Michael Wagner, super-mega rock producer on the Kemper

    great post, thanks for the link !

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    Quote from michaelmellner

    check this post out, guys. after Lukather, another stellar rock guy talking about the kpa............


    http://www.gearslutz.com/board/8569668-post58.html

    Nice to see producer Andy Sneap and now mr Wagener using the kemper.
    Who knows if they ever will release or sell some of their profiles.

    Can the Kemper really, and I mean REALLY, profile a multiple amp setup?


    The EQ-part probably won´t be all that difficult, but different amp designs (gain stages, headroom, bias, voltages, etc) will cause more of a problem I would guess...


    I mean running one amp really dirty and another one fairly clean, in order to create a distorted tone with lot´s of string definition, probably would be almost impossible to profile as the unit (Kemper) would be receiving "contradictory information" when performing it´s profiling routine, or?


    Anyone tried?
    If so I´d love to hear the profiles!


    Having read Michael Wageners Kemper posts over at Gearslutz got me really exited about this approach, but then I started to think about it and became more skeptical about how well the Kemper really (REALLY) would cope with this...
    If it´s "good enough" for Mr Wagener I suppose that it would be "good enough" for most people, but having built tube amps I´m quite confused regarding if this (really) is possible or not...

    Flame bait alert!


    Let's not let someone's water balloon derail this thread (or any other, for that matter).


    To the poster:


    People use the Kemper everyday, and it works for them. Listening to someone else's recording won't convince a skeptic. Buy/rent/borrow a Kemper. If you have sufficient ability to do multiple amp miking to get that kind of tone, profile it.


    If you like it, great. If not, great - wait for something else to come along.

    Polifemo's doubts are right tho, and not trivial at all. If you mix a heavily distorted signal with a pristine clean one and then profile, will you be able to hear the distortion along with the attack and the twang from the profile? If the KPA uses an algorithm for the distortions and one for the cleans, what happens when you mix two very different signals?
    We're not talking of a digital recording of an audio signal here, all comes down to the information the KPA is able to get from the mix. IOW, how the global transfer function will be? The question makes absolutely sense to me.

    Quote from polifemo

    Anyone tried?
    If so I´d love to hear the profiles!

    Why don't you do some test profiles to substantiate your statement? And post some soundfiles here?



    Quote from viabcroce

    If the KPA uses an algorithm for the distortions and one for the cleans, what happens when you mix two very different signals?

    Take a look at how distortion is produced in a single ended power tube. When one half of the waveform goes into saturation, the opposite half can still be in the clean realm. Then you know that the KPA would not be able to reproduce the sound of a crunchy 5F1 if it was not able to mix clean and distorted parts of the sound.

    www.audiosemantics.de
    I have been away for quite a while. A few years ago I sold my KPA and since then played my own small tube amp with a Bad Cat Unleash. Now I am back because the DI-profile that I made from my amp sounds very much convincing to me.

    Yes indeed! The direct mix is gorgeous for chrunch sounds.

    www.audiosemantics.de
    I have been away for quite a while. A few years ago I sold my KPA and since then played my own small tube amp with a Bad Cat Unleash. Now I am back because the DI-profile that I made from my amp sounds very much convincing to me.

    Just to make this clear: To me the Kemper is the best digital unit for (re)creating tube like guitar tones!


    I´m not here to start a "flame war"... (If one nows anything about how a tube amp works, one will understand the relevance of my question)


    The Kemper does such a good job at profiling a single tube amp that I could live without my tube amps in most situations.


    When I read the following posts from Michael Wagener:


    ...I'd like yo add, based on my experience, the secret behind a great guitar tone (besides the player) is the combination of amps or sounds, different speakers, microphone mic pre-amps and so on. Rarely have I ever used just one amp to record a guitar track, it's always been a combination. Maybe a super distorted amp together with a cleaner amp, so you can still hear all the separate string in that hi gain distortion soup. Or a more bassy sound together with a brighter sound, or the combination of 4, 5, 6, 7 or more amps to get where I want to get...


    ...I use it (the Kemper) to profile a sound made out of a combination of amps, cabinets, different speakers, different microphones, different mic-pres. All this is being mixed together to produce one sound that works on a particular track. I go back to that sound on the same session with the same player for another track that needs the same sound. On the last Lordi album we ended up profiling 7 different sounds with different setups of the above combinations and then we used those for the rest of the album for other songs, about 45 guitar tracks total, sometimes with different guitars/pickups. So essentially I am creating my own guitar amp.


    I get the amp combination to sound right through the control room monitors (to my ears) then make a profile. I am not so much interested to have a profile of, let's say THAT Marshall Plexi, I am more interested in getting the sounds I use on an album profiled and ready to use them again. Based on my earlier statement those profiles will sound different with every player anyway. It just gives me a whole new arsenal of guitar tones.


    I have messed around with using different profiled cabs with different amp profiles, and while that is an interesting and inspiring feature, I normally stick with the cab that was profiled with a certain amp setup....



    I thought "This is totally mind blowing!!!!" but then I started to think about it a bit more.


    If one combines one amp with a really fast response and a really tight low end with another amp with a lot of sag and a really loose low end, how will the Kemper interpret this/how will it be able to profile these two different amp into one profile?


    For me the Kemper already is awesome enough as it is, but if it also would be able to perform these miracles, I´d be speechless...


    Peace :)

    Quote from polifemo

    If one combines one amp with a really fast response and a really tight low end with another amp with a lot of sag and a really loose low end, how will the Kemper interpret this/how will it be able to profile these two different amp into one profile?

    I did not think of flame wars, I really mean it: you should do it and let us hear the results. These kind of A/B comparisons can be very revealing.

    www.audiosemantics.de
    I have been away for quite a while. A few years ago I sold my KPA and since then played my own small tube amp with a Bad Cat Unleash. Now I am back because the DI-profile that I made from my amp sounds very much convincing to me.


    Easy. It will not take into account the individual responses but the response of the whole. Just like if you were playing a multi-amp rig, its not the individual amp response which the player experiences but the overall. Sum of the parts if you will. Also, take into account the style of music Wagener is known for, the idea of him using many if any vintage amps with significant sag/compression is highly unlikely.

    Quote from guitarnet70

    Remember the direct mix parameter in the amp menu, that can also take you there

    This would be a solution indeed, soundwise.


    Quote from fretboardminer

    Take a look at how distortion is produced in a single ended power tube. When one half of the waveform goes into saturation, the opposite half can still be in the clean realm. Then you know that the KPA would not be able to reproduce the sound of a crunchy 5F1 if it was not able to mix clean and distorted parts of the sound.

    This definitely makes sense, but I'm not sure it would work the same way for mixing two different signals. Of course I hope it would (never had the opportunity to try).


    Basically, I posted to enforce that polifemo was not a troll at all, and that his question made sense. :D

    Crossposted, but I just blended a few amps...


    I'm going to have to redo these later, I used a morley A/B box that sounds like crap and made all sorts of noise. Once I get a GOOD splitter I'll revisit this. Here's what I did:


    https://soundcloud.com/okstrat/bogner-fortin
    Bogner 101B on blue channel with boost on into a Bogner 4x12 miked with an audix i5 into a mixer. mixed with:
    Fortin modded Marshall JVM210, yellow channel, into a mesa 4x12 oversize recto cab with an SM57. Blended volumes at the mixer into the Kemper, made a profile.


    https://soundcloud.com/okstrat/bogner-vht
    Bogner 101B on blue channel with no boost into a Bogner 4x12 miked with an audix i5 into a mixer. mixed with:
    VHT 100/CL green channel gain dimed, into a mesa 4x12 oversize recto cab with an SM57. Blended volumes at the mixer into the Kemper, made a profile.


    This is a REALLY cool way to profile, one thing I can't wait to try is a pair of my vintage marshalls but one dialled in for lows and one for highs, then blend them as a type of EQ. Also have a few other ideas I want to try before I mention them... this is going to help me get some pretty amazing profiles.


    Again, the profiles above were hindered by a really crappy A/B box and tons of noise during the profiling process. The Bogner-Fortin still has a useful tone to it, I like the way the mids are crunchy.


    Hmmm... Cameron blended with Fortin? I think it could shake the foundations of the earth itself! :)

    Quote from Will_Chen


    Easy. It will not take into account the individual responses but the response of the whole. Just like if you were playing a multi-amp rig, its not the individual amp response which the player experiences but the overall. Sum of the parts if you will. Also, take into account the style of music Wagener is known for, the idea of him using many if any vintage amps with significant sag/compression is highly unlikely.


    I certainly can´t argue about this (as I haven´t got the stuff needed to do multi profiles right now), but is this really that "easy"?


    If blending an amp set to high gain amp with another amp set to low gain, how will the Kemper interpret this?
    If it will be precieved as "Medium gain" by the Kemper, this will not be the same as one fairly clean amp "doing its thing 100%" simultaneously as another dirty amp is "doing its thing 100%".


    I really want the Kemper to be able to this, I just - at the moment - find it hard to believe that it really can be done...


    I´ve been proven wrong before :thumbup:


    No, you're looking at it like averaging and that's not how it works. All the signals are summed and the Kemper sees one signal. If you've ever played a multi-amp setup, almost always one amp will be the dominate tone and the others fill in sonic gaps or provide clarity. The Kemper clearly can not provide an accurate profile where the end result is an obviously layered sound, like a clean and dirty tone mixed 50/50. Listen to some of Wagener's work. His multiamp technique is to use multiple amps combined to provide one bigger than life sound, not something which clearly sounds layered. A few folks have done multi-amp profiles successfully already. Its absolutely possible.

    Exactly.....the idea here is to not "clearly" and distinctively hear the different amps individually.
    You are just trying to get the sound of both (or more) amps mixed together.


    I have a 4X12 speaker cab that has mixed speakers, but I could not tell you from 6 feet away what exact frequencies I was hearing from the different speakers....I like what I hear from the speakers combined.


    Nothing really scientific about it, you're just getting blended tones from different amps just like Wagner mixes when mastering.


    You can't isolate those tracks in your head when they are in the mix, you can only hear everything blended and that is what is pleasing.


    I don't see why there would be any problems for the Kemper to capture the blended tones.


    I am excited to get more of these profiles as well, as I only have 1 tube amp at the moment but it was always a dream of mine to have multiple amps going at once...this would be too cool.



    As I´ve said before this "EQ/Frequency-thing" is easy to profile!
    I´m talking about many other aspects of amp design that makes an amp into what it is, but I suppose that all this is difficult to understand unless one has built/modded amps one self...


    Hopefully we´ll see multi amp profiles here that are compared with the recording of the same amp setup, and then we´ll know how close the Kemper gets.
    Hopefully it will get really close 8)