Who's making the best Kemper packs for high gain?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Spaceboy
  • Start date Start date
Spaceboy

Spaceboy

Well-known member
I finally snagged a Kemper and want to start out the gate with some A+ quality profiles. It should be here in a couple days. I don't mind spending a little bit of cash. I definitely need Recto patches and Mark IV, both DI for use with a guitar cab, and studio for recording. I guess I could buy DI only and use IRs for recording since I got tons of good ones, OH, ML, etc. I see Choptones gets mentioned a lot, some of the others I see touted seem to be more old school tones, like TopJimi and ToneJunkie. STL seem to have some by big names like Will Putney, Lammert and others but the few comments on those I've found online don't sound like they might be the best option. Where are you Kemper dudes getting your favorite profiles lately?
 
I think the GGD stuff is the best Ive heard so far. I have their rev f rec, block letter and i think a 5150 III from them. I also have some mark profiles im not sure who they're from, to me they don't sound anything like the real amps they're missing all the magic of the graphic EQ that the real amps have. Id put some money into IRs too, they make a way bigger difference tonally vs the amp profiles.

The guy from whitechapel has some good sounding profile but i haven't heard them in real life. I think his company is called Titan audio project.
 
Profiles are a huge rabbit hole and you can easily spend more money than you've spent on your Kemper chasing tones / trying out profiles.

I haven't cared for the most of the STL stuff, I personally feel like its pretty damn overpriced, the only people ever posting about the STL packs that I see are the pack makers or other people that work for STL. The Mark Lewis pack is the only one I've heard samples of not made by STL that have made me consider buying.

GGD is great for modern metal styles, might be best to wait for a sale since the coupons they offer are pretty sweet.

I would recommend starting with grabbing all of the packs Kemper released packs using Rig Exchange and trying out those. Then joining the Kemper Profiling Amp / KPA User Group on Facebook, search for the community pack, download it and then you have a bunch of starter profiles that give you a general idea about the different profile makers. Rig Exchange has a ton of great profiles, its just completely overwhelming with regards to quantity of things to check out. I would hold off buying anything until you've tested some free profiles first.
 
Okay dudes, reporting back after spending a few bucks on some popular packs. I paid for mostly Rectifier profiles from LiveReadySound, ReampZone, SinMix, Stymphalian, ToneJunkie, and ToneCrate. These are all okay after tweaking fairly extensively, but honestly at first I was getting discouraged. I was hoping the Kemper would be a little more plug and play than other modelers, load up a patch from a trusted name and hit the ground running, but that's not true in most cases. I will say the Badlander pack from ToneCrate was the best of the paid bunch for instant gratification when it comes to medium/high gain. The others are usable and I'm going to spend more time with them, both mixing into tracks at home and through a cabinet with the band. The Matchless DC30 pack from ToneJunkie is also nearly perfect for low gain and cleans. I barely have to tweak anything and these nail what my old (regrettably sold) HC30 did. If I spend more money on profiles, it's probably going to be with ToneCrate (I'm on their subscription now) and ToneJunkie for lower gain. I'm very impressed with what those two guys are offering.

I did search through rig exchange for some free profiles before going down the rabbit hole. There is so many AWFUL profiles on there that it gets extremely tedious and time consuming to find one that works. But, even though it takes effort, the best Recto and general medium/high gain profiles I've found so far are free on the exchange. I'm LOVING the multi-watt Recto and JP2C profiles from Bjorn Gottfridsson, and the Splawn QR profiles from our own JerEvil. JerEvil's profiles include DI and studio versions of almost every profile, which is so appreciated because simply defeating the cabinet on a studio profile doesn't sound exactly the same. I can't wait to crank up these Splawn sims with my band. I do wish more profilers creators out there were offering DI versions. You might 2-3 DI out of a big pack of profiles in most cases, and that's it.

It was rocky for the first couple of days, but I'm settling into what the Kemper can do. I briefly owned and recorded an EP with one probably 8+ years back, but never really gave it much attention because it seemed too complicated. I've been looking for a "do it all" head this past year but can't seem to move on from a Dual Rec for 90% of what I do despite sometimes getting tired of that specific tonal character and necessary volume that accompanies getting to sound good. Since this Kemper is powered, I've got high hopes for it to be that "do it all" solution since the effects are also more than capable of my meager needs. I'll give this thing a couple more weeks before I grab the foot controller. I can be a bit of a caveman and don't want to take on learning too much at once, haha.

I tend to have low patience with digital products. Thanks for the tips on where to look, and keeping me from giving up too early.
 
So to buy that Tonecrate Badlander you have to subscribe? I was just looking at their site now after reading your post. I didn't see an option to just buy that profile.
 
Yeah, its a monthly subscription service where you get a pack a month. Also allows you access to their vault where you can buy old packs too... I don't like their model, tbh
 
Spaceboy said:
Okay dudes, reporting back after spending a few bucks on some popular packs. I paid for mostly Rectifier profiles from LiveReadySound, ReampZone, SinMix, Stymphalian, ToneJunkie, and ToneCrate. These are all okay after tweaking fairly extensively, but honestly at first I was getting discouraged. I was hoping the Kemper would be a little more plug and play than other modelers, load up a patch from a trusted name and hit the ground running, but that's not true in most cases. I will say the Badlander pack from ToneCrate was the best of the paid bunch for instant gratification when it comes to medium/high gain. The others are usable and I'm going to spend more time with them, both mixing into tracks at home and through a cabinet with the band. The Matchless DC30 pack from ToneJunkie is also nearly perfect for low gain and cleans. I barely have to tweak anything and these nail what my old (regrettably sold) HC30 did. If I spend more money on profiles, it's probably going to be with ToneCrate (I'm on their subscription now) and ToneJunkie for lower gain. I'm very impressed with what those two guys are offering.

I did search through rig exchange for some free profiles before going down the rabbit hole. There is so many AWFUL profiles on there that it gets extremely tedious and time consuming to find one that works. But, even though it takes effort, the best Recto and general medium/high gain profiles I've found so far are free on the exchange. I'm LOVING the multi-watt Recto and JP2C profiles from Bjorn Gottfridsson, and the Splawn QR profiles from our own JerEvil. JerEvil's profiles include DI and studio versions of almost every profile, which is so appreciated because simply defeating the cabinet on a studio profile doesn't sound exactly the same. I can't wait to crank up these Splawn sims with my band. I do wish more profilers creators out there were offering DI versions. You might 2-3 DI out of a big pack of profiles in most cases, and that's it.

It was rocky for the first couple of days, but I'm settling into what the Kemper can do. I briefly owned and recorded an EP with one probably 8+ years back, but never really gave it much attention because it seemed too complicated. I've been looking for a "do it all" head this past year but can't seem to move on from a Dual Rec for 90% of what I do despite sometimes getting tired of that specific tonal character and necessary volume that accompanies getting to sound good. Since this Kemper is powered, I've got high hopes for it to be that "do it all" solution since the effects are also more than capable of my meager needs. I'll give this thing a couple more weeks before I grab the foot controller. I can be a bit of a caveman and don't want to take on learning too much at once, haha.

I tend to have low patience with digital products. Thanks for the tips on where to look, and keeping me from giving up too early.
Click to expand...
Man I came to tell you to grab my Spawn profiles! LOL!

Glad you dig them. I am literally going to buy another Kemper just to have them. I'd say SinMix, Stymphalian, ReAmpZone and Deadlight are the ones I used them most when NOT using my own profiles.
 
errrrrl said:
So to buy that Tonecrate Badlander you have to subscribe? I was just looking at their site now after reading your post. I didn't see an option to just buy that profile.
Click to expand...
Yup. You have to subscribe for $17 a month which can be cancelled anytime, but you can buy older packs once you're subscribed. The older packs are all around $35, which is a bit steep, IMO. You could subscribe for the Badlander pack and immediately unsubscribe. The guy is releasing the next pack this weekend, and after that you won't be able to get the Badlander until it's in the vault for a higher price. I'm not a fan of their model either, but I thought the Badlander was worth my $17 and I'm going to stick on board for at least the weekend to see how the net pack sits with me.
 
So I have an AXE 3 and have owned pretty much every Fractal piece of gear for the last 10+ years. I have never found a patch that sounded good to me. Maybe some of the effects or the effects routing was gleaned from user patches but never the whole thing. Even Steve Stevens created some patches and I didn't gel one bit with them and Steve Stevens always has incredible tone.

I have been thinking of dabbling into the Kemper but is this basically the same from what I am hearing in the above posts. I am familiar with the Top Jimmie stuff and watched many videos of his stuff online and they sound incredible but how do these patches translate to the normal user? Somewhat Ehhh or awesome?

Thoughts
 
rm5153 said:
So I have an AXE 3 and have owned pretty much every Fractal piece of gear for the last 10+ years. I have never found a patch that sounded good to me. Maybe some of the effects or the effects routing was gleaned from user patches but never the whole thing. Even Steve Stevens created some patches and I didn't gel one bit with them and Steve Stevens always has incredible tone.

I have been thinking of dabbling into the Kemper but is this basically the same from what I am hearing in the above posts. I am familiar with the Top Jimmie stuff and watched many videos of his stuff online and they sound incredible but how do these patches translate to the normal user? Somewhat Ehhh or awesome?

Thoughts
Click to expand...
The Top Jimi stuff I used was great just playing at home. Through a power amp/cab I hated them. Harsh.
 
Spaceboy said:
Yup. You have to subscribe for $17 a month which can be cancelled anytime, but you can buy older packs once you're subscribed. The older packs are all around $35, which is a bit steep, IMO. You could subscribe for the Badlander pack and immediately unsubscribe. The guy is releasing the next pack this weekend, and after that you won't be able to get the Badlander until it's in the vault for a higher price. I'm not a fan of their model either, but I thought the Badlander was worth my $17 and I'm going to stick on board for at least the weekend to see how the net pack sits with me.
Click to expand...
Thanks, I may just sub for this month then to grab that Badlander and whatever comes this weekend. Thanks for the info!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top