Kemper Profiling Amplifier Manual page 49

TAKING A PROFILE 49
Please remember to leave a few decibels of headroom in your microphone preamps and the rest of the
signal chain. The test signals can get a bit louder than a regular guitar signal, and might cause clipping in
your signal chain if you don't leave enough headroom. Be sure to watch your level meters while the profil-
ing is in progress, just to be sure there are no overloads.
Press the soft button labeled "Next".
On this page you can inform the KPA whether the sound you want to profile is clean or distorted by press-
ing the appropriate soft buttons. If your reference amp has a clean sound you can set the KPA to "Clean".
In truth, this step isn't strictly necessary; the KPA will detect if the reference amp is clean automatically
during the profiling process. However, if you already know you're profiling a clean amp, setting the KPA to
"Clean" before you begin profiling will ensure that no extremely loud signals are sent to the reference amp.
Why might you want to do this? Remember, a clean amplifier has a wider dynamic range than a distorted
amp (because amp distortion also has a compressing effect), so pressing "Clean" can save your monitoring
equipment and your ears. To profile a distorted sound, press — you guessed it — "Distorted". You can also
use the EQ in this page to further shape the sound of the reference amp before you start profiling.
As soon as you select "Start profiling", the KPA will send measurement signals (those weird sounds we
talked about at the beginning of this guide) to the reference amp.
Refining the profile
What if the profile isn't perfect? Maybe the characteristics of the distortion behavior don't match exactly,
or perhaps some frequency ranges are more prominent than others? In these rare cases, never fear! If the
automatic profiling process was unable to catch all the nuances of the reference amp, you can use the "Re-
fine profile" function.
Simply press "Refine profile" and play your guitar for about 20 seconds. This is no time for a meaningful
solo - you need to play several chords, with attitude! This will generate intermodulation in the distortion
that the KPA needs to do its refining. In particular, you may find that slightly crunchy sounds will benefit
from the Refine profile process. Be sure to strum especially hard so that the KPA has a chance to analyze
the transients.