Posts by Nordan

Hey,

just realized that you are maybe dealing with the same problem.

Everything on my kemper sounds undefined, mushy, boomy and in general: not good. I thought for a long time that it is just me, my guitars, my playing styleor my lack of knowledge in terms of sound. I coudn't fit my guitars (or basses) into my mixes. everything was always too oversaturated.

With the help of another user, I compared a reamped DI signal and realized, that my kemper is indeed adding lots of bass (and maybe some other frequencie stuff) to my signal. After two days of trying and some additional frequency analysis of both reamp signals,

I realized that I have to adjust the global output EQ to -4/-4,5 Bass and add some highs and maybe presence, depending on the guitar I use.

Now all the profile are sounding pretty good. And quite comparable to the stuff that I see on youtube videos.

Here's my thread. Maybe you can looka at the reamped DI and see if my sound is comparable to that what you are experiencing.

Is my Kemper amplifying bass/low mids too much or are my guitars crap?

Quote from V8guitar

I know this won;t help but....

• The Kempers E.Q. isn;t odd, you should not need to do any massive E.Q.ing - which leads me to suspect there is another issue in your signal chain
• You can get a great sound out of a Kemper for what you are doing.

There are so many factors at play its really difficult to diagnose. Reamping should have ruled out playing etc so now its in the monitoring and your set up.

Surely the general Kemper EQ is not odd.... but my unit seems to be?

You also can hear the differene in the one Reamp exsample. So it's not my room, my monitors or my 3 headphones. The sound itself changed.

Quote from BayouTexan

I am starting to wonder if it's your gain settings on your interface, or if you have the mic preamps coming on when they should be off for instrument input. IMO, Focusrite has some finnicky interfaces.

Do you have the Forcusrite Control panel installed?

On my Motu M4, I only have the input gain knobs set at 25% (or between 2 and 3 on a scale of 10). That gives me a recording level in my DAW of -12 to -6 depending on how hard I hit the strings. I have rig volumes at 0.0 and Clean and Dist Sens at 0.0.

I'm sure the interface is not to blame. I thought about that, reevaluated every 'in' and 'out' in the control panel, checked the gain levels everywhere. Meanwhile I also tried it whith the analog inputs. It's the same.

And most importantly:if I take the interface out of the signal chain and listen through the headphone out of the kemper it is the same. Way too much bass(and maybe additional stuff that I can't figure out).
Meanwhile I performed several factory/init resets to exclude some whacky things there and bring the kemper back to factory setting. But still: nope.

If no one has an idea, I might open a support ticket.

I'm still very thankful to all of you here =)

Quote from paults

It can depend on one or more of the following: the sound of your headphones or monitors and room or guitar cabinet and how you have your pickups adjusted.

Of course every headphone is EQ'd differently and every room has it's problems. But this doesn't matter here. I compared two reamped signals through the same monitor source(s).

I had a short break to relief my head from the noise and tried to readjust the output EQ to match the sample from BayouTexan.

I'm somehow right with my bass correction on -4.0 to -4.2 db. If I add some mids(0.2-0.3) and highs (0.5-0.7) I also get mor of this lively , more "there" tone.

DonPetersen And the Mars Golub profiles sounds also way better

Now i went through a bunch of profiles and somehow they all make much more sense. I was used that nearly all the high gain profiles sounds shit, because they are a boomy mess of mud. With my settings, they make way more fun. But, I'm not getting a 100% identical to Bayous reamping.

And I ask myself: Why is the basic EQ from my Kemper so odd?

Hi to you all,

thanks for the answers.

Quote from BayouTexan

I think some of that sizzle will clean up in a mix. The low end is too boomy no doubt but did you try to increase the amp's Definition to get rid of the boominess? You can increase the Definition while also increasing the Amp's bass EQ without it mudding up - if you find the low gets too thin.

Yeah, high end sizzle is hideable underneath the high frequencies of the drums, for sure. I know that amps have different low end characteristics and that i can modulate that easily with the definition knob. What I showed to you was just a general problem that occures on a majority of rigs. (Of course, if theres a very bright profile with no bass baked into, it doesn't sound boomy =) )
But no matter what I do, I can't control the flubby boominess. I mean, setting a high pass up to 200 with additional reduction of peaks in the 80-200 hz up to -6-9 db just leavs a whimpy sound. Something is fishy here, and I just want to know what part of me/hardware/software is causing it.

Quote from DonPetersen

tbh, if you want a tighter low end, an Engl Profile seems an odd choice, lots of low end it's what they do.

try the factory content Mars Golub Profile, it's the first one when sorting alphabetically for a reason

Of course, this one from guidorist (over)exaggerates the problem. But the Mars Golub is having the same low end issue. Palm mutes are just ugly sounding, except when I increase the distance to the bridge a lot. But then they sound whimpy.

Quote from BayouTexan

Nordan I reamped your DI file using the Mars SL 100 E profile. No problem with the low end. The only thing that may be different from my setup to yours is I have Low Cut at 80.6Hz and High Cut = OFF.

I reamped using a Motu M4 interface and rendered with Reaper. Reamp sense at 0.0db.

https://drive.google.com/file/…eqVO6ayL/view?usp=sharing

Thanks a lot for your work. I highly appreciate that!!!
I also reamped my Di with the same profile and added the same low cut. Interestingly, I had to adjust the Reamp Sense to -12(!!) and I had to adjust the Dist sense slightly to mach the gain of your reamp, otherwise mine was way to distorted. The Di leaves my DAW with about -6 db peak. My interface (Focusrite Clarett 4Pre) tells me the Di volume that goes to SPDIF out is about -12 db.

Edit: Solved that one. I modified this profile in the Rig Pack folder and saved it by accident. I thought this was the stock profile. Now I downloaded the original profile again and used that in the samples below

I think my ReAmp is having the same problems as before.

Somehow yours is having more mids and sounds more lively, more "there", warmer. Mine sounds bassy, boomy and scooped(?). Perhaps this is the reason why I never really liked my tone and interpreted that as sizzly and harsh? Because theres something missing in the mids, which leads me to hear more of the crappy frequencies from 5k upwards?
(And to be honest, I always thought that there was something missing somewhere in the mid area. Or that they are quite compressed or something...but it is possible that I'm getting fooled here by myself)

I tried to match the volumes in this short comparison snippet. The first four seconds are yours, then my reamps comes is.

Do you share my opinion? Or, what do you think?
And what should I do next? I'm somehow happy that the reamps do sound different. But...is it my kemper? My interface? The SPDIF cables?

My first thoughts are that I could use the Main outs of the kemper and use the analog inputs of the interface. But tere will be a slight colouring of the sound. But I will do that in the evening. I also have another forusrite interface, the Saffire 6 USB, which has no SPDIF.

I do think it has nothing to do with my hardware, because my headphone out is giving basicly the same bassy-EQ balance. I kinda can sort it out by reducing the output bass eq to about -4, but there's still something more not right.

Here's the complete reamp, if anyone is interested.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fo6y2k9m3sf1ygy/Chug%20ReAmp%20Slo100E.wav?dl=0

Oh guys,

I changed my mind. I'm still not convinced: Again, I'm trying for days to find a good tone and I'm sick of it.

I'm starting to like the headphone-out of my Blackstar Ht5 more then the kemper ;D

Just for my inner peace: could someone be so kind to reamp one of my DIs? I really wanna listen to another kemper and compare it to mine.

i'm playing a lot of "chugchug" metal recently, so here's another DI you could use, additional to the ones above.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xbu5pe9us78umss/Chug%20Di.wav?dl=0

This one is a good example of what I can't get rid of. High end sizzle(but not bright enough?) and a awful boomy lowend.

It is the stock profile of Guidorist, GB Engle Shouter. Way too much gain, but I wantet to keep it "stock".

pure Cab/space/eq in the output section is off. I just matched the Clean sense and distortion setting in the input-sector to about -8 to prevent clipping.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1q3k…0Engle%20Shouter.wav?dl=0

Quote from Wheresthedug

the first of the Lars Luetge files sounds really good to me. The second one sounds very muffled and would get lost in the mix.

I can’t reamp your DI at the moment as I am in between houses and can’t set any of my gear up.

I typically find around 200 -300hz is the zone I want to cut all the time. I have never been able to understand why the classic Mesa V GEQ curve has a big boost at 240hz which is smack in the middle of the mud zone for me.

Okay, that's good. Now several people told me ha here is no problem. So neither my guitars, nor the kemper is to blame.
Then it must be me: After relistening to my samples, and paying close attention to my playing.... I think my main problems are not the general sound, but rather the palm mutes: If I play open chords, everything sounds indeed pretty normal, but the palm mutes have this overbearing low end boom..

If I move my palm slightly away from the bridge, then the boominess dissappears. I wrote that I couldn't play for a long time, because of an injury:So I guess, I just have to re-learn palm mutes again? At least his would explain why two completely different gutars do have he same problem:...it's most probably the player.

DonPetersen and

GearJocke

thanks to all of you for your answers

Quote from BayouTexan

Nothing wrong with your guitars. I'd suggest you record in a mix or with at least a drum track to check how the profile sounds. Also tweak the profile and record with it at 85-90db for the best sound. Maybe raise the Low Cut to 90hz.

Heyho,

actually, most of the times I'm playing to my EZdrummer. I might be an amateur, but I think I know the basics of mixing.

A lot of times I have to reduce the bass (or lower mids, up to around 300-360 hz) to at least -5 db (s5470) or even -9db (with my drop c tuned Ibanez RG 1570) to get rid of boominess and overwhelming low end. A simple standard low cut at 80-90 hz is not enough. Not just on this particular profile, but rather most of them. Or at least, I start to feel like I have to! I'm just somehow unsure if everything sounds alright or...not. And I'm starting to loose the fun with my kemper.

Either the profiles are too boomy and need to be tweaked with drastic EQ, or they are too bright and artificially fizzy and need to be tamed on the top end (but most of them are too boomy, that's why I thought my particular guitars could be a problem)>>> I collected about 7000 profiles on my computer and I just feel the need to tweak nearly every time.

I just want to feel good again about my sound. Please tell me that me ears are just wrong.

Quote from DonPetersen

is the CABINET module of your PROFILER active (lit)?

what is you MAIN OUTPUT (assuming you record these outputs) set to?

Hey,

I use the cabs ;D
My main outs are rarely in use, I play mostly over SPDIF. So no main-out EQ in the signal chain.

Thanks to you both for the replies=)

Hi Kemperfolks,

First:

I’m not sure if this is the right sub for this thread, so don’t mind to push it somewhere else, thanks.

I couldn’t play guitar for quite a long time because I hurt both of my hands and this kind of threw myself back in terms of playing guitar and recording music. My ear for guitar sounds are on “reset” right now and I want to restart recording and making music.

Everyone seems to sounds absolutely awesome with their kempers, but I can’t seem to find a good tone. For weeks I’m just digging through profiles without really playing, only looking for sounds. If I find something that I like, I record it and realize that it sounds crappy, cheap, fizzy, grainy, flat, ugly ect.

I think one of my problems is the bass/lower mids in my guitar(s). But I’m not sure if my guitars are to blame, or if the kemper somehow is amplifying the lower frequencies too much.

This means that I need your help to tell me: Do my guitars suck? Is something wrong with my ears? Is it the kemper? My monitoring situation?

I recorded a DI of each of my main guitars into my Focusrite Clarett and reamped it with a (randomly chosen) profile from Lars Luette (Mars SL 100 E).

Could someone please tell me if my thoughts are correct? Or even better: could someone reamp my DIs with the same profile and upload it? Or upload some own DIs so that I can reamp them?

dropboxlink with wave-files:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/w61…mccSwT0X4eJ3sRqbqLLa?dl=0

soundcloud files:https://soundcloud.com/whaip/di-no1?in=whaip/sets/kemper

https://soundcloud.com/whaip/1…00-e?in=whaip/sets/kemper
https://soundcloud.com/whaip/di-no2?in=whaip/sets/kemper

https://soundcloud.com/whaip/2…00-e?in=whaip/sets/kemper

My guitars:

Di1: Ibanez S5470 with a DiMarzio Evolution2 Pickup

Di2: Ibanez RG1570 with a Seymour Duncan SH6

Interface: Focusrite Clarett 4 Pre

Reamped via SPDIF

Kemper is basically on factory settings for this recording: space, pure cabinet are on zero

Monitoring is done eather via headphones (AKG K240 DF or Shure SRH840)

or studio monitors Yamaha HS7.

Thank you all!

Nice one! I marked it as a favourite immediately.

DAngerbear

I kid you not, because of you I listened closely today, and I can also hear pops clicks (sounds similar to the noise while listening to a vinyl record).

I'll also try to find out where this comes from.

Did youplay with SPDIF volume?

What drivers are you using?

Awesome, as nearly all of your heavier profiles!

Update to all of you,

I spend another week of thinking and decided to not do any compromises:

After trying out 2 cheaper heaphone preamps I purchased the Focusrite Clarett 4Pre and use the Kemper completely digital from now on. The headphone sound improved drasticly and is quite similar to the one on the Kemper, but lacks a little bit oomph and warmth (which the kemper adds on purpose to please us guitarists ).

Also the headphone out is powerful enough to drive my old 600 ohm AGK 240 df headphones.

Additionaly, I bought the Sonarworks Reference 4 Software and I'm quite happy that I did! When I look at the frequenzy curve that this software has to equalize, I must say that my room is indeed crappy.

And last, I replaced my old bass and got an Spector Legend Classic 4 TBM. It has the sound that I want and plays like a dream. Also the curved body is somehow pleasing to my belly ;D

Thanks for all the input!

Quote from 1Towneley

so no way to plug Kemper direct into PC without significant spend?

Any basic interface will allow you to record. If it got SPDIF, the quality shoudn't suffer like it is the case with bad and noisy preamps.

What the kemper support was trying to say you, is that the headphone-out of the cheap focusrite isn't sounding as good as the kempers headphone out. So if you route your signal through the interface and want to monitor that (while recording?), you will record the good tones, but won't hear them in the same awesome way, as when you stick your headphone directly into the kemper. To solve this problem you need to spend additiona money on the interface or a headphone preamp that you connect to the interface.

But you can play along backing tracks ect just fine by giving the kemper an aux signal from your laptop!! So you just need a Y-cable with matching connections to the kemer/interface and you're good to go.

Update:

While the idea from Lobsta was quite fine, I miss a lot of top end stuff through the Kemper's own headphone amp. It is fine for playing along to a backing track or choosing sounds while reamping, but mixing is rather difficult (well, that is indeed not the job of this headphone amp, so no fault here )

Quote from deadman42

This! Make it pragmatic and easy to use. Less hurdles in starting creative process will be beneficial...

After two further days of thinking, my decision is: a new interface. Plug everything into it and never touch it again!

My requirements are 2-4 inputs with at leat "okay" preamp quality (won't use these too often, but recording acoustic guitar vocals will be done from time to time), SPDIF, MIDI, powerful headphone amps.

I was struggling with choosing the right one, but compromised my thoughts on these three: Focusrite scarlett 8i6, Focusrite Clarett 4Pre or Presonus Studio 86c for various reasons. Although I read good things about the headphone out quality, I kicked the Presonus from my list because of this weird midi/SPDIF combo-plug thing.

There are a lot of things to read when you want to compare Scarlett 2nd gen and Clarett interfaces, mostly that the clarett PreAmps are better (there are a couple of sound clips that proove this, i.e. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1t74lLm40E) and that Claretts have an additional "air" mode, which simulates whatever-circuit-from-whatever-famous-focusrite-preamp. Also, the headphone out seems to be way better on the Claretts.

But now the 3rd gen of Scarletts also have this air-mode and a more powerful headphone out. So, the question is:

Scarlett 816 for roundabout 250 € or Clarett 4Pre for 500 €?
The clarett 4pre is nearly twice as expensive, but seems not only to be big step further in sound quality, but it can drive headphones up to 600

ohms, while Scarlett is 250 ohm max. And to my understanding this tells me that 250 ohme are rather suboptimal because they get rather poorly driven. And I will buy some open-back headphones like the famous Beyerdynamic 990 (pro?) with at least 250 ohms in the future.

So my guess is, it will be the clarett. Otherwise I will always ask my self again: should I have invested more money to get something better? Do I suck, or is it my interface?

I will think about that again for a couple of days. Because I'm still interested in this Sonarworks software (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stm1yxxxKU8). I could buy Scarlett 8i6+this software for roughly the same price as the Clarett interface.

Spending money is hard

Quote from Lobsta

A 3rd option:

Plug one set of your audio interface's outputs into the Kemper. Then you can monitor your DAW and your guitar from the Kemper's headphone output, and get that killer sound.

That's a good idea and I will give it a shot on this weekend,

playing is great on the kemper headphone out, but I never considered something like mixing.

I will make a small testmix and see how it translates to other sound systems.

Hey deadman42,

sure, a better interface should be never a wrong idea! I just thought by getting an external headphone amp, I could avoid the crappy headphone out of my Saffire and get the same sound that my monitors are fed, which I think is quite okay. My Interface has 4 channels out, 2 are occupied by the monitors and the other two are used for reamping-signals, so I could use these for the headphone amp.

You are correct, SPDIF shoudn't be a day-night difference in terms of sound, but a dedicated Kemper-interface communication cable pair would be useful for future applications. Because I already see myself unplugging/replugging cables everytime I want to reamp or mix and that sucks.

So, thanks a lot for your input.

And sorry for my late answer, I do have a lot to at my job and not much time for internet.

Perhaps someone else was in the same situation as me and wants to share their thoughts?

Hey fellow Kemperians,

I'm in the mood to spend some money and I need your help for that. In short, I want to make better recordings. And I rely on your opinion to know what I should upgrade next.

My momentary situation is looking like this:

For drums I'm using EZdrummer with 2-3 extensions and I'm quite satisfied with the sounds I get from that software. So I do not plan to upgrade it to Superior Drummer, except there will be a special offer or something.

My bass is a little crappy (Epiphone thunderbird, cheapest version), and will be upgraded as soon as I can get my hands on a good used one.

Guitars (Ibanez S5470, RG1570 and a Fender lite ash strat) sounds are coming -you guessed it- from the Kemper. So in theory I'm quite fine with the possibilities of forming my sound, but I think I'm restricted by my monitoring situation (and of course my lack of knowledge for choosing sounds, mixing ect).

My room is not optimal and not treated at all, it is a standard living/working room with desks, windows, cupboards, a big carpet and high ceeiling ( 3 meters?).

My monitors are Yamaha SH7 without a subwoofer, but sadly, with a wall directly behind them. The distance between the speakers and me is something about 1,2 meter. They are "disconnected" from the desk by thick foam pads.
I have to rely a lot on headphones (Sure SRH 840), well, at least I think I have to do that, because I can't say at all if my monitoring is any useful or not.

Secondly, I do not live alone. So I can't blast loud music everyday, especially when it is the same some over and over and over again while mixing.

My interface is an old (7-10 years????) Focusrite Saffire 6 USB, which to my knowledge, is the precurser of the Scarlett interfaces and basicly the same hardware.

The kemper is recorded through the main out into the preamps of the interface, because this old thing doesn't has SPDIF.

I can say that the pres are influencing the sound only to a minor extend, so in theory I'm fine with them. I compared Kemper>directly to monitors with Kemper>Interface>monitors and I was okay with the -very little- difference in sound.

My big problem with this interface is the headphone amp quality. The kemper sounds like sh*t. No comparison to the monitors or the glorious kemper out. I use it quite often to mix and I think that this is the particular weak point which is messing with my mixes.

So my possibilities are at the moment:

- a dedicated headphone amp for my old interface and recording the kemper through the preamps (cheapest option, 50-150 euro)

- a new interface with SPDIF and a good headphone out (200-500 euro?)

-If I go the cheaper route, I could think about other additional upgrades like:

get another headphone with an open back system like beyerdynamic 990 ect

buy something like sonarworks reference software for identifiying weaknesses in the room/monitor sound

What do you think woud benefit me the most?

A better headphoe sound (by a external preamp) + a "room correction" software threatment

or

going digital with SPDIF and get a higher quality interface?

So far,

thanks for the answers