Free rigs or buying rigs

    Like probably many of you: you’ve found a (free) available rig, tweak that a bit for yourself to the best you can and that's it. That's at least what I do. But in reality they don't always sound like you would they do. Lack of knowing how to do that could be the most obvious reason.

    I wonder if buying a bunch of "professional" made rigs solves that problem. Do they indeed always sound really professional and can they compete with the sound that you are looking for like a sound from Bonamassa’s les pauls or Hendrix’s telecaster or David Gilmour’s strat or many others use? Are they really worth the money, like for example all those many advertised rigs from Tone Junkie?

    As an example: I never have been able to achieve a sound like this: Kemper intro. So making a sound like this is likely only reserved for professionals...


    So in the end: Do I make my profiler (and myself) more (or only) happy by (buying!) real professional made rigs instead of struggling to nail a specific guitar sound?

    Paid rigs are not necessarily better. Depending on what pack you buy, you might find what you want, maybe not. There's no guarantee. I have bought some packs that I absolutely love, as well as others that leave me scratching my head why they named this pack after some artist sound.


    I was in that boat years ago when in the modeler world. I would get something close, and do my best to match my current setup. That task went on for years, constantly tweaking a patch over and over, and renaming each iteration 001, 002, and so on. After getting my Kemper, I profiled it, and I immediately had my sound. That didn't stop me from profiling my rig over 100 times (different speakers, mics, configurations). Now, I know I have every sound my amp can deliver. Over time, I have narrowed the profiles I made of my amp to around 3 or 4.


    No packs are going to give you that flexibility. It's hit or miss with free, as well as paid profiles.

    I find there are comparatively few bad rigs. But there are lots of rigs that aren’t to my taste. Most of the free factory content is sample rigs from paid for packs so buying packs from the same profilers doesn’t get you better rigs just a selection of “different “ rigs. Most profilers have a sound or style that they are known for. If you like their signature sound then it is worth buying more packs just for the variety but don’t expect it to be a magic solution to better tones.

    I found you have to be creative. One of my favourite clean sounds is actually a really distorted dumble that I rolled the gain completely off.

    There are many amazing sounds for free you just have to mess with them. The biggest problem for me, is not spending enough time actually playing my guitars and more time playing the kemper.

    I use the free Rig Packs on Rig Exchange to test. There are a bunch of different Profile makers represented. I found a couple of makers whose Profiles I really liked.

    I then bought the full pack of the amp I previewed and been happy. I'm also not spending more than about ten or 12 bucks (max) at any given time, but that's just me. I go looking for a specific sound, so I don't buy variety packs.


    Other makers that may not be on the Rig Pack menu often have free packs on their websites. I've had good luck checking those out and deciding from there.

    “Without music, life would be a mistake.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

    Like 3

    Well, thanks to everyone for your point of view. The trouble is that most of the time I pick a random rig a from let's say RE. And then it starts to change it to my taste because if I play that particular famous or huge hit I'd like to recognize the corresponding guitar sound I hear.

    In my studio I managed to copy and record some great sounds as a demo for myself in the past, but it takes such a long time and knowhow to find all the right pieces and put them together to one rig. Am I the only one?

    And it sometimes happens that when you are on stage it suddenly doesn't sound that great anymore...https://soundcloud.com/theplay…t-solo-test-ray-theplayer

    The best advice I ever received was to avoid trying to recreate the sound and focus pn getting the playing right. No-one ever remembers that the sound wasnt the same as the record rd but they a;ways remember if you play it badly. In fact, the actual artist never ever sounded the same live as they did on record anyway so what sound are you trying to recreate?


    Hendrix Purple Haze? The album version? Live at Monterey? Live at Woodstock? BBC to[ of the Pops? They are all different but similar. As long as the sound is “in the ball park” the playing is what makes it special. In fact, having a sound that changes from song to song is often ,ore disorientating than helpful.

    I long since gave up trying to recreate famous sounds. I’ll go for a general vibe in certain situations.


    I don’t find it at all inspiring nor do I enjoy chasing someone else’s tone. It’s the tonal equivalent of playing in a cover band and having to play it *just* like the record.


    It’s tedious and you spend all your time trying not to screw up. All anyone hears is what you got wrong.


    A player who was as faithful to their recorded parts as anyone is Alex Lifeson. I saw Rush live over a dozen times. His tone *never* sounded like the record….and no one cared.

    “Without music, life would be a mistake.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

    Like 3

    OK, I understand all of this and will forget what's in my mind. Nevertheless I want decent rigs who can compete with a song as meant to be listening to. It may differ in many ways but it should be having a good corresponding and convincing drive, clean, chorused, lead etc. rich tone or sound etc . And not creaky, thin or whatever you call it.

    And this is hard to get if you're tweaking

    In my opinion there are a lot of bad or badly profiled profiles on the RE. Every now and then I find something I like or that's usable for me. I love anything that"s good from cleans to metal stuff. I find that buying rigs is the way to go for me. Now saying that I've bought some profiles that I haven't liked but in general there have been more bad profiles for free than bad profiles to buy. My opinion. I get better results from buying then from free.

    Rik


    Kemper toaster >Kemper remote> 2 x Alto TS310 powered speakers Furman M-8XAR

    Like 2

    Definitely preview the Artist packs on Rig Manager. Get a feel for who's profiles you like. That'll make spending money on a paid pack less of a gamble. I'll say this regarding paying for profiles... Most companies offered crazy holiday discounts and some are still available. There were a few packs I got for less than $3 with Tone Junkies 90% off discounts. Most of them are worth the full asking price so getting a nice discount makes it even better.

    I've been using the Kemper for around 6-7 years now and I have NEVER been able to get a profile to sound even remotely close to what it sounds like when I hear it on YouTube or elsewhere. At first, I thought I must be doing something wrong. But I've checked every setting on my Kempers (I have two, so I know it's not a faulty Kemper). I've tested the profiles through ATH-M50x headphones, through my Yamaha HS8 monitors and through our live PA setup (all QSC bins and tops). I've recorded them as single take guitars and double-tracked through my Clarett 4Pre USB interface into Reaper. No matter what I do, they never sound like what was advertised. And it's more than just the difference in tone from fingers.


    For example, the Top Jimi VH packs sound nothing like what I hear when I listen to the demos. They're all quite thin and muddy/dark. TAF profiles all seem to have way too much low end. MBritt profiles don't have enough top end. I use Charvel Guthrie Govan signature model guitars; so I'm not using some cheap $400 guitar with garbage pickups. So that's definitely not the problem.


    So I've given up on trying to recreate the sound of what is advertised. I usually now just start with something that is close, and tweak until I like it. MBritt seems to be the closest starting points for me and usually, just adding some high end clarity gets those to a usable state for me.


    Don't get me wrong, I still love the Kemper. The pros of having everything I want in a small, transportable unit FAR outweigh the cons. I've got a bunch of sounds that do sound really good live. I just wish I could get sounds to be more similar to what I hear advertised online.

    Hi OhG, You make things very clear to me now. My Kemper is all I have (for eight years now) and despite struggling sometimes to get a decent sound, I'm still very happy with it. I will start now with those free Legends Rig Packs. The chances are good that my struggling comes to an end here and that they contain a considerable number of really good rigs.

    Specifically, re the Top Jimi VH pack—I had the same experience. Bought the Kemper primarily on the strength of the promise of getting ‘perfect’ Van Halen tone, just like I heard in so many different demos, but in my hands, it was thin, weak, with not enough gain. I had to boost the profiles’ gain in the Kemper and tweak and supplement in other ways. This was all with an EVH Wolfgang guitar, so it wasn’t like I was trying to match my results with the wrong guitar…..


    I ended up selling that guitar, for other reasons. I just wanted to build my own version of a Frankenstrat-ish thing. I put a Pasadena Black pickup in it. And Boom—that guitar makes those Top Jimi profiles sound exactly as they’re supposed to. Stock. No tweaking.

    It’s a very hot pickup, and I guess it’s significantly hotter than the stock Wolfgang? Maybe there’s another way to equalize/normalize pickup outputs with Kemper settings—but I didn’t get these types of results with the methods I tried.


    So, to you and theplayer —the OP— pickups may be extremely important if you are really critical in nailing tones. Not just pickup types, but the other more nuanced characteristics, as well.


    The OP referenced getting tones like from Joe Bonamassa’s Les Pauls… but needs to be aware that the Kemper doesn’t model guitars. You have to feed it a Les Paul for it to sound like a tone that uses a Les Paul. If that was already obvious to him, I apologize, but it’s clear in other discussions that not everyone knows this.


    Further—and specific to the Tone Junkies reference… it may help to identify one profile maker as your source. Because it becomes easier to recognize if their profile demo tones are realistically attainable for you. Tone Junkie is my primary source when I buy. I am able to use similar guitars to what they show in their demos and pretty closely recreate those results. You just get familiar with what you need to tweak to match a tone. But I will use profiles from where ever. I have a LOT of profiles, and if I am looking for something specific in a search through the rigs I already own, I will audition ten or so without really caring who made them. Usually I will choose one because it needs no tweaks.

    That’s where the fun starts, though. I find 9/10 times that if I’m really loving a profile, if I experiment with swapping in one of my own IRs, I’ll find an IR I love and then if I go back to the normal/stock IR, and A/B them, the stock one will sound pretty lame in comparison. IRs are fantastic for making a great sound even better.

    For free rigs I suggest to visit my free rigs page on my site. There are incredible starting points for everyone choosen after lots of hours of selection...

    Then you will understand better what to buy to extend your sounds Data Base


    https://www.maurizio70guitaris…er-maurizio70s-free-rigs/

    The packs I bought never sounded like the demos. I bought different packs from Choptones and Big Hair Profiles (CAE 3+, Soldano preamps)

    Some of the rigs sounded either too bass-heavy or too thin. Then I experimented with different cabs - and got stuck with a cab from Choptones (Marshall 1987X). I use this cab for 90% of my rigs. For clean rigs I use a Kitty Hawk Cab, which I like best. I found them in a rig in the RE. Maybe you try to experiment with other cabs on your rigs?!