Posts by fannar182

  • Gain staging - Suhr vs PRS?

    Hi there Kemper forum. I have a simple problem that I don't seem to be able to fix so I was wondering if you guys could help me.

    My main guitar is a Suhr Classic Pro with three V60LP pickups. I'm using Matt Britt profiles but I've never been quite happy with my sound or the feel when playing with the Suhr.. I don't feel like my playing ''flows'' as well as when playing through a real tube amplifier. I feel like there is no sustain and it's difficult playing lead as the tone doesn't response or flow as well like with my tube amps. I have the clean sense at 0.0 an dist sense on 3.5.

    Then I played this gig last weekend with my PRS Custom 22 which got two 85/15 humbuckers and wow.. The tone was just amazing. 10/10. The guitar almost played itself and the lead playing was so big and stadium like. And I was playing through the exact same profiles as with the Suhr but the sustain was much more and the response was way better with my PRS. I didn't change the clean/dist sense from before.

    So I began to wonder what could be the different.. I thought maybe it had something to do with the output of the pickups (gainstaging) so I measured the output with my UAD Apollo (D.I) and the output is 9db HIGHER with my PRS vs the Suhr :rolleyes: So do the profiles sound better because the PRS is pushing extra 9db into them? How can I make the profiles sound as good when playing the Suhr? Do I need a 9db boost on my Suhr? Can I work the clean sense and the dist sense to do that for me? What does 9db difference amount to in clean/dist sense values? Do I increase the clean sense to 9.0 and the dist sense to 12.5 when using the Suhr to get it to sound as good as the PRS?

    Hope you guys understand what I'm talking about.. How do I compensate for the 9db missing in pickup output in the Suhr vs the PRS when using the exact same profiles?

    - Fannar

  • Kemper overdrive/distortion sounds so bad

    Quote from Antipodes

    An electric guitar in any kind of proximity to an amp is going to be excited acoustically by the amp sound - basically feedback. The louder the amp the more the guitar will sustain due to the body and strings vibrating in sympathy with the amp sound. This interaction doesn't happen at all on headphones or in ear monitors.

    Wow I never thought about that. Thank you so much for the reply!

  • Kemper overdrive/distortion sounds so bad

    Hi there. I've owned my Kemper for about two years and have loved it since I bought it. I use a Fender Strat Elite and a PRS Custom 22 with it and own almost all the M.Britt profiles and exclusively use them because I've found they are the best overall profiles in my opinion.

    I've always had this underlying that the overdrive/distortion of the Kemper wasn't perfect but I just went with it never totally 100% satisfied but the clean tones are amazing. So I went the other day to a music store to check out some new stuff and decided for the fun of it to try some amps. I tried Victory amps, Mesa Boogie's and Supro and damn... those overdrive/distortion sounds I could get instantly from those amps sounded 95% better then my M.Britt profiles (grabngo, crankgo) and it took maybe 10 sec to dial them in. I could feel the punch from the amp and the guitar (Fender Strat) just felt like it was alive but the Kemper most of the time feels boring/lifeless/dead/sterile. No sustain and no live and really lacks clarity. When I play two notes at the same time (soloing) it creates this digital mush and a very un-pleasing frequency clash that I don't get while doing the same thing with a real amp.

    I was so disappointed after playing 3 gigs with the Kemper this weekend and using it during practise yesterday that when I got home I plugged my 99$ Boss Katana Mini and within 5-10 sec I could get better overdrive/distortion out of it then the Kemper. It's 7 watt and battery powered but the guitar felt more alive, with more sustain and the mini amp ''responded'' more to my playing then the Kemper.

    So what could I be doing wrong in my setup?

    Kemper to FOH via xlr (main out L) and main outs set to ''Master Mono''. I have no noise gate on, I've turned the noise gate knob manually off for all my profiles because I hate how it sucks the life out of my guitar. I have pure cab set to 3.0. The level to FOH is -18. I sometimes hook it up to my Barefoot Footprint monitors but when playing live I use Ultimate Ears Pro 18. When playing live I also use Shure GLXD16 wirless kit but I use cable during practises. :(:(:(


  • Kemper audio cuts off and then back in. What is happening?

    Hey there. I've own my Kemper for 1 year now and I love it but I've always had this strange problem when playing with heavy distortion. When I play a chord and then cut the chord off the audio tail drops off for a split second and then back up again. I would say it happens in 1 out of every 10 times when I play a chord. It seems to only happen when playing with a lot of gain.


    To my it sounds like the ''electricity is dropping in power and then dropping in again''. Does that make sense? Have you guys ever experienced this or similar problem? If not, what do you think it could be? The problem exists both when I monitor the Kemper outputs via my UAD Apollo audio interface AND when monitoring the Kemper through the internal headphone input. I even tried turning every electric device in my room off but that didn't help.. And like I said, this only occurs in maybe 1 every 10 times I play a chord and stop it.


    I recorded 2 minutes of my playing a chord and then cutting it off and 4-5 times this issue came up. Here you can hear 4 examples and then the same 4 again but in the second time I turned the volume up 15db on just the audio tail (where this glitch happens). I also included a picture of the waveform from Pro Tools and there you can see where the audio clearly drops off for a split second and then it's up again. :thumbdown:


    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.…mper%20Tail%20Cut-Off.mp3


    https://www.dropbox.com/s/zfvm…20Tail%20Cut-Off.mp3?dl=0



    I have the latest Kemper update installed.

  • Guitar picking up electric noises when recording :(

    @danijelsh


    Thanks once again for such a good answer.


    The people at Gigabyte being really unhelpful. I asked them further into my problem and still they always send me the same answers. Got this reply this morning from them:

    ''Hello,
    Please suggest:
    1. Update latest BIOS
    Z170XDesignare.zip

    2. Update latest driver from our website
    http://www.gigabyte.com/Mother…signare-rev-10#support-dl
    3. Suggest check if any different when connect speaker on Front and Rear Audio. ''



    And yes, I would ideally want to skip selling my two computers to buy a single MBP. One option is to track all electric guitars with my MBP and then mixing/editing in my Hackintosh but that seems kind of a hassle and could be annoying work flow.


    I'm really busy today but tomorrow or wednesday I will record both audio and video of this issue. But just to add more information, if I turn off my computer and monitor through the UAD OR Kemper headphone plug I don't get any noise. So its not the UAD and it's not the Kemper making this problem. It's definitely the computer :(

  • Guitar picking up electric noises when recording :(

    @danijelsh Thanks again for the reply.


    I have a wireless Apple Magic Mouse and I don't think I can change it's poll settings.


    1.) The BIOS wont let me disable the ''Package C state limit''. It only allows me to choose from C0/C1/C2 and up to C9 and then AUTO. So I can't turn that off it seems.
    2.) I disabled the ''Intel speed shift technology'' but that didn't do anything.
    3.) What do you mean by ''If you have dual boot, try booting into windows, and run Realtemp GT, or CPU-Z or something else (maybe this will work with Wine or in a virtual machine, not sure), I got from couple of other forums that the cpu multiplier won't change if you have C states disabled, so it's possible that you don't have them fully disabled. '' ?


    I currently have a 2014 MBP and my new Hackintosh. I'm having thoughts about selling it both and buy a new 2017 MBP. It's just so god damn expensive :(

  • Guitar picking up electric noises when recording :(

    First of all I would like to thank you @danijelsh so much for tagging me and sharing your experience with me. I posted both here and on tonymacx86.com and I got no solutions out of it. No one could point me in the right direction. My PC build is a Hackintosh I put together my self, Gigabyte Z170 Designare Mobo, i7-6700 and GTX 980 graphic card.


    The computer is a beast. I'm running the newest Sierra version, newest Pro Tools version, all the Native Instruments stuff, Maschine 2, XLN Audio, the current version of Premiere Pro and everything works 100%. I work for a TV station so I edit a lot of shows (video editing) and I also do audio-post for various TV shows here in Iceland. I've done probably over 80 tv-audio mixes on my new Hackintosh and edited about 20 shows and mixed about 10 songs and no problem at all.


    The only thing that is wrong with it is that I can't record electric guitar, plane and simple. I can record audio through my mic (Neumann TLM 102) without a problem, dead silent. I've recorded vocals and acoustic guitar and it's perfect through my UAD Apollo Twin interface. BUT when recording electric guitar (PRS Custom 22 into a Kemper, stereo xlr out into the UAD Apollo Twin) I get so much electric noise/interference that its totally worthless. I've tried everything. I've switched electric outlets, bought new instrument cables and xlr cables. Moved the Kemper around and the PC. Turned off nearly every electric device in the house but the noise is always there. I disconnected the WIFI card inside the Hackintosh and removed the secondary HDD (my main drive is a SSD) but that didn't work either.


    The noise in your videos are EXACTLY like the noise I get. 100% the same. This guy told me here on the Kemper forum to disable all the C-states in the BIOS and I did but that didn't help either :( I reached out to Gigabyte support and they told me to update my BIOS to F22 (I have F20) but I'm in a middle of a big project so I wont be taking the chance of messing with the computer and then I just don't see how that update should help me.


    The noise is clearly CPU related. When I move the mouse the noise increases. When I open up some apps or my browser the noise gets higher.


    All this problem has made it difficult for me to be motivated and excited to record guitar and write music which is a shame because of the great, expensive gear I got. I've got the Kemper and I never use it because of this problem. It's just laying around. Such a shame. I'm strongly thinking about selling my new Hackintosh in the summer and buy a overpriced iMac :( .... Just so I can record a CLEAN guitar signal.


    I found a thread yesterday on tonymacx86 where some guy has a noise problem similar to our noise and he than found out it was a ground loop inside the computer? I'm not that good with computers to fix that one my own if that's the problem. I've talked to the store here in Iceland who sold me the computer and they don't have a clue what to do.


    And like I said, everything is dead silent always except when I'm recording electric guitar :(

  • Guitar picking up electric noises when recording :(

    @Michael_dk Thanks for the reply. I've recorded with that setup and my MBP for the last 6 months (Same room, same speakers, same audio interface, same amp (kemper) and without a problem. I've tried recording with the MBP with the PC turned on and then I get the noises/star-wars sounds. I'm gonna try tonight to move my PC to another room and record with my MBP.

  • Guitar picking up electric noises when recording :(

    @Sharry I've also tried my Gibson Les Paul Standard (humbuckers) and it's all the same. Noises, crackle, static noise, spikes.


    @Gary_W Thanks alot Gary for trying to help me. I seriously appreciate the effort. I'm thinking about getting an electric tech guy to come and look at my sockets. If they weren't grounded properly, could that cause me hearing the inside of the computer ''work'' through my pickups? I can hear my hard drive, my CPU. When I turn on another software in my computer I can literally hear the computer go to work to open it up. When I play a video on YouTube I hear the processing start up and everything. It's so weird.


    Another option like you said is to buy alot of extensions :( I'm also thinking about just selling it and getting myself a 2016 MBP. I've had my 2013 MBP for yeah 3 years now and I've never once had trouble with it recording. I've recorded a 48 track concert that went on for 4 hours with no problem for example. I just wanted a new computer because it was getting to slow for all those new audio plugins and editing 1080 videos with maybe 3-4 streams playing at the same time. But it's just so goddamn expensive.

  • Guitar picking up electric noises when recording :(

    @Gary_W Thanks for the info Gary. I already had read on this ''C-State'' problem and I tried disabling them one by one (C1, C6,7 and something in the BIOS) but that didn't work. I read your post and I have a 500gb SSD disk as my main drive and a 2TB WD secondary for storage. I disconnected that but still no changes. I noticed that 1 of maybe 8 screws are missing from the motherboard (screws that go in to the motherboard to tighten it to the computer case), could that do any harm like this?


    - Fannar

  • Guitar picking up electric noises when recording :(

    @nightlight Thanks for the quick reply. At first I also thought it had something to do with the socket not being grounded but I've had multiple speakers powered on by this socket (NS10, Focal and more) and multiple electronic devices and never have I heard noise before. Is it possible that if that socket isn't grounded that it only affect my computer?


    Someone told be to get a really long extension cable and plug it in the next room, drag it to my studio room and plug the computer in there. I did that and it didn't fix it. I've been working on that computer for 1 month now, I've edited 3-4 TV shows, done 3 commercial mixes and probably 10+ audio mixes for numerous tv shows and never have I had trouble with it. No noise, no failures but when I connect my guitar and play then it gets crazy. I called the computer company that put the hardware I choose in the case for me to ask if it could be possible that they did something wrong. If they had maybe forgot to ground the computer or something. The guy told me it was highly unlikely.


    If my socket wasn't grounded, shouldn't the noise/sound change when I touch my guitar?

  • Guitar picking up electric noises when recording :(

    Hi there. I was hoping you guys could help me with this problem I'm having.


    I recently built a new PC to replace my MBP Retina to be the main computer at my studio but my PRS Custom 22 guitar picks up so much noise from it that I can't really record anything. I record straight to my UAD interface via Kemper Profiling amp (XLR to XLR). I'm 100% sure it's the guitar pickups that are so sensitive and therefor they pick up all kinds of electric/static/crackle noise. I'm also 90% sure that it's picking up my hard drive noise because when I hit ''play'' in Pro Tools I can hear extra noises come in and when I press ''stopp'' those sounds go away. If I would have to describe the noises I would say they are like having a little Star Wars fight inside your speakers. When I turn off the PC and just play through my UAD audio interface (for monitoring) or plug my headphones to the Kemper I have zero noise so I'm 100% it's the PC.


    I NEVER had this problem with my MBP. The noise goes away if I go 2 meters back but that isn't a good solution because I have to be able to reach my keybord and mouse to press record and do all sorts of things while recording.


    I've tried pretty much everything I can think of for the past 2 days. I have tried:


    *Change the guitar cable
    *Change the power cable of the amp
    *Turn off all electric things in my studio (monitors, speakers, hard drives) except my PC
    *Move my PC to the other side of the room and 70cm farther away from where I sit
    *Plug the PC to another power outlet in the room.
    *Ground lift on my amp


    Nothing has solved my problem. So what can I do to ''isolate'' my PC hardware from interfering with my guitar pick ups? Someone suggested buying a dedicated Furman power conditioner to ''clean up'' my electricity so I went out and rented Furman pl-8 and plugged my computer in it but it didn't change a thing. Then I plugged my Kemper in it and again, it didn't do a thing


    What could be wrong? Could my brand new Power Supply for the PC be broken? Does the computer case need to be grounded? Maybe I'm using a case that doesn't have any EMI/RFI shielding. Do I need a better case with better shielding against this kind of interference?


    Do you have any recommendations for me to solve this problem? Thanks in advance! [Blocked Image: https://www.tonymacx86.com/styles/default/xenforo/clear.png] ^^

  • Does Monitor Cab Off affect Main out? Bad live sound through Kemper

    Hi there. Quick question. I was playing a gig yesterday in a big PA system (1000 people) and it was my first time using the Kemper live and the sound guy (a guy who owns the PA rental, sound engineer for 25 years) was always telling me how bad and weird my guitar sounded in the PA. It sounded really really good on stage through my Yamaha DXR10. I have owned many amps and the sound I had yesterday through the Kemper on stage was the best I've ever had but the sound guy kept complaining. So I started to wonder what I was doing wrong with the Kemper. My main out levels are set to -18.0, Pure Cab to 4.0 and Monitor Cab is ON. Do you have any advice on this subject for me? Should I turn the Monitor Cab OFF when playing live?


    - Fannar