First Impressions: Amp Factory Commercial Profiles

    I make it a habit of disclosing a little of my personal experience and preferences as a musician before I do reviews, because they're only as good as a user's opinion, so by knowing a bit more about myself readers can make a better decision whether or not the review is valid for them or not.


    I've been playing guitar for over 30 years, and my favorite guitar players are Shawn Lane, Eric Johnson, Jeff Beck, Richie Kotzen and more recently Guthrie Govan. Love their guitar tones as well and to that list I'd have to add Allan Holdsworth, whose playing I find a bit hard to digest at times but his gorgeous tone makes listening to him a pleasure. I've played solid state amps and Boss pedals, hybrid amps, all-tube amps, a combination of preamps (Triaxis and JMP1) and MFX (Lexicon MPX1 and Rocktron Intellifex) into a tube power amp, some Digitech MFX (GNX4 and RP1000), Boss GT-10, Line6 HD500 and Eleven Rack, which is the closest I've had to the real thing until I got the Kemper, which I'm sure you all know, nails it spot on.


    I auditioned the profiles using my Ibanez Prestige RG1570 loaded with a DiMarzio Fred in the bridge and DiMarzio Humbucker from Hell in the neck position. The KPA was connected to my QSC K-10 FRFR speaker through the monitor output. Where applicable, I chose the Les Paul sets of profiles as they're the closest to the output signal of my own test guitar - in fact they're set with the exact same clean senitivity I use for that guitar (5.0). Before auditioning I reset the EQ and turned all FX off, also adjusted the noise gate (turned off for cleans, and just enough to eliminate hum on distorted profiles, usually between 1.3 - 2.2).


    Now on to the profiles.


    I've got a bunch of them but will comment of the ones which stand out so far, others might too as I play more with them.


    My favorite of the bunch right now is the Stiletto. It sounds simply amazing, creamy, rich and incredibly responsive throughout all the included profiles. I'll probably built my lead tones around this set of profiles.


    The Plexi is also *really* good, probably one of my workhorse amps from now on.


    The Supro, Lindy Fralin VVT2 and /13 LDW are great for cleans and bluesy stuff, although I'm still digging and only auditioned the raw profiles, haven't built many rigs of my own yet.


    The Peavey 6505 and classic 50 are just gorgeous (although very different), worth mentioning because they stood out from the rest.


    Also worth an honorable mention was the Hiwatt DR103, not that it's my cup of tea - just wanted to add it to my collection as I'm aware it has quite an unique tone and it delivers. BTW one of the best cleans of the bunch, lots of uncompressed headroom that's clearly noticeable.


    A few general observations: I didn't care much for the tweaked rigs, liked the raw profiles much better. In fact like I've said, even on those I've turned all FX off and reset the EQ before auditioning. So I believe congrats to Andy are in order for a job well done :)


    I'll add more comments to this thread as I play with the rest of the profiles.


    Cheers,
    Deny

    If the commercial Amp Factory profiles sound similar to the free ones, I would not be impressed.
    I have heard MUCH better profiles for free.
    Just a little tweaking and here you go.
    The amp factory profiles are very overrated and hyped for no reason (except for making money??), if you ask me.
    I just downloaded the "go jimi go" profile (beside other TAF profiles)...just terrible.
    Fizz and hiss and nothing that sounds like Jimi.
    Why making such bad profiles public???
    I wanted to buy a few profiles from them, but after I listened to the free ones I was no longer interested.


    Anyway, I am happy that many good guys
    out there are doing a great job in profiling some real amps and offering a great basic sound for us...and almost always for free.
    Many deserve respect.


    Rock on and don't get corrupted

    many of the amp factory profiles are top quality and people seem happy to buy them but you are quite correct that there are many free profiles which are just as good and often better although i did think the amp factorys metal producers pack was very good. i think often people cant be arsed to search through the whole free rig exchange and just buying a pack or two seems easier.personally i doubt if i will buy any more,there is just so much top stuff for free.

    When I got my KPA I instantly tried the factory rigs included and thought: "Well, hmm, ok, hmm, ...."
    Then I listened to examples of the rigs offered by Armin and and44 and I immediately knew/heard that these are way better for my taste.
    Even if these audio examples are recorded with different guitars, I could judge their sound. Something I'm seriously missing from the rig exchange.
    Of course I have downloaded a few and some of them are great, yes.


    But the rigs I currently enjoy most and fine tweak to my taste and guitars are those from and44.


    Armin did (and is still doing) a great job of providing a massive ammount of profiles for every amp he gets his hands on. He really tries to capture as many aspects of his amps as possible. Problem with these is the sheer number of profiles. I haven't had the time to find my favourite gems in the mountain of 1076 profiles I bought from Armin.


    Maybe you noticed that I called Armin's work "profiles", while I tend to call and44's products "rigs". Maybe I don't do justice, but that's the way I currently feel. I'm sure I will build and tweak amazing rigs from Armin's work as well. But this might take a lot of time to range his massive profile woods. :) I don't regret any of my purchases because I totally respect the ammount of work and time spent to create these packages for us and I'm always happy to support great products by paying a reasonable price.


    Just my point of view,
    Martin

    thats a bit strong. Plus Andy gave away countless profiles for free before TAF

    Quote from clarkydaz

    thats a bit strong. Plus Andy gave away countless profiles for free before TAF


    + 1 on being a bit strong here.
    Overrated is a total subjective term as it would devaluate the opinions voiced by the users of these profiles.
    Andy never hyped anything that was offered by him, it was more that people raved about some of his profiles.
    I have quite a few packs in my collection myself and find most of them very very good.
    And, as in real life, some amps do nothing for me.
    Also I want to point out that the KPA itself contains the technology to make good profiles yourself, so it would be the wrong signal to estimate commercial profiles higher than free ones only because they cost something.
    After all, my favourite profile is a free one (Morgan AC20).

    All deserve respect!


    Your post contains poor judgement (very overrated & hyped for no reason) and goes way beyond a reasonably voiced opinion.
    I dig both Andy's & Armin's work as some of the free stuff. People like you are the reason why I have given up on forums for the most part.
    What is it, that brings out all the negativity?

    90% of the game is half-mental.

    Interesting, I might have to give Armin's profiles a try as well, especially now that you've mentioned that his are more like raw profiles - which I much prefer over tweaked rigs.


    "Against It": The fact that a certain profile didn't work for you doesn't mean it's a bad one, it might have been intended for a different guitar, pickup, tone control setting or playing style. Also if you dislike something, just say so. No need to say it's so bad it shouldn't be publicly shared. Other people might happen to like it, try to keep in mind that good tone is subjective and depends on personal taste.

    There are some who have been against the idea of selling profiles who never cease to pop up to to trash Andy and Armin. Both do great work IMHO. My personal opinion is most of the free TAF stuff isn't quite as good as the pay stuff, but it really is on a case by case basis. And of course everything is subjective.

    Not very good etiquette to bash the guys doing great work for the community. If you're unhappy about profiles for pay, simply don't buy them. To bad mouth them only makes you look like sour grapes with a sense of entitlement.

    "Heavy Metal does have a message for the rest of the world: Fuck You!" -Sebastian Bach


    I think And44 does a great job with the amp factory profiles they are great and what turned me on to buying the KPA i own bundle 2 and will definatly be buying some more worth every penny, turn on, plug in, turn up and play thats what i like :D

    I'm digging the Evil Robot a lot. Recently did a song with the Evil Robot and the JCM800 one profile from the Rock pack and that turned into a great G'n'R feel. I really like that you don't have to do much in the mix other than cutting the bass appropriately to the bass-sound I am using in a song. And maybe giving a bit @ 8k when I'm after a Chris Lord-Alge type of mix.


    But basically Andys profiles are exactely how I would have recorded the amp and so working with them is just pure joy.

    I'm not really keen on Andy's TAF profiles, just never gelled with any of them.


    The profiles I've paid for however (vintage amp pack and several profiles of single amps) are heads and shoulders above the vast majority of the free ones (and I've contributed a few free ones myself such as a cornell plexi and Toneking Meteor although I don't use them much myself).


    When I play the Kemper, 98% of the time the profile will be one of Andy's. I don't know Andy and I owe him nothing (unless one of my PayPal payments didn't go through!) but his profiles are excellent and the TAF profiles do not reflect this (for me). There are of course free profiles equally as good as most of Andy's profiles, there's just not that many of them that I've found (but there are a good few amazing ones out there).


    Now, if I had bought a profile and found I didn't think much of it, well then I wouldn't likely buy any more. I'd have spent the price of a couple of cups of coffee and thought "oh well".


    However, when I've spent the price of a couple of cups of coffee on an amp profile pack and then it's given me many many hours of massively enjoyable (grinning like an idiot) playing, then I think, feck me, what amazing value the price of those two cups of coffee were.


    I'd have long ago pissed those two cups of coffee down the toilet (and the seat and floor usually), but I'm still enjoying playing the Fender Bassman 59 profile from Andy.

    Quote from lightbox

    ...
    Armin did (and is still doing) a great job of providing a massive ammount of profiles for every amp he gets his hands on. He really tries to capture as many aspects of his amps as possible. Problem with these is the sheer number of profiles. I haven't had the time to find my favourite gems in the mountain of 1076 profiles I bought from Armin.


    Maybe you noticed that I called Armin's work "profiles", while I tend to call and44's products "rigs". Maybe I don't do justice, but that's the way I currently feel. I'm sure I will build and tweak amazing rigs from Armin's work as well. But this might take a lot of time to range his massive profile woods. :) I don't regret any of my purchases because I totally respect the ammount of work and time spent to create these packages for us and I'm always happy to support great products by paying a reasonable price.


    Just my point of view,
    Martin



    Yes, you are right my packs include a LOT of profiles with almost all possible amp settings.
    I recommend to use them in the same why as you would use a real tube amp.
    Grap your guitar and find the profiles which work best for your guitar, style and taste.
    You may need 3-4 profiles (clean, crunch, rhy, lead) or whatever you prefer.
    In case you have more than one guitar you'll find that this profiles may or may not work for another guitar type - then find some additional profiles.
    By this should you be able to find the perfect 3-10 profiles which work best for all your guitars.


    Yes, all these profiles are raw profiles (all EQ's and effects switched off) - because I try to create profiles which sound authentic without the need of additional EQ's.


    On the other hand - all my packs include some "processed" rigs as well - these profiles are tweaked and use effects, EQ, ...
    These rigs are named (AmpPack Mxx) e.g. ELM M01 ....., ELM M02 ...., ELM M03 ...... and have more or less self speaking names like "Clean", "LP Crunch", "Strat Lead" ...

    (All trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners, which are in no way associated or affiliated with soundside.de)


    Great Profiles --> soundside.de

    I'll chime in here.


    I have purchased about 15 Amp Factory amps so far and I can say that I don't regret purchasing any of them. However, I will say that the ones I use for gigging all required tweaking first. The first thing I do is disable all the stomps on the rig and go from there. I find all the profiles to have solid bones and the stomps give you a good idea of what is possible with them. The multiple EQs and Reverb make things jump out at you while you are browsing through but, I find that most of them don't need it. I think of those stomps as Andy's own tweaks to make them sound the way he prefers. It's no sweat to take those off and start fresh--they are just a few buttons.


    I think a lot of people get confused between the profiles and rigs and don't think they should have to do ANY tweaking to get the sound they want but, that is almost never going to be the case. I think you have to open your mind a little and know that just like any other piece of guitar equipment--you have to tweak it to be what you want it. I believe that's why so many think the stock profiles are so lifeless, is because they are raw profiles with no tweaking but, some of them can be excellent once you turn a few knobs.


    I use around 40 presets live and all but two (the Rockman and Tills JVM) are from Amp Factory purchased profiles and all 40 were tweaked by me. My main rhythm is the JCM800 Push with the Green Scream in front and, I will say it sounds like the idealized form of the real version I used before, i.e. that amp cranked, where the real one I could only turn up to about 2.5 everywhere we play (why I moved to the Kemper).


    If I'm playing at home or recording, I will often just disable the reverb on his profiles and use them as is.


    I haven't tried any of Armin's yet but, once I get the darn Kemper paid off I certainly will!


    Just my two cents. YMMV


    J

    Edited once, last by Myramyd ().