Travel Set Up for Capturing Profiles

    I have a project I am thinking of working on over the course of the next year...


    Background: I'm tapped into a community of 'aficionados' who chase a very specific tone set. Some of its members have graciously taken me up on my request to have them let me profile their rigs. The end result of this should be a set of FREE profiles for the rig exchange (assuming my benefactors are ok with me sharing the results). I am anticipating this may take 6 months to a year due to life in general and working with other people's schedules. Most likely this will involve driving and not flying. Of course, I need to do some practice profiling before I embark on any journeys but figured I should start asking questions now.


    I *think* I have just about everything I need but thought it might be a good idea to put together a checklist for travel and see if I am missing anything?


    What I have:

    • Unpowered Green Toaster Kemper
    • Tech 21 Power Engine (although I may be able to borrow either/or/both a QSC K10/K12)
    • Rode NT1-A condenser mic
    • Sure SM58 mic
    • sennheiser e835 mic
    • mic stands
    • various cables
    • Headphones (I'll have to post the brand/model when I get home)
    • Power, surge protectors, etc.


    What I am not sure about:

    • Guitars: I normally play a '71 Gibson Les Paul Deluxe or '82 Ibanez AR305 - distinct but very similar guitars. The guitar can be very important on some of these rigs, including on board preamp, effects loops, pickups. Should I focus on using the host's custom guitars or try to use something more generic (i.e. my guitars) in hopes of a more versatile profile? If I should err on generic, should I try to acquire a Fender Strat for single coil profiles?
    • Mics: should I bother taking all three mics? Shouldn't the condenser be the best choice? Since I am new to this, any guidance on mic placement?
    • Anything else I should be thinking about? I don't want to drive six hours to Indiana and realize I forgot to bring something and my host doesn't have it either.

    Thanks in advance!

    Hi, I think it's best to use the host's guitar since he probably tailored his tone starting from a specific guitar. Carrying a 'generic' guitar with splittable pickups would be nice just for testing purpose once the profiles are made (That Ibanez


    I"ve not enough miking experience, but you should start profiling at home and know your mikes and their best usage regarding position , space , tones ... until you got a good practice with them.


    Maybe wou'll need a little mixer to mike with several mikes at once & some monitoring headphones (+ obvious stuff like mike stands and xlr cables)


    Good luck on your profiling journey and keep us informed, don't forget to get a camera and take some pics !

    Finally decided on a Mackie Mix 8 (why the smaller mixers don't allow for two XLRs is odd to me but whatever)> gonna pick that up tonight. This will probably be a bit of a long, drawn out process - working with my first 'donor' and looking at sometime late this month/early november to profile his rig. Use that as a learning experience and go from there. fortunately, I already have 4-5 other donors lined up, some of them are real 'chasing the holy grail' tone hounds so I am saving them for later in the process in hopes that I can do justice to capturing their rigs.


    I probably will bring one of my guitars (just so we can jam of course!) but knowing that its better to use their guitar does make it a lot simpler in terms of what I need to pack - trying to make it as portable as possible just in case I do need to fly somewhere.


    Thanks for your help!

    Yes use their guitars, as it's one of the most important part in their tone (guitar - amp interaction) .


    I've been profiling like a mad man for the last two weeks on 4 types of guitars and figured out that - given a single tone - I needed to profile 4 times since the sweet spots on the amp where not exactly the same.


    Please note in the comments/tags which type of guitar was used at profiling and the type of pickups used.

    Flyingheelhook, I'd consider purchasing or borrowing an SM57 and forgetting about the '58 altogether. If you're able, I'd suggest doing the same with an AKG C414 (the silver one, not the gold). The Rode's OK, but the AKG has proven itself over many decades, along with the '57, to be the go-to, no-brainer choice for capturing rigs.


    The AKG is flatter and truer, whereas the '57, some would say, has more mojo. If you can combine them using your mixer, provided you pay attention to maintaining equal distances from the mic'd speaker in order to minimise phase cancellation (use your ears when tweaking distances), by all means make profiles this way and add C414/'57 or something to the rigs' names. It's then a simple matter to make profiles using each mic on its own as you've already set them up, and name them accordingly too.


    You didn't mention any mic preamp. I assume you're going to use whatever's in the mini mixer. I'd consider buying or borrowing a dedicated one, not because I'm being an audio snob, but due to the fact that the difference in detail and dynamic range of the capture will be like night and day, even if you opt for a mid-range... or even a pro-sumer-level one. I cannot overstate the difference this piece of kit can make.


    Of course, the simplest option is to go for the SM57 (roughly $100 US new) and plug it directly into the Kemper as it doesn't require a preamp. It'd sound better going through a "proper" preamp first, but for budgetary and convenience reasons it would seem to me to be perfectly reasonable to opt for my latter-suggested choice.


    Hope this helps, mate, and I look forward to hearing what you come up with. Oh, and thank you in advance for your generosity.

    Good stuff, thanks guys, and will do waraba. Monkey Man, I may decide to upgrade my mics in the future but for now, I am trying to save up for a Kemper Remote so anything I buy chips away at my budget for that! LOL! But, that's good advice and I will keep it in mind, especially if I find the profiles are suffering from the mics I am using.


    The Kemper is cool in so many ways - I love how in addition to all the other fun I have with it, it also gives me inspiration and feasible technology for an interesting and compelling side project - not to mention I get to travel a little bit and meet some cool peeps and jam and hang out with them. Assuming I can capture reasonably accurate profiles, I am really looking forward to hearing what people think of the tones, especially folks who might not have much exposure to Garcia's music and tone.

    It's all good, isn't it mate?


    Well, if budget's really that tight (I can relate, believe me), I'd personally go for just the SM57 plugged straight into the Kemper.


    You won't find a simpler way of doing it, and it just so happens that, as I suggested, the '57 is one of the two most popular mics for this purpose since, I s'pose, the '70s give or take a decade. Because of its robustness, it would surely be the clear statistittycal winner in live situations, whereas the C414 alone or in combination with the '57 would win the studio contest. Each has its sound, but both are legitimately legendary.


    What I'm saying is that if you can buy into the '57 sound (great on snares too, the other "accidental" purpose for which it's become an industry standard, and also partly due to the anomalous HF response that sees it tame snares as well as guitar cabs), it'd be well worth the $100 investment, and you wouldn't need to carry that mixer with you. Headphones straight from the Kemper for setting the mic up (angle / distance), then start the profiling process. Easy, peasy. Less gear = lighter load, less to go wrong and less chance of leaving something behind.