New guitar new tones revealed

Interesting on the Les Paul vs CE24. I have 11 guitars now, including my coveted "Swiss army knife" Les Paul, and I'm finding a vast difference in usable tone with some profiles. It doesn't always work. My real amp, an H&K Switchblade, has different amp voices that work on all of my guitars. I probably aimed for that when I dialed the individual tones in, but is that the only reason? And the H&K has a very "organic" quality that allows each guitar to show it's character...like you would expect. It's not mono-tone tuning, at all, where everything sounds the same.

Maybe it's what the profiler used in the signal chain to "color" the guitar tone to achieve the intended results. Perhaps a stomp or something??? Also, I have my pickups low to where they sound bold enough, but phase coherent without clashing harmonics on the mids and highs. I can believe that profiles made with different pickup height might be tuned (dialed in) differently than what I would dial in if I did the profile.

The good news for me is that I can often make very small adjustments and hear the harmonics "line up" better. Striking how well that can be heard. After aligning the overall tone balance and breakup gain, those little adjustments create a perfect tonal focus and balance that is very obvious in A/B tests. That's a good quality that indicates the true amp-like nature of the Kemper. My real amps do the same...modelers didn't.

Hey, PHILBERT .... Are you THE Philbert from the Line6 forums so, so long ago?

Quote from Karl_Houseknecht

Hey, PHILBERT .... Are you THE Philbert from the Line6 forums so, so long ago?

Hey Karl!

Yes! How are you doing? Long time!

In my intro post, I mentioned the old Line 6 Forum days and had hoped my old friends were here. How could they not be here? We were all trying so hard to make "real-sounding" guitar tones with that stuff. Obviously you discovered the "real deal" of the Kemper. Took me a long time to come back off of real tube amps after that struggling "simulation" era with Line 6. Skipped all the "modelers" after that experience. Some well done profile demos with the full tone I like to hear finally sold me on Kemper. I'm totally blown away. Dream (finally) come true! And no more need to EQ anything with the ol' DEQ2496.

So, do you know if any of the old gang is here? Mike? Derick? Hans? Roger?

I don't know where any of those guys went. I'm happily using the Kemper as well as the Helix and AX8. All of them are so good now that it doesn't matter. Any of them can get a great tone. Far cry from the days of the PODxt and the Behringer DEQ. The forums were so lively back then. Now everyone's basically splitting hairs. I rarely post anywhere anymore, but I saw you and had to ask.

Yeah, when I last talked to Mike about Kemper (back when it came out), he went to Axe. Roger went back to tubes with a Marshall hand-wired 100W JH head and ISO Cab. Have not heard from anyone else.

Well my ears still hear the difference. Typical 500 Hz annoying midrange and unnatural top-end buzz. Though "fizz" seems to have been somewhat tamed. No doubt the "tone" can sound good. I've heard that. I just don't hear what sounds real out of modelers. Since I went back to tubes, I re-discovered the joys of low gain breakup...not just crushing "Recto" high-gain sounds anymore. With Kemper, sitting in front of my studio monitors sounds and feels the same as sitting in front of my tube amp and 4x12 cab. I honestly cant tell the difference. Exactly what I always wanted!

Don't want to hijack here, but glad you reached out. E-mail me if you remember my address. I might still have your address saved. Probably do.

I was on the L6 Forum, too. So was @Ingolf, but I’ll let him tell you he User name he had back then.

Quote from paults

I was on the L6 Forum, too. So was @Ingolf, but I’ll let him tell you he User name he had back then.

It was a fun time, no doubt. So much "passion". Even Peter Thorn was there. Armin too. I wish I could remember everyone I regularly interfaced with. You know..."the old gray matter ain't what she used to be...".

Maybe we could take this to my intro thread. Again...don't want to hijack this thread.

Quote from PHILBERT

Interesting on the Les Paul vs CE24. I have 11 guitars now, including my coveted "Swiss army knife" Les Paul, and I'm finding a vast difference in usable tone with some profiles. It doesn't always work. My real amp, an H&K Switchblade, has different amp voices that work on all of my guitars. I probably aimed for that when I dialed the individual tones in, but is that the only reason? And the H&K has a very "organic" quality that allows each guitar to show it's character...like you would expect. It's not mono-tone tuning, at all, where everything sounds the same.

Sorry to take this thread on another tangent, but how do you like the Switchblade, Phil? I'm looking at picking up a Triamp, heard so much about H&K amps, but it seems they don't get as much love as other companies.

Quote from paults

I was on the L6 Forum, too. So was @Ingolf, but I’ll let him tell you he User name he had back then.

I was the Doc. Man, this seems like ages ago. But these were great times nonetheless. And the Vetta II was exciting.

Quote from nightlight

Sorry to take this thread on another tangent, but how do you like the Switchblade, Phil? I'm looking at picking up a Triamp, heard so much about H&K amps, but it seems they don't get as much love as other companies.

No problem, nightlight. The Triamp is a great amp, although there are so many choices today. That may be part of the reason they don't seem as popular. The Switchblade is a bit different sounding. The first two "Funeral for a Friend" CD's showcased the Switchblade sound pretty well. I also believe early Breaking Benjamin recordings used them. It was the first MIDI programmable tube amp where all the settings get saved, so I went for that feature. I like the Lead voice and Ultra voice. Crunch? Not enough "crunch", but somewhat low-gain Fenderish sounding. Clean voice? Not enough compression (could be externally added). But the Lead voice rolls back for nice cleans with as much (or little) breakup as you want. Tone controls DO make a difference, so once you find what you like you save it, and then try different variations and compare. I created several core tones that worked for just about everything clean to crushing I ever wanted to do. Someday I hope to profile mine for my 6 or 7 favorite settings. I need better mics and a decent preamp before I can do that.

Quote from Ingolf

I was the Doc. Man, this seems like ages ago. But these were great times nonetheless. And the Vetta II was exciting.

Doc!, of course...Vetta section. Resident expert...if I remember right.

Glad to be back with you guys! Starting to feel like home again. I wonder what happened to Kevin up in Canada?...you know he coined the expression "fizz", remember? It became a huge headache for L6, and is still a descriptive word used today. Funny $#!+.