Sorting the wheat from the chaff.......

    Just curious as to how you guys sort out which profiles to keep and which to sling? When I first powered up my new Kemper, there was pretty much close to a 1000 rigs on there. I also bought a TAF package as a bundle with my KPA, which consisted about 370-odd rigs. Naturally, because I'd bought these I wanted them installed, so I deleted loads of ultra-high gain stuff that doesn't interest me, and some random profiles. I then bought a Top Jimi pack ('74 Marshall Super Lead) which is awesome. So, again, I squeezed them on. The thing is, that I now have a toaster that is nearly full to the brim, and it's almost impossible to properly audition each rig properly as there are so many variables involved. I'd hate to get rid of a rig that I thought was mediocre, only to find that if, for instance, I had plugged in a strat instead of a Les Paul it would have been amazing.


    Ideally, I would like a Kemper that played host to no more than about 50 profiles, covering a wide spectrum. As things stand now the whole thing is a bit overwhelming. It would be easy if most of the profiles were junk, but the majority that come with the KPA are of a pretty high standard. I really don't know where to start to be honest.

    When I brought my KPA I suffered a lot from pro file overload. So what I did was preview if I didn't like the profile within the first 5 seconds I deleted it (from my KPA). I have thousand of profiles but I know which ones I like now and with Rig Manager it makes sorting them so much easier. I agree though profile saturation is the new form of GAS with the KPA :)

    So it's probably best to pretty much empty the profiler then, and save everything to Rig Manager, then slowly re-introduce them as the need arises? I'm a bit of a bugger for flicking back and forth between 4 guitars, so maybe I also need to create guitar-specific folders to get the best out out of them.


    I guess I shouldn't complain, as it's a nice position to be in, what with having too much good stuff to choose between. I come from the Line 6 camp, where 90% of the presets were totally unusable. The other 10% needed major tweaking, lol :)

    I also had 1000 rigs at one point, so I did the sensible thing and bought more ;)


    All joking aside, You have to audition the rigs and see which ones you like best with your guitar(s). Since this was a daunting task, I moved the rigs to Rig Manager and deleted everything on my Kemper to start fresh. Since I also use the Kemper for bass, and there are fewer bass profiles, I started by auditioning the 300 or so bass profiles I had. I ended up with about 30 bass profiles I can see myself using and saved them in a folder within RM, BUT I only selected 12 as my favorites and moved those to the Kemper. This took me about 3 days, but I am very happy knowing I have a dozen bass profiles I really like.


    I'm now repeating this process for my guitar profiles, but since I had almost 3x as many guitar profiles than bass, I had to break the steps down further. I first split the profiles I have paid for vs the free ones. Like you, I felt I needed ALL of these since I had paid for them, but this really should not be the case. For example, I bought TAF's Victory Amps package, which includes about 100 profiles, but after some careful listening and auditioning I ended up keeping less than 20 profiles. It's not that there is lot of fluff just to fill space, but TAF's methodology (at least with this package) was to record the amp setting (Clean, Breakup, Crunch, Drive, etc) with 3 guitars and 3 mic/positioning variations to give the listener options that work best with a given guitar (Les Paul, Strat, Tele type). Therefore I selected the 1 amp setting that worked best for me for the type of tone I was auditioning and amp.


    One case where I did keep all of the profiles I purchased was from Guidorist's Bogner XTC profiles since his methodology is to make only "sweet spot" profiles, so you end up with about 8 profiles where each one is very unique (not a repeat or slight variation)... I really like this sweet spot method and wish other people would do more like these, but I appreciate the amount of work and options such as the one TAF provides as well :)


    My next step is to continue the auditioning and down select process for the rest of the free profiles I have. I'm thinking of grouping them by type and by manufacturer erasing the profiles I don't like altogether, and as a final step moving only the favorites to my Kemper. I would like to end up with no more than 50 profiles (35 guitar, 15 bass) loaded in my Kemper for ease of browsing, and keeping the other profiles I like in RM. I hope this approach will help you or give you ideas on how to manage such a huge list of profiles.


    Phew!! Wow, thanks for that :)


    It sounds like you have a pretty systematic approach to your music. 3 Days just to organise your bass profiles is quite some time investment. But I guess it's time well spent as you now have immediate access to the good stuff. No getting distracted as you stumble across "interesting" profiles that have little to do with the music you are about to embark upon.


    Well, you've certainly given me food for thought, and it's not like any profiles are getting tossed on the fire. They can all be easily resurrected again. Looks like I've got much work ahead ;)

    Haha sorry for the long rant.... in all fairness though, I did not spend 8 hours a day for this task. I had a good idea of the 50 or so that I liked the first day within an hour. I just kept coming back at a different time or day with "fresh" ears to compare the finalists. I would also play them along to songs I play with my band to get the feel of how they sounded within a musical context.


    So in summary, I would down select within a couple of hours, but keep coming back with fresh ears to compare finalists and select favorites out of these within a day or two. Hope this helps.

    Like you, Bilbo, and many others, I too am overwhelmed, and I plan to buy as many TAF profiles as I can, and all of Guido's, and much of SinMix's... and... I can't see an end to the dilemma, Frankly.


    It's a nice problem to have, but it's a problem nevertheless.

    I emptied my profiler recently and went through all my profiles via rig manager. The ones I liked were transfered to the KPA. I did this with two of my guitars and now I have too many profiles on it again :rolleyes: (however, now I know, that I like all of them at least with one of my guitars. If I find a profile on my KPA which I don't like, I just delete it).
    Another thing I've done:
    While going through the profiles, I found many profiles pretty silmilar with just different gain-settings or slightly different sound. I often liked them all but realized that I could get the sound of all of these profiles with just one of them by changing the amp settings.
    In my oppinion there is no need of profiling an amp with hundreds of different settings. A few different and nice settings should be enough for many amps, as you can adjust the settings pretty well on the KPA.

    Quote from MtotheEikel

    ... I found many profiles pretty silmilar with just different gain-settings or slightly different sound. I often liked them all but realized that I could get the sound of all of these profiles with just one of them by changing the amp settings.
    In my oppinion there is no need of profiling an amp with hundreds of different settings. A few different and nice settings should be enough for many amps, as you can adjust the settings pretty well on the KPA.


    Very, very true.

    Truly a fair question since a new KPA screening experience can easily become a daunting task.
    But it's so great to have so many options IMO. : )


    I too recall struggling with this back when and I found the clean slate approach working best for me.


    Now that our Rig Manager is as interactive as it is, testing profiles has never been easier.


    So, I would definitely recommend a system backup and then a clean slate might deliver the best results.


    Review the forum in both the free and commercial profile sections from fellow formite's for profile clues which may appeal to your interests.


    As you gather more time and experience with your KPA you can learn to save/store them in categories important to you and keep things organized as your expand your preference base.


    Hope this helps.

    Happy Kemper

    Hi all. Thanks for all of your suggestions. I'm definitely leaning towards a clean slate. I shan't really get a chance to tackle it until the weekend, what with work and rehearsals, but I have to do something as I'm totally swamped at present. I do have some profiles favourited though, so I can access those quickly enough, but, ideally, I'd like all of my profiles to be favourites, or at least necessary for certain songs :)