CLEAN Amplifiers: the Pre in the Kemper Models is IDENTICAL for ALL !!!

    Hello guys,
    I take the opportunity from the POST from BRUNO "Well.. Try this test" that I report below to make futher investigation test.
    I believe that such discover is very important to clearly have a specific title thread:
    - I take 4 different clean Amplifier modeled by the Kemper:
    HIWATT DR 103 1972;
    ALEMBIC F2B 1974;
    Fender Hot Road Deluxe (tube based) profiled by me;
    Fender Deluxe85 (transistor based) profiled by me
    - Then tweak the parameters all the same (GAIN 0, all the others 0 except Tube Shape 3.3
    - Then LOCK EQ OFF, LOCK the Input, LOCK the CABINET OFF and switch off all the others stomp, if present
    - Finally compare the same EMaj Chord LOOP


    Here you have the result in WAV:


    http://dl.dropbox.com/u/568398…enHotRoad-FenDeluxe85.wav


    So, the conclusion, is that in the modeling of CLEAN amplifiers they differ only for the CAB emulation.
    But this also means that the modeling, while being very faithful as a whole, absolutely it is not in the subdivision between preamp and power amp. It is absolutely not credible that the Fender Deluxe 85 amp has the same sound of a tube amp Fender Deluxe Hot Road or the same of the amp Hiwatt DR103 !!
    Finally, I believe that such behaviour should be mentioned and explaied in some way in the instrucion and guide for the KPA from the Kemper team...


    Leave your comments, as I want to know other opinion about that, thank you very much!


    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    BRUNO
    Saturday, April 7th 2012, 6:34pm
    Well.. Try this test
    Take 3 or 4 of your fav clean sounds..make a copy of them with gain on zero ,clean sense,definition and all Eq on 5 ,no effects.Same cab for all... well to sum it up same exact setting for all...difference should come from the amp profiled ..what do you hear ?
    Here I have 3 times the same exact tone with a Vibrolux,Decatone and CAE ..so when gain is on zero the tone will come from the cab and settings..amp profiled doesn't really matter ?
    Quoted from "Vincent88"
    So you are saying that these 3 profiles sound the same with the stock gain setting?
    If you set them the same way with EQ and other parameters yes..
    There's a difference when it is not a clean sound with gain on zero anyway ..not a huge one but it's there..so yes the cab contains a lot of the amp actually which is good to know when you want to mix.
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Other comments can be:


    1 the option CAB off for the Monitor OUT have less sense, because it takes off also some important caratheristic of the preamp, so to maintain the same sound in the monitoring, it's better to leave Cab ON and use an FRFR speaker


    2 since the Kemper models all the chain Preamp-PowerAmp-Mic all at once it is very difficult for the modeler to separate the behaviour between the various parts, and infact he doesn't manage to do it in a perfect way, to mantain such differences the modeler should take two pictures in parallel of the pre and of the power amp using a sort of four cable method... Which is not the case...


    3 be careful when we will switch between different Cab maintaining the same Amplifier, beacause we are changing also the character of the Amp itself!!

    It is true that on clean profiles a preset preamp is taken, as there is no distortion to detect.
    The profiler cannot create an appropriate preamp if no distortion reveals information about its sound.


    Unfortunately that information fell out of the manual in the writing process.


    CK

    Quote from ckemper

    It is true that on clean profiles a preset preamp is taken, as there is no distortion to detect.
    The profiler cannot create an appropriate preamp if no distortion reveals information about its sound.


    Unfortunately that information fell out of the manual in the writing process.


    CK

    I don't understand why this is so. A fender, vox, mesa will all have different clean sounds. If you are running a test signal through each of these clean preamps and modeling the output, wouldn't you get a different modeling response for each of the preamps? (Many thanks for you being on these forums and responding to our questions.)

    Quote from hoth

    I don't understand why this is so. A fender, vox, mesa will all have different clean sounds. If you are running a test signal through each of these clean preamps and modeling the output, wouldn't you get a different modeling response for each of the preamps? (Many thanks for you being on these forums and responding to our questions.)


    Really THANKS to Mr. Kemper for such important clarification first of all !


    I believe that a clean Fender, Vox, Mesa and so on are really awesone replicated in all their differences with the KPA. The problem, for what I understand, is only that in the CLEAN modeling cases, it is impossible to exactly separate with only ONE test signal the behaviour of TWO part (the Pre and and the Power AMP).
    Instead this is in some way achieved for the distorted Amps (I run just some quick test and the distorted Amps differs a lot each others).
    So, good to know than in the profiling process there are, at the end, two big different methods for the profiling process: clean and distorted. And that for the clean one they use a "default" preamp, leaving to the Power CAB section the proper characteristic of the sound.


    Maurizio

    Thank you for the effort and time taken to reveal this. I am an FRFR guy, so this could be less of a concern. However, it could be a rather significant concern for Amp/Cab people and is likely to be the reason why the total cab separation cannot happen in KPA. I guess this might apply to some degree to distorted amps profiling. I always wondered how changing the cab would make such a dramatic difference in KPA. I've been using modellers for so many years that I know how big impact cab IR may have on the modelled amp's sound character. Even if considering that, the influence appears to be much bigger with KPA. For example, replacing a cab section of a not-so-good-sounding(-to-me-on-my-setup) profile with a Till's cab would make a huge difference, making it sound a lot better, but at the same time, sound quite similar to many of my other profiles with their cab section replaced by the Till's cab.


    Unless there is some convincing improvement on cab separation algorithm, I believe the KPA should be advertised as a profiling amp that is to be used only with FRFR amplification.

    Quote from jakeykim

    Even if considering that, the influence appears to be much bigger with KPA. For example, replacing a cab section of a not-so-good-sounding(-to-me-on-my-setup) profile with a Till's cab would make a huge difference, making it sound a lot better, but at the same time, sound quite similar to many of my other profiles with their cab section replaced by the Till's cab.


    That is not a miracle.
    The cabinet will define the overall sound by 60 to 70% in my estimation.
    Even in the real world, when you use different amps with the same cab, you will achieve very similar sounds.
    One day at a profiling session we have managed to get absolutely the same sound from a Bogner and a Soldano, only by coincident, and of course using the same physical cabinet.
    They were absolutely indistinguishable.


    The effect of equal sounds that you were experiencing is not caused by the way the Profiler handles amps. It's the nature of amps.

    Quote from ckemper

    That is not a miracle.
    The cabinet will define the overall sound by 60 to 70% in my estimation.
    Even in the real world, when you use different amps with the same cab, you will achieve very similar sounds.
    One day at a profiling session we have managed to get absolutely the same sound from a Bogner and a Soldano, only by coincident, and of course using the same physical cabinet.
    They were absolutely indistinguishable.


    The effect of equal sounds that you were experiencing is not caused by the way the Profiler handles amps. It's the nature of amps.

    CK, again our sincere thanks for the time you are taking explaining this issue to us. But I think we have to be clear to people since I can very well see someone changing a clean profile's cab to another cab and getting unexpected results. Then this whole issue would come up again and someone could get up in arms about it. But although I understand what you are generally getting at, and agree that the cab is much of the final sound, it still should be made clear that the preamp is the same across all clean profiles and the preamp/cab division of sound is not exactly true to real life. As we already see people put Till's cabs on almost everything, they should know to be careful about doing so.

    Edited once, last by hoth ().

    Quote from hoth

    As we already see people put Till's cabs on almost everything, they should know to be careful about doing so.


    If they are doing it by ear then no need to be careful - all that matters is how good it sounds!


    However the geek in me would like to hear someone do the following (out of interest):


    1. Profile Amp A & Cab A and Amp B & Cab B
    2. Within the KPA swap the cabs - creating profiles of Amp A/Cab B and Amp /Cab A
    3. Swap the cabs in real life
    4. Then do an A/B comparison of the "real" swapped cabs v the "KPA" swapped cabs.


    I think what we are learning is that the way the KPA "extracts" the cab is not flawless, but hey, the tone is what really matters, and for me the cab swapping ability is really an optional extra. :)

    Quote from hoth

    As we already see people put Till's cabs on almost everything, they should know to be careful about doing so.

    Why...be careful of what?


    I know guys who own 20 vintage Marshall heads, and only 2 cabinets...they don't own 20 cabinets, one for each head.


    To really grasp the coolness of the Till's cabs you need to mess around
    with the amp Profile EQ and then scroll through each Till's cab.


    I mean really change the EQ, like raise the mids to 3 o'clock, etc, and then scroll through the cabs and see what happens...the same particular cab sounds completely different.
    Choosing the same Till's cab for each Profile is missing the point of his cabs.

    I didn't mean be careful in the sense that you are doing something wrong or there is some danger in switching cabs. I just meant that people are very quick to put Till's (or other) great cabs on anything and everything and that they should just recognize that a) the final profile may not be true to even to the preamp anymore; and b) you may get a more pronounced effect or a different effect than what you expected. That's all. Yes, as always, use your ears. But I am a big fan of knowing what's going on and I am not really into "secret sauce". Transparency in information is always a good thing.

    I agree that in the real world the cab really makes a huge impact of sound. Through the same cab I can get very similair results wth different amps. Not as much variation as one might expect. Cab and speakers play a huge part in the equation

    I've tried lots of heads and cabs combinations... it was always the cab that had at least 80% impact on the overall tone, never the head... enough said.

    Use your ears, not your mathematical sense.

    Quote from BRUNO

    Don't you all agree that one (or more) great cab for clean sounds profiled several ways like Tills did, using only clean amps would be great for all of us ?

    I get killer clean sounds with the Rivera M-100, Twin, AC20, Deluxe and Radley's (killer) Gibson cabs....Is it exactly the same as the original?...who f..ing cares! It sounds good?..is good. :D

    "Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music" Serghei Rachmaninoff