Learning to Dial High Gain tones, my struggle and observation, also advice welcome

    When I first got the kemper, I struggled with dialing in sounds that I was happy with. I was still very new to audio terminology, hardware, software, and training my ear for actually good tone. I've always loved awesome, crushing high gain sounds, and I could have told you what was a good tone, but I had a much harder time discerning amazing tone from tone that was really aggressive and full of gain, but really was kind of shitty in the end. Going from only playing a Line 6 Spider Valve mkii growing up, straight to the kemper was a huge jump with a big learning curve. At some point I started to get tones I liked more out of the Kemper, sometime around the time I turned my definition to 10. (LOL) I am using a Headrush 108 FRFR speaker, and I always thought that the tones sounded very muffled, very muddy, and with no clarity or cut to them, especially for high gain. I would on a ENGL profile, or a Mesa profile, or a Diezel profile, and it sounded like the recorded sound of turning a Dual Rectifier on, keeping the volume at 1 so it was barely producing sound, and turning the gain to 10, and playing that, and then once it was recorded, listening to that sound amplified to listenable volumes. If you can imagine doing that with a tube amp. Like NOTHING like what a guitar amp actually sounds like.


    So I eventually solved this problem by compensating with a shit ton of definition, a shit ton of treble, and a shit ton of presence, and putting one of the 3 "Metal Equalizers" in the FX loop.


    Now at this point, I feel like I'm about 3/4 of the way to good tone. It is very clear, and very very aggressive, and it sounds good to the untrained ear. But I know, that its far from perfect. My tones have a shit ton of crunch, but they sound a little bit artificial, a little "Boss Metal Zone" ish, just a little bit, they arent terrible. That is probably partly from the Equalizer in the FX loop, and partly from the extreme definition. Every other amp parameter is basically at stock. Bias is at 0, pick is at zero, clarity is at zero, pure cab is at zero, direct mix is at zero, tube shape is at 3.3, compressor is at zero, sagging is at zero.


    I guess I struggle to get a good balance between no muddy, flubby, muffled-ness in my tone, with enough aggressive gain and punch with high mids, treble, and presence, balanced with not sounding too artificial and fake. When I watch videos of my favorite guitarists demoing my favorite tones, from a mic'd amp, which is supposedly what the kemper should sound like, it just has such a more organic crunch, like its actually a much cleaner sound, way less noise, (and I dont mean noise youd kill with a gate) but for example if they hit a power chord or tremolo pick the low E string, it has so much clarity , like I can hear the note so much better, yet its still insanely aggressive and dripping with gain. I'm not talking about modern metal tones, where it sounds like neutered high gain distortion, I'm talking about more like super aggressive thrash and death metal tones.


    I have tried backing off the gain. It helps a little bit. I think my ears get trained to one thing and then its hard for me to comprehend a better tone when I'm playing it.

    I also notice that if someone else plays my guitar I get a much better feel for the tone than I do when I'm playing, which is partly psychological and partly where I am sitting in relation to my FRFR speaker. I also notice that with this FRFR, the "sweet spot" is very small, and the sound completely changes with by inches of movement or angle to the speaker. Like I basically have to have it pointing directly at my head to hear the "true" tone, otherwise if I am off to the side it is a little bit ambiguous, slightly.


    Maybe my problem is that I twist the knobs too much. Maybe I need to be more subtle, and have a finer, more finesse type of care for listening to the tones and realizing "oh that actually sounds pretty good" instead of, no, it needs a shit ton more presence. I dont know. just my observations

    Ahhh the eternal tone chase. I am 40 years old and been chasing that booty since I was 16 years old!
    With the Kemper it's all about getting good profiles and the right ones for your need. But remember: When you hear good tones on albums, those are many guitar tracks played together. If you listened to the single tracks the guitar would maybe sound very thin and fizzy and bright. Blended with other tones who might be from different amp and darker tone. Together they sound like a heavy wall of sound.

    A guitar tone that sounds awesome by itself is usually pretty useless in a mix if you are going to dual or quad track it.
    What I found out is best to find a pretty bright and crisp tone that you like and dual track and pan left and right, then you find another tone that is quite opposite and put it in the middle and stereo pan it (with some vst plugin).

    I would also suggest and play along with the drums you are recording and find a tone that fits well with the drum sound.
    Yes, drums can change the sound of guitar and vise versa. Especially the cymbals. If you have bad sounding cymbals they will destroy the guitar tone.
    A good example is that I tried Mjolnr drums (vst plugin). The kick and snare sound awesome. but the cymbals are very bad: they have this fake "ssshh" sound all over that is impossible to remove with EQ. They just ruined the entire mix.
    What you can do then is just use the kick and snare from that kit and use cymbals from another: Steven Slate drums 5 has pretty good cymbals. Also Ugritone drums have.

    Also your problem here is your speakers. Get some good studio speakers. I recommend Adam speakers.
    Also make sure you have new strings. And what kind of pickup do you use? Those are alpha and omega for a good distortion.
    I recommend Seymour duncan, bare knuckle or emg.
    And don't forget when you hear tone that is "dripping with gain" it's usually many guitars blended together, quad or triple track. With different amps and cabinet blended.
    The pros use also room mics to make the sound bigger.
    Keep trying different stuff and you will eventually find many different great tones.
    The only problem with Kemper is that it is a million tones out there, so don't fall into the trap and waste your money on too many different tones.
    I would recommend checking out Choptones or Reampzone. They have great tones. A bit expensive, but you get what you pay for.
    There are also many great tones on the rig exchange that are free. But there are also many bad ones, so beware.
    Many also recomment a guy called Top Jimi, but I found his tones to be a bit too dark / muffled for my taste. It sounds like a guitar in a big room a bit far away. Cool to listen to if you play solo, but in a mix it's useless.
    Good luck!

    We share a couple of things: we both love high gain Metal tones & I used Line 6 stuff from about 2001-2014. After going to Randall solid states, I'm now back in the digital world with the Kemper. Only had it for just shy of a month, but here are a few bullet points from the experience so far...


    - I recently upgraded from BOSE computer speakers to Presonis studio monitors. Huge improvement.


    - In-ear monitors sound KILLER with the Kemper. I can tweak tones at 3am, not bothering a soul, and the next day though the monitors, the tones translate very well.


    - Cabinets! Go searching for cabinets! They make or break tones! Most of them are truly horriffic, but I've found three or four that sound incredible.


    - All of the high gain stuff on the Rig Exchange is absolutely dripping with gain. Most have the gain dimed. Dumb! Back it down to 6 or 7.


    - Overdrive pedals are your friend. Treble boosts work great, too.


    - Edit presets that are for certain circumstances: I make ones for in-ears (lotsa "Space" knob), ones for the monitors ("Stereo Widener" is GOD), and ones for rehearsing/live...although I've yet to jam with anyone so far. But you have to be prepared.


    - Michael Britt's Profiles are amazing...except for the high gain stuff. Go to the Rig Exchange and try lots out. The Diezel VH4 is my Holy Grail Rhythm Tone. OMFG. Don't go down the rabbit hole of buying Profiles. There are so, so many great, free Profiles to choose from!


    Hope this helps to some degree.

    I create two types of high gain profiles. One for practicing, and the other for playing in a mix. The practice profile is to make the tone sound as close to amp-in-the-room-non-mic'd sound as I can get - like real tube amp next to me. The mix tone is to make the tone... well... fit in the mix without sounding like it's mic'd.


    I've gotten rid of all that high end fizz that many find in the beginning of Kempering but there is still a small amount of mid-range fizz that I have yet to totally eliminate. My all out favorite stomp is the Metal DS but it's the one that has that midrange fizz that drives me nuts.


    If you use a stomp OD to get part of your tone then I'd suggest you cut back a lot on both gains, because a 5.0 on amp and 5.0 on stomp does not equal a gain setting of 10 - more like 20. ;)

    Larry Mar @ Lonegun Studios. Neither one famous yet.

    Like 2

    I found out the more boost / gain pedals you add, you sort of kill the sound and adds all sorts of bad artifacts to your tone (difficult to remove with post EQ). I love heavy amps like Randall, Bogner and Peavey don't often need a pedal to be tight and heavy. Also remember: The more guitar tracks, the less gain! Too much gain and it will just sound muddy.
    The trick is to find a good cabinet and microphone position and dial your presence, treble and gain to perfection.

    There are so many profiles of the same amp that sounds so different from each other. I tend to go back to my own profiles because I know how my Engl amp should sound. I have never owned a Tri or Dual Rectifier for example, but I enjoy playing those profiles because of their bottom end and aggressive top end.


    In many profiles I have to up the "power sagging" a lot so I get that dynamic feel when playing. It doesn't alter the sound of the profile but makes it feel different(or more "real").


    Dialing down the gain on profiles thins the sound out too much to my liking(if you do big moves with the gainknob). So if you want less gain, find a profile that is lower in gain to start, I find that it works better to up the gain(if you have to) than lowering it.


    Dialing in clarity and direct mix can help with fullness and brightness in profiles sometimes I've found. But dont go crazy with it. 0.2-0.5 on direct mix and 1.5-5 on clarity.


    On some profiles I load in a third party IR to see if I like it more. Maybe not helping much in your case with the FRFR speaker.


    Also. Recorded guitar has WAY less gain than you think they have. Many years ago when I figured this out it blew my mind how differently we percieve guitar gain when we stand in front of the amp or listening to the recording or someone else playing. So when you say "dripping with gain", it probably isnt a lot to be honest :)


    Hope this helps!

    I have had the opposite experience with the gain on some profiles. I find that it woks better for me to turn the gain down on them. When you go above what the amp had for gain when it was profiled, the Kemper adds what it thinks the amp would sound like with more gain. It is taking it's best guess. I have found that it doesn't always sound real good. If you take a profile with more gain the Kemper profiling process went through the amp determining the sound of the gain and it does it at varying sound levels so it knows how the amp responded to that. When you turn the gain down the Kemper has a much better idea of how the amp reacted to that when it was profiled and tends to sound better to my ear. If you lose some tone by doing this you can adjust some of the other settings in the amp section to change that.


    I completely agree with the statement about recorded guitars having much less gain than what people think. This happens live as well. I have had many occasions where I have been invited up on stage to play a few songs with other bands and the guitar tones always sound a lot different on stage near the amp. For some reason we as guitarists think we need tons of gain to get heavy tones and it just isn't the case. It is all about frequencies.

    Quote from JEverly

    If you take a profile with more gain the Kemper profiling process went through the amp determining the sound of the gain and it does it at varying sound levels so it knows how the amp responded to that. When you turn the gain down the Kemper has a much better idea of how the amp reacted to that when it was profiled and tends to sound better to my ear.

    That was my theory too. I did a very detailed test to try and confirm it but the results surprised me. Admittedly I only used one amp (a THD BiValve which is Non Master volume so may behave differently than a master volume high gain amp like my Mesas) but the results were clear to my ears. Turning down the gain on the Kemper didn’t sound like running the amp less hard. However, it did sound almost identical to turning down the guitar volume knob.


    One day I will try to find the time to redo this test with a master volume amp and just turn down the pre amp gain to see if the results are different.