Posts by audiomitch

FWIW, I do the bulk of my organizing in Rig Manager. I have thousands of profiles in my local folder, and about 15 profiles on my KPA.

The great thing about Rig Manager is that all you have to do is double click on the profile to send it to the KPA. It doesn't store it unless you hit the Store button, but you can edit all you like and even turn off the machine. The profile will still be there when you come back. To get rid of it just choose another profile and it's gone. This is true of the profiles on Rig Exchange and all the free commercial profile packs too.

Tagging is also a great benefit, but I must admit I'm a little lax on keeping up with it.

I buy a fair amount of commercial profiles, most are an incredible bargain for what you get. But I generally count on 3 or 4 of them to be useful on a regular basis. YMMV

Quote from lightbox

Duesenberg, Sennheiser, Schoeps, Brauner, Bogner, Diezel, Behringer, Hughes & Kettner, Beyerdynamic, ...

Oh dang! I forgot to list my Beyer M160! My favorite ribbon mic for rockin' and rollin'

Nice touch, especially for 2am!

Quote from lonestargtr

Not sure if I'm helped or hijacked the thread but just wanted to chime in

At the risk of sounding like a suck up, I always consider your profiles as "safe" choices. When I'm reamping I usually choose one of your profiles first to acclimate my ears to a well mic'd authentic sound. I love your AC30 profiles.

OK, suck up mode off.

Headphones are kind of a personal choice, at least above a certain quality point.

I used the AKGs for years, and liked them because you had to work at making them sound good. I've used the Beyers but not for extended time. My impression was that they sounded better than the AKGs, which is good and bad. If you're recording you don't want your monitoring to flatter the sound. But if you're playing live, you want a better sound to inspire your playing.

So it all depends.

I think the Beyers are twice the cost of the AKGs, I don't know if that's a consideration.

Thank you all so much! I'm kind of satisfied with this one which is unusual for me.

Quote from 808illest

Cool Tool vibe happening here Mitch, like it.

Yes! Tool is one of my favorite bands. That's a great compliment, thanks! I was in a full Tool phase when I started this piece. Currently I'm in an almost exclusively Grateful Dead bootleg phase, so go figure.

Quote from Monkey_Man

Fail. Doesn't sound anything like Madonna.

Nuh uh, does so!

Quote from Wheresthedug

I particularly like the tone on the main melody riff. Very twangy and a bit gritty. And also the cleaner tone on that open string arpeggio type figure. What profiles are they?

If it's what I think it is, it's actually a Fender Jazz Bass. I was trying to find a bass line and got way too complicated (as usual). It was definitely not going to work as a bass line, so I put a telephone effect on it and treated it like a guitar. I think it's a plugin through some drastic EQ.

The open guitar at the intro is a complicated story, so ignore if this is too long. This guitar was originally through the NI GuitarRig Plugin using the "Warm Universe Patch". I immediately reamped through the KPA, but had trouble finding the "right" sound. I even bought ToneJunkies "Chimey Spanky" profile set thinking it would be perfect, but it didn't work for this particular part (but will be fabulous for other things!). So I went back to the plugin, but after listening to even the "not right" KPA profiles, the plugin sounded flat and tiny and bad. So I ended up putting my Ibanez Reissue TS 808 through a clean Marshall profile "JMP50 '76 CLEAN" by Niels. Went back in to the plugin and deleted the modeled amp and cab so I was just sending the reamped guitar through the huge ambiance of the patch. It worked reasonably well, not 100% happy with it. But I'm leaving it. Enough is enough!

Thanks again for listening!!

Most of the guitars are KPA, the lead guitar at the end is the profile "JP-LEAD" by Gerald Massois. Not sure about the notes, but I love the tone of the profile!

Thanks for listening!

Quote from flyingheelhook

I still don’t have a handle on the compressor - could you guys share some settings you use?

There's actually some presets you can experiment with. While you're in the Stomp or Effects block turn the Browse knob to see them. Those presets actually cover a lot of range. You can also copy the compressor from another profile and tweak to fit.

Quote from lightbox

But I'm not sure if I should recommend an interface that might need to get "expanded" by yet another piece of gear right from the beginning.

I hear you and agree to a point. But for the typical bedroom setup you probably wouldn't need to expand at all. Sampled drums, virtual synths, and now the KPA reduce the I/O requirements in a big way. Especially for the one man band setup. IMO, the biggest advantage for the OP is that he can get RME quality within his budget.

Neumann mics, Access Virus Synth, Kemper Profiling Amp, RME interface, Presonus Studio One. Oh, and a Hofner bass.

Still plenty of non German stuff - API and Heritage mic pres. Fender, Gibson, Rickenbacker guitars. Marshall amp. Genelec, Auratone and Crown monitoring, Audeze headphones.

Definitely trending German, though.

Quote from lightbox

I know that e.g. RME (especially the Babyface Pro) is very popular but its IO count is ridiculous. This particular interface is a waste of money.

I have a Babyface Pro and love it. It has ADAT Lightpipe I/O, so it's expandable to cover most home studio applications.

I actually "downgraded" from an RME Fireface 800. Before that I was running a Pro Tools HD Accel 3 System which had tons of I/O. If I was still recording bands I might not have reduced my I/O, but for my personal home studio the Babyface Pro is more than enough.

Here's a ToneJunkie YouTube link that may be useful -

"How we make Kemper Profiles!!!"

Sounds good in the video, just ordered it.

I like how you guys are starting to get more descriptive with the sounds instead of focusing on the name of the amp. A lot of times when I'm auditioning sounds I purposefully try not to look at the name of the amp so I won't be swayed by what it's "supposed" to be.

Thanks again!

If you take the time to go through the free commercial Rig Packs in Rig Manager, you will be greatly rewarded.

Quote from Monkey_Man

Besides this, the KPA's main outs are unbalanced (TS), so there's no point in going TRS.

Ha ha... I've never even plugged a cable in to the main outputs.

Quote from StevTheChugger

Well, they should work fine but TRS cables are balanced which means they are lower noise and just 'cleaner' in general.

Balanced cables won't make a difference for short runs. There's a lot of current flowing at line level, so noise usually isn't a problem unless you're talking about using long cable runs. A "dirty" environment can affect it too, but in the typical home setup it shouldn't be a big enough problem to sweat it over balanced vs unbalanced.

Sound quality will not be "improved" by using balanced cables in a typical length run.

That said, I try to use balanced cables whenever possible to satisfy my OCD tendencies. But in reality, it shouldn't be that big of a deal.

Quote from jonathanthomas83

I'm still getting a lot of crackling on mine and have set the clock on the RME to be "Optical in" which I assume is the only way to make the Kemper the master?

That's pretty much it. Are the sample rates set at the same rate?

Also, check your cabling. I only use 75 ohm coaxial cable that was designed for digital audio applications. A regular RCA patch cable might work, but may not be reliable.

There's a yellow light on top of the Babyface Pro that turns from yellow to green once it's locked up. Make sure it's green, and the optical input is set to S/PDIF not ADAT.

Quote from figu7716

I finally figured it out. It was a damn patch cable. I have the pedalboard looping in the Kemper and I am loving it so much. I’m getting so many great tones. Here’s my pedalboard!

Yay! Isn't this thing amazing?

Quote from figu7716

Yeah.

so it works plugging straight in, but not with the pedal board, correct? If so, it's a pedal board issue.

FWIW, I'm using pedals both straight in and through both mono and stereo FX loops without any problem whatsoever. The Kemper takes pedals like a dream.

Quote from jonathanthomas83

Excuse me crashing your thread. I have an RME Babyface Pro and am getting some crackling. I've used regular SPDIF cable and used a powered converter to Optical cable...is this how you do it audiomitch ? Do you get artifacts at all? Many thanks

No artifacts at all. Clocking issues are usually the cause of crackling/pops. The Kemper MUST be the master, so you need to slave the RME clock to the Kemper. I have a tenuous clocking chain, but it works fine. I have an old M-Audio Profire 2626 connected via ADAT in to the Babyface Pro. The Kemper is connected to the coaxial S/PDIF on the Profire. So the clock is daisy chained Kemper --> Profire --> RME. I actually didn't expect it to work or be stable, but it's solid as a rock.

I've also used a coaxial to optical converter and it also worked perfectly. Mine are the cheapo Monoprice ones.

The other issue may be levels. If your S/PDIF level is blasting in to the RME it will distort and crackle. Also, have you checked your levels in Total Mix? If the levels are too high they will distort too.

Lastly, I was getting some distortion from certain profiles because they run so hot. If it's only certain profiles that do it, try turning Rig Volume or the master volume down.

Good luck!