Display MoreSo do I, it's great.
For best sound results in the room, it makes sense to proceed in logical steps:
1. speaker placement
2. room treatment
3. software like Sonarworks
I stopped at broadband absorption. I literally don't have room for adequately sized bass traps. I will say that ARC (and I'm sure Sonarworks as well) makes a HUGE improvement in bass response at the calibrated listening position. It's not the perfect solution but it really works wonders when your options are limited.
I guess it's not obsolete after all. Interesting.
I'm not sure if you've seen it but Bommel has profiles a load of AXE FX models and uploaded them to Rig Exchange.
I will check it out. BTW, I'm not saying my profiles are better than others, just closer to what I'm looking for because the amp models I'm using, and in particular the cabinets I use are familiar to me already. I also want direct profiles sans cabinets. IMO the cabinet is what imparts the unique character of the sound to listeners (ignoring the character of the dynamic response and the distortion for a moment which the player senses much more than the listener IMHO).
Also if you put the same cabinet on different amps, the result will sometimes be very close, or a little EQ can make it very close, but if you use the same amp with different cabinets (or even different mic positions) the result will almost never be the same or even close. Amps don't impart all the coloration and phase cancellation that a microphone placed on a cabinet produces. Amps color the sound but usually without any notching or radical peaks. That's just been my experience and that's my *opinion*.
All that said I have found some rigs that are keepers among the ones I've downloaded and I'll check out the ones you suggest. There are so many rigs!!! One can get lost in that sea of rigs almost as easily as getting lost in the AXE FX's endless tweakable parameters, although once you find ones you really like you're almost done. The tweaking is very easy with the KPA.
If nightlight enjoys tweaking he'll be in heaven when he gets that AXE FX. There is literally no end. It's up to YOU to terminate the tweaking at some point and decide enough is enough!!! 
if you want to record everywhere get helix because it is also available as a vst.
I've never tried a hardware Helix but I've tried "Helix Native" VST, If that's the VST you refer to - I don't want to start any arguments but IMHO it's not even close to the Kemper or the AXE FX. Again, I haven't tried the hardware Helix.
I think you'll have a lot of fun with that AXE FX II nightlight, I know I did when I first got it. Just don't get too deep into that jungle of parameters - we may never hear from you again!!!
making the Kemper the DI box itself so no need for an additional DI box
This is what I may end up doing after reducing the volume of the guitar to a more "normal" volume. It may allow to replace the direct box I use now for passive instruments going into my DAW. I need to try out some things. Thanks!
I’ve never had a problem with the noise floor so can’t comment directly on that. However, the obvious solution to lack of consistency with volume knob settings is to stick a volume pedal with a min setting pot in front of the input. In this case the heel position will be a fixed level of reduction rather than off completely.
My opinion:
The noise floor when recording the guitar directly into an audio interface it critical IMO if it's going to be used for reamping with high gain rigs. Also the input impedance is typically 10K so you can't just plug a passive guitar into an audio interface without degrading the tone (unless it has a high-Z input). You need a preamp. When using high gain rigs, just a little bit of hiss gets amplified a lot. A +4dB input requires more than 20 volts peak to peak (IIRC) to take advantage of the full dynamic range of the interface. It doesn't matter if it's a 16 bit or a 24 bit system. The solution you suggest is a good one as long as it's a passive pedal. An active pedal will introduce more noise. The preamp in my guitar is home brew with a S/N ratio greater than 110dB so it adds little if any noise.
I've got the parts for an attenuator that will do exactly what you suggested but with the flick of a switch. I'm putting a bypass switch on it to allow either attenuation or full volume.
Thanks for the suggestion.
Bro, grab it, try it, have fun, then inevitably flip it lol!
What he said!
I say buy it. I own an AXE FX II as well as my new Kemper.
The reason I say buy it is because if you buy it used and don't like it you can sell it for what you paid for it. NO RISK INVOLVED!
I know you have different ideas for its use, but I'm in the process of profiling the amp models in the AXE FX II without cabinets. The models are very accurate IMO. I plan to profile about 20 of what I consider to be the best amps. I've already developed sounds that I feel are superior (for my needs anyway) than the rigs I download, and I KNOW what the amp model is on the rigs I'm creating. I also like the fact they aren't tied to cabinets. I'm also going to create IRs for my favorite cabs in the AXE FX. That way I can mix and match amps and cabs till my heart's content in the KPA or use the direct amps with VST cab IRs in my DAW (of which I have hundreds).
Some will say I can just download anything I need. But I've got Shiva, Mesa MKIIC+, and VOX AC30 rigs that I made myself that I feel sound better than the ones I can download, and they are direct profiles I can use with any cabinet I chose in the Kemper. By the time I finish, I'll have every amp model I could ever wish for in KPA direct profiles.
At that point the AXE FX will probably go on fleabay. I feel like I'm stealing the AXE FX amps for free!
If you get the AXE FX, you must use the computer editor IMO or you will go crazy. The display in embarrassing IMO. Why the guy didn't use a higher res display boggles my mind. The KPA's display blows it away. A KPA computer editor would be nice, but it's not really needed IMO.
Just my opinion FWIW.
I think the solution here is to reduce the output of the guitar like Gforce suggests. Turning the volume down on the guitar solves the problem but like I mentioned in my post, turning a volume pot down can't be reproduced exactly.
My final solution is to make a resistive voltage divider to attenutate the signal by about 6dB, or down to 5 volts P-P instead of 10 V P-P, and put in in a little box with input and output jacks. That cleans it up. It's not a big deal. My passive guitars don't have this problem. Just the one I use the most that has a preamp distorts the clean sounds. I could turn down the gain of the preamp but then I'm raising the noise floor by 6dB when running directly into my audio interface which I do when tracking the guitar to record the clean signal.
Thanks for the suggestions. Much appreciated.
Please don't shoot me for asking this. I've read and read and read and I can't find the answer.
My guitar distorts the KPA on clean sounds. The Clean Sens doesn't help. The only way to fix it seems to be to reduce the volume on the output of my guitar.
I have a preamp in my guitar. It's powered by 18 volts, and the gain is set for an output swing of around 10 volts (peak to peak) when playing hard. Distortion on clean sounds has never been a problem before now. On the AXE FX (as my example) I can set the input trim (or whatever it's called) to prevent distortion. Same on every other digital device I own.
At what voltage do the input electronics clip the input signal? Please don't tell me the guitar output doesn't matter, it does. Surely if I amplified the signal going into the input up to 100 volts peak to peak the KPA would distort, correct? If that's true then what's the maximum input level before clipping supposed to be?
I really don't want to change the preamp gain. If I do, the guitar won't adequately drive +4dB level inputs for a decent noise floor. Using the volume control is no good either since it can't be consistently reproduced.
Solution?
An equally important tool in my bag of tricks is Melda Productions' MCompare plugin. There are a few product like it out there, this is just the one I happened to go for. Its value is making it very easy to check your mix in real time against reference mixes, which is arguably as important as acoustic treatment and monitors. If you're using reference mixes in your environment and your mix sounds like your reference mix, you're well on your way to success even with a less than perfect world in terms of speakers, room acoustics, etc. While that doesn't guarantee that your mix is portable (I still do car and iPhone tests here and there), it gets you a long way down the line toward radio quality results.
I may look into MCompare. I use a few albums I like as references for my ears. Having a plugin to assist with that sounds like a plan!
Thanks!
I have a cheap Behringer UMC22 and it works fine
I'm sure people will say you have to buy a $700 interface, but this is just IMHO and YMMV etc.
Some people swear by SPDIF, others (check forums or google) here say that the difference between analog and SPDIF is too indistinguishable to tell.
I use MOTU 2408 MKIIIs and Behringer ADA8200 expanders for the preamps, but I also own a "cheap" UMC 404 which sounds great and has very low latency for a USB interface. The mic pres don't suck either.
If anybody needs an inexpensive interface for a home studio or something portable for a laptop you can do a lot worse than one of Behringer's UMC interfaces. Built like a tank as well. That's my opinion anyway.
Well, see, there's your problem...
I gotta pay for my KPA!!!
Well worth it.
2 track reel to reel spotted! Proper old skool
Someone noticed that! Good eye Wheresthedug. I LOVE tape saturation. I love digital recording and my DAW as well.
I've been too busy to post this week so I'll post my aggregated comments tonight. Sorry if this got too long. Before I forget, the KPA gets better every day. I'm thrilled to death with it.
I use tape as an effect to "warm up" a track or to add texture to a track. By "warm up" I mean generate low order harmonics that are musically related to the source. I occasionally bounce tracks through it to get real tape saturation although lately I've been using a couple of VST plugins that sound pretty close. Gem TAPEDESK and Waves Kramer VST are my favorites - I've compared them directly with tape including saturated waveforms and they sound and look ALMOST like tape to me, but not exactly. By using the play head to monitor the recorded sound it's easy to adjust how hard the tape gets slammed and how much saturation effect you get. Once I get the levels right and I like the sound I bounce a track through it using my DAW. Since there's a delay I have to slide the bounced track back in time (to the left) to line up with the source track.
The thing I love about tape distortion is that there are no high order (harsh) harmonics generated. If done properly it can add another dimension to the sound and really "thicken" it up. It's also a great zero attack and zero release time limiter that is almost transparent if used judiciously. My practice is to record everything digitally, then apply tape saturation to those tracks I feel can benefit from it.
My favorite things to apply tape saturation to are bass and vocals. Drums can greatly benefit as well. If I slam tape with a bass track it adds an audible octave above the fundamental as well as strong 3rd and 5th order harmonics, making the sound of the bass much richer and fuller. It also limits the peaks inaudibly. If you record a sine wave you can see the spectrum generated by the tape using an RTA. There's almost nothing above the 5th order harmonic so there's no high frequency "rasp" that sounds objectionable (like the sound a heavily over-driven a tube amp would create). IMO the best sounding recordings were made using analog tape, that is until engineers realized what was missing from digital recordings and started correcting for the "problem" of perfect reproduction by digital recorders. With accurate tape simulation plugins and an awareness of the imperfection of analog tape contributing to the sound of a recording in a positive way, things have gotten better, again IMO.
I actually use a Tascam deck (22-2 or 22-4 not pictured) to bounce tracks through for the tape saturation effect, not the Akai in the photo. The Tascam is a professional deck that has about 25dB of headroom (above 0VU) in the amplifier that drives the record head, which means the tape will distort long before the record head amplifier. In the Akai consumer deck in the photo the record head amp with distort at about 12dB over the 0 VU reference. This prevents it from being able to heavily distort high bias/high output tape. I purchased the Akai so that I could create tape distortion but was disappointed when I tried to use it. The transistors in the record head amp would distort before the tape heavily saturated. Then I did my research and discovered I needed a deck with a lot more headroom. The Tascam will distort the tape as much as I could possibly want to.
The speakers are technically too far apart but I've grown used to it. I don't sense a "hole". However, I plan to mount them to the wall above the monitors to get them ideally spaced for my seating position. Haven't gotten to that yet. The bigger problem IMO are the room reflections and resulting unnatural frequency response. I recently started using ARC, a VST plugin that analyses the room response and applies corrective EQ. It REALLY helps even out the bass in a small rectangular room. The "boominess" is gone! It's definitely preferable to treat the room acoustically, but when you're crammed into a small bedroom it's impossible to get rid of all the reflections, especially the bass. Even with bass traps in every corner the room response will still stink. But ARC helps a lot. It's not very expensive either unless you buy it at the wrong place. It's $100 online and worth every penny IMO. Comes with a microphone that needs phantom power. And no, I have no affiliation with the company that makes it.
The monitors are 43" Samsung 4K TVs. This translates into four 21.5" 1080p monitors "stuck together". At native resolution everything scales to look like it would on a 21.5" 1080p monitor. I love it. There are two computers synced together, one monitor for each, and the computers are networked together to be able to transfer files. I use one computer for playback and processing of all the recorded tracks, and the other computer just to track guitar and bass. By not having more than a few tracks on the computer used for recording guitar, I can run the buffer at 32 samples, running the dry guitar into and back out of an audio interface and then into the KPA. That allows me to record the dry guitar for reamping later if I change my mind about the profile I used, and to record guitar while playing without noticeable latency. Once I record a guitar track I import it into the other computer (that has a large buffer with high latency for the numerous VST effects and tracks) for playback and move on to recording the next guitar/bass track.
I hope somebody has time to read all this or even cares - jeez - I got long winded!
Been working all week but I'll try this out. Thanks.
The subject is pretty much it. If I'm inactive for a little while I get logged off the website. When I sign in again it tells me "invalid password":. I then must indicate I forgot my password and get an email with a link to reset it, every time! I'm using chrome.
Are there any IT guys out there or someone from the website that can suggest what I may be doing wrong or how I can fix this?
Welcome sample! its always good to have a new accurate member joining in
NICE Mancave
Enjoy the Kemper !
Thanks and I AM! Incredibly impressive product.
I was first introduced to Axe FX in 2010 at a Dweezil Zappa band camp in New York. He used that and a midi controller at the time.
I was impressed with the tones and the flexibility, but I knew there was no way I wanted to dive that deep into making the tones I wanted.
Dweezil left it all up to his guitar tech.
I don't have a guitar tech.
Or roadies... or anything...
It's just me, myself and I over here as well! I'm tired of tweaking.
Turning the chicken head knob to OFF is the most difficult "parameter" of all to change
