Posts by alligatorlizard

Tesla's Frank Hannon moved from Marshalls to Hiwatts at some point over recent years, and after hearing the great rock tones he got out of them went on a bit of a HiWatt profile hunt - tried a bunch, and in the end Guidorist's merged pack (with Celestion G12M65 IR's) gave me exactly the sound I was after, and to this day some of my favourite Kemper profiles for any style.

Would be great to get a Hiwatt tonestack added at some point (and some liquid profiles), definitely great amps, and not just for classic The Who or Pink Floyd tones.

Quote from goldensheaf

Well how can you comment when you never tried? There is def a more realistic feel to the profiles now a immediacy that comes through the speakers, welll with DI profiles i use anyway. Kemper had that lower mid woof an the LP helps that i think. I just enjoying the bright cap control, it can really customise a amp. I profiled my old carvin valvemaster amp that i used to gig with eons ago an its very spatty an trebly but pulling back on the bright cap really makes it something else

I did make it clear it's a priori reasoning - if I change my mind when it's out of beta and I try it, I'll be happy to be wrong! But again, Kemper have not advertised any change the profiling process itself, or anything which would alter dynamics/responsiveness, so it stands to reason that if it "feels" better to play, it's just because of now being able to dial in a good tonal balance (and/or gain level) in an authentic/musical way.

Quote from lbieber

Or it's just in your head. I have yet to experience any difference in feel.

Well that's basically what I'm saying tho I'd generally describe "feel" as dynamics, responsiveness to picking strength - while I've yet to try Liquid Profiles, there's nothing to suggest there's any change here - Kemper has always had a pretty realistic feel in these terms. However a guitar sound will be more enjoyable/inspirational if it's a good tonal balance, you could also describe this as "feeling" better, even tho the dynamics/responsiveness hasn't changed - and I think that's what people are describing here. Always a problem with describing any aspect of music, inevitably have to use terms that are a bit amorphous!

Quote from Tony G

I'm a guy who always loved using real amps and for me LP is a game changer. But my reasons for loving it is because it allows me to grab a distorted amp and in a few seconds I can make it creamy and amazing and then morph the gain and it is back to screaming 80's sound and I love that because before we didn't have that kind of control. Also mix matching different amps with tone stacks allows me to create my own boutique amps and I have been getting great results experimenting, it works surprisingly well. And there are more reasons but I don't have time to list them all.

So for me it is a major improvement and remember we are just starting to get good at liquid profiling.

I totally respect your opinion, maybe for you it doesn't have the wow factor it has for me. I can respect that.

All the best to you my friend.

Yes - although I've yet to try it, the reason Liquid Profiling is a game changer (assuming it does work as hoped!!) is for the ability to authentically - and/or non-authentically if you like! - adjust a profile to suit your needs, as opposed to before when there was really only so much you could do it if didn't sounds pretty good already. e.g. if you know how to get a good sound out of a particular real amp, it sounds like you should now be able to do this on a liquid profile of that amp. I think the whole discussion about feel is a bit of a tangent - Kemper haven't claimed any advancements here, and have made it clear the profiling process is no different. Unless they've secretly added some extra "feel ingredient", and for some reason don't want to admit it, then any perceived difference in feel is simply due to being able to dial in a tone that really works for your instrument, and this being more satisfying to play.

Quote from JohnnyBee

The tone stacks of the different channels ARE differrent. That's one of the cool feature of this Amp!

F.e. Channel 1 has a tone stack close to a Fender Amp. Channel 2 a typical Marshall tone stack.

So it would be nice to have the different Channels of this Amp as seperated electable "amps" in the Amp section of the Kemper.

Do you happen to know if the tonestacks for the JS model are the same as for the regular JVM?

I always check the cab character control early on when tweaking a profile, usually reduce it just slightly, tho sometimes is fine as is. Have never set it to a positive value so far - get's too spiky! Sounds like you've reduced it too? You say 0.8 to the left of the dial, so I'm guessing it displays -0.8?

I also routinely increase the cab low shift to 0.2 - most parameters I adjust on a per profile, but this one where I end up with the same value every time. I know technically this is raising the low freq's of the cab slightly, but even tho I like a good amount of bass, to my ears this small increase sounds better both on it's own and in a mix. Not make or break, but once I've set it to 0.2, I never want to go back to 0!

If there are any other parameters you haven't experimented with, try them - they're all useful, even if in small amounts and not every time.

Quote from goldensheaf

People say things like oh tones in the fingers an I dont agree. Im very sensitive to what I play, if i have a sound i dont connect with I can not play. I always feel embarrassed in guitar stores if they hand me a guitar I just dont agree with. I saw a interview with George Lynch saying the same that he can not play for the life of him if he does not have his gear.

Yep, people love to repeat that "tone is in the fingers" line but I think it's more accurate to say the playing style is - as in, yes, Slash is still going to sound like Slash thru a cr*ppy amp - but he's going to sound like Slash with a cr*ppy tone

Orange Rockerverb! I hear the "Orange Overdose" ones work well for it, but are they completely the same? If not, a Rockerverb (dirty channel) one would be great.

Oh, and very carefully set the tone knob on any drive you use! Can sound horrible particularly if it's too high. Of course it all depends, and there are exceptions, but on a tonally well-balanced profile, I always end up reducing the tone somewhat from the default 12-o'clock position - I think somewhere between 35. and 4.5 is generally where I end up.

I find a different drive might work depending on the profile. Green scream, Kemper drive and OCD are my favourites (well actually these are the only drives on the Kemper, the others are distortion or fuzz) . Sometimes one works on one profile, then a different one works better on a different profile of the same amp. Sometimes none sound right! And as said above, drives are usually used to further boost an amp that has some level of distortion already, without altering the sound of the amp too much. Distortion (e.g. DS1/Rat) tend to more completely take over the distortion character, and IMO work better with low gain or clean amps - tho of course any approach can work - but personally I prefer drives combined with an already distorted amp sound.

As for gain ranges to add it to - again, it can vary a lot - I've got some low gain profiles where adding a lot of gain with a drive pedal can result in a great lead sound - or high gain profiles where just a bit extra gain from the pedal is what's needed. Tho often, you might end up deciding you like the sound of the amp/profile better as it is, so don't worry if a drive pedal doesn't always sound good!

A lot of people will suggest (especially on green scream) setting the output level high but keeping the gain low (I think Zakk Wylde does this) - but this will also change the playing dynamics a lot too, could be desirable (even weakly picked notes sounds out clearly for fast playing), but pay attention to whether maybe it ruins the overall feel, e.g. if you want more expression. I prefer to set the gain first, then just add a small amount of volume, just to where it feels more alive and responsive but before it feels too compressed and un-dynamic. You've only got 3 knobs on most pedals tho, so experiment! Save a few different versions and see what approach you like better.

With liquid profiles, I believe the recommended positioning depends on the location of the tonestack in a given amp and/or whether the pre or power amp provide the majority of the distortion.

I've yet to try Liquid, but what I've been doing so far (with "regular" profiles) is using the generic EQ post amp for broad strokes, using a studio EQ in a stomp slot for targeted distortion shaping, and then doing much more detailed EQ in the DAW to finish it all off (another studio EQ, or 2, post amp would also serve).

Liquid profiling will probably change the amount of EQ correction needed (as you can authentically set the amp controls to your liking - so you should be able to do far more with the amp EQ alone without it sounding unnatural) - but I think there will still be a benefit to an additional EQ before the amp to further shape the distortion, and more detailed EQ (after everything else is done) to cut mud/boost sweet spots etc. will always be useful for polishing up any sound.

As far as I can tell from everything I've read/watched/heard on the subject, there's nothing different about how the profile is captured with LQP - if it feels better, I'd say it's as simple as you're finding it easier to dial in a good tone with the new Liquid tonestacks, and a good sound (even just the difference between a bad tonal balance and a good one) does inspire better playing!

While technically, yes, as others have pointed out, in theory you should be able to play with the same speed/accuracy whether unplugged or thru the best amp in the world, nonetheless, in practice, the tone does make a difference. I've noticed this when browsing profiles - when I find one I like, I'll start playing noticeably better - with ones that are tonally way off or whatever, my playing becomes scrappy. I imagine LQP has just made it that much easier to get an inspiring tone.

Quote from yeky83

I'd like to hear ckemper address this too, but practically speaking...

Most amps have distortion driven primarily by either the preamp or power amp.

In case an amp's tonestack is located between pre and power amp stages and it's a preamp distortion amp, you'd set the tonestack to Post.

In case an amp's tonestack is located between pre and power amp stages and it's a power amp distortion amp, you'd set the tonestack to Pre.

And... just checked the manual and it says the same:

✓The position of the tone stack in the signal flow is influenced by the selected Amp Model. For Amp Models of vintage amp designs, which have no master volume control and only power amp distortion, the tone stack is positioned before the distortion stage. For Amp Models of more modern designs that feature a distorting pre-amp stage and a master volume, the tone stack position has been set by the creator of this Liquid Profile. Usually this is the “Post” position. If the PROFILE has been captured with predominantly power amp distortion, the tone stack is positioned “Pre” – that is, before the PROFILER’s distortion stage

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Makes sense. From that quote from the manual though, it suggests the liquid tonestack is simply a custom EQ (with freq's and curves matching the original amp) placed either before or after the Kemper's "Amp" section. Not saying this can't be effective - and as I'm waiting for the official release, I'll of course have to try it before passing judgment - but it does suggest that liquid profiling is still not completely accurately simulating how a real amp reacts to tonestack changes.

The big question I've had since Liquid Profiling was announced is this: with a modeler, the tonestack can be placed anywhere in the modeled signal chain, so (of course depending on the accuracy of the model) should react authentically. With a profile, the captured sound of the amp can't be separated into pre and power amp stages. I'd thought they might have got around this by altering the distortion character of the relevant freq band when turning the corresponding knob, but it sounds like this is not the case. Again, not saying this means it can't still sound good, but it does seem like - at least in theory - a limitation to the accuracy of a Liquid tonestack. But maybe I'm wrong - maybe it is more than simply a custom EQ placed before or after the "Amp" section? Would be great to get a definitive answer here!

Quote from ckemper

I have considered it for a second or two.

But as long as I don't see the community of (digital) guitar amps using parametric equalizers - or even for a better start, graphic equalizers - placed before the amp (!) to sculpture the guitar sound going into the distortion in a very easy way, I have no hope.

Using graphical EQs for that purpose is known since the 80ies, I guess.

Now with digital amps, it is a no-brainer in terms of cabling and noise issues.

But it hasn't made its way in 15 years. Has anyone ever tried it?

I have been waiting for long, that this existing 80ies technology, still present and evolved 'till today, will find a place in the guitar community.

For sure it is possible to further parameterize the tonestack technique from the 1940ies, by using advanced computer technique from the 2000's and todays.

As a player of a digital amp, do you need the technical echoes from the past, but combined with todays technique to improve it, to find your tone? I don't want to sell snake oil to you guys.

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These days, I do routinely place a Studio EQ in a stomp slot - graphic EQ works too of course, but personally I prefer the parametric. Takes a bit of time to set up, carefully chosen freq's and Q's make a lot of difference, but is worth it in any profile that'll be used a lot.

I didn't ever use pre-EQ before using a Kemper tho tbh - I figured I'd just go with the tone of the pickups - however with the Kemper I kind of had to do it in order to deal with the fact that 3rd party profiles are inevitably set up to sound good on someone else's pickups, so some pre-EQ can help alter the tonal balance of the input closer to what was used when the profile was created. Presumably liquid profiles (i.e. being able to set the amp EQ in a realistic way to suit your pickups) will mean this sort of "fixing" is less necessary, but I imagine I will continue using a pre-EQ anyway as another available tone-shaping tool.

btw, ckemper can I ask a specific question about Liquid Profiling:

In cases where an amps tonestack is located between pre and power amp stages, how does a liquid tonestack simulate this?

e.g. say the treble control on such an amp is set very low - this doesn't just lower the volume of the high freq's (as a post-amp EQ would), but it also alters the way the high freq's are subsequently driven by the power amp - so less distortion on them, or at least a different character. So, with a liquid tonestack modelled on such an amp, when you e.g. lower treble, does it also alter the distortion character of these high freq's?

Quote from mtmartin71

Interesting OP. I "want" to make the JCM 800 work for me but I find I much prefer a Super Lead or a modded Marshall sound, like the Friedman BE or JJ sound. I was trying to make some commercial 2203 and 2210 profiles work as the direct versions had all the settings so I could make them into LPs. However, whether it's the CM800 tone stack or the gain taper, anything approaching 7-8 on the gain made it into a wooly mess and nothing sounding like any of the classic sounds of hard rock and metal made with the 800s. Having never really played a real one, is that accurate for how they sound? Is it a case of needing the volume and mid gain to get to a tight and heavy rock sound with them? Not sure.

Have played thru many 800's, tho never owned one as it's not really one of my favorite amps - however it does provide a great workhorse tone, and probably most of the classic rock/metal tones involved a tubescreamer (or similar) upfront which tames the bass and means you don't have to have the gain so high.

Quote from Dynochrome

I wrote:

"appreciated the stock tone stack in the kemper that always seemed to me like everything was in the right place making it more like I was fixing it in the studio rather than that funky tonestack" Intending I like the tonestack because of it's profile "fixing" ability, not so much its function replacing an actual amp tonestack. But of course (as I have wrote ad nauseum) I would take it over the JCM800 one.

Yes, I got that, but I was giving reasons why personally I'd rather have an authentic amp EQ (i.e. a "liquid" tonestack) than the generic one (though it might be useful to have both in series!)

Put it this way - whatever the limitations of a JCM800 tonestack, I've played thru many JCM800's, and have always managed to dial in a useable tone with it's EQ knobs, no matter what type of guitar I've been using. However, most JCM800 profiles I've tried have apparently been captured with the amp's EQ controls quite a way off from where I'd ideally set them, and I've rarely been able to fix this using the generic EQ. Hence why I'd rather have the liquid tonestack. Presuming it works as advertised (like you I'm waiting for the official release) then I should be able to set the tone controls as with the real amp to get a useable basic tone, then refine further with studio EQ or in the DAW as needed. Again, in my experience, the generic EQ is only effective for very small adjustments - and it seems that Kemper have acknowledged this (at last!) by way of developing/releasing liquid profiling.

Quote from Tony G

This is what I'm thinking. I love tinkering with electronics and if you had something like tone stack calculator that can be interfaced with liquid profiling where we can experiment with the values of the resistors and capacitors this could be an incredible tool for electronic tinkerers and ultimately amp builders. You can hear the sound and feel the attack before building the amp and know when you have a winning situation. Has to be worth something to the electronics engineer.

Just a thought...

I don't think that would work, as I don't think it's component level modelling. For component level modeling to work, you'd have to be able to insert it "inside" the profile depending on where it's located in the real amp. As far as I'm aware a profile is not separable into pre and power amp stages (even a direct profile is a capture of the sound of the entire amp).

I'm guessing how a "Liquid" tonestack works is that it not only models the EQ points and curves found on the reference amp, but also alters the gain structure of the profile to simulate, for example, how a tonestack placed before the power amp will alter how each freq range is subsequently driven by the power amp. This is all conjecture of course... in fact if ckemper could shed any light on roughly what's going on under the hood (without giving away any secrets of course;) then it would be very interesting to know.

Quote from Dynochrome

There have been some threads here in the past about where the tone centers are in the "generic" Kemper.

I recall none of them agreed and some users were still trying to find out where they actually were. I can't remember if they were ever "officially" disclosed without going back to those threads

One user JuLai tested/reported:

Bass Shelf 150 Hz (steep)

Mid Peak 600 Hz

Treble Shelf 2400 Hz

Presence Shelf 10000 Hz

So here like you wrote, the presence is much higher than the treble and very different than a JCM800 tonestack (Thank goodness) Like I wrote before, I have no issue with the "stock" tonestack, it's tailored well for guitars.

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I did see a thread where C Kemper replied saying it was no secret and gave the exact EQ points - as I recall they were indeed either very close or exactly the same as you list here.

As for the Kemper's generic tone stack - I do disagree a bit about it being better than most amps. What it is very useful for is, if you find a profile that's been captured with the amp's tone stack pretty close to where you'd set it if you plugged your guitar into it, then the points/curves seem very well chosen to apply a bit of gentle broad-strokes EQ to subtly refine the tone. However, if the original profile is way off tonally, it's not much help in tailoring it to your pickups - I generally find that if you need to apply more than about 0.5 cut or boost (the exception being bass, where bigger cuts do seem to work fine) then it no longer sounds much like a real amp. Which is frustrating, as if you had the actual amp in front of you, you probably would be able to get a good tonal balance with it's EQ knobs. Liquid profiling seems designed to solve this problem - looking forward to trying it out once the official release is ready!

re. the original question - if no-one from Kemper answers, maybe someone with the beta could move the treble and presence knobs in a liquid 800 tonestack around a bit, and see if it sounds like the presence knob is now acting on lower freq's than the treble?

Quote from Dynochrome

I have not tried LP yet as I don't always have good luck with beta versions. I recall there there is a JCM 800 tone stack to choose from? I'm just curious as to how accurate it is to the actual amp. I have a hard to find Marshall manual that shows freq centers for the tone stack. I have surprised a few techs, even ones that have been working on them for 40 years with the info there regarding the EQ . Most people would assume Presence operates at a higher frequency than Treble but in 2204/2104/2202/2103 it's not the case. The only difference between the 50 watt models and the 100 watt 2202/2103 is the Mid center 50 watt is 500hz and the 100 watt 600hz So here is the 100W: Treble 35 dB @ 10kHz Middle 9.5dB@ 600Hz Bass 15dB@ 50Hz (pretty low huh?*) Presence 6dB@ 3kHz. I just wonder if you measured the liquid profile stack how close it would come to this. I have some JCM 800 profiles of my 800s and other 800s and always despised the tonestacks in the actual amp and appreciated the stock tone stack in the kemper that always seemed to me like everything was in the right place making it more like I was fixing it in the studio rather than that funky tonestack. You can of course make the original 800 sound great but often you have to have some odd settings to get it to sound right. Of course I see where some people might want the option ( I have no idea why) but personally you can keep that lousy 800 tonestack in the 800s and I'll take the Kemper one over it any day. When I do try LP I'm going to check it out and although I don't have the equipment to accurately measure the tone centers, I'll know right away how close it is to the "real thing" because choosing an 800 tone stack will make it hard to dial in and easy to make strident.

* It's no wonder that with the bass centered @ 50Hz that the bass control in these amps seems weak as The lowest string on the guitar is like 80 Hz. I never understood why Marshall centered it at 50Hz where there is not much there from an electric guitar at all. Almost more like a shelve.

It is incredible how, across internet forums on any topic, if someone asks a straight question about a specific or technical point they always seem to get inundated with replies from people saying essentially: "I don't need to know this level of detail, so why do you - here's some general advice instead" - so good luck getting a clear answer to this, but it's a good question! Until using Kempers I was under the impression all amp EQ's operated this way, e.g. treble higher than presence - probably because I have mainly used/owned Marshalls - could be other amps do things differently. Also in audio engineering terms, presence generally does refer to the freq's around 3k (or anywhere between about 1k to 5k really), this being the region which helps a sound cut thru thru mix (hence giving it presence!). With the Kemper's generic EQ, presence is clearly higher than treble, so it would be interesting to know if this matches how other amps (than Marshalls) operate, and if, with the Liquid tonestacks, they've switched it around for amps where presence definitely is lower than treble such as the JCM800. Re. the bass centred around 50hz, does your manual say if this is a shelf or bell? Either way, I'd guess it's wide and affects freqs significantly above - maybe they set it low to avoid boosting too much the muddy lower-mids region (250-350hz)? Might be one of the reasons Marshalls sit well in a mix (once high-pass filtered...) btw, I'm usually a big proponent of paragraphs, but have abandoned them here in solidarity

Quote from CelticGibson

If the profile was captured at a sweet spot of gain (where the gain is not set at full) and then you turn the Kemper gain above the perceived max of the profile gain, then the Kemper is guessing what the gain should sound like and it won't sound anything like the amp. Liquid profiles are profiled at max gain setting on the amp and this provides the profiler with an accurate full range of gain for the profile thus allowing you to adjust the gain to any amount within the actual range of the amp while theoretically maintaining authenticity of the amp.

Someone (who has the beta and is familiar with profiling) could quite easily do this test: create a regular profile on whatever they consider the sweet spot of gain - say it's 6.5 - then create a liquid profile (with amp on full gain) and use the Kemper controls to reduce the gain to 6.5 on the resulting liquid profile. Does it sound the same/as good?

Same thing could be tested with respect to the tone knobs - i.e. regular profile with amp's b/m/t knobs at e.g. 6/4/7 (or whatever sounds good) vs. liquid profile (made with amp's b/t/m knobs at noon) and subsequently setting the the Kemper's modeled tonestack to to 6/4/7.

While the general response to LQP seems positive, there do seem to be some mixed reports, especially from people attempting to create their own liquid profiles. The above test(s) would help to demonstrate whether (or not) the modeled tone stacks and gain controls really are accurately replicating what the amp would do. If anyone fancied making a video with these comparisons, I've a feeling it'd get a lot of views!