Coffee is key .. for all the sleepless nights to come 
Cheers
Posts by lightbox
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it took me more than 7 years to overcome the beginner status
Keep it up, man!
Only 343 more years 'til "Enlightened" status so you'll be around for a while.
PS: There's a limited chance you'll see a Kemper Profiler v2 before you become enlightened but don't expect Kemper staff to confirm that estimate.
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How do you really feel though??
I feel that I own an Ox Box and that I have already profiled a few amps (from modern to vintage) with this device. Within the limits of the current cab (and mic) choice in the Ox Box, it sounds absolutely fantastic. Sound is very subjective of course and I certainly do mic/cab profiling as well (with great success). I haven't shared any profiles publicly, I don't sell profiles. But if I did, nobody would be able to tell if the profiles have been made "traditionally" or using the Ox Box. First of all because nobody apart from myself could A/B them, second because very few people will own the amps I own and last but not least, nobody would know how I setup the amp, which mics (combinations) I have used, how I placed them and how I have mixed and EQ'd them.
Bottomline:
I know that no commercial profiler out there will please everybody. Every commercial profiler first and foremost follows his own taste and feel … and then hopes that his taste will match with as many customers as possible.
On the other hand, if you do custom profiles for musicians or for yourself, you get to tailor the profiles exactly to a specific musician, playing style, musical genre, guitar. Studio clients who want me to make custom profiles sometimes ask me to use a specific amp, sometimes they let me choose. Most important to them is to try the profiles, hear how they sound and feel. The ones they like, they might ask me which amp/channel it is and what type of cab/speakers have been used. But that's pretty much all they want to know.
That's why I wrote that the result is key, not how exactly it has been done.
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We've probably all tried shitty profiles and great profiles made with cabs and mics. I guess there will be a similar shit-great ratio in profiles made with speaker/mic sims like the Ox Box.
Personally I don't give a shit how something has been done. The result is key. If it sounds great then it is great, simple as that.
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I know that if you have to do something long enough then, well, eventually people assume that a workaround is the actual optimal workflow.
While you feel something is a flaw, I feel it's a strength. While you feel you have to come up with a workaround, I feel the Profiler does exactly what it's supposed to do. If I had to get me a Marshall JCM 800 profile, I couldn't care less about your room or any other person's idea of a room. I will be the one (or the artists recording at my studio) who decides which room should be used for a particular song and I can guarantee that it wouldn't be the original profiler's room baked into his profile (if this was possible).
Also, I think you either underestimate the power of great parametric reverbs (which the ones in the Profiler certainly are) or overestimate the importance of convolution reverbs on individual instruments. I do use convolution reverbs quite often but pretty much never on individual instrument tracks. Convolution Reverb shines on the Main Bus where basically everything comes together, just like a band playing in a real room where the entire band's sound interacts with the room.
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No-one is going to take a room around with them on tour
And no one will be able to hear "your room" on tour. People hear the venue's room in the first place. If you e.g. want a small room effect on a specific part, it certainly will be part of the sound but in a large venue it will blend with the massively huge natural reverb and delays of the hall. As an example, listen to the Neal Schon solo from Bell Centre Montreal, someone posted in another thread.
Once your "small room" goes to places it's one flavor of many to make a tasty melange … never a 100% authentic reproduction. Use this to your advantage. That's all I can add to the "room" part of the discussion.
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I also 100% disagree about the importance of the verb
An amp without built-in reverb always produces a 100% dry sound. The "room reverb" you hear when you play the amp (and cab) comes from the room you're in. If you like this particular "room sound", the easiest way to get it is to playback the dry recording (or live playing) through speakers and record the "room" with a (far) microphone on a separate track so you can mix it to your taste. No need for an impulse response. Try it, experiment, discover. You can even setup a small speaker in a staircase and record the staircase sound in addition to your dry profiled sound. You'll be surprised what you can achieve by this and you'd be even more surprised if you knew how often this kind of playful trickery is done in studios.
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I am sure professional profiles only required a good microphone placement and a bit of EQ.
This! I've done a fair bit of profiling over the years and I have yet to run into any of the "issues" reported on this forum every once in a while. I think the thread you're currently trying to help in (figure out what's going on) must be the most confusing one ever. I downloaded the audio clips and read the entire thread and still don't get my head around what he's doing (and why).
I for one usually profile amps using 2 microphones. These go through high quality preamps and are sent back (slightly EQ'd and mixed) with line level to the Return Input of the Profiler. The Return Level on the Profiler is typically set to -25dB.
The profiling results are great to say the least. Every once in a while I use the Profiler's options to further shape the sound but when I do, it's not to improve the "accuracy" of the profile but to shape the sound the way I want. For example High Shift and Low Shift in the Cab block … very small changes can go a long way. But most of the time I don't do any tweaking.
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Get a reverb IR of the Bell Centre, Montreal
… cause this recording is no direct recording but comes with all the room sound of the venue and the PA. -
ART PS4x4 Power Conditioner
Glad you found something that helps you.
Just for the record, this unit is NOT a power conditioner, it's a power distributor with EMI/RFI filtering.
Power conditioners are heavy (and usually pretty expensive) beasts that not only incorporate EMI/RFI filtering but also power regulation for a steady and isolated voltage supply using a toroidal transformer.
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... I've tried it both ways and it really sounds good wth the cabinet left on.
Doesn't hurt, what sounds good is good.
I know a few people who do it all the time and love it.Cheers
Martin
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I highly recommend recording a DI track to use to re-amp through both the profile and the amp (and record both re-amps then compare them) rather than simply playing both, which will never exactly match up.
Very good point, Per
Regarding your statement with close vs far mics ... you're spot on when it comes to comparisons but in general the far mics' "colour" translates to the profile, just its room/time component gets lost.
Cheers
Martin
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Call me old-fashioned, but I'd still like to hear something from Kemper about all this.
Switch your Profiler on, plug your guitar and hear all you need to know from Kemper.
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… no want or need to run one amp on one side and one on the other with the same guitar performance ...
Even without hard-panning the 2 signals and even with one performance only, you can add a LOT of "depth" to the guitar sound by using 2 (different) amps in parallel. I do this all the time with great success (and joy) … but with either real amps or 2 Profilers, of course.
Any Chance of a Kemper VSt software in the pipeline?
I'd bet a fortune that it won't ever happen.
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Maybe it's even a platform specific USB issue.
I haven't had a crash in ages and my Profiler is always connected to my (Windows) PC and it sometimes stays on for multiple days.
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The Kemper Input is mono as are the entire Stomps and Stack sections. The Kemper only turns stereo from the Effects section.
If you want to use external stereo effects, you will have to use them as a "Stereo Loop" in the Effects section.
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The Stereo Widener is the worst effect on the Kemper Profiler, imho. By using this effect you run into serious phase correlation issues. Not only does the Stereo Widener effect sound terrible (phasey and unbalanced) but it also kills mono compatibility.
With the "new" reverb types, you have access to the parameter "Stereo" where you can boost the stereo width up to 200% without these serious phase problems. So you rather use this instead of the Stereo Widener.
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I'm pretty sure your problem is the gain staging.
1. The recordings are super low level (like -12dB peak)
2. Maybe you have the output volume of your interface set very low as well?
3. Maybe you have pushed the monitors' volume level almost to max to compensate for the low incoming levels?
When I push your demo recordings +12dB, have my interface output set to 0dB, I can shake my walls easily, with plenty of "body" in the sound. My active studio monitors are always set to medium level.
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He's clearly looking for this vintage sound!
