Tip of the day for today :)

    Hello Kemper addicts,


    I have come to the conclusion never to give up on a profile that you may not initially like. Even those from well known commercial profiling businesses.


    1. First thing to check out is the sound through another cabinet. I have found that the cabinet that comes with the freely available profile from Rig Exchange, the Laney VH100R Clean has a fantastic sound - it is an Engl 4x12 cabinet. There are others too but I forgot the name of the profile from which I got the cabinet. Blackstar Artisan 4x12, a Mesa Boogie cabinet 4x12


    So yes, the profiles may not come out of the box with a great sound but change it to another cabinet and boom.


    2. Next thing to check then is the Definition and Clarity parameters in the Amplifier section.


    3. Another tip is not to go with an overdriven profile but use a real distortion pedal with a clean profile. Really great results there. I have no clue how they actually do this since a distortion pedal drives the preamp tubes while with a Kemper it is all DSP and mathematics and some sound terrible with pedals - as the real amp would sound - and others blossom with a pedal. A great example of this is the Rig Exchange profile of a Blackstar Series One called Blackstar 100 #1 (or something like that).


    One gripe that I have is that most, if not all of the overdriven profiles sound terrible through a guitar cabinet when the cabinet sim is off. Very fizzy almost like having to listen to an amp connected to a DI box without any amp simulation on it.


    Maybe a cool feature would be to have the possibility for 2 impulse responses. One for the guitar cabinet and one for the main out (FOH) section. Wouldn't that be cool ? Sometimes the FOH gets a really good sound while the guitar cabinet is much darker but when de-activating the cabinet sim for the monitor it all becomes fizzy.


    If you have other tips, please share them :)


    Cheers
    Steve

    Quote from SteveP

    2. Next thing to check then is the Definition and Clarity parameters in the Amplifier section.

    Interesting that you rated this as number two, Steve.


    I don't swap cabs (too much trouble until it's made easier via an editor or RM, IMHO), so for me those parameters, especially Definition, my clear favourite, are my first ports of call. In fact, I tweak Definition before even tackling the EQ stack - that's how addicted I am to the parameter!


    I therefore agree that second only to swapping cabs, these tweaks are the most-powerful ones one can make to Rigs, especially mid-to-high-gain ones.

    Hi Monkey_Man,


    You think it is really so much more trouble to swap cabs? I just extract a cab from a rig, say the Laney VH100R and store it as a separete cab then press and hold the cabinet button for another rig and select the cab I want... it is a mere 5 second job :)


    Cheers
    Steve

    The key word there is "select", Steve.


    I haven't counted them, but because I spent a very-long time in the early naughties collecting free reverb impulses in anticipation of eventually buying AltiVerb (still haven't!), I ended up with, I think, over 20G of impulses, and although it's only a tiny proportion of them size-wise (they're really small in comparison to 'verb ones), I have about 20 000 cab impulses. This is what happens when you don't have the gear to make music and you spend a few years scouring the guitar forums and whatnot.


    So, you can see the problem I have. I tried converting around 350 of them and whacking them into the Kemper, but it quickly became obvious that even that amount was, for me at least, unmanageable. I've heard several others say a similar thing when trying to manage any amount over 100, really. This is why I suggested I'll be waiting for RM or an editor to be able to handle browsing and selection of these puppies.


    Fair question 'though, and for those with no more than a few dozen cabs in their onboard list, there'd be no excuse in light of what you said, mate.


    Cheers Steve.