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