It would be interesting to compare direct and miked captures on the Tonex of the same amp.


    I made them direct from the Tonex Pedal.

  • I do not have all my normal gear as im travelling. But also in regard to your tone x wav in kempers refining process, maybe have a look neural amp capture. Seems better than tone x. The sounds do something kemper cant do an no woofiness. Maybe compare what you did with the tone x an the nueral capture? Id love too but dont have a tone x for starters

  • So... I created a Kemper Profile of the Tonex Capture directly from the Tonex pedal and it is a "perfect" match.

    I don't have a Tonex pedal, but find this idea really interesting, considering that there are so many great sounding Tonex profiles. Mind saying what routing you're using, and whether you think it'd be possible to create a Kemper profile from the Tonex plugin (rather than the capture pedal)?


    Thanks!

  • In principle, you can create a profile for any plugin. Details on the cabling of PC/Mac, sound card and Kemper can be found easily in the manual under "Creating profiles".

    Kemper Stage - Macbook Air 2017 - macOS Catalina 10.15.7 - Logic Pro X

  • As a side note, there is currently a ToneX Profile on Rig Exchange called "ToneX ODS Thick Blues". Just test it.

    Im on trial so it gives that hishhy sound every 30 seconds so you can profile it. NAM has some great ones to profile. Im enjoying the matchless spitfire wich was captured with a kemper DI too.

  • well, so, where these profiles from helios? 😂😂😂 i love this amp.


    nice job