Posts by AxeSlash

That will have the same problem.

Think about it: Delay 3 has 50% of the time, so will repeat at twice the rate of Delay 4, which means that every other repetition of Delay 4 will sum with Delay 3, resulting in a more central pan position.

This also applies to the Two Tap delay.

What you REALLY need (and what I did in my VST) is two delay taps with the SAME delay time, but with one of them OFFSET by 50% of the delay time. From looking at the manual, that's not possible in the KPA

.

Stuff to try:

• Definition knob usually fairly high (on 10 most of the time)
• Bias usually up quite high
• Tube Shape generally 3 or less...but it doesn't make to much of a difference on high gain sounds to me
• Clarity I usually leave at 0
• One of the distortion stomps BEFORE the stack
• Studio EQ BEFORE the stack (add some mids around 700-1000Hz; reduce lows/highs to gain clarity and/or lose scratchiness, depending on what your pickups need). Try and get that sort of 'wet' pick sound without it sounding like a wah is engaged
• Use a VST plugin with EQ matching feature to match your cab tone to someone you like, then AFTER that tweak it a bit (but not too much) to make it your own. Profile that entire signal chain.
• Read this thread

This thread needs retitling something like 'How to get your Feature Request noticed', and then should be stickied (Mods?).

Yep, had that on many a cable - particularly cheap ones (those cheap multicoloured short right-angled jack patch leads that people use for pedalboards are NOTORIOUSLY bad for this).

Also keep your cables as short as possible if there is a jack plug involved anywhere along it.

Balanced (e.g. XLR) cables don't suffer from this as much.

There are quite a few.

Fairly sure McDSP did one some years ago.

If all else fails, just search the KVR Audio site's database for 'headphones'. Or maybe 'psychoacoustic' or 'binaural'.

To be honest you could probably just use a decent reverb plugin set to a very small room setting (probably one that models early reflections well).

I haven't really messed with the KPA's stereo delays much, but one thing I've noticed with many hardware and software delays is that they don't do a proper L R L R L R L R etc delay.

What they tend to do is that the first repetition is on the left at 1 x the delay time, then the 2nd repetition is on the right but ALSO coincides with the 3rd repetition on the left, which means that they sum, resulting in a net pan offset of something like 75% right (instead of 100% right).

So what you end up with is delays that actually have a pan position that tends towards the centre, something like 100%L, 75%R, 65%L, 60%R, 55%L and so on.

Could that be what you're hearing?

I actually wrote my own VST plugin because I was fed up of this problem. I'm not sure the KPA is flexible enough to remedy the problem...but then again like I said I haven't really played with them much (all my stuff is in mono).

I'm guessing you've checked both sides of the Y cable for correct polarity?

If so, it does sound like something is wrong inside the cab (probably a driver wired with wrong polarity).

Thinner and brighter than without the Y?

If so, that smells like either a) the drivers in your cab are wired out of polarity (has anyone been inside it to potentially rewire it incorrectly?) or b) there is some very strange wiring inside that cab - in which case talk to the manufacturer about how best to get it working in mono.

If it sounds thin and bright even without the Y then obviously there's nothing wrong with the cable and it could be the monitor EQ on the KPA that is at fault.

Y cable should work fine, is yours wired correctly (and test it with a multimeter)

I had a similar problem where the wah CC was inversely controlling the volume (value 127 made wah full up but volume full down).

Recalling a different wah preset (instead of changing the wah type) solved it. Really weird bug.

I've seen quite a few threads around here where people are basically saying 'the profile I've made doesn't sound like the real amp'.

Cue pages and pages of troubleshooting and/or frustration, which could have been avoided if a basic Profiling Troubleshooting Process had been agreed upon (and stickied in the forum).

I suggest the following process:

• Mic up your tube amp
• Connect guitar to input of DI box
• Connect link output of DI box to input of tube amp
• Connect XLR output of DI box to input of DAW
• Connect output of microphone to input of DAW
• Set up one DAW track to record clean DI of your guitar's signal
• Set up another DAW track to record microphone's signal
• Record a riff
• Play it back and A/B it against a guitar sound you know you like
• Adjust mic position(s), amp settings, & EQ in your DAW to improve sound
• Repeat from Step 8 until 100% happy with the sound you are getting
• Connect Link Output of DI box to input of KPA
• Connect output of DAW into return input of KPA
• Make sure your mic track is routed to the DAW output that goes back into the KPA
  Connect Direct Out of KPA into input of amp
• Connect guitar to main front panel input of KPA
• Connect output of KPA to another input of DAW
• Temporarily set the tube amp to a 100% clean sound
• Play hard while checking all meters on your KPA and your DAW and also using your ears (some meters lie) to make sure nothing is clipping. Adjust gains/sensitivities until all is good.
• Switch tube amp back to whatever settings you want to profile
• Repeat step 19
• Ensure that any noise reduction/gating technology on the tube amp is disabled
• Switch KPA to profiling mode and profile as normal
• Refine using some chords and palm mutes for at least 30 seconds
• Make sure Pure Cab is off (I believe this can be done both in the Cabinet section and ALSO globally?)
• Save Rig
• Record (with all 3 tracks armed: guitar DI, Mic, KPA output) the same riff
• Ensure that the KPA and Mic tracks have the same PERCEIVED loudness (ignore your DAW's meters - use your ears instead)
• You should now have 3 WAV files sat in your DAW. Export them with the following filenames:
  
  
  • Export guitar DI as:
    
    
    • YourUserName_TroubleShoot_GuitarDI_TodaysDate.wav
  • Export the other two with anonymous filenames:
    
    
    • YourUserName_TroubleShoot_A_TodaysDate.wav
    • YourUserName_TroubleShoot_B_TodaysDate.wav

  Zip the 3 WAV files AND your rig file, and upload that zip somewhere and post a link to them in your troubleshooting thread (or even post them on the forum if the file size is small enough)DO NOT tell us which is which out of the A and B files until at least a few people have listened and posted their opinions.
  

Then we on the forum have the ability to:

• Reamp the signal to check whether the problem is in the profiling process or the settings of the KPA
• Null test the KPA track vs the mic track (this will probably never null completely, but it will at least give us an idea of WHAT is different)
• Blind test the difference between the KPA and the real amp (to remove expectation bias)
• EQ match one to the other if we feel that we CAN detect a difference
• Perform any other analysis we wish on the two files to compare differences

I'd like other people to chime in with their thoughts on how the process could be improved/bettered to provide enough detail, and also anything else that should be checked straight away when a profile does not sound like the real deal. Then hopefully once we've arrived at a final result, this topic could be stickied by the mods and we can point people who are having trouble at it and save everybody a lot of time and effort and get profiling problems resolved in a more expedient manner.

Who's with me?

EDIT: Cabling diagram attached to prevent confusion...can someone please check my work?

The problem with this idea is that this kind of thing needs to be done in series...

Parallel stuff, however, could theoretically be quite easy to do. Theoretically the KPA would just need to take an average of two lots of stack info to create a halfway house between two profiles...which, granted is a little different from what you're thinking, but is a new way of making creative flavours.

Would be useful if you had 2 profiles that you like but ideally want a 'half way house' between the two.

A mix control between the two would also be pretty cool...but I guess you'd have to do that blind because the KPA probably doesn't have enough CPU to run two whole stacks at once.

I don't think it really needs to be a 10 band graphic.

A parametric EQ with the same controls as the Studio EQ stomp would be sufficient for this purpose.

All of the things you've suggested already have other posts that suggest them. It's more productive if you go and 'like' those posts (so the devs can see which requests are most popular) than starting a new thread.

The default behaviour seems to be that when I open a thread, it jumps to the first post since I last logged into the forum EVEN IF I HAVEN'T READ THE POSTS BEFORE IT.

This gets really annoying really quickly.

Is there a way to make it default to post #1 in a thread I haven't read before?

If not can this be implemented?

Thanks

• Has anyone compared the results of making an IR of a cab with a deconcolver and then using CabMaker on that vs. profiling the cab directly with the KPA?
• Has anyone profiled a profile (i.e. with two KPAs)? Is there any loss of quality as a result?
• Is there a technical difference between how IRs and Kemper cabs work?

Reason I ask is that I want to bake some DAW EQ into some existing profiles but don't want to lose any of the dynamic info contained therein...

Thanks

Something incredibly important that you forgot: if something is not to your liking, find out where in the chain it's beginning to sound bad.

Usually the culprit is the loudspeaker you are using (whether it's an FR monitor, rehearsal PA, or guitar cab).

And then know where to correct for it:

• Rehearsal PA -> Play some music through it -> if PA sounds crap with music, adjust PA EQ on the mixer, otherwise adjust KPA Monitor EQ or main out EQ (not rig EQ)
• Guitar Cab -> Plug someone else's non-KPA amp into it -> if still sounds crap, it's the cab -> adjust KPA monitor EQ, otherwise store your rig, adjust rig EQ, store with a different name, then at a later date check both stored rigs to see which sounds better on (good) studio monitors. Maybe even create a halfway house between the two rigs as your go-to rig.
• FR Monitor -> Treat as a PA. If there is no mixer, use monitor out for corrections temporarily, then go buy yourself a hardware graphic EQ and learn how to EQ monitors (KPA output EQ is at the time of writing not really sufficient for this purpose).

EDIT: apologies for necromancy

Lol @ some of the advice in this thread.

I've been a FOH engineer for over 15 years now. Guitar tone in any given venue is a moving target. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. This is why there is a guy out front whose job it is to fiddle with his knobs(!) to make your sound work within the constraints of the equipment and room that it's creating sound in/through.

That said, I would say it's fairly simple from your point of view: get a good studio sound going on your KPA's main outputs. Your FOH engineer will be pleasantly surprised by that. He will do whatever needs to be done to it (maybe a HPF, maybe tame some high mids) to translate it to a PA. Assuming that he knows what he's doing (most pub engineers don't) and that the PA doesn't sound like a sack of ass (most small PAs do). Although if you're rolling with a studio-processed profile (e.g. you profiled the complete studio signal chain of your last record while you recorded it), theoretically he should be able to leave it flat if the PA is tuned well enough (hah! Too many hack system techs in this business...)

If you're unlucky with the FOH engineer and the PA, NOTHING you can do with your Kemper will solve that. Employ a FOH engineer to gig with you, and buy a decent digital mixing desk for him to use (even an X32 if you have little cash). If you can't afford one, you're just going to have to deal with it and make the best of a bad situation.

If your doing a gig at a large festival, or supporting a large tour (I'm talking arena size gigs here), generally speaking they will have high end PA systems and decent system techs and decent FOH engineers to run it all, and in that scenario you have nothing to worry about with your nicely studio processed profile.

All you gotta worry about is using your monitor EQ to adjust the tone coming through your cab (this is why we're all asking for parametric EQ on the monitor out) on stage to your liking. Don't sacrifice the FOH sound just for your monitoring. Remember: you are one person on a stage. There may be hundreds or thousands of people out there expecting a nice sound from you. Why ruin their experience just for your ego trip of having a nice sound on stage?

Oh, and protect your Kemper. Shock mount it - don't use one of those cheap racks with no shock absorption. Get a proper one with rubber or foam between the rack strip and the outer case. Or build your own if you have workshop skills.

And carry spares of everything (even your KPA) if you can afford it. When the SHTF you'll thank me.

I've been playing thrash metal since I was a teenager, so most of my technique tips apply to that style...I've often been complemented on my sound being 'really heavy, yet still tight and defined'' - I'm of the opinion that really its my technique, not my gutiar/amp sound (which has changed over the years) that supplies this.

• Adapt your picking technique to the style of the riff. e.g. with a metal riff you want to dig deep and angle the pick so it's NOT running parallel to the strings, so it kinda scratches across the string as you pick. For softer/lower gain stuff you want a more parallel angle with less scratching, and dig less deep. Solos require you to pick MUCH less deeply, but still with a small bit of angle. Most people hate trying to learn to do this, especially if they've grown up with bad habits, but it is worth the effort. Paul Gilbert had a video about this on YouTube somewhere some years back, although he advocated the scrapey technique ALL the time (I don't)
• Further to the above, you'll probably discover that you need to increase the action on your lower strings to prevent excessive fret buzz. Do it. You'll hate playing lead on it for a while, but you'll get used to it and your rhythm playing will tighten right up.
• Use decent thickness strings. For every step you tune down, as a MINIMUM you need to go up a gauge in strings (starting from 9s), so e.g. standard E would be OK with 9s, D would need 10s, C would need 11s and so on. If you can stomach it, going up another guage will help even more. I play in D with hybrid strings at the moment, but used to use 11s. I found 10s too flabby.
• if you want tight metal rhythm, use a guitar with a 25.5" ('Fender') scale rather than a 24.75" ('Gibson') scale. The extra tension in the strings helps keep things controlled.
• Use picks with a square edge. Dunlop Tortex ones for example, or the green ones that come with your Kemper. The edge of your pick should have TWO corners when you look at it side-on (i.e. looking at it from the thin side); if it tapers to a point, leave it for playing softer music.
• Throw your pick away sooner than you think. Check the wear, and keep an eye on how it feels as it slides over the string. I find that after a 3 hour band practice I need to chuck the pick I've been using, or alternatively get a knife and scrape the edge flat again where it's worn in an angle.
• Palm mute properly. Many metal guitarists don't mute properly and hence you get an indistinct, fuzzy, flab of a palm mute instead of a thick CHUNNNN sound. Press your palm down hard, and try moving it a little bit closer to the nut in order to tighten these up. A slight increase in the pitch of the palm mute (versus the open note) is an almost inescapable side effect. Don't worry about it too much unless it really does sound like you're fretting it one note too high.
• Practice getting your alternate picking to 'disappear' behind a fast click/metronome (i.e. one click per up or downstroke). Or if you're a thrash guitarist like me, program a simple double kick drum line and pick the same notes as the kick. This is as much of a listening exercise as it is a technique one; you'll hear a sudden difference once you lock into it - it's quite satisfying. Then practice that at different tempos to get your picking hand out of it's 'natural' tempo. Too many guitarists are caught up in their own little bubble and don't pay enough attention to making their pick hit the string at exactly the same time as the kick beater/drum stick hits the skin. It doesn't happen naturally (contrary to what you probably think) - you have to work at it.
• Only play with JUST ENOUGH gain for rhythm. If you're playing metal, crank the gain ONLY until you hear the palm mutes start to saturate and fizz, then back it off a little. It will clean up your sound a lot.
• Learn to tune properly. Don't just rely on your tuner. Check your intonation; my favourite way is to tune my guitar normally, then play power chords on each pair of strings at both the open root string and at the 12th fret (with a high gain sound). If they all sound smooth and powerful, great. If some sound off/out of tune/not as smooth as the others (i.e. the intermodulation distortion you hear sounds like ass or you can detect a beat frequency), your intonation is out (most cheaper guitars suffer from this). Fix it and try again.
• Further to the above point, replace your strings regularly. What happens is that the strings develop tiny scrapes and 'dents' around the frets, and this affects the intonation. It also imparts a horrible scratchy, buzzy sound to the guitar (kinda like a reduced version of fret buzz). And this is before we begin to talk about corrosion/dirt.
• Further to the above, don't record or gig with brand new strings unless you particularly want a very bright, jangly sound (you don't want that for metal). Play them in for a day or so first. This also allows the tuning to settle.
• Learn to mute unused strings properly. Use your palm to mute unused low strings, and the unused fingers of your right and left hands to mute the higher strings. Watch Francis Rossi, he often rests the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th fingertips of his right hand on the highest 3 strings while he's playing the lower 3, or jams his palm across the lower strings to dampen them. The more gain you use, the more important this becomes. At high gain, during stabs I often have to use both hands to mute the strings - palm jammed across all 6 strings, entire left hand lightly wrapped across all 6 strings. This kills any residual resonance of the the strings at high gain levels, and does it naturally; don't rely on a noise gate to do this for you - a) that's lazy, and b) it sounds shit. Noise gates are for removing the noise floor that the equipment creates, not noise that you create. Also learn to keep dead still during stabs/rests - even slight movement can induce small noises in a high gain rig that detract from the absolute dead silence you want during a musical rest.
• Find a riff being played by your favourite guitarist where the rest of the band is silent (i.e. just guitar). Record yourself playing the same riff. Listen to the difference between the two (set up a track in your DAW for him and one for you, pan them left/right, send them to a group, mono out the main stereo bus, then use the pan control of the group to A/B them), and analyse what you need to do to sound as good as they do (I'm assuming that your favourite guitarist actually has good technique, which is not always the case). It helps if you EQ match your recording to the original for this so that your perception is not biased.

I presume you mean being able to set ANY parameter to be controller by e.g. CC#1?

In which case, I agree. I previously used a TC G Major which allowed me to do this, and was surprised the the KPA doesn't support it. There are a lot of foot controllers that don't do NRPN, so mapping is often our only option...and the KPA doesn't have it.