Sound Dynamics - FRFR Question

    I wasn't sure if this was the best location for this, but since it extends the conversation from mere troubleshooting into "tweak your Kemper into pure bliss" I thought I'd chance it.


    Here's what's going on:


    - My current setup is a Kemper into a GT1000FX (Matrix) into a JBL 2x15 FRFR loudspeaker.


    Sound is generally awesome, after I got the hang of finding a good cabinet that plays well with some of the profile's I've found. (Lately it's been the Peavy cabs that have had the best response in the high and low freqs that I want. I'm using a Peavey 6505 cabinet that has no real other info on it.)


    I run my rigs at pretty high gain. I've started running my Distortion sense around +2.8 dB.


    Now, what I'm finding is that there's a bit too much "pop" to my sound. Like the power amp pushing the speakers is almost a bit too responsive to pick attack. AND the amps are starting to sound a bit too much alike overall.


    I tried using a screamer (Kemper's) to push the amps, but I'm not crazy about the honkiness and frequency response. I might dabble with it again, but I've not been able to get the kind of thickness in distortion that I would get running a TS into my real life 5150.


    It's hard to describe this "pop" in response, but it's best described as the initial attack of sound before a compressor kicks in. Thing is, all my profile amp settings are pretty much zero, except definition.


    So I'm thinking it might be the way I'm mixing and matching amps to the one cabinet I like (the 6505 from some profile I grabbed a while back.)



    I was using my BBE MaxCom for a while, but all it's doing by adding the maximizer is highlight this strange quality of the sound.


    I'm also trying to reality-check myself that I may have unrealistic expectations of the sound I'm going to be able to achieve. ;)


    So, I guess my question is two-fold:


    1) Anyone experienced this odd frequency response using FRFR?


    2) I realize I'm "inheriting" a lot of the tonal characteristics of the cabinet I've chosen. Anyone had luck with mixing cabinets from other profiles and getting some solid results? Is it really just a bad practice to mix and match the cabs?


    I think I may be "homogenizing" my sound by running all my amp profiles through this one cabinet, but it's really got the sound I'm looking for. Many of the others are too boomy (Mesa) or flat (Marshall) for what I want to get.


    Any Tips/Tricks around amp/cab mixing, as well as getting authenticity in FRFR, would be greatly appreciated...


    Thanks!

    Well, you're definitely homogenizing and that's both a good and a bad thing.
    If you were using one amp on-stage you'd get something equally homogeneous - but then maybe more care would have been taken to balance cleans, crunch and lead, even on a three channel amp.
    Playing three separate amps in the scope of a song, however, would probably make you sound like a disjointed mess so that's a risky idea as well.
    Bear in mind that the Profiler cabs have some of the poweramp in them - it's not as clean a process as swapping IRs. Try Lasse's 'ChugChug' cab.


    As for the transients that are bothering you... It was suggested in the past that the Profiler accentuates pick attack. Maybe too much so.
    A good (subtle) trick is to put a soft shaper with the drive around 0.5 in either the X or MOD slots. You'll be hard pressed to hear it, but you'll feel it.
    Tube shape should default to 3.3. Putting that on 0 could make things sound 'stiffer'.


    As for the TS... Again, a much debated subject.
    If you're gonna run a TS in front, consider lowering the 'definition' a bit and do your best for the (over exaggerated, IMO) loss of low frequencies.
    Also try running 'drive' at 0.8 for a bit thicker tone without really 'feeling' the gain. :thumbup:

    "But dignity is difficult to maintain
    stamina requires constant upkeep
    repetition is boring
    and you pay for grace."

    +1 to Lasse's cabs. I find that they tend to sound more "live" than others - not necessarily the best thing for recording, but for jamming or playing a gig it's obviously desirable. The cabs on Bombed and... whichever one has a 1960... are my go-tos.


    In my experience, the amp section is what gives you different flavors of distortion, but the cab is going to determine the overall EQ of your tone. Not enough bite? Try a different amp. Not enough scoopy "chunk chunk chunk"? Try a different cab.


    (Yes, I know there are a million other things you can tweak too)

    Unfortunately, not in my experience or of those who shared my grief - sorry, don't recall who you guys were 8|


    Pick attack can't reduce the aforementioned transients until it's at -3.0 or so, and by then you'll lose much more than you wanted to.
    If anything, this is related to the 'definition' and 'power sagging' parameters, but CK doesn't see the current state of things as a problem.

    "But dignity is difficult to maintain
    stamina requires constant upkeep
    repetition is boring
    and you pay for grace."

    Quote from Quitty

    Pick attack can't reduce the aforementioned transients until it's at -3.0 or so, and by then you'll lose much more than you wanted to.


    I find if I change any parameters, my sound does indeed change, I'm surprised you had this experience with any of the controls. ?(


    As far as the OP's question, I find that cabs often retain a bit of the character of the amp they were profiled with. As a result, don't be too surprised if they start to sound like the amp/cabinet that was added than the original profile.


    I'm having a bit of trouble understanding what you mean by "pop" when you play. Are you talking about excessive frequencies? Is it a digital artefact? Soundclips might help with tweaking out the offending sound.

    Thanks, Quitty, and everyone else... good stuff.


    Yeah, I've dropped that Tube shape down to 0, and it does help.


    To explain the issue a bit more...


    There's that satisfying responsiveness you get from a tube amp when you vary your dynamics. Part of it seems to be power-amp related as it's got that element of "pop" to it when you go from silence to a slammed power chord. (Which is why a soundclip won't help. It's a room and volume dynamics sort of thing you have to be here to hear.) (*Another note, I have acoustic tiles in my office where I play, so I've got a good environment to judge the sound from.)


    It's a bit like an improperly set noise gate - when the release is fast. I'm only using the standard (non-stomp) noise gate on the Kemper - at a setting of about 1.9 or so. Trying to not suck my tone. So I'm pretty sure it's not a noise gate issue.


    Which makes me think this could be related to the power amp carry-over in profiles. That, combined with the cab characteristics I'm hearing, is probably a great part of the sound issue. I think I can chalk it up to those factors.


    I'll try adding the soft shaper later today when I practice. That might help a bit.


    It's a tough balance, because you don't want to lose that "real amp" responsiveness, but when you're playing at bedroom volume it just feels a bit weird.


    I'll also see if I've got that cab. I have a ton of his stuff, so I should - somewhere.


    And just to let you in on what my Holy Grail of tone is - before I got the Kemper, I had been blending a 5150 (iii) and a Marshall JVM 410 within one Line 6 Spider Cab. That gave me a nice blended creamy distortion at the low end (for those great Judas Priest/Iron Maiden rhythms) and a nice Kranky high end for leads.


    Oops, I revealed my genre...


    Lately I've been favoring Krank, ENGL (fireball and Savage), in the high gain realm. I started to like the Cobra, but then it sounded kind of thin next to the Savage.


    Does anyone have what they consider to be a really great profile that I could consider a decent baseline to listen to in the realm of 80s, NON-downtuned, Heavy Metal? (With cab)


    Might be a good way to re-align my ears.


    Thanks everyone!

    Quote from nightlight

    I find if I change any parameters, my sound does indeed change, I'm surprised you had this experience with any of the controls. ?(


    I'm not sure i follow.


    The 'problem', as i see it, can be easily viewed on a waveform. It has to do with the balance of the initial attack and the sustain of distorted sounds.
    The pick parameter, when attempting to fix said 'problem', causes a lot of 'collateral damage' to the sound. Something else is needed to squash the transients to something more manageable.


    OP:
    Also try raising the volume. Part of what you're getting is psycho-acoustics related and needs some volume to happen. Also try messing with power sagging, it does a decent job of emulating this at lower volumes, but will make the aforementioned transients sharper, so YMMV.


    5153 and JVM doesn't sound very 80's to me. Two very modern-sounding amps. Ditto for the Line6 cab.
    I do play a seven string and generally don't jive well with Engls so i'm not sure i'll be helping, but try Sinmix's 6262 or 'pride' profiles (available on his facebook page, i believe) for excellent 5150-ish tones.
    His 5153, by the way, is expensive but the absolute best there is IMO.


    I love TAF's 1987x. It can get very heavy and do anything, and was based around a Judas-Priest kind of tone. Also commercial, unfortunately.


    There's a blend of Mesa and 5153 floating around... Enoly was the name of the band who's guitarist published them and they should come up on Google. Try those out for size, they're perfectly free.

    "But dignity is difficult to maintain
    stamina requires constant upkeep
    repetition is boring
    and you pay for grace."

    "5153 and JVM doesn't sound very 80's to me. "


    Yeah, I guess I misspoke that. You're right. I'm playing 80s metal, but with more modern amp sounds. I guess you could say my EQ is 80s. ;) But the tone I want is seeming to be a bit of a hybrid these days.



    "Two very modern-sounding amps. Ditto for the Line6 cab.
    I do play a seven string and generally don't jive well with Engls so i'm not sure i'll be helping, but try Sinmix's 6262 or 'pride' profiles (available on his facebook page, i believe) for excellent 5150-ish tones.
    His 5153, by the way, is expensive but the absolute best there is IMO."


    Again, I agree, it seems to be one of the best, and I'm using that on occasion. Problem is, with all these choices available, I tend to change my mind, as another band once said.


    Thanks again, and I'll re-try TAF's cabs. I remember I liked them. The IRs I used to create a few cabs with cabmaker just sounded way too flat and dull.

    Quick update - just revisited Lasse's rigs, and you're right - a few in there are really great sounding. I'm going to review those and see if they will EQ into something good.


    His 5150 on ChugChug is actually very nice.

    Quote from carlosxuma


    ...
    I'm using a Peavey 6505 cabinet that has no real other info on it.)


    ... AND the amps are starting to sound a bit too much alike overall.


    In the real world can we find our favorite cabinet (eg for all higher gain stuff do I love my Elmwood 4x12" cabinet) - and connect any amp head - and get great sounds - and while all get some color from the same cabinet - each amp will sound different and the tone stack controlls as well as other options, presence, switches,... can be used.


    That is NOT the case for the profiler - when a real amp/cabinet is profiled - then the frequency responce is very accurate captured and stored into the amp and cab filters (= correct, filters befor and after the distortion generator).


    Unfortunatly can the KPA if the frequency response is analyzed during the profile process - NOT know which part comes from the amp, tonestack, presence controll, speaker, microphone, .... and simple stores some part into the amp filter and another part into the cabinet filter.


    So when you use ONE cabinet for all your rigs - then you will loose A LOT of the amp character, tone stack settings,....


    The Cab filter is NOT the same as the cab block e.g. in the AxeFx - there can you freely exchange the cabinet filter WITHOUT changing the amp caracter - but IMHO does the result not reach the accuracy the KPA can deliver when we use the amp and cab filter from the same profiling session.


    So whatever great cab-preset you use - all the amps using this one cab will sound very similar.


    The only way to get accurate results from many amps with the same speaker is - to use profiles where these amps are profiled via this same speaker.


    This is no shortcoming of the KPA but physics.

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    Edited 2 times, last by Armin ().

    Good stuff... thanks, confirms most of my suspicions. (I have an Axe FX II, by the way, which I can't seem to go back to after using my Kemper so much. The Axe was super cool & awesome at first, but now I find myself WANTING to find the amps in there as appealing more than I actually DO like them.)


    Your comments open up the question: Why not more DI profiles where the amp tone is profiled separate from the cabinet? I realize you lose a lot of the power amp character, but you could get better cabinet isolation thus:


    Just a thought that if the Kemper could profile with a two-step process -


    1) Do a DI profile (taking the output of the preamp into the Kemper instead of mic'ing)


    2) Do a full stack profile where you do mic the cab


    And then have the Kemper "subtract" the two to get the cabinet character. (+ power amp, yeah.)


    Obviously this is a whole new level of software and programming, but it would be an interesting approach - and I'm just thinking aloud here.


    Another interesting thing I've tried is - since I'm looping my KPA through my AXE right now - I can try out the cabinets in the Axe with the amps in the Kemper. (insert evil laugh)


    I get some decent results, but nothing really useable. As you might expect, they sound a bit flat and uninteresting.


    This leaves me a bit let down since I love certain amps, and I also dig on certain cabs, so finding someone that's profiled that combo can be pretty tough. Looks like I need to get the graveyard shift at a music store, huh? :)


    Another statement/question: I guess this is why all the cabs made with cabmaker seem a bit lifeless when I take an IR and convert it...(?)

    I think Kemper have said (this was a while ago) that they were investigating the idea of having it take two profiles like that... never heard anything more about it, so who knows. +1 anyway.


    People already take great direct profiles of their preamps, so all we need is a way to profile through the power amp input --> cab --> mic setup and then specify to the Kemper that this is just the Cab block.

    Won't work - amp and cab have a lot of interaction.
    Profiling one after another and then combining would give similar (bad) results as modeling and IR.

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    Quote from Armin

    Won't work - amp and cab have a lot of interaction.
    Profiling one after another and then combining would give similar (bad) results as modeling and IR.

    Armin is right with everything he said, for me the KPA is great for recording or playing it straight into the desk using in ears.


    Playing the KPA like a "normal" amp with a cab doesn't really work for me, it doesn't matter if I use my -really good- Matrix Q12a FRFR-cab or my -also excellent- reference-Boogie Thiele-cab (old 12" Evoice-speaker). I just don't get the same feel, so I decided to use tube-amps and pedals for these occations and the KPA for recording and bigger tours.


    Playing the KPA with a FRFR or guitar cab is not "sweet" enough for me and sounds to "hard", especially in the treble-region.


    To make it short: if I want to hear the direct amp signal, I still prefer tube-amps, for anything else the KPA will be the winner.

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    first name: Guenter / family name: Haas / www.guenterhaas.de

    Quote from Lokasenna

    Even the preamp? I thought it was fairly static, so (Preamp) + (Power amp and cab) would work.


    Were would you place the power amp sag?


    In case we profile an old Fender or none master volume Marshall - how would you store this into the cabinet block (without distortion simulation)?



    The KPA is for FRFR - and in ADDITION can it be used to drive a guitar speaker - this is fine for monitor use on stage - but IMHO always a compromise for a real tube tone( (cab = on sounds strange via another real cabinet and cab = off sounds strange because some parts of the amp and tone stack coloring is missing).


    You could profile the preamp only and use a real tube amp and guitar cabinet - that should work.


    But in this case are you limited to one kind of power amp / speaker - and only have a more flexible preamp / effects unit.
    In this case would I go with Günter and use a full tube amp.


    But it's all a matter of taste - experiment and use what works best for you.

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    Great Profiles --> soundside.de

    Edited once, last by Armin ().

    Sorry, I really don't understand your point.


    - People already take profiles directly from a preamp, so that part works fine.


    - It's already be possible to take a profile starting from the power amp's input (or the effect loop return, if it's a head), through the cab, mic, and back into the Kemper, but then the Kemper's internal math is deciding that parts of the power amp will go in the profile's preamp block because it doesn't know any better.


    - What I'm suggesting is that we could have the option to tell the Kemper "I'm profiling just a preamp" or "I'm profiling a power amp and cabinet", take the profile, and then it doesn't have to try and sort out "is this bit the preamp, or the power amp?". All of that information can go into just the Amp (for the preamp) or the Cab (power amp + cab) block, ready to go. We already have power amp information in the Cab block, which is why mixing and matching Amp block A with Cab block B doesn't sound the same as a profile of those two items together.

    This would create a certain confusion among users tho, which I guess Eng. Kemper would not feel glad about. You'd end up having some amps which are actually pres only, some cabs which are actually power amp + cab and would not sound good when used together with other profiles. Furthermore it would not be correct to call those "cabs" just "cabs", they would sound very differently from an actual cab section, which doesn't carry the whole power amp. How would you use them?