Kemper and Guitars

    This thread is connected and initiated by Top Jimi thread about his new profiles .



    One more thing , ok very well known thing, raised of 2 days playing with JImi's profiles .
    I have 5 guitars , 2 Tom Anderson's (mahogany body topped with quilted maple , maple and mahogany neck with RW fretboard , equipped with Anderson's HB's)
    Very powerful and responsive guitars , with amazing HB splitting to SC -Tele and Strat sounds.
    YJM Fender with lowest output pickups ever :thumbup:
    Steve Vai Ibanez and
    Hand Made 35 years old guitar - Wenge body (extremely dense, heavy and sonic wood ) and Pau Fero one piece neck, equipped with first version of Dimarzio Super Distortion HB , SC in the middle and Vai Evo neck HB.


    All in all very different guitars , which can cover any situation and sound , from Strat, vie Tele to LP ,plus unique Tom Anderson vibe and amazing Rock sounds coming from my vintage , 35 years old baby.
    In the last 2 years, I almost didn't used my hand made baby guitar , something was wrong to get in the "click" with Kemper.
    Is this about the wood, or pickups, I don't know.
    Now, I tried it with Top Jimi profiles , and BINGO !!!!!


    This guitar just blew away all of the rest of my guitars.


    I can tell you, after so many years of professional, semi professional and amateur playing and gigging - I have my grail tone !
    The circle is over, I come home. My old hand made guitar was waiting 35 years to be matched with Kemper and Jimi's profiles .
    I bet you that Paul Gilbert will say WOW if he had a chance to play on his stolen Marshal amp (profile) again .
    My Son is playing Gilbert almost 1:1 , but he (my Son) has a BETTER tone than Pablo Gilberto himself ! 8o


    Can you imagine 58 years old guy playing guitar for 8-10 hours in Sunday ? With a smile which can only be removed by surgery intervention (or by stop playing) ;) :P :D :thumbup: ?



    Playing with another guitars, is fine , but nothing better or so much more exciting than with other top commercial profiles I have , just ok.



    My point here is , that must be, MUST BE some connection between guitar used in profiling process and guitar one uses for playing it after profile is done.



    I cannot see another liaison .



    Anyway and whatever, we do not need to know everything , it is enough to to still be excited in my ages !


    On the end of this loong post , what is your opinion about this "Kemper vs Guitar issue " ?


    Viva Kemper and thanks again to Jimi for connecting me again with my old guitar (which might be older than 70% guys here :thumbup: ) !


    Cheers,
    Zoran

    1988 Branko Radulovic Hand Made Strat in Macedonia (SFRJ)

    2006 Steve Vai vwh moded with SS frets and Sustainac 2006 (Japan)

    2008 Fender YJM , moded (USA)

    2010 Tom Andersons Drop Top 2010 (made in California)

    2017 Charvel GG sig Caramelised Ash (USA)

    2022 Gibson ES 335 2011 Custom Shop Cherry of course ( Memphis)

    Edited 4 times, last by Rescator ().

    Thats great!..its always good to be connected to an old friend, you have a blast for one more time, and its like it never left!. - so glad this worked out for you.


    The "refining" process however is still irrelevant as this just lets the Kemper fine tune the sound to the source...but


    ..... whats more important is the stage before this. - its the setting of the guitar with the amp in the first place that sets the right tone for profiling.


    Setting up an amp with great tone with a LesPaul, is very different thing than with a Tele. and sometimes the profile does not translate well to other guitars, and even tweaking the profile it still cant quite get you there..? this sound all familiar.


    Chances are you found your holy grail because Jimmy might have used a similar setup to you. and you can now fully take advantage of that (In a real good way), as where Player bob, might not agree with it because its vastly different setup, and might not work for him. - this is nothing new.. its the same with amps since the 50's


    This is the big problem about guitarists.. there are just SOO many choices (too much) out there, that trying to explain a tone to someone is similar to rocket science these days :) - and is becoming more and more mathematical!, I'll give a small example of this.. - A guitar player wanted a type of tone for the record... So pre-studio time, I asked him, Bring all your guitars, and amps you can manage, I'll do the same with mine...we sat in the live room, with 22 guitars and 14 amps. - and 2 days later, we found the right combination. 1 guitar, 1 amp.. but its was the only one that would _Really_ fit with the player and record. - I know, Im so anul at what I do, and not suggesting this is the normal.. but this illustrates at just how varied a tone can be :)


    Anyway.. Im happy for you, and I love good success storys!

    Hey Andy ,
    Thanks for the feedback , it is nice to hear that from the guy who done so many great profiles.


    With your profiles is the same thing , Holly Grail of tone I found in many of your profiles , but always one guitar is matching one group of profiles and another guitar is best with some another group of profiles.


    Per example , just to mention one, nothing can beat Fairgain sound paired with my LP like Tom Anderson Bulldog (see my Avatar-blue thing ) , and I kindly suggest you do more of those fantastic amps, if you can, or even to repeat some of them , why not.


    I must say something about Watkins as well. That thing with my low output YJM Fender=David Gilmore want to buy !



    BTW, from about 700 rigs I have currently on my KPA 550 are from your Factory ! :whistling: :D


    I am glad there are new guys who is doing profiling , there is space for everyone , and benefits for everyone .


    Cheers,
    Zoran


    ps
    all of this might be very useful for the guys playing just one guitar, they must know how to choose profile which matches that guitar specifically , and simply to delete another ones :thumbdown:
    There is "million " of profiles around, so not a big deal at all.

    1988 Branko Radulovic Hand Made Strat in Macedonia (SFRJ)

    2006 Steve Vai vwh moded with SS frets and Sustainac 2006 (Japan)

    2008 Fender YJM , moded (USA)

    2010 Tom Andersons Drop Top 2010 (made in California)

    2017 Charvel GG sig Caramelised Ash (USA)

    2022 Gibson ES 335 2011 Custom Shop Cherry of course ( Memphis)

    Edited 2 times, last by Rescator ().

    Quote from Rescator


    On the end of this loong post , what is your opinion about this "Kemper vs Guitar issue " ?

    there is no connections besides settings of the amp at the time of profiling. You just got lucky with the settings.
    On the other hand, EQ in Kemper is good enough to adjust most of the profiles for particular guitar.

    Thanks Ingolf !



    mdeeRocks, yes KPA has some stunning EQ's inside.
    From other side , whenever I tried to use one of my another guitars and adjust EQ to match that guitar, I can feel some loss in "natural" tone coming from Jimi profiles.
    Magic just get vanished , and I stay with fairly good profile only.
    More or less, the best results I've got is just to tweak 100% definition down , add some chorus/flanger or some discrete OD/ distortion pedals
    No EQ , just a pure original profile actually with some nice air coming from above pedals...

    1988 Branko Radulovic Hand Made Strat in Macedonia (SFRJ)

    2006 Steve Vai vwh moded with SS frets and Sustainac 2006 (Japan)

    2008 Fender YJM , moded (USA)

    2010 Tom Andersons Drop Top 2010 (made in California)

    2017 Charvel GG sig Caramelised Ash (USA)

    2022 Gibson ES 335 2011 Custom Shop Cherry of course ( Memphis)

    Different guitars behave different with different amps. That's also true of the Kemper.


    I have found that what I like alone in Headphones differs from what I like Recorded in the Mix. Perhaps there is a gap there due to lack of experience in such matters.


    For those saying that refining isn't guitar specific, I've seen results that are, and ones that aren't. I don't know if this is because sometimes the guitar playing during refining is in the "trouble" spots that make the un-refined profile different from that amp, or if different windings of pickups affect the amps, since refining seems to be about matching frequencies and that more windings on a pickup increase bass and treble frequencies at the expense of high frequencies. So how can a hot humbucker NOT different from a weak single coil?


    My personal tests show differences in profiling using different guitars, but they are minimal. And they also show that refining does tend to match the guitar better than some of my unrefined profiles. Bottom line, different guitars do refine differently, but often the "difference" is small or not noticeable.


    I had a similar moment like yours, of a runt guitar finding it's own pasture, with my ErnieBall MusicMan Axis Sport with P90's and the Rig Exchange's VOX AC15 Handwired. Just nailed that 1966 Taxman crunch I was looking for.


    Since I've learned to dial in profiles to that guitar and it's right up there now with all the others. I just didn't know how to deal with P90's as well as my Single Coil and Humbuckers on amps and profiles.


    In the end, Guitars and amps are pairings, and so it's not each ones fault a sound doesn't work, it's the pair that fails or succeeds. And sometimes the pair needs an EQ nudge in the right direction.

    totally cool... I can't imagine going back to amps.. other than to profile them.. I continue to refine my sound as well.. it's cool how different amps resonate with different guitars.. of course that 78' Dumble profile works with just about everything with minor tweaking.... I just recently picked up a 89' Anderson T Classic, under the bed time capsule guitar.. man there's and H&K, a Tube Thompsen and Fuchs ODS profiles that just scream for me now... some of these profiles just love single coils.. LOL

    Gettin' funky up in here..