Posts by giletti

I have modded my new PRS SE Paul’s guitar with:

• Fishman Fluence Open Core pickups
• 3-way mini toggle switch per pickup to select between the pickup's 3 voices
• A Free-way switch to select between bridge, both and neck pickup
  (2 rows of a regular 3-way switch: lower row to select whatever the mini toggle switches are set to and the upper row all single coil sounds always)
• Single coil sounds are soldered for the the outer “coils”
• Volume and Tone knobs are push-pulls to select the high-frequency tilt (HFT) option per pickup
• Lampshade knobs (did not have enough grip with the round ones)
• Graphtech ratio Kluson style locking tuners (had to ream the tuner holes)
• Dropstrap

The quality of these PRS SE Paul's guitars are quite good - not as good as the PRS core models, but I am thinking it does not matter. I really thought the upgrades made a difference.

My one negative about this model or maybe my particular one is the nut, which is not cut properly. Some nut sauce helped, but I still want to get this replaced - maybe with a bone nut,

Funny story - I did not actually want these white pickups, but because of the pandemic all Fishman Fluence Classic or Open Core stuff is sold out anywhere here in Canada and even at Thomanns. I really wanted the brushed steel pickups with cream pickup rings. Amazon had only 3 white sets of the open core in stock and nothing ANYWHERE else in Canada. I actually purchased the set I wanted from Sweetwater, but after ordering I got contacted and told they are not allowed to ship them outside of the US - some special agreement with Fishman. What the Duck !
And so after debating for weeks - hoping the 3 white sets on Amazon would sell out I finally went for it after I found this dude and his copy with cream-colored Dimarzio's in it:

I have 2 dropstraps for about 3 weeks now.

Here are my pros and cons:

Pros:

• works with the strap I already have and love
• nice leather end
• winding generally works smoothly, but ...

Cons:

• Cover can be pressed down unevenly and cause the wire release to be a bit rough
• Cover fell off once, but I could just push it back on
• Too thick to leave on the guitar and close the guitar case - I like to leave my strap on in order to not wear out the strap endings (hole) - I actually put the strap on once by screwing it in with the strap button

The last point is the only sort-of deal breaker for me right now.

Just came across the Levy’s Right Height straps, which I might try - it’s also adjustable on-the-fly - although not as slick or easy:

https://www.levysleathers.com/…dded-black-2-5-mrhgs-blk/

I suggest you share the sound samples that reproduces the problem with the community - maybe somebody has an idea what could cause this.

Quote from ColdFrixion

Right, and as with amps in general, a tone that's created using a guitar with Humbuckers, for example, will sound as it was originally intended when using a guitar with Humbuckers. Is that specific to the profiling process? No, though it's a factor to consider in the reproduction of a particular snapshot of an amp as it was originally intended to sound.

I agree, but your statement was still wrong:
> There's also the issue of the guitar and type of pickups used to create each one of those profiles.

The pickups are NOT used to create the profile - meaning they do not have an influence on the profile - which is what you want. Different pickups will sound differently using the same profile.

Quote from ColdFrixion

Given enough time you could profile an amp with every knob variation, but we're talking about hundreds of profiles. However, add to that the different combinations of microphone positions and types of microphones one can use and the number of profiles heads into the tends of thousands. There's also the issue of the guitar and type of pickups used to create each one of those profiles. In light of that, yes, I'd maintain that a single profile is an extremely limited representation of the actual amp it's based on.

The issue relates to the above. In a nutshell, the argument was that it's hypocritical to freely create a copy of an amp yet turn around and say you can't copy my copy of that amp. Some people chimed in and stated that profiling an amp involves adding value to the representation of that amp in the form of finding the most appropriate microphone, position/angle of that mic, cab, preamp, etc. Whereas profiling a profile adds no value whatsoever.

I've read multiple accounts from owners of the KPA and Axe FX II who actually purchased an amp that a profile was based on because they fell in love with the modeled sound. So, yeah, it happens. I'm not saying it happens all the time, but I've personally read those posts.

This is statement is wrong on its own and it has been repeated a few times in this thread alone.

I have created plenty of great profiles without a guitar being ever connected during the profiling process. It is true that a guitar is not at all needed for the profiling process !

The optional refinement process can be used to feed your own (guitar) signal and your own playing style to enhance the profile with the attacks / dynamics not tested by the original profiling signal, which is not a guitar signal (the alien noise).

Quote from ColdFrixion

Compaq successfully reverse engineered IBM-PC's Bios without ever having looked at the code. In fact, one of the conditions to avoid a lawsuit was that no one in the company who was working on the project could look at the code lest it expose them to legal trouble.

So does this mean creating pedals like the Xotic SL Drive are unethical in your mind ?

Quote from schneidas

Let's face it: we're copying... and that's fine! But don't label it differently to make you feel better. Face the truth

I respectfully disagree:

• Profiling is mimicking. Nothing gets actually "copied" - neither the design, nor the hardware, nor any algorithms.
• There is also no "reverse engineering" involved as ColdFrixion said - no object was taken apart, no parts were copied.
  In other words - the way the original product was created or how it is creating a sound is not at all being reverse engineered or duplicated.

Mimicking is:

• Common practice for a long time and now
• Just easier and more accurate than before

If mimicking was not allowed, we would not have the hundreds of overdrive / distortion pedals not only trying to mimic, but also being advertised to sound like well-known amps (Xotic SL Drive, JHS Angry Charlie, etc.).

Let's also not forget that I can create a rig to sound really close to an amp by using a combination of pedals and amps that were not all designed to mimic that amp.

... and finally even music styles from band x have been mimicked by band y and often further developed or enhanced without copying a specific phrase or melody.

We would not have Jazz.

Regards,
Martin

Oh geez ... Seriously ... Technologies like tubes, single coil and humbucker pickups have been around for decades and are literally from the last century. In my mind time has surpassed all this analogue voodoo technology for good reasons. The guitar and guitar amplification industry lives in this unique 1960's bubble and many guitarists and manufacturers feed this bubble with the "vintage" argument.

Just think about the fact that it is insane having to reduce 50 or 100 Watts amps (esp. when there is no master volume) using a load box to get the sound you like without killing your ears. It's simply antiquated technology, that comes with a lot of problems.

So excuse me if I say "Give me a break" - I love the sound of tube amplifiers and for decades digital devices sounded like s#!t, but newer digital devices like the Axe FX & Kemper and other technology like Fishman Fluence pickups were bound to happen and for good reasons - it simply makes sense. I will not stay in the past - I want to get the sound I love and make music with it.

You cannot patent EQ curves or a dynamic responses, nor the wanted characteristic of the originally unwanted distiortion (== noise) of an amplifier ... so again, give me a break.

Found this on the Heise IT News:

Sorry for the German video ... but for English speakers please google "Melodyne" and be ready to be blown away ... at least I was.

Hey ... I wanted to let everybody know, that I am really floored with the dynamics and overall awesome sound of the 68 Superlead profiles ... I haved tried alot of TAF profiles and they are really good ... but this 68 sounds sooo f#%^¥£ real ... playing through a PRS 408 and Yamaha DXR-12 - if this helps anyone.

Hmm, so I chose the better sounding options ... ending up with:
A
B
B

... and I happened to pick the Kemper for the first 2 amps ... sounded more articulate / less muffled to me.

Quote from Zappledan

[quote='CaptainSqueaky','http://www.kemper-amps.com/forum/index.php/Thread/25706-Yamaha-DXR10-vs-DXR12-–-comparison-incl-audio-samples/?postID=267509#post267509'][quote='Zappledan','http://www.kemper-amps.com/forum/index.php/Thread/25706-Yamaha-DXR10-vs-DXR12-–-comparison-incl-audio-samples/?postID=267128#post267128'][quote='CaptainSqueaky','http://www.kemper-amps.com/forum/index.php/Thread/25706-Yamaha-DXR10-vs-DXR12-–-comparison-incl-audio-samples/?postID=267102#post267102']Tested']http://www.kemper-amps.com/forum/index.php/Thread/25706-Yamaha-DXR10-vs-DXR12-–-comparison-incl-audio-samples/?postID=267513#post267513'][quote='CaptainSqueaky','http://www.kemper-amps.com/forum/index.php/Thread/25706-Yamaha-DXR10-vs-DXR12-–-comparison-incl-audio-samples/?postID=267509#post267509'][quote='Zappledan','http://www.kemper-amps.com/forum/index.php/Thread/25706-Yamaha-DXR10-vs-DXR12-–-comparison-incl-audio-samples/?postID=267128#post267128'][quote='CaptainSqueaky','http://www.kemper-amps.com/forum/index.php/Thread/25706-Yamaha-DXR10-vs-DXR12-–-comparison-incl-audio-samples/?postID=267102#post267102'][/url]

Edit: So it appears that running through the XLR input on the DXR isn't working well for me. When I use the 1/4" jack (Line) the unit comes alive. When using the XLR input I had the selector switch on Line (not Mic), but it sounded lousy. I tried moving the switch to Mic and it added a ton of gain (as expected), but I still don't think the tone was as good. Is anyone else using the XLR input? In any case, I'm sticking to the 1/4" - the sound was WAY better overall. Powerful little monitor!

Hmm, tested this ... and through the XLR my DXR-12 it sounded better and more alive than the 1/4" to me.

Quote from Monkey_Man

[...]

To our ears, the 'phones brought even the factory profiles to life; there was more mojo, more "wood", more detail, more "organicness", more... of everything.
[...]

Yes, exactly ... I couldn't say it as nicely as you just did.

Hey all

The subject line says it all ... but in addition - I am not playing high gain profiles so much - I like playing with profiles that have gain up to around 5.

While playing these profiles through a Yamaha DXR-12 speaker did not make a huge difference (only tested via lower volumes so far) it did so over my in-ear headphones, which I always somewhat hated to play with.

EDIT: I should add - via in-ears / headphones it now sounds less sterile and more alive / musical and I know this does not necessarily fit the description of what the Pure Cabinet feature does, but that's what my ears are telling me.

Anybody else feels the same ?

Cheers,
Martin

Have done it too - once - it was absolutely fine. They asked me why it doesn't look like a guitar amp they had ever seen. I said it's digital - it's where things are going.

I had it in that green, original bag.

Quote from Michael_dk

No idea on both counts

But +1 on just trying it out.

Is the crackling over spdif, and if so - have you set kemper as the master clock? I wouln't expect it to be normal.

Actually, it happens with or without SPDIF ... listening over headphones and without any (guitar) input cable plugged in (yes). I will record a sample as it is fairly loud relative to the very quiet / not noisy KPA ... I normally wouldn't even remotely complain if this was a tube amp with pedals

@ Michael_dk:

yes, I was thinking that ... but can the Q factor make it that wide like from 0.5 kHz - 5 kHz. I'll probably just try it out.

By the way ... is it normal that the Treble Booster going into a Marshall amp profile with 5.5 gain adding some high frequency crackling noise ?

So, I did look at the before / after frequency spectrum by feeding in a chord playing in a loop via SPDIF input with the KPA stack & post-stack FX disabled while feeding the SPDIF output into my audio analyzer that aggregates the frequency curve until it appears frozen ...

... and it looks like a shelving filter to me. Going below ~400 Hz frequencies are being progressively cut up to ~1-2 db and going above 400 Hz it starts boosting all frequencies by about 6-7 db.

The Stomp EQs do not have a shelving filter ... so I don't think what I was trying to do will work.

Any ideas ?

Quote from Booyah

You will still need a stomp slot whether you use an EQ or Booster stomp to change the tone for a certain guitar. You can have multiple Boosters and EQ stomps and lock them in different slots. I use 2 Booster stomps in my clean profiles. I created different rigs for my different guitars, that way I did the EQ fixes with the Stack section and saved the stomp slots. If I switch guitars I simply switch banks. Hope that helps.

Hmm, ok. Since I do use an EQ already I'd rather consolidate the Treble Booster in an EQ Stomp.

If nobody has any idea on the frequencies the TB is boosting I might try to analyze / match it with some software.

Quote from paults

Even if you can get the EQ to sound like the treble booster, you would need to Unlock the EQ slot to use different settings in different rigs.

Since you are concerned with FX slot availability, I think it would be simpler to use an EQ or the treble booster in the slot, leaving the other three available for other FX.

If you make an EQ preset of the setting you currently have locked, and also make a treble booster preset, you can load the EQ or treble booster preset into that unlocked FX slot in each rig.

Thanks for the idea Paults. I had in mind to save the EQ as a preset and simply switch the preset on this locked EQ Stomp when I switch guitars.