Posts by Guitartone

Lets face it, most high gain amps with gain on 8, 9, or 10 are in
distortion saturation mode, a lot of the nuances are lost anyway.

As a test I like lowering the gain on the high gain Profiles from lets say 8 to 4 or 5...that's where the Kemper distortion really makes you smile...I'm a believer in lowering the gain improves the tone.

The most impressive thing for me about the Kemper is the organic neutral EQ of the distortion...never heard a modeller that comes close (haven't tried an Axe-FX)...nevermind a modeller, the distortion sounds better than many tube amps or boutique distortion pedals I've tried.
I can't stand the "honk" (think TS9) I hear on most modellers, like the amp was miked in a tunnel (think Pod 1 and 2)...not so with the KPA, no honk, open and airy is how I'd describe it with a transparent EQ.

The sweep on the EQ knobs and Gain knob is special.
They don't go from 1 to 10, they go from 1 to 100...every movement no matter how small makes a difference.
Sometimes I crank the Mids on a Fender Profile to 10, you would think disaster, not so, it becomes a new amp, some kind of hybrid Fender.
Sometimes a Profile is accurate but lifeless (think of a real Fender Blackface amp with volume on 2 ), turn up the Treble and Presence knobs and it jumps to life, add the Compressor pedal up front and kaboom, magic, maybe 15 seconds of tweaking.

I forgot what we were talking about....remind me?

Quote from CrossHairSB

Thanks for the encouragement guitartone. If you are like me... I usually play the same licks over n over ROFL!! And they are usually Buckethead licks. Now if and when I am satisfied with these ... I then call the modeller a success LOL.

Hey how is the feedback with profiles?

I was trying one of the new profiles yesterday, think it was one of the JVM ones, or an Engl...can't remember.
It was basically in permanent feedback, take both hands off the guitar and it slowly starts feeding back, or leave the guitar on a stand and walk away and it starts playing itself.
I like turning the noise gate to zero, even on the extremely high gain rigs the noise level is very low, but the noise gate can give you total silence if that's what you want, without having much affect on the tone.

The Compressor stomp is fantastic...if you're on the edge of feedback turn on this Compressor and you're there, instantly.

Quote from guitarnet70

....and if it is palm muted with what should you press finish? The headstock? ...or are we supposed to play naked?

That's why G-d gave you a nose, he wanted you to use it to press the "finish" button on your Kemper.

Play the muted power chords, don't mute the last power chord, whilst it's still sustaining press "Finish".

Seems logical to me that you should play lead lines all over the neck so the Kemper can pick up all the frequencies it needs for accuracy.

Quote from JonG

Hello Lance, I didn't recognise you with your new name

Don't worry, it's not your blurb that I based my decision on it's the various Kemper interviews on youtube and the sales blurb in the brochures etc that made me pull the trigger. Hopefully a good decision

Jon

I used my TGP name, mistake. ..should have gone with CrazyD.

Jon, you've been miking amps for years, you've always done a great job.
I even remember when you mic'd that little mini Marshall MS2 of yours and got a killer tone.
You'll be making killer Profiles, I have no doubt.

I've got a guitarist down here, big time pro, who wants to make a Profile of the Mesa Dual Rectifier and DrZ Route66 he uses to record.
The engineer reckons, why not, mike both amps, send the mike's into a mixer, mixer into Kemper, blend the mike levels/positions until both amps sound good together, and Profile....basically you'll have a dual amp in one profile....so anything is possible.

Quote from guitarnet70

Off course he is!!! Ask OIO......

loool, that dude gives me an ulcer.

Excellent review, Daniel...and excellent clips.

Even though you're not an official "pioneer", you are Pioneer #1 in my books.

Quote from guitarnet70

...neee, more like this one:

[Blocked Image: http://www.designtopnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/electric-green-porsche-car-concept_designtopnews3.jpg]

Nothing compares to that, not even the Kemper 111.

Quote from mDan

It's the fractal forum, what do you expect It would be the other way round here
If I post "BMW is better" in a mercedes forum ... of course - there will be bashing

So if the KPA captures 99% of the tube amps tone is it 74,25% as good as the Axe II.

q.e.d.

But what if you profile the AxeII and make it better sounding after refining with EQ tweaks etc.... is it then 120% better then an axe2 and tube amps are only 62,5% as good?

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If you post BMW is better on the Mercedes forum then you deserve to be bashed.

BMW = Axe-FX11, Kemper = Mercedes.

Quote from sheguitarplayer

One of the things that Mr Kemper has made quite clear is that the KPA has problems profiling some modellers. It may be that the axefx is one of these.
The other thing is that in profiling a modeller you are in effect copying a copy (2nd generation copy).
There was always gonna be a furore over on the axefx forum.
One of the reasons I was quietly satisfied when I finally sold my 1st generation axefxs and went back to tube amps was my embarrassment at the forum behaviour over there. (guilt by association) .
Anything new that came out would be met with a mixture mass panic and/or utter derision. It was almost as if the thought process was like 'OMG something new has come out. Maybe my axefx isn't the best anymore. What will I do? OMG OMG OMG!!.
Used to embarrass me and also to take a lot of the glowing comments about the axefx with a pinch of salt. Nowadays this is another of the things they are now bashing reviews about any other product about. Don't get me wrong I liked the axefx, at the time it probably was the best modeller around, but after the eleven rack and the pod HD came out the gap was closing fast, hence axefx2.
If you believe the hype over there (and this is one of the things they use to whip ppl with nowadays) the axefx was at 95% of a tube amp at firmware 7 of the 1st gen units.Yet every time a new firmware update comes out Cliff is a genius, has raised the ballgame etc.
Surely by now the real tube amps sound about 75% as good as an axefx 2!

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+ 1000

Armin

Well done for sorting out the volumes on the clips.

You clearly say that on some of the Profiles you got close and could tweak them closer, and you say on some Profiles you thought the Kemper sounded better than the Axe-FX11 itself, but they conveniently failed to read that over at the Fractal Forum.

The Profiles are not very well done, and the volumes are different....not a very professional A/B test.

It took SP a matter of seconds to jump in and come to a thousand conclusions, lol, and this time he didn't even need Flac files.

Quote from JonG

Many thanks, I appreciate that. I do actually have a Kemper on order (ordered it early October 2011) and I keep being assured that it will be here "soon". I'm hoping that the profile process really does capture the cabinet and is not just an elaborate EQ curve as I have based my purchase on the Kemper blurb so I hope it's accurate

Hey Jon.
Welcome! Lance here...I didn't feed you "blurb" did I?

Definitely not an elaborate EQ curve.

When you change cabs you hear and feel the difference, of course the EQ
changes but the feel of the distortion changes, the 'thump' is
different..let's put it this way, you know there hasn't just been an EQ
change.

Your idea of miking from those strange positions is an interesting one...I have no doubt it will work, but I think it might be you doing for the first time...I look forward to that.

Some of my favourite Profiles are the Dual Rectifier (Dual Boogie), and the Mesa Roadking Profiled by Christophe himself.
Plus, the recently added Marshall JVM410 profiles are great as well.

CrossHair, you're going to be smiling big time when you've had a day or three with your Kemper, that's my prediction.

Quote from JoeBlob

I expect you to return the KPA

So do I.

The most important post on that thread.....

-I have profiled a VHT(Fryette) Super 30 combo, but just only the premp,no power amp,no speaker.

Then I connected via a good loop box to the return of the combo, the original preamp and the profiled preamp, and switch

between them, so they have the same chance to be heard, from the same power amp & same cab-speaker.

The result is incredible, the profiled preamp sounds and feels
almost like the original, if I can speak % could be 95% & more.(not
100%)

The original was just a little bit more "alive" but just a little bit, to my ears.

My opinion.

Why do a Kemper review on the Fractal Forum (if I were Cliff or Scott I wouldn't have allowed it), and why link an Axe-FX11 review on the Kemper Forum...doesn't make sense to me?

Last thing I want to do is read about the Axe-FX11 on the Kemper forum, it's enough I've been subjected to 6 years of Axe-FX brainwashing on The Gear Page.

So far everyone who's made a Profile since the Kempers release has named the amp in their profile name.
Why didn't everyone who made the profiles that came stock in the Kemper also use the name of the amp...or a code name like this...

Fender - Fend Deluxe Rev, Fend Bassman, etc, etc.
Vox - AC30, AC15, AC whatever...we know what AC means.
Marshall - Marsh JCM800, Marsh JTM45
Mesa Boogie - Boogie Dual, Boogie MK1V, Boogie whatever.
Bogner - Bog Xstacy, etc.
Bad Cat - Cat Tremcat
DrZ - Zee Route66 (I want this profile badly. :))
Soldano - Sold100
Matchless - Match Chief

The Line 6 manuals show photographs of every amp modelled in the Pods, with the full name, no legal issues there, they've been doing it for 12 years.
I'm not sure there's a legal issue naming every amp Profiled in the Kemper by it's full name...it's just a digital Profile of an amp, not a copy of the physical amp itself.

I just go through every profile and change the name to the real amp name...the way it should have been to begin with.

Quote from guitarnet70

You should better talk about Rugby, Lance.

Talk about rugby with who?...I don't see anyone here from New Zealand or Australia, and we all know the Italians & Germans can't play rugby.
Although, Italy did have a South African coach for many years.

Since I was 8 years old I've been a soccer man, but I do love tennis, rugby and Cricket.

Quote from mDan

Oh man - that was such a LUCKY victory today.

lol, I agree.