Kemper alternatives

[Daimonicon]

Tried the TH-U and said it is converted kemper profiles also. Well...it doesn't sound like a kemper in any way. It sounded okey but nothing more.

[bmanic]

I'm really liking TH-U lately. I caved and bought the whole premium thing as I didn't have any decent amp sim for my Mac M1 Mini.

kelvin feeding Boogex.

Not a bad idea at all! I do use Kelvin as a preamp/stomp box thing quite often. It's awesome!

[bmanic]

Tried the TH-U and said it is converted kemper profiles also. Well...it doesn't sound like a kemper in any way. It sounded okey but nothing more.

What you read is probably that you can buy the Choptones captures for both Kemper and TH-U (for that rig thing).. and in those cases it's pretty close in tone.

My main gripe with Kemper is that it all sounds a bit congested/compressed. I did try to capture a few of our amps at the studio but it didn't succeed as well as I had hoped, so I didn't end up buying one just yet. Been eyeing the Neural DSP thing but apparently it too has it's own issues.

EDIT: Here you can clearly hear that TH-U has that same slightly congested/compressed feel just like the Kemper, when compared to the real amp. That smooth open, non-compressed feel is so difficult for any amp sims to get correct. Axe FX seems to be the closest that I've tried so far but it does need a fair bit of tweaking.

EDIT2: I should add that this is obviously nitpicking. No normal dude(tte) walking on the street would ever hear any difference within a mix.. nor would they care.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nWtvqwguqE

[bmanic]

I like the TH-U rig libraries, but the non-rig amps and cabinets just don't do it for me. Though I've only got the cut down version with the clean amps.

Totally agree. The non-rig amps do not sound all that good.. tho I have used them successfully for "weird" stuff. But for normal guitar tones, they are pretty underwhelming. The Rig libraries is where it's at, definitely.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

One little "trick" I use to liven up ITB guitars is to use TDR's Nova (will work with any dynamic EQ) to simulate cab dynamics. I'll expand the low frequencies and do a very narrow notch on high mids that only dips when the lows are being expanded. The idea is that this is replicating the forwad/backwards movement of the speaker cone and the air that gets pushed. It gives a subtle, but IMO, realistic motion to ITB guitars.

The exact frequencies and depth gets tweaked for each track but here's a TDR Nova GE preset that I use as my jumping off point. Just copy the below to clipboard and paste into Nova GE if you have it.

Code: Select all

<TDRNovaGE bandSelected_1="Off" bandActive_1="Off" bandGain_1="0.0" bandQ_1="0.50" bandFreq_1="50" bandType_1="Bell" bandSCQ_1="0.50" bandSCFreq_1="50" bandSCType_1="Linked" bandDynDirection_1="Above T" bandDynLookahead_1="Off" bandDynActive_1="Off" bandDynThreshold_1="0.0" bandDynRatio_1="2.0" bandDynSplit_1="On" bandDynAttack_1="20" bandDynReleaseType_1="Dynamic" bandDynRelease_1="200" bandSelected_2="Off" bandActive_2="On" bandGain_2="0.0" bandQ_2="0.60" bandFreq_2="159" bandType_2="Bell" bandSCQ_2="0.60" bandSCFreq_2="120" bandSCType_2="Linked" bandDynDirection_2="Above T" bandDynLookahead_2="Off" bandDynActive_2="On" bandDynThreshold_2="-12.5" bandDynRatio_2="0.7" bandDynSplit_2="On" bandDynAttack_2="10" bandDynReleaseType_2="Static" bandDynRelease_2="102" bandSelected_3="Off" bandActive_3="Off" bandGain_3="-1.1" bandQ_3="0.60" bandFreq_3="398" bandType_3="Bell" bandSCQ_3="0.60" bandSCFreq_3="340" bandSCType_3="Linked" bandDynDirection_3="Above T" bandDynLookahead_3="Off" bandDynActive_3="Off" bandDynThreshold_3="0.0" bandDynRatio_3="2.0" bandDynSplit_3="On" bandDynAttack_3="5.0" bandDynReleaseType_3="Dynamic" bandDynRelease_3="160" bandSelected_4="Off" bandActive_4="Off" bandGain_4="0.0" bandQ_4="0.70" bandFreq_4="1200" bandType_4="Bell" bandSCQ_4="0.70" bandSCFreq_4="1200" bandSCType_4="Linked" bandDynDirection_4="Above T" bandDynLookahead_4="Off" bandDynActive_4="Off" bandDynThreshold_4="0.0" bandDynRatio_4="2.0" bandDynSplit_4="On" bandDynAttack_4="4.0" bandDynReleaseType_4="Dynamic" bandDynRelease_4="100" bandSelected_5="On" bandActive_5="On" bandGain_5="-0.4" bandQ_5="5.88" bandFreq_5="3000" bandType_5="Bell" bandSCQ_5="0.41" bandSCFreq_5="3200" bandSCType_5="Linked" bandDynDirection_5="Above T" bandDynLookahead_5="Off" bandDynActive_5="On" bandDynThreshold_5="-13.7" bandDynRatio_5="2.0" bandDynSplit_5="On" bandDynAttack_5="2.0" bandDynReleaseType_5="Dynamic" bandDynRelease_5="50" bandSelected_6="Off" bandActive_6="Off" bandGain_6="0.0" bandQ_6="1.07" bandFreq_6="6000" bandType_6="High S" bandSCQ_6="1.07" bandSCFreq_6="6000" bandSCType_6="Linked" bandDynDirection_6="Above T" bandDynLookahead_6="Off" bandDynActive_6="Off" bandDynThreshold_6="0.0" bandDynRatio_6="2.0" bandDynSplit_6="On" bandDynAttack_6="1.0" bandDynReleaseType_6="Dynamic" bandDynRelease_6="25" hpSelected_master="Off" hpActive_master="On" hpFreq_master="80" hpType_master="12dB/oct" lpSelected_master="Off" lpActive_master="Off" lpFreq_master="30000" lpType_master="24dB/oct" bandGain_wide="0.0" bandDynActive_wide="Off" bandDynThreshold_wide="0.0" bandDynRatio_wide="1.5" bandDynAttack_wide="8.0" bandDynDirection_wide="Above T" bandDynLookahead_wide="Off" bandDynReleaseType_wide="Dynamic" bandDynRelease_wide="200" bypass_master="Off" delta_master="Off" dryMix_master="0.0" gain_master="0.0" eqAutoGainParam="On" qualityParam="Precise-" channelsParam="Stereo" analyzerModeParam="Analyzer: Off" displayEqRangeParam="-/+ 12 dB" displayFFTRangeParam="48 dB" sidechainModeParam="Int SC" filterModeParam="Musical" fixedLatencyParam="Off" analyzerSpeedParam="Normal"/>

[Ploki]

I'm really liking TH-U lately. I caved and bought the whole premium thing as I didn't have any decent amp sim for my Mac M1 Mini.

kelvin feeding Boogex.

Not a bad idea at all! I do use Kelvin as a preamp/stomp box thing quite often. It's awesome!

it's great for cleans and drives.
extra kicker is widener

One little "trick" I use to liven up ITB guitars is to use TDR's Nova (will work with any dynamic EQ) to simulate cab dynamics. I'll expand the low frequencies and do a very narrow notch on high mids that only dips when the lows are being expanded. The idea is that this is replicating the forwad/backwards movement of the speaker cone and the air that gets pushed. It gives a subtle, but IMO, realistic motion to ITB guitars

good idea.
I add a compressor (single or multi) before cab to simulate power amp choking on palm mutes