Dear God - I hope it gets better than this!

    To answer everyone's questions from above:

    • The DXR15 is on the floor in wedge position. Everything on the back of the monitor is switched to flat and off.
    • Clean sense and Distortion sense are both on zero
    • "Monitor Cab Off" is unchecked, so the cab feature is on
    • I've already done a reset on the unit. It was one of the first things I did after trying it for the first time because I heard a bunch of people saying that'd help. So I don't know that doing it again would help. And if it did, that would actually not be a good sign, having to reset it twice in a month.
    • Inputs and outputs are not clipping

    I'm hoping to have a lot of time to sit with it tomorrow. Wife and daughter will be out of the house and I'm going to really put some more time into this and start tweaking more. I'm assuming tweaking will help a lot. I was just thinking it wasn't a good sign to have gone through over 100 commercial profiles and have only found 1-2 medium to high gain profiles that sounded decent from the beginning. I'm not giving up on this though! This will be my Everest! (c:

    Quote from Redspecial

    The solution came from the man I appreciate most for his professionalism and fantastic ears M.Waggener.In his pack is hidden a gemstone I never saw first.All the profiles have the correspondent mp3 recorded (that was all I needed a point zero recorded profile).I used those profiles for tweak and I reached very close results.


    I'm not totally sure I understand what you mean. Can you elaborate on the mp3 piece of this? I'm a little hesitant to buy more commercial profiles right now because I've already tried so many different ones and haven't really found what I'm looking for yet.

    You probably should consider backing off getting all those commercial rigs for a bit.


    You honestly should have been able to have found handfuls of usefull and very excellent sounding rigs just
    in the exchange. Not that you shouldn't get Commercial rigs but If nothing in there sounds good to you, something is definitely wrong somewhere.
    If after getting mine over a year ago and it sounded at all overly processed, tinny, or "digital", I would have returned it next day.


    If you find plenty that sound good but aren't exactly what you feel you need, You will just have to get in the range you want and then tweek it.

    Quote from OhG

    I'm not totally sure I understand what you mean. Can you elaborate on the mp3 piece of this? I'm a little hesitant to buy more commercial profiles right now because I've already tried so many different ones and haven't really found what I'm looking for yet.


    Redspecial's obviously referring to demos of the profiles... at least, that's how it looks to me.


    Mate, as Gianfranco asked earlier, and as I've been dying to ask too, have you tried decent headphones as a means of checking the author-sense-titty of profiles that're sounding crap in the room?


    Another thing, and it may be invalid if you've used the room for real amps and been happy with the sound, but does it (the room) lack treatment? Are there flutter echoes bouncing about? The only wall I see in the video looks like a prime candidate... for accentuating and possibly phase-cancelling pick noise, which is a "symptom" you've specifically mentioned.


    In addition to this, if this is what's happening, the "colour" of the room's effect on everything you play will contribute to a sameness across the various profiles you use, and the louder you play, the more affected the Kemper's sounds will be.


    With any luck this'll help. There's definitely nothing wrong with what the Kemper's capable of; nothing else comes close IMHO. Actually, I'll amend that to "remotely close".

    I've found that a lot of medium to high gain profiles sound much better to me if I run a studio EQ in the X slot and drop the high cut down to anywhere from 4kHz to 7kHz (depending on the profile). The frequency of the cut also changes from headphones to studio monitors to powered PA monitors (QSC K10s in my case).

    Quote from OhG

    To answer everyone's questions from above:

    • The DXR15 is on the floor in wedge position. Everything on the back of the monitor is switched to flat and off.
    • Clean sense and Distortion sense are both on zero
    • "Monitor Cab Off" is unchecked, so the cab feature is on
    • I've already done a reset on the unit. It was one of the first things I did after trying it for the first time because I heard a bunch of people saying that'd help. So I don't know that doing it again would help. And if it did, that would actually not be a good sign, having to reset it twice in a month.
    • Inputs and outputs are not clipping

    I'm hoping to have a lot of time to sit with it tomorrow. Wife and daughter will be out of the house and I'm going to really put some more time into this and start tweaking more. I'm assuming tweaking will help a lot. I was just thinking it wasn't a good sign to have gone through over 100 commercial profiles and have only found 1-2 medium to high gain profiles that sounded decent from the beginning. I'm not giving up on this though! This will be my Everest! (c:


    have you tried listening to a CD you know and love over the monitor?
    how did this compare to your usual listening experience?


    The only headphones I have are Bose QC15s. They're great for noise cancelation (which is why I bought them), but not for audio. And I don't want to go out and spend more money at this point just to check on the sound (especially since I never use the Kemper with headphones - it's all live use).


    The room to me is irrelevant because I've got my regular live rig set up in that same room, and it sounds good in the same room. It does accentuate the higher frequencies like you mentioned, but it does the same thing for both rigs. So to me, that's a wash.


    I spent a decent amount of the day today tweaking a few profiles and going back and forth between my Mesa rig and the Kemper rig trying to get them to sound similar. I know the Kemper is going to always sound different because of the way the profiles are made (mic'd sound vs sound of a guitar cab). The thing I'm struggling most isn't so much the over-saturation, but finding a way to reduce the ice-pick kind of highs when solo'ing on the higher end of the fretboard. I know that's an EQ adjustment that needs to be made, I just need to figure out which frequencies to dial out. I'm not knowledgable enough in that area to know just by listening what frequencies to dial out. So it's just something I've got to sit with more.


    I'm getting there. Like I said, I'm NOT giving up on this thing. I'm too stubborn to go back on it at this point! haha


    Quote from DonPetersen


    have you tried listening to a CD you know and love over the monitor?
    how did this compare to your usual listening experience?


    I haven't tried that yet. I'll give that a go next time I sit down with it. I'm getting closer. I think in general, it's just taking a lot more tweaking than I expected. I was mistakenly under the wrong impression that most commercial rigs are just ready to go with very little tweaking. But I'm getting closer.

    Quote from Frodebro

    I've found that a lot of medium to high gain profiles sound much better to me if I run a studio EQ in the X slot and drop the high cut down to anywhere from 4kHz to 7kHz (depending on the profile). The frequency of the cut also changes from headphones to studio monitors to powered PA monitors (QSC K10s in my case).


    Cool. I'll give that a shot. I haven't done anything like adding in a 2nd EQ and tweaking yet. So that'll likely be one of the next things I try.

    One of the most powerful simple musical edits that I found to be a quick fix for most profiles is the CAB edit menu. The HIGH frequency shift and the Low frequency shift. Moving the HF shift slightly to the left to change the resonance of the Cab works wonders. Same goes for the low shift, same direction . Not sure if someone mentioned that but you'll be surprised how musical most of the Kemper edits are, even at max settings they seem useful.
    good luck, but judging from what I heard in your video, you're pretty close. It sounds to me that you just need to get rid of some of the hair (no pun intended) that's why I suggest the HIGH shift in the cab. The low shift also seems to clear some of the mud based on my experience.

    Quote from Dean_R

    One of the most powerful simple musical edits that I found to be a quick fix for most profiles is the CAB edit menu. The HIGH frequency shift and the Low frequency shift. Moving the HF shift slightly to the left to change the resonance of the Cab works wonders. Same goes for the low shift, same direction . Not sure if someone mentioned that but you'll be surprised how musical most of the Kemper edits are, even at max settings they seem useful.
    good luck, but judging from what I heard in your video, you're pretty close. It sounds to me that you just need to get rid of some of the hair (no pun intended) that's why I suggest the HIGH shift in the cab. The low shift also seems to clear some of the mud based on my experience.


    Thanks! I'll try that too. These are the types of tips I need because coming from a lifetime of using tube amps, I've never really had any need to learn about all these things (high shift, low shift). I've always just been a plug in and play kind of player.


    And thanks for the sound comment. The sound in the video is really good, and I'd be totally satisfied if that was the end result live. It is closer now today than it was yesterday. Hopefully with these suggestions that I got today, it'll get me to where I need to be.

    I'm betting it's the "amp vs. mic'ed amp" thing. That can make a huge difference.


    Try loading one of those rigs you DO like, press-hold the cab button, and click the LOCK button. Then that cab will stay on, no matter which rig you load. See if you like the other amps better then. It might work for you, might not - worth a try :)


    Have you tried lowering the DEFINITION parameter in the amp section? That can work too.


    Regarding the EQ and finding the frequencies:
    Load up the studio EQ (the parametric one), and give one of the bands a healthy boost. Then sweep the frequency of that band around until you find the offending frequencies and change the boost to attenuation instead. Can't remember if the EQ has Q control as well, which would affect the "broadness" of the boost/cut. If so, start out with a Q around maybe 0.7, and when you find an area where the offending frequencies get more offending, dial UP the Q a little bit, and zero in even more precisely. Rinse and repeat.


    Try this both pre- and post stack; it will have different effects (and the same frequency might not give the best result in both positions).

    Quote from sambrox

    Give Pure Cab a whirl, too. I've read reports that it works on those ice pick highs, though with it full on, you might need to dial some treble/presence back in apparently.


    I've messed around with Pure Cab and Definition the most. Right now, I've got Pure Cab set to 4.0 because I don't want to overdo it, plus, 4.0 is kind of a hot topic number right now. (c:


    I've tried Pure Cab and Definition a lot. The EQ tips you mentioned above are something I'll try next.


    A lot of this "tone hunting" is definitely on me to learn more about EQ. In the past with tube amps, I never really needed to understand EQ in great depth. It was always just "turn the mid knob up" or "turn the bass knob down" until it sounded right. So I know a lot of the questions I ask are very "newb-ish". But even though I've been playing professionally for over 20 years, a lot of it is still new to me. The forum has been a great resource!

    After a lot of experience i have to fav frequencies which i tweak. 650 hz to scoope a sound and 2100 to 2400 to cut some harsh gain. Therefore i use the studio eq placed in slot x.
    To push a high gain sound a little i use the tube screamer in slot b with low settings for gain ( 0,8), sound minus 1,6 and Volume + 1,4. This setting gives me a warm boost.


    Cheers
    Frank

    Quote from OhG

    I've tried Pure Cab and Definition a lot. The EQ tips you mentioned above are something I'll try next.


    A lot of this "tone hunting" is definitely on me to learn more about EQ. In the past with tube amps, I never really needed to understand EQ in great depth. It was always just "turn the mid knob up" or "turn the bass knob down" until it sounded right. So I know a lot of the questions I ask are very "newb-ish". But even though I've been playing professionally for over 20 years, a lot of it is still new to me. The forum has been a great resource!


    To elobrate a little bit; EQ placed PRE-stack will affect how the amp overdrives. So a big boost to the mids here will make the mids drive the amp more than the bass and treble frequencies (simplifying the matter of course). So, boosting 1 kHz by +10 dB will push the stack into more saturation. Boosting the same amount AFTER the stack will NOT push the amp in the same way (yeah, I'm stating the obvious here). Conversely, if your guitar has very strident frequencies at say 3kHz, you might be better off cutting some of that BEFORE the stack rather than after, since otherwise the amp will already have been affected by this, giving a certain kind of distortion that you might not like.


    Does it make sense?


    Keeping things simpler, you can press-hold the EQ knob in the stack section. This will allow you to place the EQ stack either before or after the saturation stage, by the push of a button. That might give you better results.



    However, I'm thinking that a lot of your "problems" may come from the fact that profiles include the mic and mic placement (as you alluded to yourself). That's why I suggested that you use the cabs from the profiles you DO like, and see if that gives you better results across the board. Since those profiles seem to include a mining scheme that gives you what you're after. People often neglect the huge impact of the cab! :)

    Quote from OhG

    I've tried Pure Cab and Definition a lot. The EQ tips you mentioned above are something I'll try next.


    A lot of this "tone hunting" is definitely on me to learn more about EQ. In the past with tube amps, I never really needed to understand EQ in great depth. It was always just "turn the mid knob up" or "turn the bass knob down" until it sounded right. So I know a lot of the questions I ask are very "newb-ish". But even though I've been playing professionally for over 20 years, a lot of it is still new to me. The forum has been a great resource!


    The reason it was easier to dial a tone with amps is because you didn't have to worry about the miced sound when performing. What you heard on stage was the direct amp sound, which is totally different than what the Kemper does. The Kemper gives you the miced amp sound, but you can get close to the amp in the room sound using Pure Cabinet. BTW, how high you dial this is personal. Don't use a specific number just cause others are suggesting it. Use your ears and dial it the way YOU like it.


    It takes time to get used to modelers/profiles when you are so used to playing with amps on stage because of what I mentioned earlier. But at least it gives you a consistent sound, which is not the case when using amps. One night the amp sounds killer, and the next it sounds like shit. That has to do with various variables, like how loud the amp is, how well it has been miced, how well it was EQed, the room temperature, etc. With the Kemper, what you hear is what the audience gets. This is not so with a real amp. In the latter case, what you hear is the amp in the room sound and the audience hears the miced up amp. That's totally different.


    HTH

    Quote from Jose7822

    The Kemper gives you the miced amp sound, but you can get close to the amp in the room sound using Pure Cabinet. BTW, how high you dial this is personal. Don't use a specific number just cause others are suggesting it. Use your ears and dial it the way YOU like it.


    I know. I mentioned 4.0 because it is where it sounds good to me (although, that varies depending on which rig I'm using), and the 4.0 was kind of a joke because of how badly everyone is waiting for firmware release 4.0 to come out right now. (c: