Liquid Profiles

  • Hi, can you point me to whoever made this comment?


    My guess is that CK will also give the popular vendors, Bert M, MBritt, TJ etc, an advance opportunity to create new profiles meant to be paired with the initial Liquid stacks, and that Kemper won't be releasing its new firmware until it can offer a nice free rigpack of ready to go Liquid profiles that demonstrates its potential.

    I misremembered a bit - Armin from Soundside mentioned that his packs includes the settings the amps were profiled at, so I don't think he will update them; just that users have the ability to "liquify" them themselves :)

    Soundside Profiles - Liquid Profiling


    Deadpan from Livereadysound is planning to update packs: [LRS] Would You Rather Have Studio or Direct Amp Liquid Profiles?

  • What if the amp doesn't have a gain knob. My Bassman, AC30, DR, and Marshall, don't have a "Gain" knob. They have volume knobs. I like turning up the "Volume" to overdrive those amps. My Bassman sounds amazing cranked up. The amp goes crazy, It sags more, the louder you crank it up. That's what I would want. I don't like fake gain that acts like a distortion pedal. Is that what it's going to do? I don't know how, because of the way all of the components and speakers react to the volume change is part of it. That would be awesome.

    I'm not an amp designer or tech so I could be wrong but my understanding is that in the scenario you describe the Volume knob is the "gain" knob. The power amp is constantly running flat out so you are just adding "gain" with the volume knob. On a "master volume" amp you are usually adding a second gain (volume) control just before the power amp to restrict the signal level hitting the final stage.

  • Soundside mentioned that his packs includes the settings the amps were profiled at

    Thanks and yes, that's cool.

    I fall in to the I'm already getting stellar tones camp. And I've never been a profile surfer. I own a bunch but in the end I use my few favorites, usually over the span of years. But that said, everything the Kemper folks introduce along the way, each new feature, often novel not simply replicating the analog universe, it always provides a spark of inspiration, and helps make things a bit new again. I don't think a guitarist has to "need" Liquid Profiles for the feature to provide a new opportunity for creative discovery and surprise. Looking forward to it.

  • There will still be a reason to make multiple Studio Profiles of an amplifier. Microphone choice and placement will continue to have a great influence on the sound of Good

    Good point.


    The mic choice, yes. But as for mic placement, I see that more like an eq, than something that is worth the effort of capturing many mic positions and putting them into one "liquid cab" ... like in the new cabs from Line6 or fractal.

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

  • Good point.


    The mic choice, yes. But as for mic placement, I see that more like an eq, than something that is worth the effort of capturing many mic positions and putting them into one "liquid cab" ... like in the new cabs from Line6 or fractal.

    Man, I'd LOVE to see Liquid Cabs!

    Or even just incorporating a number of cab profile choices within a single profile


    I think the mic placement for me would be much more relevant that mic choice, due to comb filtering etc. Can't EQ that stuff out!

  • There will still be a reason to make multiple Studio Profiles of an amplifier. Microphone choice and placement will continue to have a great influence on the sound of a profile.

    I agree with you and don't want to play with EQ to do this but i don't think it's done for the moment....


    * removed by mod * i don't think that profiles sellers are playing with this criteria....

    There are already lots of profiles to change bass/mid/treble/gain button position, changing channels, vibrato, etc, put a drive/boost/disto in front of the amp, eventually they change the speaker ; creamback to greenback, etc... But i think they have/had a protocol with a particulary kind of microphone and exactly the same position/angle to have a repetitive and reliable process.


    As Liquid profiles will be able to reduce rigs number, i assume this could be an opportunity to work on that ?!

  • That's a lot of the classics covered already, at just half of the total of about 40 models CK mentioned.

    On the other hand, plenty of brands are still missing from what we've seen: Peavey, Mesa/Boogie, Orange, Dumble, Bogner, Soldano, Engl, Diezel... Some of those will undoubtedly be among the remaining 20, but with normal and bright variants included, maybe 40 won't feel like that much after all. :/ Still, definitely a good start, those Marshalls alone – sorry, Marses – are enough to keep me happy.

    There will still be a reason to make multiple Studio Profiles of an amplifier. Microphone choice and placement will continue to have a great influence on the sound of a profile.

    Exactly, the value of a profile set will be more in the skill and resources (mics, cabs...) of the maker than in their patience to go through every combination of knob increments.


    Of course, thanks to Merged Profiles, even a badly mic'ed amp can be saved by switching to a better cab section. Merged and Liquid Profiles together make me much more confident that I'd be able to make a usable profile myself, even without any experience or expensive gear.

  • Could anyone at Kemper comment on whether "liquid profiling", as it relates to the tone controls, will be:


    1) a customised EQ "overlay", with EQ points and curves matching the real amp, which is placed either before or after the amp section - hence the same as the current EQ options except with customised EQ points/curves


    or 2) - something "deeper"


    ?

  • For all the heat we send Kemper's way , I want to thank them for committing to a product for over 12 years with free updates and give us absolute amazing ROI. We rag on you guys because we want things yesterday, but we do want to say thank you for not obsoleting our product and forcing us to continually spend money upgrading.

  • Are you using an attenuator or are these loud tube amps that you're talking about?

    First, unfortunately, I don't use these amps much as they're loud as F*** at their sweet spot. (It's why I have the Kemper)I did build and install a Variable Voltage Regulator (VVR) circuit in my AC30 which is kind of an attenuator. But what I'm saying is old amps don't have a master volume control, so no Gain, drive, or preamp knob. They’re clean amps, you have to turn the volume up to get overdrive. So, the "Gain" knob on the Kemper for a bassman, or Deluxe Reverb, or AC30 would be the profiled amp's volume knob? Those amps sound great with the volume down low and they’re clean, AND in the middle with just a bit of breakup, the AND with the volume way up distorting the tubes. With that though the actual volume goes way, way, painfully up. That right now would require three separate profiles. But on the amp, the only knob you would have touched is the one volume knob. The Kemper cannot work that way because those amps don't have a distortion knob, where the output volume stays the same but the overdrive goes up. Would the "gain" knob simulate what the volume knob does, but without actual volume? But to do that it would be a "modeled" gain, overdrive(whatever you call it) It would no longer be a Profile of the actual gain of that amp at that volume? Wouldn't the profile be a better example of the amp not a simulated/model of the sweep of the volume pot? That after all is why WE feel profiling sounds better. Right?

  • First, unfortunately, I don't use these amps much as they're loud as F*** at their sweet spot. (It's why I have the Kemper)I did build and install a Variable Voltage Regulator (VVR) circuit in my AC30 which is kind of an attenuator. But what I'm saying is old amps don't have a master volume control, so no Gain, drive, or preamp knob. They’re clean amps, you have to turn the volume up to get overdrive. So, the "Gain" knob on the Kemper for a bassman, or Deluxe Reverb, or AC30 would be the profiled amp's volume knob? Those amps sound great with the volume down low and they’re clean, AND in the middle with just a bit of breakup, the AND with the volume way up distorting the tubes. With that though the actual volume goes way, way, painfully up. That right now would require three separate profiles. But on the amp, the only knob you would have touched is the one volume knob. The Kemper cannot work that way because those amps don't have a distortion knob, where the output volume stays the same but the overdrive goes up. Would the "gain" knob simulate what the volume knob does, but without actual volume? But to do that it would be a "modeled" gain, overdrive(whatever you call it) It would no longer be a Profile of the actual gain of that amp at that volume? Wouldn't the profile be a better example of the amp not a simulated/model of the sweep of the volume pot? That after all is why WE feel profiling sounds better. Right?

    As I said above. The word gain is not the same a ‘distortion’ but simply volume. It doesn’t matter how many knobs the amp has increasing the gain/volume will drive the amp harder and the sound will change. How it changes will vary from amp to amp but it will vary and the Kemper will capture it at the moment. It is my understanding that this will remain the case with liquid profiling. There shouldn’t be any need to model anything even with a one knob amp. In this case I would simply expect the Volume knob on the amp to translate as Gain knob on Kemper as the power amp is always running flat out on these amps and the Volume lnob is what other amps call gain.

  • My guess is that the definition function and the drives/fuzz machines show us what to expect.


    And again most folks will love it. Some will not. It was never easy to be an "adult guitar player" anyway.

  • First, unfortunately, I don't use these amps much as they're loud as F*** at their sweet spot. (It's why I have the Kemper)I did build and install a Variable Voltage Regulator (VVR) circuit in my AC30 which is kind of an attenuator. But what I'm saying is old amps don't have a master volume control, so no Gain, drive, or preamp knob. They’re clean amps, you have to turn the volume up to get overdrive. So, the "Gain" knob on the Kemper for a bassman, or Deluxe Reverb, or AC30 would be the profiled amp's volume knob? Those amps sound great with the volume down low and they’re clean, AND in the middle with just a bit of breakup, the AND with the volume way up distorting the tubes. With that though the actual volume goes way, way, painfully up. That right now would require three separate profiles. But on the amp, the only knob you would have touched is the one volume knob. The Kemper cannot work that way because those amps don't have a distortion knob, where the output volume stays the same but the overdrive goes up. Would the "gain" knob simulate what the volume knob does, but without actual volume? But to do that it would be a "modeled" gain, overdrive(whatever you call it) It would no longer be a Profile of the actual gain of that amp at that volume? Wouldn't the profile be a better example of the amp not a simulated/model of the sweep of the volume pot? That after all is why WE feel profiling sounds better. Right?

    If I understand your question, you are asking if the tonestacks will replicate how the volume works on these amps (which effectively overdrive the amp at volume) whereas now the volume knob acts as a volume knob? I think the answer is...we don't know.


    The hope is yes because the tone stack will minic the impact of volume on gain ( even though the original does not have a gain control), but the emphasis seems to have been on tone interaction. Maybe Kemper can comment?


    It also depends if the amps are included in the 40 they have created the presets for I suppose ?

  • IMO, the Tonestack will replicate exactly your amp's board and behaviors when you touch at a button. It was the original criticism...


    In TJ vid, you can see that the few parameters we see, some turns greyed when he changes amp sims....

    I assume an amp with only two buttons wil be replicate with only two parameters allowed...

  • IMO, the Tonestack will replicate exactly your amp's board and behaviors when you touch at a button. It was the original criticism...


    In TJ vid, you can see that the few parameters we see, some turns greyed when he changes amp sims....

    I assume an amp with only two buttons wil be replicate with only two parameters allowed...

    Specifically, the BrightCap parameter turns grey for "Nrm" models and is enabled for "Brt" or "Topbst" ones. But yes, it will be interesting to see how models will be made for amps that don't have the classic "Gain/Bass/Mid/Treble" knob set. My old red Carlsbro GLX 150T head has five tone knobs!


    Michael_dk Check the YouTube video (it goes up to 4K so you can read the Kemper Stage screen clearly).


    For those willing to speculate, here are the parameters visible:


    Button 1Button 2Button 3Button 4
    Restore GainRestore Amp ModelRestore EQBurn (long press)
    0.0[see list]10.0Off
    Generic GainAmp ModelBrightCap Int.Gain Pot Ref.
    Knob 1Knob 2Knob 3Knob 4
  • Thanks! Much appreciated! :)