After 3 days of constant reamping... UPDATE: getting solved!

    Quote from Cederick

    Maybe this whole issue is the fact that Kemper cannot capture a cranked power saturation??
    Is this issue similar to yours, @SonicExporer ???


    Listen to the comparison A/B clips above and see if you understand what I'm going at

    I hear it alright, I don't know how anybody CAN'T hear it. It's what I've been saying for, what, three months now? And @Dimi84 and others as well. There is something blatantly obvious (to my ears) missing in the upper end of the KPA gain structure compared to that found in real cranked amps. And I suspect it may be the lack of this, and the KPA's attempt to emulate it, that is causing the perception of a congested midrange. I heard it from day one I played the device. Granted, I'm somebody who has been in studios most of his adult life. And yes, there are things I believe the KPA can do well, but the types of tones I'm after - what I consider to be the grail of real amp tones, it simply isn't working out as expected.


    Based on what I know about gain staging circuits, past modeling device attempts, and my own ears, if I had to wager I'd guess the KPA is basically dynamic EQ matching on a chosen template that is basically a model. So in essence a refined model results. With lots of fun parameters to tweak. However, if I had to guess I'd say it's missing some form of harmonics, very likely even order, and/or cross-over distortion and whatever else might be specific to power stage impacts. Again, this is speculation but the more I keep testing and researching the more things keep pointing in those directions.


    For now, the only viable avenue that I've seen or heard is to use EQ matching to try and get the device close to the source amp, but even then it still seems to retain some of the problematic attributes. They can however be masked in a mix to a varying degree. But if you are looking to have really prominent, or soloed, guitar parts in a song, it may not work so well.


    Sonic

    Quote from drog

    I have never had any success using the "pick attack" setting in the amp section.

    For hard rock and metal the pick attack parameter needs to be dealt with strategically based on the song IMO. If you have chords that tend to ring you can up the pick attack but if you have a busy melody happening the pick attack can give the perception of painting the underlying tone itself. So you could take the very same profile on two different songs, where everything else is equal, and the busier song melody (guitar wise) may well actually sound tonally different than the other song because the pick attack is taking up more of the lifespan of the chord. Solos are a similar kind of thing.


    Hopefully I explained that clearly enough to understand. Some of this stuff can be difficult to portray into words.


    Sonic

    You won't get an album ready guitar tone with zero eq applied. You can start with removing some low mids from 250-350Hz area to let the high end breathe.


    From what I can hear in your comparisons is that the album tone either has a far mic mixed in or room verb added to it. A close miked tone won't sound the same.


    I don't know Iron Savior or which album the clip you posted is from, but Rise of the Hero is (what I could find with google) Pod 2 boosted with an SD-1. So there definitely is a lot of post production involved on that album.


    http://myglobalmind.com/2014/0…itars-vocals-iron-savior/



    Quote from Piet Sielck

    I have a rather simple setup based on a POD II, a Marshall 9100 poweramp, a Boss SD1 (very important for that speed shredding!), a TL Audio valve mic-preamp, a decent cabinet and an SM 56. At this point I use the POD signal as an enhancement for the straight mic signal (not using any cabinet or AIR features of the POD). But how exactly I do it, will remain secret, (laughing).


    In other words he mixes the Pod sound without any cab sim mixed in with the miked signal. This in part explains the sharp high end on the tone.


    You could try the same, disable the cab section, track two tracks, one with cab and one without, high pass the non-cab tone and mix it low. Could possbily work.


    Shure SM56 is an SM57 with a fixed stand connector, no sound difference, by the way.

    Quote from SonicExporer

    I hear it alright, I don't know how anybody CAN'T hear it. It's what I've been saying for, what, three months now? And @Dimi84 and others as well. There is something blatantly obvious (to my ears) missing in the upper end of the KPA gain structure compared to that found in real cranked amps. And I suspect it may be the lack of this, and the KPA's attempt to emulate it, that is causing the perception of a congested midrange. I heard it from day one I played the device. Granted, I'm somebody who has been in studios most of his adult life. And yes, there are things I believe the KPA can do well, but the types of tones I'm after - what I consider to be the grail of real amp tones, it simply isn't working out as expected.
    Based on what I know about gain staging circuits, past modeling device attempts, and my own ears, if I had to wager I'd guess the KPA is basically dynamic EQ matching on a chosen template that is basically a model. So in essence a refined model results. With lots of fun parameters to tweak. However, if I had to guess I'd say it's missing some form of harmonics, very likely even order, and/or cross-over distortion and whatever else might be specific to power stage impacts. Again, this is speculation but the more I keep testing and researching the more things keep pointing in those directions.


    For now, the only viable avenue that I've seen or heard is to use EQ matching to try and get the device close to the source amp, but even then it still seems to retain some of the problematic attributes. They can however be masked in a mix to a varying degree. But if you are looking to have really prominent, or soloed, guitar parts in a song, it may not work so well.


    Sonic


    Congested midrange is a good desription of the issue I'm having with reamping Kemper ||


    Somehow, real amps, like on the albums, and EVEN Bias Amp in the clips below here:
    they sound more scooped, but STILL more midrangey... it's hard to describe!
    Kemper just have a telephoney mid-range thats just way too prominent in the tone.
    And even if I cut out the midrange, the sound just becomes hollow and looses the tone and becomes unusable


    Sorry but you're not understanding the problem... :/
    And I know exactly what I'm talking about.


    And to prove this, I did as you said above.


    I tracked a couple of riffs first with Positive Grid Bias (cab turned off), and then Kemper profiles (also cab turned off).


    All going into the same Rosen Digital IR cabs. Different IRs for all three clips.


    Bias Amp vs Kemper A/B comparison (with identical Rosen Digital IR)

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    Bias Amp vs Kemper A/B comparison (with identical Rosen Digital IR)
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    Bias Amp vs Kemper A/B comparison (with identical Rosen Digital IR)
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    And yet... EXACTLY THE SAME issue as before!


    The Kemper comes off as telephoney, just like in comparisons to the album clips in the OP.


    The problem IS there. Now you cannot deny it :thumbsup:


    @SonicExporer Hey, check out the clips above.
    I hope you agree that these shows exactly the trouble me and you are having.

    Also, I fixed above links:


    Bias Amp vs Kemper A/B comparison (with identical Rosen Digital IR)

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    Bias Amp vs Kemper A/B comparison (with identical Rosen Digital IR)
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    Bias Amp vs Kemper A/B comparison (with identical Rosen Digital IR)
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    Quote from Michael_dk

    Try slowly blending in a reverb with a lot of high end (or one of the new delays) - maybe even the shimmer effect. See if that makes a difference.

    That wont solve the problem. ||

    This is why unless i am missing some thing, its the PROFILE...i am probably wrong and should just wait for Dan or sin to look at a DI then mix it...its there man no doubt it is as obvious as my beer gut X/


    Ash

    Have a beer and don't sneer. -CJ. Two non powered Kempers -Two mission stereo FRFR Cabs - Ditto X4 -TC electronic Mimiq.

    Quote from ashtweth

    This is why unless i am missing some thing, its the PROFILE...i am probably wrong and should just wait for Dan or sin to look at a DI then mix it...its there man no doubt it is as obvious as my beer gut X/


    Ash

    But how could hundreds of profiles be "wrong"? One must be right = but I still haven't found it


    It's not just a matter of EQ, the high end is missing some sissle (harmonics?) that makes all these album recordings shine.
    Even Positive Grid Bias gets closer to that! ||

    Fair point, my best guess is we need the DI to be reamped and mixed again by a third party, but if it sounds the same then from Dan or Sin, then i would really shit my self. How da fawk can it drop out like that with EQ..FING strange!! :(


    Man it got to be the mastering phase then???? Ah man my head hurts too


    Ash

    Have a beer and don't sneer. -CJ. Two non powered Kempers -Two mission stereo FRFR Cabs - Ditto X4 -TC electronic Mimiq.

    Edited once, last by ashtweth ().

    Quote from Cederick

    But how could hundreds of profiles be "wrong"? One must be right = but I still haven't found it
    It's not just a matter of EQ, the high end is missing some sissle (harmonics?) that makes all these album recordings shine.
    Even Positive Grid Bias gets closer to that! ||

    Album recordings are always ran through some harmonic processing in the mastering phase. It creates artificial upper end harmonic content.


    For example tape saturation.


    More info on this: http://www.resoundsound.com/using-saturation-in-a-mix/

    @Cederick @SonicExporer


    I think it is a mistake to think of the KPA as having "no" tonal footprint, which many have been saying it has none. In my experience there is one, and you can hear it from heavy gain even through to cleans, depending on how much attention you pay/how you can pick up details.


    Just profile a Bias amp if too hard to do amps and the KPA character comes in. It's your amp, whether real, modelled, ect, plus the KPA "tonal footprint" of "congestion" whether you notice it in the mids, low end, ect, ect. Profiling great amps and signal chains where the tones are spot on and this is more noticeable to me though.


    There are tricks to get better profiling but none that I know of gets totally rid of this tonal character. Me and a couple of sound engineers couldn't do it with plenty of time working on it, all reaching the same conclusions: you can get closer with profiling trick A or B, but there's a "KPA element" that most likely due to how the technology works it will be there no matter what we do.


    Now you may like that "kpa foorprint" and all is fine. If not that's when the issues become bigger. For one I do not think this particular problem is caused by cranking up power stages too high -- I get it at any volume level.


    My suspicion is that it tends to get more noticeable when you are after certain tonal characteristics of cranked power stages (not even distortion directly per se) where normally amp stop sounding at all "telephony" Cederick put it. So even if KPA and amp are different at lower volumes, we tend to notice it more, perhaps, when the amp truly gets to it's @SonicExporer approved (tm) sweet spot :)

    Quote from nakedzen

    Album recordings are always ran through some harmonic processing in the mastering phase. It creates artificial upper end harmonic content.
    For example tape saturation.


    More info on this: http://www.resoundsound.com/using-saturation-in-a-mix/


    You still dont understand the problem... :S


    1. I just checked and almost all Josh Middleton profiles are cut at 250 with a EQ in the post section.
    So obviously, that did NOT help even tho you suggested it...



    2. I know what tape saturation is but it surely does NOT solve the problem.


    I just applied some tape satuaration from Izotope Ozone and tried to tweak it to sound right but it's not possible


    The pick attack has to be there to begin with, but it's not there.


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    Quote from Cederick

    I can clearly hear that the albums have WAY more distortion than I have on Kemper, yet still they get good pick attack

    This is part of what I mean when I say that there's a "feel" difference that is quite important for certain types of playing. If I play the profile of my favourite amp I always feel like I need to put "more" into it in regards to pick attack. It's as if the notes struggle to come out. Then real amp: boom, singing, all feels normal again.


    In my experience this is connected to other issues described as "congestion".

    Quote from Dimi84

    This is part of what I mean when I say that there's a "feel" difference that is quite important for certain types of playing. If I play the profile of my favourite amp I always feel like I need to put "more" into it in regards to pick attack. It's as if the notes struggle to come out. Then real amp: boom, singing, all feels normal again.
    In my experience this is connected to other issues described as "congestion".

    Sadly, have to agree...

    you will find all of the recordings above (the originals) have been compressed on the way in, and a room mic was used rather than direct mics, you can hear this clearly as the ambient footprint is there., also Im betting it was a ribbon, or a large diaphragm mic...


    (Just a bonus fact) - far away mics, AKA Room mic or Amb mic, are more detailed in the mid/highermid/highs range as there is no proximity effect. but will still retain some body!


    @Cederick as the kemper cant do"room" profiles, I suggest you try the space parameter. then add a compressor into the mix too. (not via the kemper) something like a Fairchild 670 or a LA2A and time the attack/release with the timing of the song. - the compressor will help lift the ambience and push the guitar back a bit.


    Furthermore, sounds like some tap distortion too on the high end. you can add it through a plugin tape machine too..
    Being a engineer takes a lot of work. but take the time. lean and conquer.


    Best
    A

    Quote from Cederick

    There's basically nothing much different from Joshs profile than Amp Factory, Reampzone, SinMix, Tonehammer... I have bought A LOT of profiles, so I know what I'm talking about. The same "telephone sound" is apparent throughout all profiles I have tried. The last 3 days of reamping madness really shows it.

    It's a bit like matching a particular bias fx/axe fx amp sim to a tone. You will get close. However there are nuances that will likely be of the internal amp sim to begin with -- eq matching (in axe or bias) wont just kill it off. This is my feeling in regards to these "similarities" between many profiles from different sellers.

    Part of what I've been wondering is touched upon in the response above..


    Is it possible that almost all profile makers are, as a rule, completely ignoring room mics during profiling? It sure seems that way. And that could be a big mistake. While the room effect may not nearly fully transpose, other aspects still would and that may be playing a factor in what is missing.


    Has anybody set up a rig in proper studio format, and compared a profile taken with and without the room/distant mics? To truly see how the final profile is being impacted WRT to the most natural result when compared to the reference amp?


    Sonic