MODERN PACK – 74 Profiles

The Modern Pack is a collection of modern boutique type amps.  The profiles are "studio profiles" meaning they are the full profile with amp, cab, and mic captured. They are suitable for studio or live use.  There are plenty of high gain sounds in this pack from some of the popular L.A.-based builders' latest amps.  There are also some modern EL84 tones from simple, but toneful 2 and 3 knob circuits, custom made for today's modern country and Paisley's chicken-pickin'.  There are also some modern versions of older amps like tweed and pawnshop classics, as well as a couple more thick, creamy d-type amp sounds ranging from Ford to SRV.  There is also a couple of Britain's new smaller amps that can have surprisingly big sounds thanks to the Kemper.

The Modern Pack contains profiles made with the 3.0 firmware and must be used with firmware 3.0 or higher.  Scroll down for sound clips of the profiles.

Profile Pack 1 (60 profiles) seeks to recreate* a collection of boutique and vintage amps from my personal collection as well as contributions from my friends (thanks guys!).  They cover a variety of styles, from clean sounds that stay warm and full (also great for pedalboard-based set ups) to mid-gain and lead gain British sounds.  Some of these profiles have been the basis for my live presets for the past couple of years and sound great in the studio as my session buddies can attest as well.

Below are sound samples from 40 out of the 60 profiles included in the Kemper Profile Pack.  I will also include a few other variations of some of the amps, but these should give a good idea of the profile sounds. All of the snippets below were played on my red Anderson Cobra with 3 P90's.  All of the clips below were recorded directly into ProTools 10 thru a Propellerhead Balance interface.  There is no eq, compression, or plug-in on these tracks.  Please excuse the sloppiness and tuning.

Scroll down below for sound clips

The Diaz CD100 is one of those amps you don't see every day.  The CD100 is a 100w beast based (a little) on the high powered tweed twins but with added reverb and some pull knob options for getting unique higher gain tones.  It stays bluesy no matter where it is (since Cesar Diaz was SRV's guitar tech), but can cover a great range of tones from country cleans to searing lead tones.  You can see why this is one of Warren Haynes' go-to amps.  I had a CD100 for many years on the road and eventually parted ways but I found another recently to bring those tones back to my KPA.  These profiles cover many of the amp settings along with some gain pedals in front.

Diaz Pack requires 3.0 firmware and while most amps were profiled using my trusty 3rd Power cabinet, the new separation algorithms make it easier to get more great sounds by switching to your favorite cabs as well.  These clips were recording into ProTools 10 using a Propellerhead Balance interface with no plug-ins or processing using my red Tom Anderson Cobra with 3 P90s (pictured above).  Check out the soundclips below and as usual please excuse the sloppy playing...

Although not widely known, these amps are loved by the few that stumble upon them, including Jon Herrington, from Steely Dan's band.  They are truly unique in that they use two complete sets of power tubes (el84 & el34) in series.  This gives the amp it's unique tone and lots of options for tone tailoring.

The two-channel amp has basic controls for each channel (gain, volume, and tone) and then the 100w el34 power section has an entire eq section, not just a master volume and presence knob.  I highly recommend you check them out in person if you can.  Graydon at Guytron was kind enough to get mine up and running after the 2010 Nashville flood to which it fell victim.  I think it sounds better than ever now.  I tried to get a variety of tones from shimmering cleans to over-saturated lead tones.  Check them out.

One of the early boutique amp builders, Jim Kelley created some amazing amps used by Vince Gill, Bonnie Raitt, Lee Ritenour, and others.  There were only about 600 made so they're still pretty rare and though they don't fetch Dumble prices yet, they are amazing amps and built to last forever.  I profiled this tan 210 combo.

With all the pull knobs and two channels and proprietary power attenuator, there are a lot of possible settings and I couldn't possibly get to them all, but I tried to get some great usable tones from clean to crunch to saturated solo sounds.