The PROFILER™ has been pretty quickly adopted by a lot of renowned Bass players and their feature requests have helped the company to now offer the perfect solution for bass amp substitution for authentic playing feel, dynamics and creative sound design for all things electric bass. The PROFILER is already played by bassists in the studio, at rehearsal and live from club gigs to the biggest arena shows the world over.
Just to name a few bass players who rely already on the tone and versatility of the PROFILER:
Muse’s Christopher Wolstenholme, Pino Palladino touring with NIN, Filter’s Phil Buckman, Faith No More’s Billy Gould, Garth Brooks’ Mark Greenwood, Tony Levin with the King Crimson Project and Peter Gabriel as well as Trivium’s Paolo Gregoletto and many more.
The PROFILER now features numerous bass PROFILEs in the factory Rig content, including excellent direct profiles taken from the DI output of the bass amps. Additionally, of course players will like the mildly distorted PROFILEs taken from tube-driven bass amps and speakers, captured by microphone.
In addition to the factory content, we have also released special Rig packs containing excellent complete Rigs for bass. These are available from the our download page. Players should also be sure to check out the KEMPER Rig Exchange™ webpage to download Rigs by other users, or even share their own. In the KEMPER Rig Manager™ software the bass Rigs can easily be identified by right clicking the top row, selecting the column ‘Instrument’ and then sorting by this column.
Low end connectivity guide
Bass players are free to use any kind of bass cabinet for monitoring the PROFILER on stage or in the rehearsal room. Modern bass cabinets typically have a neutral sound character like PA cabinets do, while classic bass cabinets, e.g. the famous Ampeg 8 x 10” cabinet, tend to color the sound. When monitoring through a bass cabinet that colors the sound, to avoid a double coloration the CabDriver™ should be engaged by setting “Monitor Cab Off” in the Output Section. Still the complete simulation, including virtual cabinets is available simultaneously for the mixing desk from the MAIN OUTPUTS, so no microphone is required. When using a neutral cabinet the cabinet simulation for the monitoring signal should be activated.
The built-in 600 Watt power amplifier of the PROFILER PowerHead™ and PROFILER PowerRack™ provides plenty of power to cut through a band during rehearsal or in live situations with drums.
Bass signals going separate ways
For the classic amp plus DI procedure the PROFILER features a built-in analog splitter box. The DIRECT OUTPUT feeds the unprocessed bass signal to a mixing desk or recording device while the MAIN OUTPUTS carry the processed signal in stereo. Selecting “Git Analog” as the source for the DIRECt OUTPUT in the Output Section avoids unnecessary analog/digital conversions for the DIRECt OUTPUT.
“Parallel Path” finally is a feature designed for bass players in particular. When a bass is played through a distorting amplifier or a distortion pedal, the bass can lose some of the fundamental frequencies as well as some dynamic range. To compensate for this, a parallel feed of the undistorted bass signal can be created, and then mixed back to the processed signal path. In his case, Module A and B are moved to the parallel path, e.g. for compressing or equalizing the parallel signal.
The PROFILER features many stomp and studio effects that are suitable for bass, and some have even been tailored for bass players. Below is a brief description of selected features.
Analog Octaver is a classic effect originally intended for bass.
Pitch Shifter types for different intervals and colors. The Pitch Shifter allows for polyphonic playing, including chords.
Formant Freeze and Formant Shift possibilities in some Pitch Shifter FXs. Although restricted to monophonic playing only, shifting the characteristic formants of the bass will provide a whole new character for the instrument, while remaining very authentic.
To extend the passive equalizer in the Stack Section (EQ) for even more flexibility shaping the bass sound, the PROFILER provides a number of equalizers. In particular, the 4-band parametric Studio Equalizer is extremely flexible and well suited for bass.
Every chorus type FX features the “X-Over” (crossover) parameter, inspired by specialized bass chorus units. Raising the value of “X-Over” shields the lower frequencies from the effect of the chorus modulation, thus giving the sound a stable bottom-end.
