Humbucker vs Single coil sound

    When you use 3rd-party profiles there is no guarantee that the settings that were dialled in on the amp prior to profiling would work well with all your guitar. For the most consistent results you should perform a comparison using a real amp that you like and a profile of that amp.

    • Dial in a tube amp with a setting that you find give reasonable results with all guitars (no reverb or other fx). The tonal spectrum of different pickups vary so much I find this to be near impossible, but by all means give it a go.
    • Create a profile of this amp/settings
    • Record clips with all the different guitars through the amp and through the sampled profile. Don't touch a knob on either the amp or the profiler while recording.
    • Post the resulting clips here and also submit them to Kemper support to get an analysis of the differences you experience

    Edited once, last by heldal ().

    In the "real world" i havent heard many amps that sound good on a Humbucker and a Single Coil with the same settings on the amp and the pedals. Humbuckers and Single Coils are simply different beasts. For the profile packs i have bought (M Britt, Bugenstock and Bert Muijlendik) i have always enquired what guitars were used when making a setting on the profiled amp. I did in order to avoid buying amps that were set to sound good with humbuckers because they are often useless for single coils.


    Sorry about the names, i am sure i got them wrong somehow ;)

    And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

    Like 1
    Quote from Kim_Olesen

    In the "real world" i havent heard many amps that sound good on a Humbucker and a Single Coil with the same settings on the amp and the pedals. Humbuckers and Single Coils are simply different beasts. For the profile packs i have bought (M Britt, Bugenstock and Bert Muijlendik) i have always enquired what guitars were used when making a setting on the profiled amp. I did in order to avoid buying amps that were set to sound good with humbuckers because they are often useless for single coils.


    Sorry about the names, i am sure i got them wrong somehow ;)

    This!

    I notice a difference mostly with high gain amplifiers. Those typically get the squeally high end when using single coils, but that would probably happen in the real world too, so it would be a matter of setting the amp controls darker to compensate, which is why I don't use strats much anymore. I like being able to switch guitars so I keep my single coils a tad on the hot side (Tom Anderson stacked tele) and my P90's and humbuckers on the weaker side so they are roughly in the same ballpark output-wise. If you're using vintage strat single coils or really high gain humbuckers, there will of course be a more drastic difference in the sound of the profiles. As Christoph recommended, the Definition control is your best friend. It won't fix every profile, but it gets in the ballpark quickly and then you can use the eq knobs on front to get closer. High gain amps just sound smoother and better with humbuckers with the extra midrange that Don P. mentioned. It helps fill in the big hole between the fizzy top and the beef on the bottom (if any exists). Without the right amount of mids, it seems no matter how loud you turn it up it gets lost in a mix. All this to say, the guitars used to profile matter a little (to me) in that amp settings are set to sound good for that particular output range and pickup sound. If the amp itself is more tricky to dial in with singles v. humbuckers then the profiles will probably be a little trickier too. Some amps aren't as "picky" as others.

    I could give you clips with a much more drastic behaviour, but these profiles are ok in general. While recording, at several points the erratic things occur and I cannot keep the tracks because of a small bad portion.
    .
    So, Nrs. 1 and 2 are HB LP (Ruokangas Unicorn) and a DeTemple Strat which plays in the same region sonically. Both are functioning with the profiles. I played some similar licks to compare.
    Nr. 3 is a Kloppmann Strat with normal PU hight - very bad sound. Lowering the PU during playing improves it only marginally. The Strat sounds amazing over my old Marshall and Vox. In this combi horrible..
    Nr. 4 Kloppmannn Strat with TAF Friedman profile - a bit better.
    Nr. 5 Kloppmannn Strat with Britt Crunch profile. A bit dull, but ok until the last part which again sounds sizzly.
    Nr. 6 Kloppmannn Strat with Britt Solo profile. Solo line ok, bass strings very sizzly.


    In general the bass strings produce the sizzle and it is definitely not the string. Any ideas?

    I went back and looked at the definition on my gain profiles compared to my clean profiles. The gain was 5.5 and the clean was 5.0. I pulled the definition on the clean back to 3.0 and it did help smooth out the sound a lot. The SC pups aren't as brittle now but still have that quack and when I add an OD pedal to the clean it is much smoother as well.

    (PEDALBOARD): Kemper Stage, Shure GLXD-16 wireless, JHS A/B Switch, SoloDallas Storm, Keeley Halo, Mission Engineering EP-1 KP, Voodoo Labs Pedal Power 2, Pedaltrain-3 board

    I hear what you are hearing. Can you record a DI while recording wet? Im wondering if the dry signal is clipping. Also you can confirm the track itself is not clipping in the daw. I wonder if clean sense would help - if the gain for the rig is below 4 or so, it will reduce its overall volume and thus prevent output clipping.


    If its input clipping on the KPA, not sure what the solution would be - theres no padding or anything of the sort. Are those pickups super hot? It seemed like lowering them helped. If you lower them then add gain in the profile, do you still get the nasty distortion? That may indicate the problem is input distortion, not issues with the profiles or profiling algorithm itself.


    Btw, your playing sounds great!

    Thanks for all the responses, everyone.


    I was able to get a pleasing tone with my strat just now by adjusting Clarity and Definition to varying degrees depending on the profile. Gigging tonight so we'll see how it goes. But based off what I was just hearing, it should sound pretty darn good. I think Silverface is hip to what I'm talking about tho. I've switched from hums to singles all my life thru real tube amps and I've never heard a sound difference like what I've experienced so far with the KPA. It's not the typical sound we all know and expect to hear. It's more than the natural and expected changes in volume, gain, frequency, hum, clarity, etc. It sounds like an issue with the algorithms or firmware or something.


    In other words, I don't think a real Divided By 13 would sound phenomenal with a Les Paul and then harsh and metallic and somewhat fake with a Strat, even with the same settings. But that was/is the case with my M Britt Div 13 model. Hopefully the clarity and definition tweaks will root that sound out.


    Thanks for all the input!

    I think so, MAB: Eng. Kemper stated that


    Quote

    Clean Sens ... has an impact on the pure input gain.
    ...
    Clean Sens will also care for the best levelling of the digital instrument input.


    Also, from the wiKPA:


    Quote

    Your real input level depends on the Clean Sens parameter, and you should set it up according to your pickups. The LED above input will show when it's set up right - what you're aiming for basically is the LED to be green all the time and maybe go a little amber/reddish when you hit your strings really hard.


    Edit: just tried again to be absolutely sure: with the gain @10, changing CS value does affect the Input LED (which becomes red if CS is too high).

    I hope my further investigations in this thread does not getting too boring for you. It is not „my thread“ but if you don’t mind I would like to keep it rollin‘ because I am really interested in changing something in a constructive way... I know it‘s Sunday and it needs a reasonable amount of time to communicate (and for me it‘s difficult to write in English and not German). I am sure while even if only few people are coping with this „phenomenon“ it will help the overall performance of the profiler for everybody if we observe this behaviour more and more in detail.


    meambobbo: To the point! First I wanted to record a video to show exactly what I do, which parameter I change and whether it does make any differences. But it would be too time-consuming for me so my next idea after not videoing was to record clips which exactly showed the amount of headroom at the beginning of the clip, and the cleanliness of the undistorted incoming signal running through the profiler without stomps/stacks/effects activated. Then switch on the stack only and reduce the output for volume compensation. (Unfortunately) the clips were too long to be allowed to be uploaded (1MB limit) so I truncated these parts and left the rest. When hearing the sizzle appear I tried to reduce it by any parameter, one after another, after that by combinations.
    Result: The inhomogen sound structure is generated ONLY by the profile. You can mask it by EQ (especially when playing live = not recording). But it is only masking / forming / dampening it - the sound itself stays the same! I stick to my conclusion that by using a very different instrument (guitar + cable + pick) from the original you can get into a trouble which you will not have in the real world or other sim products (they have other disadvantages...) Again: I am not speaking of not-sounding-as-good-as-with-HBs, I am speaking of sounding really bad somewhere during the recording.


    To sum it up:
    - My incoming signal is much lower than the input limit. By nature the HB’s output is higher than the SC. The peaks could have caused distortion before the Kemper so I double checked. Also I am staying in the green, not even amber area. And: The sizzling is more apparent with low attacks on low strings! Sometimes only touching the strings a bit with the pick! So, it definitely has something to do with the relation "basic tone - harmonics" and "attack - release" of the guitar tone.
    - As described before in my first post I use plenty of headroom at the campers output. Green all the way and -15 DbFS for peaks at A/D conversion and DAW (just for the test).
    - The Sense and Distortion parameters have no influence on the phenomenon, the „Amp“ parameters mask the harmonic relations but do not change them. Also EQ only dampens „strange“ frequencies.
    - The best will obviously be to to profile your own real sound system and play the profiler with your own instrument. Of course I myself want to use many more amps which I could never buy.. It is not an economical interesting statement at this point in time, but it will be better to stress it, for the reputation of this great product. Regarding the future enhancements you can quote me when „Mark II“ will be released :)
    Thanks a lot for your communication and reading up to this point..

    In my first reply I wrote that I might be able to help, but then did not come to that point of a "solution". For me it was essential in the first place to make it clear that a profile is a veeeeery dynamic picture of the base-to-harmonics relations. And you might know Acustica Audio's plugins which a technology emulating up to 10 harmonics.


    The result is that a drastical different guitar tone (compared to the original, profiled one) can change the processed result in an unpleasing or even bad sounding tone, much more as in the real analog amp world. So we have to work with this different behaviour especially when using profiles we did not produce by ourselves.


    The solution for me was as follows. I mentioned the influence of all the parameters: guitar, cable and PU (style and hight), but I did not explicitly mention the strings - especially the gauge of the strings.
    So, in my case changing the strings from .009 or .0095 (D'Addario) to .010 (Pyramid) totally eliminates the sizzle you heard in my previous clips. String material is of little importance but gauge is of high importance here. Michael Britt's original tone is so warm and round, you have to get into that region.


    I just made a little clip, it is the same Kloppmann strat with just a bit thicker strings! Still very bright but I can go through all Michael Britts profiles without any of the artefacts I do have with nearly all profiles using thinner strings. Another strat like my DeTemple having a more mid-core oriented sound or an old Fender might be "artefact-free" with .009s. With my own amps I prefer .0095 D'Addarios with the Kloppmann, sometimes the crashing noise like e.g. The Who in old days. It never sounds digital there. But with Michael's profiles the described solution is perfect. Try it even if it feels a bit uncomfortable in the beginning.
    Hope this helps somebody in the future who is searching in the forum regarding this issue.

    As a side note, I'd point out that since I've had my guitars pleked any sizzle (that I experienced from time to time with some specific rigs) has disappeared.
    So I think it's not just the strings, but the way they interact with the frets. Thicker strings vibrate by a lesser amplitude, and this can overcome the potential issues related to a non-perfectly set fretboard.


    :)

    Quote from viabcroce

    As a side note, I'd point out that since I've had my guitars pleked any sizzle (that I experienced from time to time with some specific rigs) has disappeared.
    So I think it's not just the strings, but the way they interact with the frets. Thicker strings vibrate by a lesser amplitude, and this can overcome the potential issues related to a non-perfectly set fretboard.
    :)


    My thought exactly, Gianfranco.


    I'm just not buying that a .0095 can "sizzle" where a .0010 simply won't.


    I'm blaming fret buzz at this point. The 10s would "pull" the neck forward slightly more than the 9s or 9.5s, which in turn would contribute to eliminating the buzz along with the reduced-travel vibration you mentioned.


    Sorry if we're way off the mark and wasting your time, Silverface; forums will be what they are, eh? :D

    I never used 0.008, did I say that? But even with such thin strings these artefacts should never happen. In the seventies we used ever thinner gauges from banjos. It was hip at that time. Listen to Clapton, Page etc. - no buzzing through the amp although without amp it was like a sitar :)
    Listen to Carl Verheyen (0.009) = bold blues and rock sound.
    On my Marshall it is not possible to get that annoying effect (listen to my clips) at all. It is not possible, even with the worst sounding guitar.


    My strat is plecked, string action is high (>2mm) but as I said, that's not the criterium. With the Unicorn I can put the string action deep down to buzzing (without amp) and the MBritt profiles sound very good.