Tone controls on the kemper for bass guitarists

    This a quote from a mail I received from user Sam61. Thought it was quite interesting and worth sharing his views with Kemper Amplifiers and all you forum members. What do you think?


    QUOTE STARTS:
    Hi,
    I fear that the basic bass mid treble and presence are not set up for bass. For this reason they are not effective for bass players. If kemper could make the centre frequency andQ adjustable for the bass mid treble and presence controls then the amp would see a significant improvement from bass players. I appreciate that you can call up a eq from the stop section but this is somewhat long winded and frustrating to get to. Most bass players are use to having basic eq at their fingertips. It is the first level of crafting your basic bass sound and for this reason, the basic bass mid treble and presence should be more responsive and useable to bass players.
    QUOTE ENDS

    IIRC Eng. Kemper himself said in an interview they would release a tonestack collection in the future, but never talked about profiling it, which was a wish from some users instead.


    I'm pretty sure the possibility of mimicking the real TSs and their interaction with the Profiler's knobs would make many Americans drool

    Nice. Wasn't aware this was something on Kemper Amplifiers' radar. I suppose it's similar to the idea of not using certain guitar pedals for bass and certain bass pedals for guitar.


    At the same time, sometimes you can get interesting results that are counter-intuitive to the assumption that never the twain shall meet.


    Some sort of selectable tonestack then?

    The original idea was to provide "all" the possible kinds of TSs as available on different amp designs (you know, where tones are placed in the signal chain, how the knobs interact with each other and the like. Kemper tonestack's knobs do not interact at all, BTW).
    So the idea should be that you can choose to use the KTS or the original one when you adopt a certain amp's profile by just loading a TS preset, in order for the profile to react to knobs tweaking the way the reference amp would.
    This was long before the bass was even mentioned as a fair client for the Profiler tho

    Quote from viabcroce

    The original idea was to provide "all" the possible kinds of TSs as available on different amp designs (you know, where tones are placed in the signal chain, how the knobs interact with each other and the like. Kemper tonestack's knobs do not interact at all, BTW).
    So the idea should be that you can choose to use the KTS or the original one when you adopt a certain amp's profile by just loading a TS preset, in order for the profile to react to knobs tweaking the way the reference amp would.
    This was long before the bass was even mentioned as a fair client for the Profiler tho


    I never really got the point of storing and recalling TS's as why would you want a tone stack you set for a JCM800 to be recalled for a Mesa Rect. These two amps sound totally different so no doubt you would have to alter the recalled tone stack anyway, or am I missing something

    Quote from Raoul23

    I never really got the point of storing and recalling TS's as why would you want a tone stack you set for a JCM800 to be recalled for a Mesa Rect. These two amps sound totally different so no doubt you would have to alter the recalled tone stack anyway, or am I missing something


    Actually it would be not for a Mesa-ization of a JCM800 but more for the controls of a JCM800 rig to work exactly like their real world counterparts.
    I remember that especially in the beginning Kemper took a lot of flak from mainly AxeFx users how it wouldn't be the same with generic controls like on the Kemper.
    This was before they heard the profiler in person.

    This. It would not be a matter of recalling EQ settings, but rather the original TS hardware configuration (like modelling a pedal).
    When you profile an amp, you don't "inherit" the way its TS works: as I wrote, the tone controls on the Profiler have no interaction, which is only one of the possible TS designs.
    My Lonestar Special manual, for example, reads that the Treble knob's position influences the Mids and Bass curves you get when you tweak the related knobs. You would not be able to reproduce this behaviour (hence having the profile actually mimick the profiled amp outside the Profiled TS setting) when tweaking the Profiler's tone controls.


    The actual "OP" of this thread asked me to post this:


    [QUOTE STARTS]
    I noticed that looking at some of the responses to my suggestion it looks like the point I am trying to get across is slipping away. This pont being that the kemper tone stack does not cater for bass guitarists ! the Q factor and centre frequencies have been hard wired or set just for guitar. This poses a major fundamental issue for bass players.I don't think that the eq or tone stack has to be for any specific bass pre amp. This would be a welcomed luxury but not a show stopper. However sculpting my bass sound with a guitar preamp tone setting will not yield the standard solid bass sounds available on any decent bass amp. As a bass player, I would like to be able to sculpt my bass sound using the basic bass mid treble and presence controls (for bass). I really feel strongly about this and I think Kemper needs to take this seriously if they want to be serious contenders in the bass amp market. You should not have to trawl through layers of menus to action this elementary task. It is a great oversight on their part but not one that cannot be corrected with a software update.


    Hope that this makes sense?


    Sam[END QUOTE]



    I think this would be a great idea. When long-pressing the EQ button, we get the option of selecting either pre- or post position. It would be easy to also be able to select a "generic" bass tone stack. That would then have to be done for each profile, but still a step in the right direction. Otherwise, maybe it could be tied in with the "clean sense preset" or something, since that is probably something you'd setup for each instrument individually.

    Quote from Ingolf

    I understand where the OP is coming from. Makes total sense.



    OP? Hehe....


    I was just playing with you, everything that was said was thought up by me... Now grovel before me, you sinners, you scum...


    This "switchable" tone stack makes sense to me. I'm just wondering whether it's possible to accurately mimic the controls on a bass or other amplifier. It would have to be something akin to profiling in the first place, which means plenty of things to be done to "make it so", as Jean Fluke Retard would say

    Not necessarily, because there are limited ways a TS can be designed (apart from special switches/control). It's possible that this variety is even more limited in bass amps, just because bass players have to be less obsesswd by tone than giutarists

    Christoff what do you think?


    My (OP) thoughts re the need for bass mid Treble and presence for bass players needs are every strong. I would love to know your thoughts.
    Sam

    Now that we have a flag to indicate that a rig is intended for bass, it would be nice if the base-frequencies used in the algorithms to manipulate tone and presence would automatically be adjusted accordingly whenever a bass-rig is active.

    Hi,


    This would be a good idea but there would have to be clear definitions as to what constituted a bass setup. I think that when creating a pre-set setup there should be an option to select tone stack for bass or guitar. Automatic selection depending on whether a bass stack was selected would safe a lot of time for users indeed.


    At the moment there is no option for bass players and as a result, trying to get basic descent bass setups which would rival other bass amp manufactures is not so straight forward. This is a serious issue and Kemper needs to consider this in their future updates. I guess that they are working on something right now!


    Sam