Kemper Profiling Amp Thread

[lewis]

Hey everyone, i need a bit input.
I'm on the hunt for a new amp. For weeks it's been between 5150III or D-Moll now. Then it occured i might look at the kemper as well. So my initial questions:
1. I seen no problem with recorded tones. Thats where it's at for the kemper, but does it deliver live through a cab? Every other moddeling i've tried always lacked the low end thump and defined popping bass end. Does the Kemper hold up to a Tube amp in that regard?
2. How good is the cab removal? Since most other modelers add the cab afterwards, they don't have to substract it. I fear the process of substracting the cab might make the model sound artificial.
3. Powered or not? I will play live and have never played a show direct only. Would you pay the added cost for the powered model or go with the non powered and add a external poweramp if needed
4. Lastly, 5150 plus evh 2x12 or kemper without a cab? For home playing and recording the kemper wins hands down. If i go with the EVH i have the Pod HDX to cover home practice. I'm really lost. Mostly because the Kemper is hard to test in store as most of it's qualitys depend on the loaded profiles...

Oh and one last thing. I don't intend to do my own profiles (neither do i own amps worth it, nor the equipment/knowledge to do so...). Is this something that makes the kemper less valueable for me?
Any informative input is much appreciated!

1. not experienced this myself but seen loads of bands play with the Kemper through the a Cab, plus heard endless reviews by people who have claiming it sounds amazing and "you cant tell its not the amp that was profiled".

2. Cab removal is spot on and easy to, press the "Cabinet" button to toggle it on of off. Its certainly not guna be artificial.

3. I saved money and bought the Non powered version to go direct if need be but Kemper added a new feature in the newer firmware updates called "pure cabinet" which is assigned to knob and co be manually set anywhere from 0-10 and this is the amount that it simulates a real cabinet sound. The more you have it set the more AIR and Feeling you actually get in the sound if going direct. So going direct works brilliantly now. This is an additional setting ontop of all the Cabinet tweaks you can make (High sound, low sound, character etc). Loads of tonal shaping.

4. Kemper for home use is stunning and all you would ever need for practice and recording. Means you dont need a cab at home which can free up space. Also it comes stock with profiles of the amps your talking about, except the Pod but even they are available on the exchange bizarelly. In most instances the Kemper can take a average sound and actually make it better, so alot of the HD Pro profiles are better sounding than the actual HD Pro.

5. Ive had it now quite a while, and also own no amps now to profile even If I wanted to. (I sold the tube amp I had to fund the Kemper) and it doesnt depreciate the value what so ever. Especially with how many amps are available to download Free on Kempers Rig Exchange and also the paid for studio packs of amps.

 

[Joe Harvatt]

2. Cab removal is spot on and easy to, press the "Cabinet" button to toggle it on of off. Its certainly not guna be artificial.

3. I saved money and bought the Non powered version to go direct if need be but Kemper added a new feature in the newer firmware updates called "pure cabinet" which is assigned to knob and co be manually set anywhere from 0-10 and this is the amount that it simulates a real cabinet sound. The more you have it set the more AIR and Feeling you actually get in the sound if going direct. So going direct works brilliantly now. This is an additional setting ontop of all the Cabinet tweaks you can make (High sound, low sound, character etc). Loads of tonal shaping.

2. It's not as simple as that. It definitely works really well, but it varies depending on the profile. I play my powered Kemper with a cab for band rehearsals and I like the sounds I can get with the Kemper straight into a cab. So far I prefer the sound of a lot profiles that have the cab removed over DI'd profiles.

3. This isn't true. The Pure Cabinet feature is designed to remove the Mic element from the profile chain to try and deliver a sound that is akin to the human ear hearing a cab in a room rather than a human ear hearing a mic'd up amp.

 

[lewis]

2. It's not as simple as that. It definitely works really well, but it varies depending on the profile. I play my powered Kemper with a cab for band rehearsals and I like the sounds I can get with the Kemper straight into a cab. So far I prefer the sound of a lot profiles that have the cab removed over DI'd profiles.

3. This isn't true. The Pure Cabinet feature is designed to remove the Mic element from the profile chain to try and deliver a sound that is akin to the human ear hearing a cab in a room rather than a human ear hearing a mic'd up amp.

How is that really any different to what I said? Hearing the sound of a micd up cab back to you doesnt give you the airy/push that standing infront of a non micd cab and actually hearing the cab would.

either way, your nitpicking mate.

 

[meambobbo]

Pure cab is cool, but i find it can sometimes take something away from the sound especially once you go past 3.0 or so (out of a max of 10). It primarily removes close-mic phasing.

Merged profiles with cab disabled or true direct amp profiles (DI box between amp' speaker output and a real cab) should sound pretty much identical as long as you run through the same cab. Using a different cab wont be identical to running the real amp into that cab, but itll still sound good. Disabling the cab on a studio profile can give mixed results, depending on the profile and real cab. Sometimes this will have very overemphasized frequencies, but a little eq should get you a good sound regardless.

The Kemper rarely if ever sounds fake, even when you do a lot of tweaking to the profiles.

 

[lewis]

Pure cab is cool, but i find it can sometimes take something away from the sound especially once you go past 3.0 or so (out of a max of 10). It primarily removes close-mic phasing.

Merged profiles with cab disabled or true direct amp profiles (DI box between amp' speaker output and a real cab) should sound pretty much identical as long as you run through the same cab. Using a different cab wont be identical to running the real amp into that cab, but itll still sound good. Disabling the cab on a studio profile can give mixed results, depending on the profile and real cab. Sometimes this will have very overemphasized frequencies, but a little eq should get you a good sound regardless.

The Kemper rarely if ever sounds fake, even when you do a lot of tweaking to the profiles.

I see this get spoken about loads. A cool chat about gear with Heart of a Coward resulted in one of their guitarists telling me he uses their album guitar tone blended with a EVH 5150 etc.

But how do we merge tones?. I dont know how to do it with my Kemper. Be cool though for sure.

 

[Lokasenna]

That's not what "merged profile" means. It's Kemper's terminology for doing a profile of a head+cab+mic, another profile of just the head with a load box, and then "merging" them so you can turn the cab module on and off and get an accurate tone either way as opposed to just taking one profile and having the Kemper guess which part of the tone is the cab. It guesses pretty well, but the merged ones work better for mixing and matching.

The guitarist you were talking to is either using multiple Kempers, or he has a profile of their album tone and a 5150 together.

 

[lewis]

That's not what "merged profile" means. It's Kemper's terminology for doing a profile of a head+cab+mic, another profile of just the head with a load box, and then "merging" them so you can turn the cab module on and off and get an accurate tone either way as opposed to just taking one profile and having the Kemper guess which part of the tone is the cab. It guesses pretty well, but the merged ones work better for mixing and matching.

The guitarist you were talking to is either using multiple Kempers, or he has a profile of their album tone and a 5150 together.

ah that makes sense. Thanks for the clarification and he only uses the 1 kemper for his tone. The other guitarist uses another Kemper for his.


so how would I or anyone go about actually blending 2 tones together like he does?

 

[SloeGin]

Have any of you guys tried the new Heavy Gain pack from Mbritt?
How do you like it?

http://www.mbrittprofiles.com/heavy-pack/index.html

 

[Lokasenna]

ah that makes sense. Thanks for the clarification and he only uses the 1 kemper for his tone. The other guitarist uses another Kemper for his.


so how would I or anyone go about actually blending 2 tones together like he does?

The Kemper can't do blending at all. Well, not yet at least. People have been asking for it for ages.

So he's either:

a) Using a profile that was made in the studio with both his album rig and a 5150 mic'ed up.

b) Using multiple patches, some with his album rig and some with the 5150 for a different flavor.

 

[meambobbo]

You can use 3 profilers - use one to profile the other two simultaneously. Yea, not a solution for 99.9% of us...not a solution at all.

 

[lewis]

The Kemper can't do blending at all. Well, not yet at least. People have been asking for it for ages.

So he's either:

a) Using a profile that was made in the studio with both his album rig and a 5150 mic'ed up.

b) Using multiple patches, some with his album rig and some with the 5150 for a different flavor.

Well his band has a 2nd guitarist who also owns a Kemper, could they have put their Kempers together, 1 using the Album tone profile, and the other using a EVH 5150 III profile, through the same Cab Micd up and profiled or something?

But I see, I bet its not long until they do have Profile blending though.

 

[lewis]

still getting high rings/feedback after every chug or palm mute and in any gaps when I stop, despite having the input noise gate set to like 5 and a 4:1 hardgate set second in the stomp boxes set to like 7.5

Was using the built in green scream in first place with tone up to 2, drive upto 3 and volume on 1.

Gain was exactly 12 o clock and it was still doing it. Which is annoying because thats just not enough gain for me at all and I need more but even this low its happening.

Im standing right next to my Kemper/rack setup atm and also a PA speaker is also right next to me and the setup too (and also right next to the drumkit). Is this more the reason for this ringing instead of something playing up with the Kemper?. Tried 2 different guitars now through it and it happens with both.

 

[Dead-Pan]

still getting high rings/feedback after every chug or palm mute and in any gaps when I stop, despite having the input noise gate set to like 5 and a 4:1 hardgate set second in the stomp boxes set to like 7.5

Was using the built in green scream in first place with tone up to 2, drive upto 3 and volume on 1.

Gain was exactly 12 o clock and it was still doing it. Which is annoying because thats just not enough gain for me at all and I need more but even this low its happening.

Im standing right next to my Kemper/rack setup atm and also a PA speaker is also right next to me and the setup too (and also right next to the drumkit). Is this more the reason for this ringing instead of something playing up with the Kemper?. Tried 2 different guitars now through it and it happens with both.

I have had issues like this with power cords too close to my instrument cables.

Also the first batch of profiles I did of the Axe were bad about this.

The next versions will be better.

 

[meambobbo]

i've had similar things. one was when using SD blackouts and the pod hd. a mute would resonate the string through my palm into the next thinnest string where it would induce an open string harmonic. I know it sounds crazy but I did thorough research about specific notes needed to cause it, and how i could kill it by muting the open string with my fretting hand, unless I was only trying to mute on the pivot point of the harmonic. anyway, i don't think that's this.

the other i was using airis effects solar flare into my kemper. on higher tone settings, there's a terrible high frequency ringing. i thought maybe it was a fixed frequency resonance...there's a bit of that, and I used a number of parametric EQ bands to knock those down. but really, there's just a lot of noise above 15 kHz or so. So first thing I do in the Kemper is knock that down with a low pass on an EQ, and it's all good. I'm planning to wire in a low pass into the pedal itself so I don't need to waste an effect to compensate - really I don't want to have to dial that in on any patch that I want to use the pedal on.

One last thing. My guitars are picking up a TON of interference from my PC. Not sure what's causing the amount of interference or if it can be remedied. But if I get a little distance or angle the guitar just right, I can minimize that noise, and it makes things sound a whole lot better and easier to mute.

I do agree that it would be rare if two guitars were both wired to have electronics that were getting the same squealing feedback. Let's assume that's not it.

An instrument cable can get junked up and get feedback resonance - it's possible that's it.

It's also possible there's a lot of interference getting picked up. You should be able to hold the guitar differently or notice it differs in different locations if that's the issue. if you have lots of other gear, try turning it off or unplugging it while testing the Kemper.

The Kemper should be easy to test - use headphones connected directly to it, and plug it into a socket with nothing else connected. Try with a couple different instrument cables. Try it in different rooms. Try it in someone else's house.

Basically reduce your rig as much as possible and start eliminating possibilities. It could be the Kemper, but I think you'd notice crazier things than just some ringing.

 

[lewis]

i've had similar things. one was when using SD blackouts and the pod hd. a mute would resonate the string through my palm into the next thinnest string where it would induce an open string harmonic. I know it sounds crazy but I did thorough research about specific notes needed to cause it, and how i could kill it by muting the open string with my fretting hand, unless I was only trying to mute on the pivot point of the harmonic. anyway, i don't think that's this.

the other i was using airis effects solar flare into my kemper. on higher tone settings, there's a terrible high frequency ringing. i thought maybe it was a fixed frequency resonance...there's a bit of that, and I used a number of parametric EQ bands to knock those down. but really, there's just a lot of noise above 15 kHz or so. So first thing I do in the Kemper is knock that down with a low pass on an EQ, and it's all good. I'm planning to wire in a low pass into the pedal itself so I don't need to waste an effect to compensate - really I don't want to have to dial that in on any patch that I want to use the pedal on.

One last thing. My guitars are picking up a TON of interference from my PC. Not sure what's causing the amount of interference or if it can be remedied. But if I get a little distance or angle the guitar just right, I can minimize that noise, and it makes things sound a whole lot better and easier to mute.

I do agree that it would be rare if two guitars were both wired to have electronics that were getting the same squealing feedback. Let's assume that's not it.

An instrument cable can get junked up and get feedback resonance - it's possible that's it.

It's also possible there's a lot of interference getting picked up. You should be able to hold the guitar differently or notice it differs in different locations if that's the issue. if you have lots of other gear, try turning it off or unplugging it while testing the Kemper.

The Kemper should be easy to test - use headphones connected directly to it, and plug it into a socket with nothing else connected. Try with a couple different instrument cables. Try it in different rooms. Try it in someone else's house.

Basically reduce your rig as much as possible and start eliminating possibilities. It could be the Kemper, but I think you'd notice crazier things than just some ringing.

See I too get the PC interference at home unless i connect the Kemper to a Power conditioner. My Furman that powers whatever Rack setup Im using eliminates the shoddy home electrics 100% and it doesnt come out on the recordings. It also eliminates the hum and buzz at loud volumes in the practice room but its the feedback that it doesnt stop.

Yesterday I unplugged everything and it was simply Guitar into Kemper. No real pedals etc and the Kemper was being powered by the Power conditioner to stop the hum. It was going direct to the PA using an XLR cable.

If its the cables then thats an easy thing to establish. I have a good long 1/4 jack lead I used to use to connect to the PA. I can try that and see if it then means its the XLR thats causing issues. Im going to also try noise gating my guitar signal first BEFORE clean boosting inside the Kemper. I.e Guitar into Kemper. Global noise gate set to like 5, first stomp box in the Kemper a hard gate, 2nd green scream, 3rd hard gate and see if that changes anything.

Failing that Im going to have to alter the layout of the room around so Im not near a PA speaker or the Cymbals.

I long for a wireless so I can walk around wherever but currently thats a little out of my price range.

 

[meambobbo]

Good deal. Def gonna buy a furman. I did slide the pc sideways last night and that def helped and makes it mostly inaudible but if i turn the guitar slightly it picks up a lil bit of interference.

Have you tried the alternative input? What about spdif reamping?

 

[lewis]

Good deal. Def gonna buy a furman. I did slide the pc sideways last night and that def helped and makes it mostly inaudible but if i turn the guitar slightly it picks up a lil bit of interference.

Have you tried the alternative input? What about spdif reamping?

no I havent tried the alternative actually. Will try that. I also havent messed about with the Sens controls either. Does that actually help this sort of thing or is it only to do with Clean vs distortion volumes?

Either way Im sure I will get to the bottom of it eventually. I have my first gig booked May 27th and I want to have it sorted by then If I have to use my Kemper for it. Feedback live is just the worst thing ever

 

[meambobbo]

Sense controls shouldn't matter. Clean Sense has no effect on the tone if the Gain knob is above ~4.5 or so. So it can't be the issue. It really only changes the relative volume of a profile when the Gain is turned all the way down vs. all the way up. I usually turn it down a bit, but it really doesn't matter that much.

Distortion Sense is basically just a global Gain adjustment, used to keep similar levels of Gain between different guitars. As you said, however, you don't have enough gain even when getting the squealy issues.

 

[lewis]

can someone type up a literal idiots guide to reamping using the Kemper, a Scarlett 2i2 interface and Reaper?

What settings the Kemper should have selected, what connections and from where and also what I should do in Reaper?. Atm Im not getting anything and I want to reamp some Bass DI

 

[jerm]

1) in reaper open the i/o of the DI track, set it to output device to 1 (left channel), uncheck the master/parent option

2) there should be 2 cables going out the back of your 2i2, one for each monitor, the top one is the left channel, bottom for the right. since you setup the DI track to come out of the left you want that cable to go to the reamp input on the back of the Kemper.

3) on the kemper hold the input button, then select the input to the reamp option. If you recorded the DI with the clean sens at -4, set the reamp sens to +4 and vice versa for different clean sens settings.

4) on the kemper output menu (hold output button) you should have it as master mono or whatever you want the kemper to send out to the 2i2 input on the front of the 2i2.

5) now you want to solo the DI track and play it in reaper so that it send the DI signal to the kemper, you'll want to send your 2i2's monitor knob to the max or close to to send a strong signal to the kemper. Also on the front of your 2i2 you'll want it's output mix to by fully set to playback, not input or else you'll get feedback when reamping.

6) once you've got that setup, arm a new track in reaper, then play the DI track soloed so that it send it out of the 2i2, into the kemper, back out of the kemper, into the front of the 2i2.