Profling your favorite recorded guitar tones? Unsucessful....

    Hello All,


    I just received my new Kemper Pwr Head today and so glad I got one. Out of the box is has some really cool factory amps. However I'm little disappointed... correct me if I am wrong guys but I was under the impression that the Kemper is able to profile any guitar sound it hears. Here is what I have been trying to do with no success.


    I have a wav form of a really awesome tone I record in my DAW. When I go to profiling screen and choose reference amp I here the signal come threw nicely and can adjust the volume etc. When I start to profile I get these one of these two errors. "External amp is to loud reduce volume" or "No external amp connected or volume to low". What am I doing wrong? If I lower the volume its not loud enough, if I raise the volume at around 0.0db or -12db its to loud. The signal coming from my daw is below 0.0db its in the green lvls so about -8db going to the return input of the Kemper. I am also looping the recorded clip I have while it is profiling is that incorrect? Another thing I have also tried to not have the clip playing but its just tells me I have nothing in the external amp.


    Any ideas guys? It would be a real shame if the kemper cannot profile guitar tones in this manner. I may end up returning mine if this is the case. I was hoping to take clips of my favorite guitar players and just copy paste sort of like how the Axe Fx does with there tone matching.


    I'm on FW 2.0.1


    Singal Chain is:


    Kemper--->Kemper return input--->M-audio Profire out--->DAW


    Thanks,


    JP Estrada

    Quote

    I was under the impression that the Kemper is able to profile any guitar sound it hears


    Oh, absolutely not : it profiles real amps it is physically connected to through a microphone, to get the sound of the amp, and a cable to send probe sound...
    So, it's not a "tone matching device" but some kind of measurement tool of real gear...which it's far better IMHO...


    [EDIT : this, here under, is badly explained, see the answers below]
    Some people starts with a profile of an amps souding close to the tone to match, then use tools like Ozone for the final EQ matching...


    See the work of metal tones matching by nakedzen : My metal pack blog (updated 9/8/13)



    [EDIT] more detailed answer ;)

    Edited 2 times, last by lohworm ().

    Quote from lohworm

    Some people starts with a profile of an amps souding close to the tone to match, then use tools like Ozone for the final EQ matching...
    See the work of metal tones matching by nakedzen : My metal pack blog (updated 9/8/13)



    [EDIT] more detailed answer ;)


    You still need an amp to do those though. I made them with a Sansamp PSA-1. Obviously you can afterwards change the amp from the tonematched profile to one that was actually used on the recording to get even closer. Also, tonematching is a bit more complicated than just slapping the match eq on the track and calling it done. :) You need to remember that tones on albums are mixed and mastered, so you'll need to apply a mastering plugin that produces similar results as well (saturation, harmonic exciter, compression, limiter *rarely). For metal tones at least.


    I used Izotope Ozone 5 for my profiles. And the tone you start with before you apply the plugin needs to be as close as possible to the tone you want, otherwise it'll just be impossible.


    You can get good deals for Ozone from ebay, I got mine for 60 euros cheaper than what it costs on thomann with "Make an Offer" by the way. :)

    I recommend reading the manual, it explains what external gear is needed to make a profile.


    what you are attempting has been done successfully, btw.
    people set up a signal chain, where the miked amp was fed into a so called matching eq and then back to the Profiler.


    To me these tone matching attempts always sound weird/overly processed.
    It is important to note that even for tonematching you have to use your ears and make musical decisions.


    letting an automated process do all the work is always a sonic let down.

    Quote from DonPetersen

    To me these tone matching attempts always sound weird/overly processed.
    It is important to note that even for tonematching you have to use your ears and make musical decisions.


    letting an automated process do all the work is always a sonic let down.


    This too. At least with ozone, the match eq is far from perfect. 4 out of 5 times it'll end up sounding completely different than what you're trying to do. You need to tweak and retweak to make it sound right. Then tweak some more. :D


    The resulting profile will have poor dynamics if you're using a modeler for making the profiles since there is no real cab in the chain. For modern metal tones this won't really matter since they have no dynamics to begin with :P and you can swap the amp for a better profile later.

    Thanks guys!


    Yeah my understanding of how the the Kemper profiled was incorrect. After messing with it for a day and trying out the Ozone solution and watching some videos. Kemper is the way to go!!!


    Once again thanks for the input! Time make some music


    Rock!


    JP Estrada