Posts by Diamo Fiasco

Quote from dhodgson

Diamo - it was easy to reproduce the problems you were having. And yes, your Telecaster demo is a big step in the right direction. A general rule of amps is that dirty amps work better with pickups that sound midrangey, barky even - rather than full and sparkly in the clean guitar sense. There's a huge pickup and overdrive pedal industry that caters to this, and in regards to taming nasty, scritchy fizziness that too is a skill to be mastered.

Recommend starting with Glenn Fricker's channel on YouTube if you're starting from scratch and expand from there (Mixerman's books, Andy Sneap's forums, Rick Beato's channel etc.) - dirty guitars are a big subject.

Dude, this is really really helpful and encouraging to hear.

If I can take more of your time. I have a couple of questions for you.

1. Does the 'Go Jimi Go' sound pretty awful to your ears in both the S Series and Telecaster recording I have done?

2. Does that profile sound good on your setup?

However, I feel all of the profiles sound very 'square wavey' rather than 'saturated', I don't know how else to put it. Do you really think that it's a matter of my US Tele and S Series not having sufficient tone in them to get a good sound out of them?

I'm feeling pretty skeptical of the Kemper's capabilities because it sounds like there is a fundamentally sort of flat, buzzing quality to the tone it produces. But then I go and listen to demos and it sounds lively, bright, chunky, fat, detailed etc. My Tele sounded awesome through my old Mesa combo, it seems bizarre to me that this (and my S Series) is not good enough to get at least into the same ballpark as the demos I hear online. Do you agree my tones are pretty garbage?

Sorry for ranting a little but I feel a need a massive sanity check after getting lost in the wilderness for so long... I don't trust my ears any more!

Quote from Monkey_Man

Can you get your hands on a genuinely-great guitar to test it with?

I and many others have noticed that the Kemper "exposes" shortcomings in guitars. I stopped playing the axe I'd used for years (only a Squire Strat, mind you) as soon as I bought the Kemper. Suddenly my guitar sounded thin and scratchy, whereas with all the modellers I'd used previously, it was just-fine. My brother's vintage LP has always sounded sublime through the Kemper, his tone being another step up from where I am now.

Alrighty, interesting, but I have a nagging doubt about all of this as my guitars sound sweet through other amps and it feels to me like the Kemper is requiring some amazing guitar to compensate for it's own shortcomings. I'll have a think and see if there is a way to get my hands on a guitar that is better than my Telecaster.

Really appreciate the support and input here I would be really interested in what guitars you 'discarded' from using with the Kemper and also if you have any recordings I could listen to.

Quote from Monkey_Man

Well, the Tele's obviously got a lot more happening harmonically and is brighter overall, and this translates to the Profile recordings, so I'd give the W to it. Just MHO, of course, and others may feel differently.

I don't think the fret buzz is helping. It'll tend to "squeeze" the size out of dirty recordings and make clean ones unnecessarily-noisy ("extraneous" noise). You could try raising the action a little, just to the point where notes can ring out truly, and see if that helps.

Thanks again for listening and giving your feedback. I feel like I can fundamentally hear a nastiness in the tone that is not to do with fret buzz but is a 'processed' sound and lacks punch and does not translate the interesting tone from the guitar into the full sound I would get out of a tube amp. If these tones sound in the ballpark you would expect and it's just a matter of a little bit of clean up then I do think this is just what the Kemper is capable of and it will never be the greatest for me. However, it does seem strange when I hear demos of Kempers being used and they do seem to sound very good. Very frustrating...

Quote from dhodgson

Diamo,

I spent a good amount of time reamping your (original) DI and came to the same conclusions MonkeyMan did - it was extremely challenging to dial in a good dirty sound, largely due to the extraordinary bassiness of your (single coil middle, really?) pickup. Try again on the bridge and make sure your tone control is full up. Even as a Saber collector I've never heard anything quite like that! This is a problem that has to be addressed at the source

(P.S. I run the "Ibanez S Series Worldwide" group on Facebook, so I'm very very familiar with these guitars)

Hey dhodgson, thank you for the response and for trying to re-amp the DI. Also very interesting to me is that you play S series.

Would you say that the issues you had were regarding getting a fizzy high end and similar issues you can hear in my recordings? Do you agree mine do not sound good and where you having the same issues?

If you could post a link to any recordings you have done or take a listen to my Telecaster recordings that would be much appreciated.

Thank you so much for taking the time to help!

Hey Monkey Man, thank you for the reply. I hear what you are saying although I actually find the clean tone on that middle pickup to be very nice and when guitarist friends are around they are similarly drawn to it. However, in the interests of troubleshooting I grabbed my Telecaster and made another loop and the same profiles. I am switching between the bridge and neck pickup to get a good sonic range.

Would love to hear your thoughts on this latest set of recordings.

Hello Folks,

Another weekend, another time sink trying to get my Kemper to sound like a good high gain amp... with little success. I'm looking for some confirmation if these are the tones I should be expecting.

In there is a playlist with DI, a clean profile I like and then 4 high gain profiles. I find the high gain channels to sound nasty, exemplified by the 'Go Jimi Go' profile.

Signal Chain:

Guitar: Ibanez S Series, middle pickup, 'C3'

Amp: Front Input Kemper

Audio Interface: XLR connection to Phonic Helix

DAW: Reaper

Kemper Settings:

Input locked with no noise gate and clean and distortion sense at zero

EQ locked with a cut below 80Hz and above 9K

Stomps locked off

Pure Cabinet Off

Space @ 3.0

Main Output: Master Stereo

Main Volume: -17.1dB

Perceived Problem:

The high gain tones sound hollow, fizzy and generally nasty . I have tried 100s of profiles at this point, whilst some are more enjoyable than others it never seems to match the quality that people here seem to talk about. It doesn't seem to match what I hear in demos and YouTube videos. I chose these profiles as the high gain profiles from some of the respected high gain profilers that come with the Kemper.

Additional Comments:

- There is no huge difference in using headphones, PA speakers or my living room speakers

- Cab Mode is on

Overall I am looking for a sanity check on whether these are simply the same tones that you all hear on these profiles or if anyone can identify an issue with the sound and/or confirm that this is not how it is supposed to sound.

Any help would be appreciated, feel like I have a huge disconnect between the online discussion and my experience with the Kemper.

Short answer... turn off Pure Cabinet in the output settings.

Long story... I bought my Kemper two weeks ago and I simply could not understand how there was so much hype about this machine. It sounded like the very epitome of everything wrong with 'solid state' and 'modeled' sounds. Fizzy high end with large flabby low end and no punchy mids to speak of. All profiles sounded the same. However, I was enjoying it through my 1 x 12 Mesa cab with the cab 'subtracted' by switching it off on the Kemper. But I bought this for DI (direct input) in my home studio. It was very confusing to me as even the YouTube videos of people playing DI were better sounding so I persevered. I had bought online so I went to the brick and mortar store of the online shop I bought from and heard one there and it sounded great... was it their £1000 PA setup? The room? I was very confused and I was able to talk in detail with the guy the settings I had tried and he was unsure what else to troubleshoot or did not believe my ears. I was doubting my ears A LOT over the past 2 weeks. I went home and did some serious A/B testing.

Output 1 through my Mesa cab with the cab model off and close mic'd with an SM57, Output 2 from the main output, cab sim on. Both into my mixing desk on separate channels. Switching between them, the cab was just so immensely better and I could hear it plainly between A and B. "It just cannot be right" I thought, with the memory of the sound from the shop burned into my mind.

Let's check the cab 'simulation' options I thought, maybe something there is incorrectly locked or setup wrong... hmm... there seems to be some global override for the 'Pure Cabinet' setting... I went to my main output settings, where I remembered seeing this option, and turned it off.

O H MY G A W D

My Kemper sprang to life and suddenly I went from thinking 99.8% of profiles were bad to thinking 95%+ were AMAZING and INSPIRING. This is was everything I had held as a secret wish coming true. AMAZING DI sound, now it was better than the Mesa cab, and I spent the entire weekend playing guitar so much my back hurts today from rocking out all over my flat.

This thing is incredible but whoever decided to put Pure Cabinet on at a setting of 2 needs to be taken out back and shot! I did play with the amp a lot with friends when I first bought it, if the person needing shot for switching it on is me or my friends then so be it but holy smokes I do not think much of that option.

However, I can say that I now LOVE my Kemper and I gave away one of my 4 amps last night as I started the clear out. Kemper is 100% hands-down my best amp now and I was about to take it back to the shop.

Perhaps no one will read beyond my short answer but I thought I better record this story in case any Kemper staff are reading and should be aware that this option can be perceived to seriously diminish the quality of the Kemper sound. I have bad-mouthed Kemper to a few people over the last few weeks and now I intend to correct that but I was very, very close to returning the amp.