Distortion profiling - is this normal?

    I have spent a lot of time trying to make profiles with some level of distortion and have had little success. Whether from a pedal in front of the amp or from the amp itself, every profile has a "dull" top end or just doesn't behave like the original. Refining helps some but it changes the character of the profile in other ways and, to my understanding, was considered unnecessary since a firmware update in 2015 or so. Attached are two audio clips to demonstrate my experience. Each has a lightly distorting Deluxe Reverb playing a looped phrase while I toggle between the reference and Kemper amps (in that order) after profiling. Can provide more clips if necessary. Please chime in with your two cents. Thanks


    https://drive.google.com/file/…ZbUFCZVk/view?usp=sharing - pre refine


    https://drive.google.com/file/…6amFza2M/view?usp=sharing - post refine

    Quote from mmartin046

    I have spent a lot of time trying to make profiles with some level of distortion and have had little success. Whether from a pedal in front of the amp or from the amp itself, every profile has a "dull" top end or just doesn't behave like the original. Refining helps some but it changes the character of the profile in other ways and, to my understanding, was considered unnecessary since a firmware update in 2015 or so. Attached are two audio clips to demonstrate my experience. Each has a lightly distorting Deluxe Reverb playing a looped phrase while I toggle between the reference and Kemper amps (in that order) after profiling. Can provide more clips if necessary. Please chime in with your two cents. Thanks


    https://drive.google.com/file/…ZbUFCZVk/view?usp=sharing - pre refine


    https://drive.google.com/file/…6amFza2M/view?usp=sharing - post refine


    @mmartin046,


    Just to do a sanity check...


    Have you read, in full, the Kemper "Profiling Guide" manual?


    It is available, here (scroll down, and it should be 6th in the list of available user manuals):


    Kemper "Profiling Guide" user manual



    and @ColdFrixion is absolutely correct. There cannot be any noise-gates, or time-based effects in the signal path sent to the KPA for the profiling capture process.


    From page #9 of the Profiling Guide:


    --------------------------------------------------------


    If you do include your effects chain with your Amp Profile, but are not happy with the result, try again without
    the distortion pedal. Remember, you can always use one of the modeled distortion pedals in the Profiler instead,
    when building your Rig.


    Other effects should be bypassed during the Profiling process because they will adversely affect the result, mak-
    ing it sound less natural, and different to the original amp tone. These include: compressors, noise gates, and
    time/modulation/reverb effects such as delay, reverb, chorus, and so on.


    ---------------------------------------------------------


    Cheers,
    John

    Quote from ColdFrixion

    To me, the way the distortion breaks up, it almost sounds as if the reference amp is using a noise gate.

    No noise gate, no pedals; UFO noises straight into the amp. There is a gate-y sound in the sample from toggling between the reference amp and Kemper version but it looks like you're talking about the character of the distortion.


    To me the Kemper version sounds almost like an mp3 of the reference amp recording, throwing away (characteristic) high and low end information. Over computer speakers they sound pretty much the same but the difference can be heard with decent headphones / monitoring setup.


    @Tritium,


    I have read the reference and profiling manuals ;) .

    Quote from Michael_dk

    Which amp are you trying to profile?

    Fender 65 Deluxe Reverb Reissue



    I should say that it's been a lot easier making clean profiles of this amp. They are not what you'd call 100% accurate but they sound very good and haven't required any post-profiling refining (a major plus in my book). More often than not I have ruined profiles during the refining process and have to start all over from the beginning.


    As a side-note, a lot of times profiling the same amp over and over gives considerably different results, and feels a bit like playing the Kemper slot machine.