Posts by RosboneMako

Quote from BayouTexan

You could be suffering from "refreshed ears" syndrome. It happens to me all the time. You play a certain tone all day long, then go to bed, and only to wake up the next day and swear someone touched your stuff! It's because your hearing was refreshed during sleep --and you begin the cycle all over again.

I've actually had to go back and track over a mix just to prove to myself the tone hasn't changed.

I suffer from this badly. My ears adjust to a sound almost instantly. If I play for more than a few chords my brain dials it as perfectly flat. Ever since I bought the Kemper I have started it everyday and said "This does not sound like it did yesterday". And it is really making me aware of all the variables of tone so much.

The best solution is to get some golden standard so you know what a certain profile should sound like. Since I normally play thru my PC audio device, I have a couple songs ready to go as reference. But a trusted profile would be great also.

I also find myself adjusting my playing to a certain profile. For instance a profile that has huge frequency dips and sounds like you are playing in a tube/small room I tend to not play full chords where I can hear that freq suck out.

Another problem is what you are listening to the profile on and where you are standing when you hear it. If your speakers/system are not perfectly the same for all volumes you will get tonal differences from the volume change. If you dont stand in the exact same position as last time some freqs will be missing or phase canceled by the room and/or your other speaker if stereo.

Headphones may help with repeatability but are more prone to fatigue. So probably not?

And louder is always better to us humans. If yesterday you played it loud. Today you played it quiet. It will sound completely different to your ears.

Or maybe. Just maybe. Kemper has gone so far in their tube mimicking software that the Kemper acts like real tubes and changes continuously

There are a bunch of acoustic sims on the Rig exchange. Even one called 12 string. I have only tried one and it was really cool. I think I sorted by number of votes and picked the most voted on sim.

I also have a clean amp tone somewhere that had a 12 string type of effect. I think it was an octaver or detuner or something. It didnt sound great but it added some meat to the sound.

Just a couple of places for you to get started on your journey.

Ed Sheeran was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live this weekend...something on the STAGE caught my eye.

Quote from BayouTexan

I want to stick to the free and do-it-yourself stuff.

I know most people are not like me but if I bought some modeller instead of the Kemper I would be bored after a couple weeks of playing with it.

The thing I love the most about the Kemper is that I will be old and grey before I get close to doing all the profiling and testing I plan to do with it. Tweaking, adjusting, swapping cabs, etc is insanely fun to me.

The Kemper is undiscovered country. You never know, tomorrow you might add some effect pedal to a loop in your amp and profile it to create the greatest sound anyone has ever heard. You cant do that with a modeller.

I have found that many rigs just sound a little dark or dead because of the cab that gets created. Sometimes you can get much better results by taking a good known amp profile and swap out the cabs.

Guys like Michael Britt, etc have all of the pro gear you need to get good noise free profiles. But they may not use the best sounding speak cab/mic for your ear. They may be trying to get the closest sound of that particular amp or in MBritts case he usually uses the same cab so all the profiles sound similar in makeup. So you hear the difference in the amps.

So step one is find the profile that has the right amp sound you want. Then EQ it a bunch. A lot can be fixed with the studio EQ.

Step two is to try some different cabs or Impulse Responses. This and a little EQ goes a looooong way.

I made a bunch of profiles of my gear and found a couple cabs that sound pretty good. It is amazing how different they all sound even coming from the same amp (depends on the gain, etc).

Lately I have downloaded some free IRs. They normally come as sound files in the WAV format. You can drag and drop them into Rig Manager. And since they are WAV files you can edit the crap out of them also. So I load it up in RE and then EQ it in my WAV editor (Goldwave). Then drag that version in. So you can dial in the cabs frequency response to be what ever you want generically.

Then you get into the dark area again of buying pro made IRs.

And dont forget adding a Treble Booster/EQ after the AMP/CAB goes another step towards brightening up dark sounding profiles.

As I stated I do not play out live, so, I have no issues with an instant off power button. My E-drums for instance power off after about 1 sec of holding the button. Just thought it would be a good feature to add if its not in the Kemper already. No big deal. I was just hoping the option exists and I just could not find it.

I have been playing around with the Crystal Delay (Warm Pad) to get some extra sustain on long notes. Need to play with the Ducking(.5-1.5) and the Swell(0-10) to keep it from playing when you dont want it too. Sometimes I add a Treble booster after the amp with ducking to add even more.

Meh results but something to play with

When I first got my Kemper I started profiling all sorts of things that I had laying around. Most profiles were made on a Marshall DSL40 combo with an Eminence 1x12" I had laying around.

Later on I started playing around with swapping cabs on various profiles and one cab always stood out. I have no idea why but this cab is the loudest, sounds very clear, and seems to have the best dynamic range of all the cabs I have played with.

So I did a quick test with a Michael Britt amp that came on my Kemper. I made an audio test with 4 different cabs. The first section is the MB cab from the original. The 2nd section is my bizarre cab. The next two were a Celestion IR and a Marshall 1960 cab. Starting at a bout 1:29 I clipped the sounds closer together so comparison.

I have no idea why this cab came out so good. You could probably EQ the original MB cab or adjust the MB cab settings to get it closer to this cab if desired. But I keep finding myself falling back to this cab for most of the profiles I start editing. And I thought someone else may enjoy it also.

The cab has a very clear speaker sound with a little boost around 120Hz. If it gets too boomy I add a studio EQ after the amp/cab with about 3-5dB cut at 120Hz with a high Q (1.2-1.5).

I added the Michael Britt rig with my cab so you guys can get it here. I dont know about posting a modified rig like this on the Exchange. I dont want to clutter up the exchange.

RosboneCab_DSL40HD1.zip

I have found this cab really useful for use on DI profiles. Some of my fav new profiles are from DI's thru this cab.

When I turn off the Stage, I have to hold the power button for 5-8 seconds...ZZZzzzzz Is there a setting to alter this somewhere? I like the idea but I dont play out live so I dont need it.

In Rig manager there are DEFAULT settings for any parameter you are changing. Is there a way to reset a value on the STAGE itself? Would be nice, if I tweak something then want it to go back, to just press a button. Especially for really touchy settings.

I agree with the OP that sometimes it feels like adding some volume (pure boost) before the Amp does something different than adjusting the gain. But I dont have enough experience to say for sure.

I also love a Treble Booster AFTER the amp. Depending on the amp used, I might have the mix at 100% or 5%. Generically the gain is around the default 2.5 but I might push up to 4 or so if more bite is needed on a profile. As of late I have been starting at 0% mix and slowly bringing it up to the sweet spot. You always get a little bump in volume which always sounds better to us humans so that is a factor to think about.

To my ears the Treble Boost:

- somehow makes the high mids sound perfect. Something an EQ alone cant do.

- can take a harsh sounding breakup/dist and smooth it out or clean it up.

- makes the sound feel more "real" and present on amps that are too dark, muddy, or distant sounding.

- makes a modern death metal amp sound more like a normal stack on 11.

Its not perfect for every sound. Sometimes its too harsh and sometimes the bass falls away too much so you need an EQ after it for further adjustment. One of the reasons having the profiler "profile" itself would be a great option/feature.

Nice work! I have been putting tunes together for fun since the 80's. I would suggest skipping real drums and buying a cheap electric set. Musicians Friend usually has Simmons deals for $200-300 on Stupid Deal. In fact they just had a mesh set for $249 last week. As long as you do not do too much dynamic work they are great.

After you get a cheap set you need a good Drum plug in for your DAW. Been using Addictive Drums and love it. I also have EZ drummer which is pretty cool also. I later bought a good Roland set but the Addictive Drums sounds 10x better.

I went the full real set route. I have like 20 mics, 18 channel mixer, compressors, etc. It always sounds different and never very good. The heads go out of tune, you need a big room, cymbal bleed, Moon Gel everywhere, blah blah blah.

Between the Kemper and the electric set. I can fully record a song in like 20 minutes and have it sound pretty decent (besides the playing).

Here is a sample tune played on $199 simmons set with free Addictive Drums plugin that came with my DAW.
BBO Let You Go

Does the Kemper have an auto-wah/envelope filter effect? I have not seen one but not have not really looked either. Would be super nice for solos etc. ( I dont like to learn everything about it instantly. Takes all the fun out of playing with it)

Since the Kemper only has 8 buttons I think more blocks may be clunky if even possible by the DSP.

But I agree more is always better. I have been having fun trying to "build" my own amp by adding gain stages and setting their tone to be either low or high and then mixing that with the clean signal. So I always have 6-7 used slots normally.

I liked Wiegersma's idea of letting the EFX be Pre/Post.

As Alfahdj stated above, I usually run an EQ pre/post, a noise gate, reverb, and crystal delay. Then maybe a compressor and a gain pedal. Mostly used up slots so no room for crazy flange chorus efx, etc.

And for my personal tastes, I almost always run a Treble Booster post. It just seems to bring out the upper mids and highs pefectly. Seems to make the whole sound pop and sound more dynamic. Could just be my ears or studio monitors.

So what would be really cool and maybe possible would be to PROFILE the current Amp/Cab/Efx at the touch of a button. So we could tweak it all in perfect then save that as the new profile. Probably would sound like trash since things like EQ would all be out of order but that would free up ALL of the EFX blocks.

Not sure if it would mean running cables in/out of the Kemper or if it can just be done mathematically at the touch of a button (preferable method since all noise and connection issues would be gone). I guess at that point you could also run a 32 band EQ in a loop to get super granular before profiling.

Quote from Mookytc

Hope these posts aren't annoying. I like seeing profilers being used in a "live" situation (being a small room at home player).

These posts are great man keep them coming!

The only problem with this site is that there is not too much you can say about the Kemper besides "It is awesome!". So any post about the Kemper is great because we are all here wanting to talk about it

That Barracuda cover was pretty tight! Just needed a little boost for the solo... you know like 20dB louder I think would be the sweet spot most guitarists would agree on

Quote from Wheresthedug

It can be set for each individual guitar and made global by locking the input section or can be rig specific by not locking the input section.

Nice! I will have to give this a try.

As for the Kemper pedals you only have one adjustment you can make and that is THRESHOLD. There are two gates available a 2:1 ratio and a 4:1 ratio. For metal you want 4:1 and keep pushing up the threshold until you get there. Clean tones you can use the 2:1 for a gentle cutoff.

There might be a gate adjustment on the input section but I would not mess with that since it will probably affect every rig.

I have played around with putting an EQ before the gate (usually the Graphic EQ). Then I set the HIGH CUT between 1.5 kHz and 7.5 kHz depending on the sound I am using.

The engineering formula to calculate noise includes BANDWIDTH. The narrower the bandwidth the less noise. So the high cut and any other cuts I do helps knock down a little bit of the noise.

I know nothing about IRs/Cabs but switching cabs sometimes helps cut some of the noise. Dont know why or how. It may just be filtering out a certain trouble frequency or cutting a lot of frequencies (reducing bandwidth). But it will also change the tone which you may not want.

Today I found another thing that leads to a lot of mids and an overall dead sounding tone. Setting up a booster with no gain. I think I was using the Lead Booster and rolled the gain off and I was left with a completely dead sound. Pulled the gain up a little and it sprang to life.

I am guessing the booster pedals add some compression to the lower frequencies to keep them under control, but let the highs come thru uncompressed. So you get a nice bright controlled tone. So when I turned the gain down all I was left with was super compressed low-mids. It sounded a lot like Michaels first recording in the original post.

As I stated earlier the sound feels too compressed. This can happen from:

- running a compressor on the signal in the Kemper.

- some kind of Auto Leveling (compressor) circuit in your recording gear.

- using a compressor in the recording software.

- ducking.

Recently I have been playing with adding some effects and using the ducking option. Ducking is generically a compressor that turns a sound up/down based on some criteria other than the main signal. In the case of the Kemper it may turn down the effect based on the level of the incoming signal.

Depending on where the effect is in the chain and how the ducking is set, you can get very dead compressed sounds from the ducking.

I have been trying to use ducking to add some sustain to notes since you need a gate for most heavy distortion sounds. So setting a booster for a little push but not having it color the loud played notes. Just let it ease in on long singing notes you are holding.

Ducking is used a lot in delays and reverbs so the echos dont wash out your playing.

Just one more super cool thing the Kemper does. But it can hurt you if you start tweaking with no idea what it does.

Thanks guys! I am loving every minute of it. And would like to say from the posts I have seen around here the forum is full of great people. Looking forward to hearing / learning from everyone!

As Spotter said "Is that what you get out of your monitors" when you are playing live? Do you monitor with an amp or something else but record with the Focusrite? It may sound good on an amp but be muddy thru the super clean uncolored focusrite.

To me it sounds like a couple issues:

- Too distorted and or compressed. Lacks dynamic range. Is there some form of AUTO-LEVELING going on somewhere in your recording chain? Or is it just too compressed from the Kemper originally?

- There is too much low mid range. The lack of clarity and low-mid punch sounds like the IR/Cab is not setup correctly. On the output section there is a PURE CABINET button, maybe toggle that to see if it sounds different???

When doing these things it is best to adjust the sound in the recording environment you will be using. My setup is Kemper->USB audio device->flat stereo->studio monitors. So I know when I hit record exactly what I will be getting. Great Kemper sound being played horribly

Another thing that gets me personally is that my ears adjust instantly to a bad sound and hear it as good. So I need to constantly toggle back and forth with a different sound. Play something else come back and I hear it completely different.