As a fellow new user who also had high expectations going in, you've made a considerably wise decision. Have fun!
Posts by RiffDuck
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What can you tell me about the rhythm vs lead pairings? Is the rhythm no boost or just less boost?
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I'm confused, as far as I'm aware In Flames use high gain amps like 5150s, 6505s and ENGLs. I'm not sure those will be "less heavy" than a rectifier.
Have you tried putting a boost in front of the amp and lowering the amp gain to clean up the tone? Drive at 0, tone and level to taste.
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Thank you for the suggestions!
It's my favorite mic and usually quite popular, so I was surprised that more profilers weren't using it.
That being said, just after posting this I learned that you can swap out cabinets and use IRs as well. Somehow I had NO idea that was a feature on the Kemper. My mind is blown, and this post is now irrelevant, lol.
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Pretty straight forward question. I'm new to the game, but the profilers I've checked out so far (reampzone, sinmix, cililab) mostly use a 57, but I haven't come across any that regularly use a Royer 121 or any other low-end mics.
Any recommendations?
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I agree with you that many boosted high gain profiles have way too much gain. Even if I lower dist sense to 0 there's still too much. Just becuase you can crank that much gain doesn't mean there's a point doing it. And on most high gain tracks we love the gain is much lower than most guitarists beIieve it is. The updated driver pedal is very good. But I still like to use my own OD's too. I have both a Ibanez TS9 and a Maxon TS9. The latter has more bite.
I haven't had much success with the built in "green scream" or whatever it's called, I only tried it for a couple of minutes but it felt too... amp sim to me. Do people here generally consider it accurate? I might have to give it another shot.
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My favourite parameter too mate, by a mile.
Amazing what you can achieve using just Definition and the Stack EQ. These, along with the Cabinet parameters, have the greatest effect on tone without changing the Cabinet IMHO.
I'm guilty of dumbing things down to the simplest M.O. possible (IMHO), which for me is:
Quick ballpark shaping
Tweak Definition
Adjust Stack EQ (if necessary)
Still not quite there?
Adjust Pick parameter
Raise Amp Compression a touch for a creamier / smoother playing feel
Add a bit of Sag for a more-vintage playing feel
Beyond this point I start to seriously consider switching Rigs. If feeling adventurous I'll hit the Cab settings once in a blue moon, but I'm more likely to move on to another Rig. Life's too-short.
I'm the same way, which is probably why I prefer the Kemper over the AFX - I prefer the simplicity of a handful of small tweaks as opposed to spending months trying to perfect one single tone like it's a masters thesis.
So far I've had the same process for almost every profile:
Lower gain for clarity
Lower mid EQ about 1.5-2
Standard LP/HP in post EQ
Adjust definition to taste, depending on what I need the tone for
The sliiiightest adjustments to the cabinet high/low parameters, maybe 0.2 either direction, they're super sensitive.
If that doesn't put me in ballpark, I also just move on to the next!
Being that I love medium-high gain, I think the only trouble I've had is finding that perfect balance between overdriven tone and the amp's distortion. The boosted profiles I've found seem to always have the boost cranked all the way, so there is little balance. I keep finding myself going back to an unboosted tone and throwing in my own TS9 or Maxon so I can ease them in to where they need to be. If that makes sense. Perhaps I should play with the compression levels a little more.
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I purchased Nailbombs second hand and was dissapointed. Too plat and thin sound. Sold them and purchasedLundgren M6 set instead and was happy with. Each to his own liking.
And some pickups sounds great in one guitar and awful in the next. Sometimes you need go thru many pickups before you find the right ones.This is very true! It's often a long, painful process nobody really warns you about the more tone conscious you become
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this with bare knuckle juggernaut
How do you like the Juggernauts? I have Nailbombs in one of mine, and LOVE them. The cleanest, tightest pickups I've ever played. I've chosen the Juggernauts for my other guitar but haven't ordered them yet.
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I haven;t experienced the same problem but.....I think like any high end amp, the KPA isn;t very forgiving and will show up the true nature of your guitar, cabs etc.
I ran ENGL's before and they are also not very forgiving and i had similar problems. I suspect (but don't know) that the Axe and Helix are the same....
The Axe does bring out discrepancies in your pickups/signal chain, but not the same way in which the Kemper does. At least in my experience. With the Axe it's more about whether you have an optimized signal to make the best use out of rather than whether your signal "sounds good" in a traditional sense. It also has so many parameters that a less-optimized signal chain is easier to work around. But aside from that I did feel that the Axe was much more forgiving to sloppy playing, in my opinion. The Kemper is the opposite; you hear your mistakes loud and clear, much more like a real amp.
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Welcome to the group!
Thank you! I've been having a freaking ball with this thing. So far my favorite amps have been reampzone's 5150 pack, and aside from general EQ I personally find the definition knob to be the most crucial parameter. But I'm still learning exactly how to utilize the other parameters.
No real reason to share all that, I'm just excited over how much I love this thing.
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Late to the party, but this thread is strange to read. I came from being an Axe owner, and spent the better part of this year "battling" with it and making frustrated posts like this on their forum, because I couldn't understand why everyone else was happy with their tones but it sounded awful to me. Now, I'm on the other side of the road with the Kemper. It sounds incredible to me, and it's somewhat crazy to me that someone else would not think so, but now I can empathize with them over how frustrating it can be to battle with something everyone else seems to praise.
It seems with all these amp modeling/profiling units you either love them right away, need to earn a phD in order tweak them enough to love them, or they just don't work for you altogether and you move to another one. That's just the name of the game I guess.
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Welcome! A lot of pro profilers have free samples to try out. Start with tone junkie, he leans more to low/med gain stuff. Sweet old Marshall, Fender,Vox and many more. Has great youtube channel. Have fun
Thank you for the suggestions!
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I need to throw this in as well: try lowering the Pure Cabinet (on profile or global). I have mine set globally to 0.4, any more than that and I feel like the profiles "deaden .
What exactly does the "pure cabinet" setting do?
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I've only had about 20ish hours on my Kemper, but I second that you might need to find a vendor that you like the style of. I purchased/accumulated several 5150, 6505+, and Friedman B100 profiler packs and for the most part only found the profiles made by reampzone to be the sound I was looking for, that felt like a tube amp (I recommend their 5150 6L6 pack for anyone looking). There were a couple packs that, like you said, had that "thin" feel to them, like they're modeled after practice amps. I found myself thinking "shoot, I wasted money on those". But I'm sure someone else thought they were perfect or fit well in the mix.
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I cannot believe how good this thing sounds. How do you people even sleep at night?
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The front inset amount should be relatively the same no matter the depth - from rack model to rack model. Who cares what the back looks like. Stuff your cables back there in the extra space like everyone else does.
I'm digging your positivity. Nevermind then, I think it'll still look great! Thanks for the response
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Thanks everyone! I've been having a blast with it. I was planning on asking for profile suggestions, but the exchange section has thousands to choose from that are actually pretty good.
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Hey everyone!
So I just got my Kemper profiler rack, but before I ordered it I had ordered a custom rack case from Casesmith Customs, but chose its depth based on a different unit I had originally planned on buying before the Kemper won me over. It was too late to have it adjusted for the Kemper, so it's going to have a total of an 11" depth.
Having never bought a rack case before, and with the Kemper being only like, 7.5" in depth, is this going to look super ridiculous?
Anyone with a Casesmith Customs case for their Kemper able to let me know how much extra space I should expect to deal with in the back?
Thank you!
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Hey everyone!
So I was on the waitlist for a new competitor unit, but figured I'd try Pepsi out before further investing in Coke, if you get what I mean. Well my profiler rack just came today, and man, this thing rocks. I can't imagine there being anything else that provides tones this authentic outside of a gazillion dollar studio, it just sounds incredible. I know I have a lot of learning to do, and so far all I've figured out how to do is rifle through the community profiles and play/save ones I like, but I am SO excited about this. I do feel like a bit of a turncoat, but I'm happy to be joining the Kemper family for good.
So hello to all of you!
