"Non-Standard" Distortion Profiles - Anyone tried an Ampeg V2/V4? Any luck?

    Hey guys!


    First off, let's get it out of the way - I don't play metal, and I don't play blues, so I'm not going for "normal good tones", just my characteristic ones. My main amps are Fryettes, Hiwatts, and Ampegs - and the latter two I am much more interested in finding reasonably-close-facsimile profiles of, due to their prodigious volume. I tend to use medium gain settings on the big iron amps - think QotSA and Live at Leeds, though not quite identical - with a fair amount of midrange.


    I've been trying to profile my V2 at the several settings I normally use - I'd give the V4 or VT-22 a try, but I like my teeth too much - and I'm having ZERO luck in getting the profiles to capture the mic'd tone. It doesn't have anything to do with cab or mic placement - I'm using the built-in mic pre, and I'm comparing directly during the profiling process to try to get the "Kemper" and "Reference" to match. I'm doing the process right - my Fryette Memphis profiles came out pretty well, using the same comparison method - I'm just not able to get the KPA to capture that "thing" that the Ampeg does.


    What I'm finding is that the KPA tends to "smooth" out the profile, getting rid of the rattiness, mud, and edge that is the characteristic 'crank'd v-series' thing. Every time I try to profile it, no matter the cab or mic, it ends up sounding like a rattier Superlead or cranked Twin, without the midrange crud or distinct attack that makes the Ampeg sound like an Ampeg. It is also not getting anywhere near the pick sensitivity or "punch" of the cranked amp - there is little to no 'sag' with the V2, due to its oversized iron and general character. It punches you in the chest - and yes, I can hear that with the "reference amp" after profiling, and yes, I've tried refining in a number of ways and with a number of guitars and it doesn't help the actual issues (only the frequency ones, and only a bit at that)...


    It makes me a bit curious if the modeling/profiling methodology of the Kemper has been tweaked to respond best to "standard" guitar tones. I mean, the vast majority of amps out there share a lineage with Fender or Marshall "flavors" - the biggest mainstream oddballs being the Ampeg guitar amps that used the semi-active tone circuit. Hiwatts have a bit of that issue, too, due to their low-gain preamps - much of the tone of a cranked Hiwatt comes from the phase inverter and power stage clipping, while in a Twin or Superlead most of the perceived "gain" is still in the preamp, or at least considerably more of it than in a DR103. So, I'm wondering if the KPA is designed to capture the widest range of "Standard" tones, at the expense of these oddballs - I really don't know, and who knows, I could be doing it wrong, but it would make sense. I mean, there aren't many out there who really use that "cranked Ampeg" tone!


    I was wondering if anyone else has had this issue? Has anyone successfully profiled a big-iron clean amp that isn't a Marshall or Fender or a derivative?

    There are some amps that the Kemper has difficulty profiling (I don't know if there's a comprehensive list anywhere), so you may have just run into this. There are however quite a few Ampegs on the Profile Exchange, no idea how close they are to the originals, but they're around.


    Two things spring to mind. Firstly how are you comparing, you say "directly" but directly how exactly, what's the signal chain during your AB? Is your amp in the same room as you and the Kemper and the studio monitors? If so then the best way to get closest match is to make use of reamping. Here's the general workflow :


    First make sure to always mute the studio monitors at any point where the original amp is meant ot make a sound, if you don't then you may not notice it, but they will output the same signals throwing off your profiles with phasing and any recording of the amp (again phasing), oh and of course when you don't want to hear the amp mute that too, the KPA keeps sending signal to it, so disable it when you need to AB recorded tracks (Seventh rule/suggestion).


    Second, in profiling mode while the amp itself is selected either use the spdif dual path or using an external interface to bring the guitar in via SPDIF record a dry track of yourself playing for re-amping in order to be able to correctly compare the output.


    Third, be prepared to throw away a profile if it's not getting close enough, sometimes for some reason the Kemper just sort of locks in to certain settings and no amount of refinement fixes it, it's better to just star a new profile, generally I've found that I always need to throw away the first profile I make when switching into profiling mode, subsequent profiles are good. This may be related to...


    Fourth, start with an amp profile that's somewhat similar to your amp in sound/gain level etc (when doing AB the levels need to match). Profiling will set many internal values, but it doesn't set the main amp block values such as Sag, Definition, Clarity, Tube shape etc, you may need to tweak these to get you all the way there, more importantly starting out from an existing amp that sounds similar helps because it sets these parameters up for you, and it seems the Kemper builds it's profiles from the existing profile as a sort of starting point, which might be one reason why repeat profiling often yeilds better results.


    Fifth, having said this, don't forget to turn off all the effects on the source rig before profiling, as otherwise the Kemper has a tendency to apply them to the signal going everywhere! This is especially true for the reverb, which you can suddenly find applied to the real amp's reamp signal etc, I'm pretty sure that the Profilier ignores this and just sees the real amp as being in the location of the stack, but even if it does then when you're AB'ing you want a level playing field to compare the sounds with. Oh and of course the same goes for things like reverb on the amp itself.


    Sixth, once you've profiled, be prepared to refine for a very long time, with difficult to profile amps I sometimes have to profile for ten to twenty minutes before the Kemper just locks in on the right feel, sound, behavior. The more you profile the more frequency, attack, volume etc information the kemper has to work with, so in general this is a good thing. Just remember three though.


    Seventh, once you've profiled, while remembering to follow the first rule (mute those speakers when they shouldn't be used!), Use the Kemper and it's SPDIF input option to re-amp that track you recorded earlier, when you use the A/B switch it allows you to re-amp through the real amp and record that result, switch back and it will record the re-amp through the Kemper. Do this to record both the Kemper and the Original, then mute the real amp/make sure the sound is no longer going to the Kemper, and play back the recorded tracks, switching between them. This is your true way to detect sound/tone quality between the profile and the real amp as recorded to see how close or far you are from the tone (this is why I wanted CK to add a looper and the ability to onboard do all this during profiling so you could compare the loop recorded through Kemper and through Amp without this rigmarole). If the tone is markedly different then continue to refine, you can even refine with the dry track if you want. It can take several goes to get it really close.


    Eighth, don't forget the room! If you're doing anything other than extreme close micing you will need to add reverb to bring back the room sound which is critical to the overall feel and tone of your rig, you can do this during profiling, just remember the fifth rule during the profiling/refining/comparing process. However matching up a rooms reverb to the real natural reverb is tricky, it takes time and patience, in the real world you'd expect the room reverb mix to be pretty high and the length and damping to be your primary controls for how much of the room is in there, the Delay/Reverb mix parameter is sometimes a better option as it seems to use a slightly different algorithm to straight mix which to my ears is a better approximation of forward/backward bounces, however it will of course mess with the delay and reverb mix should you want to use delay! Don't forget the further the mic is from the speaker the greater the amount of reverb there should be (but not the longer the reverb tail), small rooms tend to have shorter tails and of course much shorter predelays. It's an art, play with it.


    Anyhow, hopefully that should be enough stuff to try to help. Good luck, don't forget to share your results, especially if you're continuing to have problems, describing a sound and hearing it are two different things, so folk can help you better if they can actually hear what you're after and the results youre' getting with the Kemper to compare.

    Per:


    First off, I have to say that the first thing you said - that "There are some amps that the Kemper has difficulty profiling" - seems to lend credence to my suspicions about the nature of the KPA's profiling capabilities. While there are several Ampeg profiles on the exchange - and yes, I did download and try all of them, out of curiosity as much as anything else - they are mostly of Jets and ReverbRockets, not V-series amps. Fundamentally different things. Also, they aren't very close to those amps, either. If there are amps that the KPA just can't do, that is ok - or I should say that I'm ok with it, within the realm of what I might use the Kemper for - but it is something that bears discussion, so that we can determine what makes those amps that it can't do un-profileable!




    1) In a different room - I'm a professional audio engineer. This is in my home studio, but it is outfitted with pro gear - Apogee Symphony I/O + 64 card in my Mac Pro, Barefoot MM27g2 monitors (though I find using decent headphones to make it easier to get a visceral comparison - Beyer DT880's, but I compare to the monitors too), and so on. I will try re-amping, though I don't see how sending a different version of the same kind of signal could make a big difference.


    2) I'm not silly. Of course I mute the monitors when profiling - and it is in the other room!


    3) I tried profiling it from scratch a number of different times, in a number of different ways. Far from exhaustively, but enough to be sure [for myself] that it isn't what I'm doing that is causing the issue - the characteristic problem has been consistent across all attempts.


    4) I'm pretty sure there isn't something similar in tone available - though there certainly are some that are similar in level of gain. Of course I used those as the KPA's starting point. That the starting point makes a difference is part of the reason I suspect that I may be barking up the wrong proverbial tree...


    5) Of course all the effects were off.


    6) Refining helped with the frequency content to a certain degree, but it did nothing for the response characteristics. I gave this a lot of effort, using different guitars and different methodologies for the refining - I do get the concept, and I get what it is trying to do. It didn't seem to be helping with the fundamental problem I was having.


    7) I really don't like the Re-Amp idea - this seems like it would only be useful for making sure that the profile works for whatever the specific sound for that specific song would be. My interest is using the KPA to supplement my live rig - which will stay tube-based - with some of the studio sounds I like to use that would be impractical to reproduce in the same way live. It wouldn't be of much use to me if it doesn't at least get in my opinion close enough to the sound I want with a variety of playing conditions, and preferably with a range of guitars. What good is a "profile" of an amp if it only does that one thing you needed it to do that one time? That being said, I'll give it a shot when I get a chance - it is easy enough to re-amp.


    8) It isn't the room. I'll just leave it at that. Close-mic'd, far-mic'd, direct - the KPA was infusing the same characteristics into each...


    9) I'll give it another shot this afternoon or tomorrow morning and put up the most promising results on the Rig Exchange. I did the same with another profile that the KPA was not able to capture to my satisfaction - in that case, a Fryette SAS distortion pedal into a Fryette Memphis - mainly because even though the KPA wasn't able to really capture the tone, the result was cool (and IMHO usable) nonetheless.

    Quote from dented42ford


    So, I'm wondering if the KPA is designed to capture the widest range of "Standard" tones, at the expense of these oddballs

    Perhaps the 'oddballs' are meant to remain 'oddballs'. :)


    Having said that, listening again to David's clips, it seems he creates 'oddballs' from 'Standard' tones/profiles/amps...the Kemper seems to have the ability to do that.

    Can we hear the recorded tracks of both? As I said, there's no way to determine what might need adjusting without actually hearing it, descriptions of sounds are never sufficient.


    You may not like the reamping idea, but it is the honest approach that eliminates other variables, and there's no limit to how much you want to record to test with or even how many guitars you want to use, it doesn't have to be track specific sound, it's as varied as whatever you record to re-amp with. Of course the Kemper wont really match the original amp if you adjust it's settings anyway, so sometimes you have to build track specific profiles.