For millionth time... Why is Kemper profiles so trebly/fizzy??

    Depends on what we mean by "fizz". Some kind of fizz I do like personally. With real amps.


    Profile vs source tone for me as you guys know is a slightly more "TS", raspy type of tone. Whether that classifies as "fizz" or not, I do not know.


    It's what townsend seems to describe too, with different words, largely. And I would agree with his word "depth".


    Now I agree with what Dean says about the whole signal chain mattering. Most definitely does. If you feel you have a deficiency, especially a slight one, somewhere, at times you can compensate elsewhere.


    It's just that this is harder to do with a studio profile considering it is also already inclusive of amp, amp settings, mic type, position, cab, can speaker, you name it. Of course easier if you yourself make the profiles.


    Most do not. And quite a few of those who do: that is their biggest struggle, point of attention.


    I have never been able to fix the issue using kemper on board EQ either. More success in daw. A fix in part at least, not wholly.


    I also agree that consistency is a big plus of kpa, as would be with other such units. As I've said from day uno that is the main reason I think we use such units -- almost by defintion.


    I can also see profling remedying the current differences and getting to the level where I don't feel any need to use a real amp.


    This just hasn't happened yet fully, especially for recording in ideal situations in some cases, even more for my own music. As described often kemper still gets a lot of use in many scenarios.

    Edited 3 times, last by Dimi84 ().

    @Dimi84


    I hope I dont have to defend myself when I tell you that-with the profiles I use-I never had anything I read here from time to time..if a profile has "raspiness" I just dont use it.Fizz I cant remove within a very short time;I dont use it.Dustbin,


    My profiles are working perfectly fine.


    But I admit that they are just a "very few" out of so many existing.Nevertheless..

    Quote from ColdFrixion

    In some instances I hear the aforementioned artifacts as well as some raspy, shrill top end. To my ears, the shrillness is accentuated when using single coil pickups. This is the primary reason I previously mentioned that I think the Axe FX amp modeling is superior to the amp section of the KPA.

    In my experience you can find terrible sounding profiles that would exhibit worse effects due to poor miking, but there are plenty of profiles that are simply perfect and don't and that's the greatest advantage the Kemper has. and in some cases is a disadvantage if you're stuck with lousy profiles.


    You can have the various characteristic of the various different signal chains of the person who profiled. Mbritt (commercial). Top Jimi (Commercial), r_u_sirius (free profiles),eljodon (Free profiles),diogofis (free profiles), SinMix and the countless other commercial and non-commercial, each has a signature sound that you can discern when you try their profiles.


    Even the AXE FX II profiles have a signature sound that you can hear when you try those profiles. So in my humble opinion the Kemper is inclusive and can capture the AXE FX and it's signature sound. plus the signature sound of the best guitar rigs in the world fairly close, for all intended purposes does a great job with it as well as capturing the worst signal chains possible also, so there's some homework to be done but it's not that hard.


    If it weren't for that I would have settled for S-Gear because when I was in the market for an upgraded modeler S-Gear sounded more like a tube amp than the AXE FX II and all other software and hardware modelers at the time and frankly it was almost as close to a tube amp as the Kemper but it didn't have the variety.

    Quote from Dimi84

    When you say that this is a accentuated by single coils, do you mean in relation to source tone? In my experience there Has not been such a difference. Edit: Other perhaps the pickup being very high or strings low enough, but not totally sure about that.
    However if you play a pickup that tends to have more of a shrill top end and more high than low mids, it will also made the amp sound "raspier", but then one may notice it more in the profile too, especially if only playing the profile and not doing the A/B comparison.


    However if you start with a source tone that is quite "non raspy" to begin with rasp may be harder to notice when later playing the profile as well. That, even if the "shrillness" difference between source tone and profile is still at about the same margin. Right now this is my impression/experience.


    It'd say the same with it comes to the gain level of the tone. Some notice it more with gain or with crunch when just playing profiles. Me personally, I see just the same all along the spectrum. It can manifest itself a bit differently due to the differences in tones, so no wonder people notice it more with some tones than others, but As a "margin of difference in TS-like tone/rasp" it seems the same to me.. if this makes sense.

    I agree. If you use a profile that's within very normal margins and exhibits absolutely no rasp, you're less likely to hear it with pickups that have a lot of top end. In my experience, profiles that don't exhibit any real rasp can be made to sound just a bit raspy when using pickups with more high end, though. Here's an example using one of Top Jimi's profiles:


    Normal


    Slightly Raspy

    Like I said, depends on what we mean by "fizz" -- I personally talk more about more of a "TS" sound. And I always base observation and relative judgement on making the profiles and comparing to source tone.


    I'm not as much speaking in regards to "profiles" in general. Many profiles out there I would not call "too fizzy", depending on what we mean by the word, and in relation to guitar tones in general.

    Quote from Dean_R

    In my experience you can find terrible sounding profiles that would exhibit worse effects due to poor miking, but there are plenty of profiles that are simply perfect and don't and that's the greatest advantage the Kemper has. and in some cases is a disadvantage if you're stuck with lousy profiles.

    I've got a number of great profiles that exhibit no noticeable artifacts or Metal Zone (cranked up) shrillness. Some profiles do exhibit it, and it's apparently not a product of the signal chain because it's not audible in the reference amp when A/B'ing between the two. It's seemingly independent of the character of the tone.


    Quote from Dean_R

    You can have the various characteristic of the various different signal chains of the person who profiled. Mbritt (commercial). Top Jimi (Commercial), r_u_sirius (free profiles),[/color]eljodon (Free profiles),diogofis (free profiles[color=#000000]), SinMix and the countless other commercial and non-commercial, each has a signature sound that you can discern when you try their profiles.

    Sure, I agree.


    As mentioned, I don't hear the undesirable qualities I've mentioned in every profile(nor do I hear them in any Axe FX amp models). Granted, there are certain differences that do tend to be consistent (eg. low / high end and level discrepancies) but in my opinion it's possible to ameliorate them using EQ and adjusting levels.

    Quote from ColdFrixion

    In my experience, profiles that don't exhibit any real rasp can be made to sound just a bit raspy when using pickups with more high end, though. Here's an example using one of Top Jimi's profiles:

    Oh, I agree, yes.


    My point is just that I don't know if the real amp wouldn't also get that much "raspier" when using the single coils.


    Just out of experience, which could be wrong, and my memory is bad even if testing a lot, I was not noticing that effect when switching humbucker to single coil. It was generally the same margin of raspiness between amp and profile when I switched pickups -- even if some pickups would generally bring out more rasp out of both kemper and amp overall.


    I did notice some weird rasp when string height low (which didn't happen through amp as much). So maybe it happens with the pickups too in this sense and I haven't noticed properly or don't remember.


    But this is something that we could test .You can probably do better job than me, using axe and a variety of axe amps, as now I don't have access to many amps, if you do feel it'd be of some use to conduct this :)


    Cheerios

    I'd very much like to, though the way my setup is currently configured, the back of my units aren't easily accessible for making the necessary cable connections to profile the Axe.

    Quote from ColdFrixion

    I'd very much like to, though the way my setup is currently configured, the back of my units aren't easily accessible for making the necessary cable connections to profile the Axe.

    Ok, understandable. The reason my frame of reference is such is because of what the point of KPA is (emulating a particular signal chain). I may do the test later but only with one amp.

    Quote from Dimi84

    Like I said, depends on what we mean by "fizz" -- I personally talk more about more of a "TS" sound. And I always base observation and relative judgement on making the profiles and comparing to source tone.
    I'm not as much speaking in regards to "profiles" in general. Many profiles out there I would not call "too fizzy", depending on what we mean by the word, and in relation to guitar tones in general.

    I admit that I cant understand the difference(always speaking for my ears) between fizz & fizz..I mean I will not try to taste how much salt was given into a soya sauce..


    Modern sounds have fizz.They are "distorted" beyond any limits I would call "musically"..many guys today can seperate between "modern hyper-distortion" and "fizz",I just cant.I only know that while I like the "hairy" sound of a 92/93 rectifier I never liked the modern rectos because of this "modern distortion" which for me is nothing else than ugly fizz.And even more ugly bass.And alibi-mids.


    But okay..we live in times where many,many people can taste the "differences" of hamburgers from various fast food chains with closed eyes..so it is obviusly a very fizzy time and you better do your homework about this if you want to get the likes on FB...Fine.But if you kill something it sure will tend to show signs of getting "stinky" or "fizzy" or "raspy"..´cant fool nature..


    Dont get me wrong but we talk about "distortion".Distortion is enough of an explaination.It really explains itself.Now today we talk of to much of something already exaggerated.In the high frequencies in this case.You are (if I remember correctly) the educated philosopher in our company.You will know better than me how you can call this."Super-exaggerated";Or something like this.I already stopped years ago to understand what a "Djent sound" is all about (I had my boy for this in my studio in the past) because I dont like to hear guitar players taking the jobs of bass players ( no matter who bad the latters have been to us during the last decades) only playing much faster..


    Much of todays sounds in heavy metal does not make sense to me anymore.For me it is all fizz and raspiness and bass and and and..but you have the same in modern HipHop with Bass and "digital saturation" in the master..pumping my brain out of my oldschool ears.


    It is just "to much" and I dont care anymore how much of "to much"..

    So you are trying to replicate this:


    A) Specific guitar > Specific pickups > Specific cable length > Specific Amp Settings > Specific Amp tubes > Specific cab > Specific speakers > Specific "age" of speakers > Specific mic/mics > Specific mic/mics placement > Specific desk preamplifier > Specific post processing


    With this:


    B) Random guitar > Random pickups > Random cable length > Random Amp Settings > Random Amp tubes > Random cab > Random speakers > Random "age" of speakers > Random mic/mics > Random mic/mics placement > Desk? preamplifier


    and you are blaming Kemper Profiler for not achieving the sound you want?


    I am sorry but that's not how the Profiler works. You need to match A with B as much as possible to get similar results. Otherwise, the tones will never be the same.

    Edited 2 times, last by Behind: Added "cab" and "speakers" to the equation ().

    Like 1

    @Nikos I am not a fan of most modern tones I hear either. Most of the profiles I use are quite "basic" tones. I just don't know what people often mean by "fizz". I don't know how to play djent, either, even if I appreciate some of it (like periphery for example).


    For kemper, I just see a slightly more "ts" sound compared to source tone. Not much more. The profiles that I do use are of tones that don't have much "modern fizz" (if we mean the tone you often hear in djent) because it's really not something I enjoy. My tube amp tones, before kemper, were never "modern" in that sense either.

    Quote from ColdFrixion

    Regarding the fizz issue in Cedrick's original post, in my opinion the difference simply comes down to mic and mic position.

    Probably me too. I think he can get much closer if he profiles an amp and refines using the guitar stems.

    Sorry Dimi..I just dont have these issues.If I would have heard any "ts" in the profiles I like I would not use them.Same ofcourse with the fizz.I would not have spent 2500euros two years ago while still having issues like this.

    Quote from Nikos

    Sorry Dimi..I just dont have these issues.If I would have heard any "ts" in the profiles I like I would not use them.Same ofcourse with the fizz.I would not have spent 2500euros two years ago while still having issues like this.

    Then I can only assume you don't think there is a difference at all between profile and amp. At least, not a difference that can be described in such terms.


    Of course if you are not comparing to source tone, yes, it becomes much harder to spot that difference, obviously, as described. Yes, then maybe there's no "issue", I can understand that -- or no "issue" in any case.


    The difference we've seen in so many tests I call a more "ts" sound, including any of my test too.


    This is an evaluative judgement between source tone and amp. That is what Townsend sees too, pretty sure about that now.


    The reason why I have kept kemper is because just because profiling is not perfect atm, it does not mean it isn't great. My profiles always sound more "ts" than the amp, but that doesn't mean I cannot use them or that they cannot sound great.


    The OP issue, I believe, can be resolved profiling a set up that sounds like the tone he is after. A semi-solution, since this may not be easy to do, is getting an amp/cab/mic tone relatively close..


    .. Then feeding guitar stem to kemper and refining using that, while careful with the volumes. Some times this doesn't work well. Many times it works very well though.


    It should get "fizzy/treble" levels to a more desirable level if it works ok.

    Edited 3 times, last by Dimi84 ().

    Results with that method for me are not radically different from taking an axe model , for example, dialing it in relatively close and then tone matching. Or amp matching with bias. You take a similar approach.


    However, refining seems to do more than simple eq matching (even in this case, somehow, which is weird, or then it's just somehow very powerful when the differences are large) Because of this there seems to be a greater threshold of tolerance between how different the pre-refine profile and "track-refine-with" can be.


    So some times just profiling a good amp that is not even too close to begin with, even, to target recorded tone... and refining can still match the tones quite well. But you need to be careful with volumes and obviously this isn't as consistent as just profiling and refining the same amp tone to begin with.

    Edited 3 times, last by Dimi84 ().

    I’d say that the issue appears to be in the transient. In Dimi’s video you really hear the string and pick noise in the Kemper version but they’re much smoother or less pronounced with the real amp.


    Guys, go check it out, it’s a few pages back now, it’s a direct comparison side by side the profiled amp vs the Kemper.


    It is indeed decades ago I "compared" the miced guitar on tape with the "source"..


    I grew up playing in the early 80s and started also recording by the end of this decade.In the best case you had an marshall and maybe (if the uncle of your band mate was a wealthy doctor who had gear) a mesa boogie..things then changed fast but by 1985 we only had our JCMs and a guy named "Baldringer" who worked in a big music shop and who tuned them..


    So we had one amp in the studio.Maybe two.And the engineers did everything to make this one amp sound like everything their clients wanted to hear..Motley crue,Van Halen,Dokken,Judas Priest..nobody did care for the "source" but only for the result.Back in this time guitar players had huge problems recording with headphones or in the control room only with the monitors.They could not get the difference about their own miced rig in the NS10 and a farting elephant..


    Today we like to act if this was always different and we are all top producers since the moment we were born but for me it is just funny..anyway..


    @Dimi


    Indeed you should know that you talk to the maybe hardest tube amp crack head out there.Actually this is maybe the reason I may sound "defensive" about the profiler.But fact is that it is a tool with "tube feel" and this is all that counts for me.Actually I start to forget that it is digital.Enough said.


    All that said we are maybe OT and once again I am in the middle of this OT.