Kemper is best in class as far as pitch shifting goes. Gotta be something in there to work with!
Agree completely..actually I do everything with the pitch shifting and almost nothing with the ocatver in the kpa..
But this is not my issue at all.I just wanted to comment on the fact that the current octaver does lack some sort of "character"..better said "vintage flair"..
The current one in the kpa is much to "clean" for my taste as is the OC-3 compared to the older OC-2.
I always have been saying that the kemper guys should "communicate" the pure cab function in a better way..more so since they obviously put it "on" on the units they sell now..
Common sense is that this "de-phase" kind of pure cab function is better suited for live situations to get better results (more amp in the room feeling) over the monitors/FRFR.But it can help also in recording situations.It really depends most on what you are looking for plus ofcourse the profile you use.
You did the right thing telling us "your story"..welcome btw..
Same impression.My very first thought was "this is on steroids"..
It is beyond me how people can even compare the kpa's profiled tube rigs to this weird unnatural sound which is coming out of the other modelers.
But then again I dont care that much about easy high stuff.I did when I was 20 years old and tried (with a gazillion other dudes in my generation) to be the fastest gun in town..
IMO only the KPA can do these fine break up sounds in a realistic way,natural way(tube feel).
And I am getting tired to be "political correct" to say that any other modeler can do this too.They cant.
Saying all this the Fractal may be fun for shred..indeed it delivers "great help" for easy playing and the feel of being a "master shredder""..
Many people underestimate the work you have to do with the KPA.It is a professional tool.With all pros and cons of such a tool.
It may become a "plug & play" tool later but in the beginning there are many things to learn and the learning curve may stumble in the beginning of the process..to accelarate very soon as you learn to use some key features in the different sections(and mainly the stack section)..
IMO this key issue (amp in the room) is just another question of how much you are ready to make new experiences.I said it here in the past...many things in music are "trainable"..if you have a professional tool like the KPA which gives you hundreds of different tube rigs on a golden plate I see no reason to limit myself putting it again behind the fence called guitar cab..
Guitar cabs do not just "colour" your sound.As the good guys here in this thread already mentioned guitar cabs are decisive for a tube rigs end result ie sound.
Was not to sure if I should bump this thread..anyway..
Great guy this mr Ross Daly...Big knowledge and most of all he knows to explain..who ever is still searching for new ideas and influences (and is still not satisfied with just getting new delays,harmonizers and reverbs or whatever technical toy) should maybe take a listen of why modes are so important.
The current octaver is good but I would like to have something more "vintage" & "organic"..like the Boss OC-2.I have the feeling that the current octaver does change the ampsound to much,making it sounding unnatural,no matter how much I try to tweak it.
Thanx Paul..I am not into fuzz-OD.
I would like to have in the future some Boss OC-2 pedal in the profiler..the current octaver is good but does not sound really "organic" in my ears.The OC-2 has this vintage stoner-blues-rock sound I am looking for.The one I had in the past was so great for classic rock riffs..now I have a OC-3 and it does not sound the same.
Great!
Anyone with these 60s/70s hendrix octave fuzz stuff settings;Rival sons may use something very similiar..
Dont want to highjack the thread but maybe it would be a good idea to do a similiar "octave-pitch-setting" thread like we have with the wahs and the delays;
There were/still are a lot of great artists out there with their characteristic octave sounds.Just saying..
QuoteAt least once a month I have to go and remind whoever is at the board to leave my sound alone, I have tested it numerous times and recorded it at church and I love what I hear…
I am 53 years old and have been playing for 30 years, gigs, churches, bars, I have yet to meet a sound guy who fully understands guitar tone…
It is interesting that now with the profiler the sound guys actually leave my sound alone..most of all because I tell them that I have many different banks with 3-4 sounds for each song I do..this is enough to make them think about "consequences" if they screw up the big picture.... 
There are a thousand reasons not to trust the engineer,specially when you play support for some bigger headliner.I dont need to list them here..most guys will know what I mean.. 
After getting used to it I really love my new Folreden Stratocaster..
Other than that my best "purchase" in 2017 has been the Neve Portico 5017.What a great little mobile tool..with one-two good mics(plus a laptop/interface and a good headphone) you can do great recordings everywhere..and I really mean everywhere..
I know because I’ve heard a Kemper with FRFR behind me and I’ve heard it with my Deluxe Reverb/Bassman behind me and I prefer the amp. I don’t play venues where I need to be miked, but on the rare occasion I have been, it hasn’t been a difficult thing to do, and it hasn’t sounded bad so for me, using the Kemper all the time live would leave me wanting my amp.
I play in a local covers band. If I was in a situation where I used inears and miked the amp a lot and stuff maybe it would change, but for my needs, it’s just not for me. I just much prefer using a real amp because it inspires me. Using the Kemper live feels like a solution rather than the ideal option, which is a cranked amp directed straight at the audience. This is impossible at times so other solutions are needed, miking is one, the Kemper is now another.
Ok.I get you now and I agree.
Indeed there is still a "special feeling" playing your beloved tube amp in a small,smokey and intim little gig.No mic.Just two amps (guitar/bass) the kit and the small foh for the singer..this is a very nice situation.Love that too..still the best thing..
But as for micing all I wanted to say is that this issue(micing) is not "a second" at all.Not a bit.The problem has always been that we-as electric guitar players-had NEVER the chance to know how we sounded beyond the stage with the tube rig behind us.
Let us be honest here.
Most players on any kind of a bigger stage will return every few seconds to their rig to hear the cab and to get "their feel" they know from the rehearsal room.I saw(and still see) this a thousand times.Even professionals do this all the time.For a few moments they stay in front of their monitors but "meh..." so a few steps back to the cab behind them.Just close enough to be able to hear the drummer and his kick/snare..
Actually we guitar players as "tribe" need the faith that what we hear from our cab is what the audience will get too.And we just dont care enough if this is true.Besides..we dont have anyone to ask anyway.After the show we will get down the stage asking first our friends (non musicians) and they will tell us how "great" we played.They will not even understand that you asked for the sound FOH and not for your playing.Then you maybe will ask some other musicians and will get typical "musicians answers" including that the most envy (because your band and you as guitar player just rocked the crowd which cheered you all the gig) will tell you that your sound was shit.Last try will be your girl friend but she was more busy to watch how many other women came to close to the stage where you stood.. 
No chance to learn about your FOH-sound.The Kemper does solve this for me to a big degree.
Anyway..
Do you spend a lot of time listening to miked amps? Have you spent some time in studios listening to them through monitors?
This
Many players still dont have a clue about these issues.Ofcourse they will never admit this.
QuoteI much prefer a real amp, which can be miked in a second.
How do you know;
I mean seriously my friend..how do you know;How often did you gig your tube rig while you have been able standing down in the middle of a crowded venue to listen to your FOH-sound during the gig;Sorry for this highly hypothetical question.With all due respect.
It is the first time in more than 30 years and countless gigs that I can at least get some clue about "how do I sound FOH" with my rig.What I hear over my monitors will be at least "very similiar" of what the audience will get from me FOH.
In my mind the definition-parameter is my main tool to see if I can free & clean up a high gain profile "from the dirt" to see "the real tube-rig behind the profile".
Actually it is a very interesting tool because it can turn a modern trashy high gain profile into a more..well I would not say "vintage" but very good sounding "classic hard-rock/metal" kind of thing.Not all the time but often enough.
I have(since almost 17 years) a pair of "brutally honest" and somewhat "sterile" tannoy sys-800(in the meanwhile during the last 3-4 years my ears get very fast "tired" by these monitors) and whatever I tweak on these monitors fits and translates in a great way into whatever FRFR-stage monitors I have used till this day.
As @Neverathon has said..
+1
Yes.Please some description in detail.
Display MoreThen I can only assume you don't think there is a difference at all between profile and amp. At least, not a difference that can be described in such terms.
Of course if you are not comparing to source tone, yes, it becomes much harder to spot that difference, obviously, as described. Yes, then maybe there's no "issue", I can understand that -- or no "issue" in any case.
The difference we've seen in so many tests I call a more "ts" sound, including any of my test too.
This is an evaluative judgement between source tone and amp. That is what Townsend sees too, pretty sure about that now.
The reason why I have kept kemper is because just because profiling is not perfect atm, it does not mean it isn't great. My profiles always sound more "ts" than the amp, but that doesn't mean I cannot use them or that they cannot sound great.
The OP issue, I believe, can be resolved profiling a set up that sounds like the tone he is after. A semi-solution, since this may not be easy to do, is getting an amp/cab/mic tone relatively close..
.. Then feeding guitar stem to kemper and refining using that, while careful with the volumes. Some times this doesn't work well. Many times it works very well though.
It should get "fizzy/treble" levels to a more desirable level if it works ok.
It is indeed decades ago I "compared" the miced guitar on tape with the "source"..
I grew up playing in the early 80s and started also recording by the end of this decade.In the best case you had an marshall and maybe (if the uncle of your band mate was a wealthy doctor who had gear) a mesa boogie..things then changed fast but by 1985 we only had our JCMs and a guy named "Baldringer" who worked in a big music shop and who tuned them..
So we had one amp in the studio.Maybe two.And the engineers did everything to make this one amp sound like everything their clients wanted to hear..Motley crue,Van Halen,Dokken,Judas Priest..nobody did care for the "source" but only for the result.Back in this time guitar players had huge problems recording with headphones or in the control room only with the monitors.They could not get the difference about their own miced rig in the NS10 and a farting elephant..
Today we like to act if this was always different and we are all top producers since the moment we were born but for me it is just funny..anyway..
@Dimi
Indeed you should know that you talk to the maybe hardest tube amp crack head out there.Actually this is maybe the reason I may sound "defensive" about the profiler.But fact is that it is a tool with "tube feel" and this is all that counts for me.Actually I start to forget that it is digital.Enough said.
All that said we are maybe OT and once again I am in the middle of this OT.
Santanas biggest influence (he said so in an interview) is Coltrane.Indeed his phrasing and the "squeezing" for the baritone of his mahogany guitars reminds me of an Jazz-Saxophone player.Specially the way he plays some melodic lines on the high strings only to end up with a fast and then suddenly stopping phrase on the deeper strings.
No matter what Mesa or Dumble we might use..it is all in his fingers and soul..and a little bit in his mahogany guitars.
Sorry Dimi..I just dont have these issues.If I would have heard any "ts" in the profiles I like I would not use them.Same ofcourse with the fizz.I would not have spent 2500euros two years ago while still having issues like this.
Like I said, depends on what we mean by "fizz" -- I personally talk more about more of a "TS" sound. And I always base observation and relative judgement on making the profiles and comparing to source tone.
I'm not as much speaking in regards to "profiles" in general. Many profiles out there I would not call "too fizzy", depending on what we mean by the word, and in relation to guitar tones in general.
I admit that I cant understand the difference(always speaking for my ears) between fizz & fizz..I mean I will not try to taste how much salt was given into a soya sauce..
Modern sounds have fizz.They are "distorted" beyond any limits I would call "musically"..many guys today can seperate between "modern hyper-distortion" and "fizz",I just cant.I only know that while I like the "hairy" sound of a 92/93 rectifier I never liked the modern rectos because of this "modern distortion" which for me is nothing else than ugly fizz.And even more ugly bass.And alibi-mids.
But okay..we live in times where many,many people can taste the "differences" of hamburgers from various fast food chains with closed eyes..so it is obviusly a very fizzy time and you better do your homework about this if you want to get the likes on FB...Fine.But if you kill something it sure will tend to show signs of getting "stinky" or "fizzy" or "raspy"..´cant fool nature..
Dont get me wrong but we talk about "distortion".Distortion is enough of an explaination.It really explains itself.Now today we talk of to much of something already exaggerated.In the high frequencies in this case.You are (if I remember correctly) the educated philosopher in our company.You will know better than me how you can call this."Super-exaggerated";Or something like this.I already stopped years ago to understand what a "Djent sound" is all about (I had my boy for this in my studio in the past) because I dont like to hear guitar players taking the jobs of bass players ( no matter who bad the latters have been to us during the last decades) only playing much faster..
Much of todays sounds in heavy metal does not make sense to me anymore.For me it is all fizz and raspiness and bass and and and..but you have the same in modern HipHop with Bass and "digital saturation" in the master..pumping my brain out of my oldschool ears.
It is just "to much" and I dont care anymore how much of "to much"..
