Elizabeth Day's Kemper Profiler Stage on the job.
Modeling meets profiling in Kemper’s latest Liquid Profiling OS, and lures a busy session and studio player into a brave new world of sonic control.
Making the switch to a Kemper Profiler was a very personal decision for me, and so many factors went into it. In my earlier professional life, I considered myself a devout lover of tube amps and had invested in an extensive and well-built pedalboard featuring the effects I loved and trusted. I would bring a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe on trailer/bus tours, or fly with my pedalboard as checked luggage and backline different amps. For local shows, I’d lug my gear around and consider the venture a mixture of playing music and going to the gym.
Then, in 2017, I’d rented a room up two flights of stairs, and I’d just finished several international tours with various artists. I was nursing a chronic overuse injury in my left arm, and was becoming frustrated with the inconsistencies I experienced at different venues, caused by humidity, temperature, room size, audience, gear lost by an airline, etc. I’d fortunately hit a point of financial stability where splurging on a solution seemed practical. Friends and players I respect were talking about switching to Kemper’s fully digital approach. I’m grateful that I did the same thing. Although I still have my pedalboard and tube amps, I use my Kemper Profiler Stage on every gig that I can.
Until Kemper’s recent free OS 10.0 update—which includes the company’s new breakthrough, Liquid Profiling—I’d been a fairly simple user. I’d primarily downloaded my favorite rigs from friends whose ears I trust (fellow Nashville guitarists Mike Britt and Chris Reynolds) and tweaked them to my own specs and gig needs. But intrigued by the idea of a new OS that blended modeling with profiling, which would essentially provide all the sonic controls and bandwidth of the amps profiled inside the Kemper, I recently dived into profiling.
“All the important factors—gain, treble, mids, bass, etc.—are fully controllable as you gig or record.”
To my surprise, it was fairly easy. First, I learned the system’s original method for profiling. Basically, you find a favorite tone on the amp you’re profiling, plug a guitar into the Kemper’s front input jack, mike up the amp, and run that mic line to the Kemper’s return jack. Then you complete the loop by running a cable from the amp’s input jack to the Kemper’s 1/4" send jack. (For Kemper Stage users, like me, this will require a male XLR to TRS adaptor.) The Kemper’s LCD screen gives you step-by-step instructions. You follow them, refine, and play—A/B listening with headphones, until the Kemper nails the exact sound you want. When you initialize the profiling process on the Kemper, it sends test tones through the amp, retrieves the sonic properties of the amp’s setting, and saves a snapshot of the amp’s properties that you can call up when you’re rocking.
Once I had that down, I learned that the process had to change a little bit in OS 10.0 to take advantage of Liquid Profiling. Instead of capturing an amp’s sweet spot, you capture the amp with all the settings at noon—actually about 5.5 on the amp I used, which has typical dial markings of 1 to 10 . Then, from Kemper’s extensive menu of tone stacks, you choose the most desirable one to pair with the profile. That allows for the amp’s entire sonic profile to be digitally recreated within the Kemper, rather than just one sweet spot. After that, it’s a matter of using the Kemper’s dials just as you would that original amp’s. This means all the important factors—gain, treble, mids, bass, etc.—are fully controllable as you gig or record.
My newly acquired profiling skills are already paying off, since I can now bring the versatility and flexibility of my Hot Rod Deluxe with me anywhere, and my Kemper lets me engage with gain and EQ settings in an organic way—an improvement over the old operating system’s limitation of engaging in only one set-in-stone tone stack. There are a few other new developments with this update, too, including USB recording and a user app for Android phones.
My Kemper Stage sounded great before, but unless you’re a player who tends to set-and-forget after profiling, it didn’t quite nail the feel of a real amp. Now, with Liquid Profiling bridging the worlds of modeling and profiling, the nail’s been hit squarely on the head.
The Third Man Records songstress shows off the lovely Fender and Gretsch "girls" that are her go-tos for eerie garage-rock and psych-pop tones.
While Olivia Jean used a Fender Player Jaguar for recording most of 2019’s Night Owl, this lovely, pink-sparkle Fender Parallel Universe Volume II Maverick Dorado will do the road work when touring returns. The gifted reissue features a custom paint job—mirroring the Night Owl cover—was done by Fender’s Jay Nelson and the build was overseen by Chip Ellis at the Fender Custom Shop. And she calls this beauty the “Holly Grail.” (The original run of the Fender Electric XII-esque oddball was limited to 1969 and it was then referred as the Fender Custom.)
She plays in standard tuning, uses Ernie Ball Regular Slinkys (.010–.046) on all her guitars, and plucks with Dunlop Nylon 1mm picks.
Talk about weird, here’s the Maverick Dorado headstock that shadows the Electric XII silhouette sporting just six tuners.
“Betty” is a Gretsch G6128T-GH George Harrison Signature Duo Jet Electric that was a gift from Jack White. He gave her and bassist Ruby Rogers (Thunder Jet Bass) matching instruments before the band toured in support of 2011’s The Black Belles. She asserts it has a beefier, bassy sound than the Maverick Dorado.
This Fender Hot Rod DeVille 2x12 has been a staple in her touring rig for years.
Olivia is singing and playing throughout the set, so tap dancing on her pedalboard isn’t an option. However, her simplistic stomp station serves up plenty of flavorings. Her two always-on pedals are the Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail and MXR Sugar Drive. The Third Man Bumble Fuzz (a gift from White) stings for soloing and is accompanied with the Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor for lowing the buzz. The pair of tools she has on the board is the TC Helicon Mic Mechanic (allowing her to control reverb levels on her vocals) and TC Electronic Wiretap (for recording ideas/riffs). Everything is powered by the T-Rex Fuel Tank Classic and her guitars are kept in check with a Korg Pitchblack Chromatic Tuner.
These before and after photos show the rough condition that our columnist's '65 Super Reverb arrived in, and the worn-but-dignified look of his restoration. Of course, a shiny red ES-335 with a Bigsby pretties things up, too.
Our columnist shares a love story about his longtime passion for the 1965 heavyweight that’s his No. 1.
Let me tell you the story of my first vintage Fender amp, which I call “No. 1"—the 1965 Super Reverb that I consider the greatest guitar amp I've ever heard and played.
When I was a teenager, in the late '80s, I had a 25-watt Fender Sidekick and a bigger, 2x12, 40-watt Marshall Valvestate. They worked well for the Gary Moore and Jeff Healey blues-rock licks I was into then. When I moved to Trondheim, Norway, in 1998 to study at the university, I went back in time and listened to classic blues from Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Albert King, B.B. King, and Freddie King. I learned they all played Fender amps, at various times, and when I saw Stevie Ray Vaughan's legendary Live at the El Mocambo concert film, where he played a Vibroverb and a Super Reverb, I knew I had to get a black-panel Super Reverb. So I got in touch with a local guitar shop called Tre45, and they helped me find a Super Reverb in the U.S.
A few months later, I paid €1,400 for a beat-up Super Reverb dated January 1965 that came via boat. The amp looked real rough and had large cuts in the aged brownish grille cloth. It had replacement Mojotone speakers with weighty ceramic magnets and large speaker coils. The shop installed a heavy-duty step-down transformer in the back to cope with 230V, making the amp extremely heavy. Despite the weight and rough looks, I loved it. It played twice as loud as my brother's 1968 transition-era Super Reverb with original square-magnet CTS alnico speakers. Back then, volume and punch meant everything, and I hadn't yet developed an appreciation for the CTS alnicos, which later became one of my favorite speakers. Neither did I have much experience with how speakers affect tone. My No. 1 sounded louder, more mellow, and creamy compared to a typical black-panel Super. Because of my amp, my brother sold his precious, vintage-correct '68.
Twelve years later, in 2010, I started trading Fender amps on a larger scale, finding them on U.S. eBay and importing them to Norway, where I swapped power transformers and did basic service like tubes and cap jobs. I eventually developed a taste for vintage-correct tone and pursued amps in original or mint condition. I was eager to learn, and systematically A/B-tested all black- and silver-panel Fender amps, with all possible speakers and circuits. I also experimented with newer replacement speakers from Weber, Jensen, Eminence, Celestion, and WGS, and tried all kinds of circuit mods.
"Because of my amp, my brother sold his precious, vintage-correct '68."
I decided to replace my Super's Mojotones with a set of vintage-correct speakers for an authentic pre-CBS sound. I found a 1965 Super in really poor technical condition and swapped the grille cloth and the factory-original CTS ceramic speakers into my No. 1. Now my amp was restored to original condition, with speakers with matching manufacturer date codes, and, more important, it sounded better! The new-old speakers added more clarity and crispness, which I particularly enjoy with a Strat's out-of-phase, quacky tone in the in-between pickup positions.
Other amps have caught my affection, too. Not surprisingly, I find the narrow-panel Fender Bassman a great amp, but unfortunately it lacks reverb, which is a big deal to me. Same goes with the Marshall JTM45 and JMP50 amps from the '60s. They have great crunch but lack some transparency and clarity when used with closed-back 4x12 cabinets. I've also had the pleasure of owning and playing some popular boutique amps, like the Two-Rock Custom Reverb, Victorias, Headstrongs, Bad Cats, and others. Compared to vintage amps, they are more robust and have high quality materials and components that survive longer on the road. I also like how the solid, thick cabinets in some modern amps produce a tight low end. All the boutique amps I've tried sounded good, different, and had more tone options than my Super Reverb, but when I played those amps for a long time or at gigs, I found myself confused with all the tonal options and I end up dialing in a sound as close as possible to a Super Reverb. I can't help it. That is how a guitar is supposed to sound, in my ears. And nothing sounds more vintage Fender than a black-panel Super Reverb, in my humble opinion.
If you haven't played one, try the huge tone and dynamic response within the big and airy 4x10 speaker cabinet of a Super. It offers a pure, natural, and transparent tone and connects with your guitar in a physical way when you crank the amp a few meters behind you on a larger stage. If you need a little more crunch and early break-up, add an Xotic RC Booster and see my April 2020 column, "How to Get Big Tones on Small Stages."
[Updated 9/3/21]