Posts by joshriggs

I tweak everything constantly. I've always been that way with everything from tube amps to plugins to other modelers to my current Kemper Stage. That's just me.

I've found that with the Kemper, I rarely have to tweak a clean or edge-of-breakup amp. Maybe dial in some extra gain or presence. With high gain profiles, I have to tweak a lot.

Part of that is I have very specific sounds I'm after with high gain rhythm tones. I like a boosted amp for tight low end, but not too much gain. I want chug, but not grind or fizz. I like a little bit extra 500-700k mids, and a big punch in the face of upper mids. I want depth and thickness, but not boominess. Then for recording, I want two slightly different profile sounds to quad track with.

Then there is so much variation with most high gain amps. Take a newer Mesa Dual Recto for example. In addition to cabs and mics, there's the orange channel in raw, vintage, and modern modes, and the same for the red channel. There could be a boost in the profile, or maybe different power tubes. Holy shit, so many different settings that create so.many different profiles out of one amp. And Rectos in particular have a huge EQ range, so there's that too... Oy.

Also, I've found that the person profiling the amp makes a big difference. Michael Britt, for example, makes great clean and crunch profiles because that's what he plays mostly with his country band. His high gain profiles, like his 5150 III are ok for leads, and sound good in general, but you have to really dial in extra boost, definition, and input sense to make them chug. Other 5150 III profiles by people like Lars Luettge chug right out of the (virtual) box.

Anyways, all that to say that the whole "don't tweak a profile" thing just doesn't work for me. I wouldn't just pass on a tube amp if it didn't sound like I wanted it to without tweaking it, so why would I do the same with a profile?

You can tweak if you want to. You can leave your friends behind. If your friends don't tweak and if they don't tweak, then they're no friends of mine.

?

That does sound like a high cut issue (which you can also adjust globally in the Output block). Dial it to taste, but it sounds good to me in the 8-10k range.

Also, a lot of Kemper profiles are meant for recording, and high gain tones for recording often do sound fizzy when not in a full song mix. Do they still sound terrible withing the mix of a song?

Can you post some clips? It might be easier to diagnose.

One last thing - try turning down the clarity. I find that takes a lot of depth out of the profile.

I had the chance to compare the Kemper Stage and FM3 (which has the same sound engine as the Axe 3) for a week or so. The FM3 certainly had more modulation and drive pedal options, and the overall quality of modulation was better. I personally think Kemper reverb and delays are hands down better, though. But I care less about accurate recreation of classic delays and reverbs, and more about lushness and richness in tone.

Quote from Mladen1990

Greetings from Serbia!

So for some time I was debating on what to buy (Kemper, Helix LT or wait for the new Fractal FM3 to arrive in Europe). ...

I had the Helix LT for a year or so. Then I got an FM3 when I got my invitation, after being on the wait list for a year. Frankly, I think the FM3 was hot garbage compared to the Kemper Stage I now own. It just felt like a completely rushed and incomplete product. It sounded fine, but was a nightmare to use and program, and there was a major lag when switching between scenes. I ended up going with the Stage because I love it's approach to live performance mode, and because it sounded way more natural and real than the FM3. I think you definitely made a great choice.

+ 1 on this

Quote from lespauled

Why not just set the morph in reverse?

Here's a really common scenario:

I have a rig for high gain. I have a base version I use for big chords, and a morphed version that has a slight gain and treble boost, specifically for tight riffs. This is my standard high gain sound, but depending on the song (performance), maybe I use the morphed version more often. If I want to use that rig in all my performances, and I want to go from my clean rig to my tight riff heavy rig, that would require two foot taps.

User scenario:

Performance slot 1 is a clean tone with pedal I being assigned to a Delay.
Performance slot 2 is a crunch tone.

My song starts with a clean tone, which I play until the first verse. When the verse starts, I want the same tone, but with delay, so I engage pedal I. For the chorus, I have a dry crunch tone. But when I go back to the verse, I want the clean tone with delay again.

Currently, I would have to re-engage pedal I for Delay after I step on the slot 1 footswitch. Ideally, I have the option to set my performance to remember the on/off state of the pedals, so that when I step back on slot 1 from slot 2, the Delay pedal is still engaged.

Yes, I could just save a separate rig for the delay tone that is a copy of the clean tone, but with delay added. However, that adds more complexity and more effort to keep things organized.

Suggestion: Add a setting in the Rig, something along the lines of "Remember pedal states when in Performance Mode."

Interesting that you're blown away by the FM3. I had one for a few weeks and thought it was terrible. it does sound really good, but it's like they put absolutely no thought into the user experience of it other than "hey, let's give the AxeFX 3 a few footswitches and call it a day." It was completely useless without being hooked up to a computer for editing.

For me, FM3 edit was terrible in other ways, like how picking a cab was literally just a dump of 1000 IRs to scroll through, or how there was no way to organize groups of presets.

But this is just my experience, and by no means do I want to take away from yours. I happily sold mine for what I paid for it.

That Jevo 5150 III pack is sick. Also, the Lars Luettge factory pack has some really great sounding options.

When I had my Helix, I was constantly tweaking it because it always just sounded a bit flat. For the 3 weeks I had a Fractal FM3, I had to program it so much just to get it set up how I wanted it. Now that I have the Kemper Stage, I have a new problem - I have too many damn good rigs to choose from!

I play mostly instrumental post metal stuff, so I tend to gravitate towards higher gain amps with nice bite and upper mids. Howrver I also love clean, lush spacey tones, and a good modded Marshall sound for leads.

Just for high gain tones alone, there are some amazing factory rigs (5150, 5150III, Recto, Friedman). I've also bought some commercial rigs that are great. I can literally spend hours a day just tweaking tones because it's fun.

How the hell do you all just choose some rigs and get on with your lives? ???

I didn't think to have performances for recording, but that actually makes a lot of sense.

Quote from ToH2002

Wouldn't really want to browse through hundreds of rigs during a rehearsal, let alone during a gig...

Great advice. So delete all the extraneous rigs from the profiler itself? They're easy enough to reinstall.

Hi all! Brand new to the Kemper world. I've had a Stage for a couple weeks now and I'm finally starting to wrap my head around it. What are some tips for keeping rigs organized within the unit itself? With my local library on rig manager, I can set up folders for parent categories like Recording and Live, and dub categories like Clean, Pushed, Ambient, Riff, etc... Seems the only option for easy recall of my edited rigs is to favorite them, which gets to be a pretty big list after a while.

P.S. Loving my Kemper Stage so far. Before that, I was a Helix user for a while, and then "upgraded" to a Fractal FM3 that was basically hot garbage. The Kemper Stage is where it's at.