Posts by HeavyJ

Quote from Chris Duncan

We've clearly played very different kinds of gigs...

Hey guys! I thought you might be interested in what happened:

I tried out the Crank'n'go pack via our PA system and made sure it was on gig level. I have to say that this pack sounded a lot better/clearer then what I was used to from my previous experiences with M.Britt profiles. I tried out a couple of other of his profiles and they all did not sound as good as the Crank'n'go pack. This beeing said, I liked my other profiles (a lot) more. It would be ok for me to play with a M.Britt profile at a gig, I guess, but the reampzone profiles I own sounded better to my ears. Now I know that M.Britt is simply not the best for me. Thank you for all your answers and help!

Quote from Chris Duncan

Okay, the picture is starting to come together for me. There are a couple of factors that are influencing your experience, and the effect can be significant.

First, you, the other guitar (I think you said he plays baritone) and the bass player are all competing for the same sonic real estate in certain areas. You and the other guitar in one range, you and the bass in your lower range, and the baritone and the bass in their respective ranges. If you spend much time mixing in the studio you'll be familiar with how much instruments with a common frequency range can get in each other's way, sometimes one masking the other, and so on. It can absolutely take you from killer guitar tone to "why does this sound so lame?"

In a band with two guys playing standard guitar, one common trick is to use a parametric EQ and cut a range from one player and boost it on the other. This is often in midrange frequencies with a wide Q and only a subtle adjustment, ~3db or less. While it's routine to pan the guitars to either side, giving each other some room does much more to let each guitar be heard.

Who you boost and cut can depend on what they're typically playing (e.g. chunky chords vs delicate arpeggios). It can also depend on the tonal characteristics of the guitar. A guy might play a Tele because he wants that high end bite. If the other guy plays a Strat, you might get the Strat out of the way of the Tele in that "take your head off" twank range of the Tele. If your other guy is playing baritone, you'll have some contention in your lower range (which could cut some of the balls off of your sound), as well as the full guitar range mentioned above.

I don't know how much of a studio rat you are, but if you can get a multitrack recording of the band from rehearsal and dump it into your DAW at home, it'll make it easier to experiment with EQ, which you can then apply to the mixer in your next rehearsal. Of course, when reaching for the EQ knob remember that it's always best to reduce player A than to boost player B (unless you're doing the equal cut / boost two guitar thing mentioned above).

When you listen to yourself at home, you're not competing with any other instrument, so you're hearing exactly what the profile is doing. Meanwhile, back in the real world, you have to find a place in the mix for each instrument. That's why I've always been happy to pay for good sound engineer. You can be absolutely slaying it onstage, but if the sound guy sucks the crowd will think the band sucks. Don't ask how I know.

The other factor has to do with a headphone-only setup. I know some guys can do this. I never could. I have high quality, custom mold Ultimate Ears IEMs. They do a great job of reproducing what I hear from the Kemper. But for me, rock is a physical experience, and if there's no air moving, I find it much harder to feel it. When I first experimented with IEM only, I ended up putting a sealed 12" Celestian cab hidden under the stage, turned up just loud enough that I could still feel the thump in my chest when I punched those power chords. This may not be that important to you, but for some guys it's a critical consideration.

From an apples to apples comparison perspective that's not a factor for you since you listen on headphones at home, too. However, out of curiosity, what kind of amp did you use in rehearsal before the Kemper? Was it an amp and speaker cab, miked into the board? If so, part of what you're "losing" with the Kemper, no matter which profile, is the feeling of that air moving. There's not a profile in the world that can help with that. If you never used speakers, then you're already used to it. If you had a speaker and now you don't, that's another "what's different?" thing that would influence your opinion of the Kemper experience.

Either way, EQ will be crucial to your rehearsal experience. I would recommend spending time on YouTube watching studio mixing videos that talk about the EQ approach to bands with multiple guitars / keyboards and how they deal with the competition for sonic real estate. Then take what you learn at home and experiment in rehearsal. Don't be surprised if the tweaks you do at home in your DAW have to be altered a bit in rehearsal, because room acoustics get a vote, too. If you have a digital mixer, better still. Once you nail it you can save a preset. That way if someone accidentally bumps a knob and everyone wonders why this sound isn't quite right today, you can just recall the preset and you're back in the game.

Hope this helps.

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Wow... This has been one of the best forum answers I have ever gotten. Usually nobody takes to time to write such long answers... Thanks man!

Basically you said what I thought the whole time. We rehearse with headphones to hear us. We have a small rehearsal space and when you turn up all the instruments everything gets lost in a muddy sounds. This way we can very clearly hear what everyone is doing and the biggest advantage is that everyone has his own mix.

I tried playing over the PA to know what my guitar would sound the the audience but without the second guitar it was kind of pointless

Anyways: I bought the Crank'n'go pack and give M Britt a last chance. I will try to execute everything you guys said on here and if it doesn't work I will know that those profiles are simply not for me

Quote from Chris Duncan

I may have missed it, but I went back through your posts and I don't see any mention of what you're listening through, either at home or in rehearsal.

I know this is a really dumb thing to highlight, but whatever is moving the air will also have a huge impact on your sound. When it sounds good in place A and less good in place B, the first thing I usually look for is what's different with speakers and room acoustics. Debugging 101: something broke? Then what changed?

What are you listening on at home - studio monitors, headphones? Which brand?

At rehearsal, do you have a powered head into a passive speaker, or are you using a powered speaker? Traditional guitar cab, or FRFR? Or do you hear it exclusively through the PA speakers of your overall mix? Or IEMs? At the risk of pointing out the obvious, if you only hear your guitar through the main PA speakers / board mix (i.e. you have no dedicated guitar speaker cab), you're at the mercy of whoever is doing the mixing.

Also, what volume are you playing at in rehearsal versus home - is one louder than the other? Michael's profiles, for example, are known for really coming alive at gig volume (remember, "alive" for a classic rock guy may be "too much / little X" for a modern rock guy). Plus the Fletcher-Munson effect, of course.

I've read comments from some guys saying they apply certain EQ curves to their live setup versus when they're playing at home to achieve the desired effect. And of course, which speakers to use, guitar cab vs FRFR, powered versus passive, etc. is an entire conversation in and of itself.

If you've found some profiles that give you the sound you're looking for at home, you're starting to zero in a solution that's appropriate for your taste. That's great progress, and puts you in the neighborhood. However, you still have to sort out the other influences in what you're hearing before you get to Guitar Utopia. No hurry. We'll save you a seat.

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We rehearse with two kempers and one bass going straight into the mixer and the drumset beeing miced up with a couple of AKG Drum mics. We then all listen to eachother over Superlux HD-662 headphones. We don't use speakers other than that. Basically you would only hear drums from outside. I used the same headphones at home but listened to the kemper through the headphone output. Over the mixer or at least in the mix it sounded different somehow. Maybe because of reference to the bass and drums. The kemper volume is higher at rehersals, the headphones just a little but not much

Quote from Chris Duncan

First, based on your user name and comments I've read, my assumption is that you're a metal guy and are looking for modern distortion tones. If that's incorrect, the rest of this may be of limited value to you.

I have all of Michael's profiles, and that's 99% of what I use. Crank 'n Go is among my favorites. However - and this is important - I'm a classic rock guy, and that's a genre that he's fluent in. He's not a metal player. If that's the kind of sounds you're looking for, you need to look at profilers who do metal.

Also, apologies if I'm pointing out the obvious, but a fundamental concept that's crucial to being happy with the Kemper is the fact that when you're buying a profile of, say, a Victory V50, you are absolutely, positively, not buying a Victory V50. You're buying a single tone that someone has dialed in using a Victory. One tone, and one tone alone, out of all the things a Victory is capable of doing (which is true of any amp).

When I first bought the Kemper I started out downloading Marshalls from Rig Exchange. All of them were five star and well regarded. And I was absolutely shocked by how horrible they sounded. I almost returned the Kemper. Eventually I realized that they were all tones dialed in for modern metal, and I was looking for something to play classic rock with. A Marshall dialed in for a Bad Company song will sound lame in the extreme for metal. A Marshall dialed in for metal will get you booed off the stage of a Bad Company tribute gig.

The problem I had is that I saw "Marshall" and made assumptions of what it should sound like based on how I would personally dial in a Marshall. And that's the problem with profiles, free or otherwise. It would be much more helpful if they were described as "Here's a Marshall Plexi dialed in for Bad Company." I'd buy it, you'd avoid it, but we'd both be happy because we understood what it was. Unfortunately, that's just not the way it works. Profiles are listed by amp brand / name, and sometimes you get what speakers were used. Not terribly helpful.

You'll have a much better experience if you consider genre first and foremost when looking for profiles. Find guys who play the kind of stuff you enjoy playing, then try their profiles. If you're a metal guy trying to use Michael or any other non-metal guy's profiles, you're most likely going to be unhappy with what you get. That said, once you find the right kind of profiles for your style, I think you'll love this thing.

Because I'm not a metal guy I can't offer recommendations, but there are tons of guys here who go for modern rock sounds. Rather than a thread like this that's essentially "I can't get metal out of a classic rock profile," I would instead start a new thread seeking advice and recommendations from guys who like the same kinds of bands that you do (always a good reference point). I think that'll help get you where you want to go.

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Thanks everyone for your great answers! This was a very helpful and interesting post!
I am not really a Metal guy but a Modern Rock / Hard Rock / Progressive Rock Guy. This being said I am still looking for a high-gainish amp profile.

I totally felt the same way when I got the Kemper. I was kind of shocked of how it sounded until I tried other profiles then M Britt. The reason why I bought the Kemper in the first place was that our second guitarist in the band plays a baritone guitar and a Kemper and essentially blew me away with my little Orange Thunder 30 Combo (and my SG). So I bought a Kemper too hoping I could keep up with him. I read and listened to so much stuff about the KPA that I figured it HAS to be great but it wasn't really to my ears. So I figured that the problem lies obviously with me. Since (almost) everyone loved the M.Britt profiles I thought that I may have set something incorrectly or something. And for a couple of weeks I am trying different profiles and different sounds hoping to find something that I like...

I really liked the reampzone profiles for the JVM410 and the Friedman BE100 at home via my headphones but when I brought them to band practice they sounded a little thin. To say it with my bassits words: I really like the sound but it misses "fattnes" (losely translated from german). Esentially it was missing heavy bottom frequencies to him. Now I don't know if this is just the way it is or if I set something incorrectly or the profile is not working well...

Since I hardly can't tell anymore we recorded I quick demo with the Friedman BE100 profile. Maybe you could give me feedback: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8lyz…tg3z9/200702-005.mp3?dl=0

This was recorded straight from the mixer using one of the AUX sends into a Zoom H4n. Our second guitarist was not there that day

Hey! I tried out some profile at band practice and was kind of shocked how different everything sounded. I did not have manny M Britt profiles to test but tried out the Victory V50 and was very disappointed. I still can not shake the feeling that it may sound great with the right profiles though and still want to give it a shot. I had a look at the Crank'n'go Pack but I am hesitant since I do not want to blow any more money... Does anyone have the pack and can recommend it?

Thanks for all your answers. After all your suggestions I gave my M Britt packs another chance, but I simply don't like them at least via my headphones. Tomorrow at band practice I will try it again.

Quote from Wheresthedug

That suggests to me that it is very much about taste rather than quality. I love the MBritt packs. I like some of the stop Jimi stuff but not all. However, I don’t get on with any of the Reampzone stuff I have tried. Not criticising them but they just aren’t for me. There is nothing we if MBritt etc don’t float your boat

Yeah, but what if set something incorrectly on the Kemper. I always found that the MBritt profiles sound very dull or muffeled.
I uploaded a testvideo to show you what I mean:

Hello!

I have the exact same problem! Except for the AC30 sounds, the M Britt packs are completely useless to me. Same goes for TopJimi. The only profiles I liked were from Reampzone. Since everyone was raving around how great M Britt profiles are I really started to doubt myself.

I read a lot comments on here but I am as clueless as I was before. The only thing I realized is that in order to get a perfect profile you would have to have the exact same setup as the person who created the profile which IMHO is absolutely rediculous. Or am I missing something here?