There is lots of awesome rigs that comes stock with the Kemper nowadays. If you just got your Kemper, I'd say explore those rig packs first for a few months and figure out which profiler is up your alley. Then check the Rig Exchange, unless you have very niche needs, you'll find everything you need without having to buy any commercial packs. I get the excitement and desire to splurge more upfront but by doing so you're just likely to end up with a bunch of packs that don't get used.
Posts by JedMckenna
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Not in your choices but the main mic I use for acoustic is an AKG C451. Neumanns are awesome too but quite $$$. I might be stating the obvious but I'd say the room acoustics, the mic placement and the guitar itself are probably more influential on the final result.
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Depends on the material to record, but probably not.
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Yesssss
OH MY!!...
We love you Bert! I didn't expect much from my lowly request but I'm so grateful it's been answered! Can't wait and sending you good vibes for the profiling sessions. -
Hi Bert,
I was on an arena tour this summer and used your Bogner XTC pack a lot, most of my main sounds come from it now. Of course this amp is amazing in the first place (I had not used the XTC in that context before), but perhaps more importantly your profiling expertise makes them that much better. It was a surprise to me that even the few clean channel (green?) profiles often sounded more balanced and appropriate than most of my other clean amps profiles (Fender, etc). Prior to that, I had waited and hoped for 2-3 years that you would profile the XTC specifically so I am very grateful.
For very hi gain, I used profiles from your 5150 and Friedman pack. Those amps seemed to sit better in the thick mix EQ-wise than the Bogner red channel, but I was running out of time for experimenting with the red channel and dropping the 5150/Friedman in my Kemper pretty much at the last minute before rehearsals seemed to work quite well right off the bat. Anyway, just wanted to say thank you and good luck with your new IR pack.
If you need an idea for the future, I think a detailed profiling of a Soldano SLO (with liquid profiling in mind?) would be a hit. I use one of your earlier SLO profile for my lead sound because on recordings of live performances, it seems to cut through like no other amp frequency-wise.
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Right now the differences between profiles of the same amp is pretty vast depending on where it comes from and amounts to so much more than just a different position of the amp's knobs. Liquid profiling won't magically make all the different profiles of the same amp able to achieve the same tone.
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Profilers seems to be walking on eggshells a lot and are quite afraid to mention the name of companies... not sure it's even justified as I've yet to hear of one lawsuit that stemmed from this (but I might be wrong). It gets in the "wtf" territory quick (ie. from Guidorist: Vendra, Love 69, Sun - ??) The names alone are offputting. Then you have to change the name in the Kemper settings as those names that make no sense like Fuelz or CustOdian+ (Diezel, Custom Audio) usually appear on the patches themselves and in the details. A reference sheet is handy and all, but I kind of resent how dumb and borderline dystopian it feels to browse, navigate and get used to recognize profiles under weird made-up names and being unable or afraid to call an apple an apple for fear of being sued. Anyway, sorry for the rant, might just be in a bad mood.
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Also concerning the topic at hand, some artists just don't overthink their rigs - simple as that. Premier Guitar try to switch the narrative to gear because that's what they sell and they cater to an audience of gear nerds but performing artists are primarily into making music and performing it. Many of these artists may just find that odd to obsess over these things; when they go home, they don't geek over true-bypass pedals and latency, they write songs and organize rehearsals and plan the flight details of the next gig. I work with a lot of artists that could benefit from a more sophisticated rig, but how significantly would it matter if they did? That's just not where their head is at and unless they purposely ask advice/opinion or voice a gear-related problem, I try not to bring the gear business/nerdiness on a gig.
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I am not very smart. But in writing my VST, I have some insight.
My personal Kemper does not sing like a tube amp. My old POD HD has a singing tone on one profile. That is why I constantly feel there is something wrong with MY Kemper.
My VST is centered around a generic distortion pedal. I have the signal go into a bandpass filter centered between 600 and 1400 Hz (700 Hz is typical). You can control the Q of the filter. This little "transistor" amp pedal model "sings". If I hit an A note (10th fret B string) it will slowly change the pitch up an octave as the string decays. I do not get this type of thing from the Kemper on any profile. Even ones I have made from the VST that sing. And the singing is the main reason why I bought the Kemper. Seeing Herman Li get great tone on his Twitch stream.
It could be a monitoring problem. Have you tried a Kabinet? or DI/Merged profiles with cab off through a real cab? Flat range sound will never quite sound like a tube amp.
Anyway, hats off to writing a VST, that's above most people's pay grade.
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The remote switches are not particularly noisy. The specific remote you got probably sat unused for a long time and oxidation now make it feel rough. I would apply WD40 or some other lubricant and press them on and off several times.
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I leave one of these adapters permanently in the headphone out. Saved me many times.
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(...) I see Kemper being like Apple (...)
Oh my... wow, the stuff we read on here once in a while is entertaining. I invite you to learn a bit about Apple's business practices and then reassess.
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Well, just want to mention that for more than 10 years they are not able to fix the error of the wrong blinking TAP button.
But we get Liquid Profiling.
"It's the simple thinks like when and where".
(Kid Rock)
Bro, good luck in the music biz if you're losing sleep over the accuracy of a tap tempo light...
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I saw all the video's about .009's being more resonant and everything. This gauge still feels like dental floss to me, what are your thoughts about lighter strings? SRV must have heard something torturing himself with .013's.
Personally I think it's not a matter of tone as much as a matter of stability and it depends a lot on your playing style imo. I used to use 10 for everything but then I listened to recordings of jazz duos I did and would often hear the chords going slightly out of tune. Even with a very light touch, the way you need to bend your fingers when playing harmony will make some notes have more pressure applied than others and no matter what, the strings will go slightly out of tune if the gauge is too light.
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Ernie Ball or GHS Boomers 10-46.
11-52 on my 335 and Gretsch.
On my main guitar, I use those Ernie ball "M-Steel", they got a different thing going.
Elixir 12s on my acoustic.
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Sure, but his looper is as important as his guitar for what he does. On the day, in the arena, they said his looper had an issue.
So his lack of insecurity and years of experience didn't help. The crowd didn't get a discount and he got his full pay. Is that what you mean about not being into redundancy? Like, "who cares - they've already paid."
Ed can carry a show with or without a looper. You think if the looper fails, he'd make the crowd wait 10 minutes to go get and set up his backup unit? He would just carry on with no looper, as any pro would do, get back to that looper in a different segment of the show once the techs have handled it, or probably not. I'm waiting to see the headlines about the hordes of raging fans asking for a refund and his career crashing down because his looper failed once.
If the headstock on his guitar broke, would you be happy as a paying customer if he just shrugged and did the rest of the show a capella?
His crew carry a bunch of spares and if they all broke down, a Martin rep would deliver one within half an hour. Maybe you're not familiar with the logistics of shows like this, or just try to be cynical to prove your point? I don't know his particular act but even if he sang acapella (or most likely with a kickass band backing him up), he would totally get away with it and barely no one would notice.
Meanwhile, the gear industry is pushing the narrative (to weekend warriors who gig once a month and least likely to need it) that their commitment and professionalism is questionable if they don't keep buying more stuff (now labelled as "back up"). Anyway, you do you but I have more chance of slamming a taxi door on my hand, my plane getting delayed, not getting the performance license on time, my drummer not showing up, etc - than having the Kemper or a guitar headstock explode mid gig and be left stranded on stage with no option.
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Unpopular opinion here but I'm not into redundancy. I haven't seen Ed Sheeran live but I guarantee his gig being successful doesn't hinge on a looper. Playing a sold out arena versus playing a bar are different things. Usually in the former, there are already several levels of redundancy you might not be aware of (going as far as playing a playback) and there are resources you can call on the spot if you need to replace something faulty, and a huge team to help you sort these things out. It might not be 5 minutes away, but it can usually be had in an hour or so. They usually have plenty of spare stuff on hand - maybe not a guitar with your favorite neck profile, but some odd thing you can survive the gig, an axe from the second guitarist etc, as well as a pit of amps you are not using because you brought your kemper. Then for smaller gigs, if something happen to break down in exactly the 3 hr window the gig is in, then the odds are really against you that day and it will suck but just like for Ed, you will adapt and it won't sink your entire career. There are things that are far more important to focus on to make your gig successful than bringing a pile of useless backup gear all the time to make you feel safe imo. Sometimes it feels like just having all the band in the same room, healthy and on time is a feat. Obviously it's another story if you're into gigging with old and unreliable gear, or leave for a long time on a tour in a place with difficult access but otherwise this total obsession for backup gear is ultimately rooted in insecurity and lack of experience.
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Thanks for this video. I struggled with this issue a lot in my life and not that I want to re-enter this debate but saying things like "room sound don't matter" is totally disingenuous. In small venues like your typical bar, part of the sound comes from the stage. In small rehearsal rooms, people will also feel right away if you go direct versus using an amp. There is this one time where I got a gig because the guy before me went direct at rehearsal and I used a shitty, tiny combo amp - the gut instinct of the band was to choose me over the other guy because I "sounded amazing" in comparison - little did they know, his modeller was a better rig than mine for 90% of other situations outside of this particular small room rehearsal. Similarly, I've brought the Kemper to a in-house rehearsal with an artist and we had to have a talk about "my flat sound". While it's tempting to make absolute statements like "room sound don't matter" because it would make life so much easier, the truth is that there are many types of sonic environments and you have to know for yourself when the positives of a modeller are going to outweigh those of a pedalboard + amp or vice-versa.
These days, I use the pedalboard and backline amps more and more for live work, I feel I get better control over variables. My last few rehearsals with the Kemper or the Axe were especially frustrating and I wholeheartedly resent having to deep dive into endless menus while trying to make music at the same time.
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Part of me really likes the idea of that Tone X pedal and would like to give it a try but then again all this blatant Youtube promotion turns me right off: in the end, it's still a glorified Iridium. I also wonder how it could realistically be an improvement over my current Kemper rig... tone-wise probably not in any significant way, I also think the powerhead is a much more convenient and flexible rig for live performance. The software part of this would help my workflow when recording, but then again I'm used to do reamps just fine with the Kemper. Carry less weight maybe? Then I should just hit the gym instead. If I started a new rig from scratch I could think about it and maybe stick it nicely in my pedalboard but at this point, a new product would really need to bring something out of this world for me to justify spending the time/effort to migrate and find my sounds all over again.
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It depends of the situation but personally, I usually put a graphic EQ block post amp with a volume boost and push in the mids (inverted V) and add a bit of delay. Then I morph the base sound to that and with the proper settings, it can turn any rig into a good lead sound. I also have a separate patch for solo sound but it's not as flexible. Depending of the band and volume level of your gig, sometimes adding 2-3 dB is enough but for very big venues/band I sometimes needed over 6 dB to cut through - I usually figure this out at rehearsal when you can get a better feel for the situation.
