SUPER THUNDER – Kemper Profile and Performance Pack

THE AMP

This pack includes profiles and performances of a Vintage mid-60’s Supro Thunderbolt amplifier. The Thunderbolt is a huge sounding amp. Ours features the original Jensen 15” speaker which delivers some massive low end, but still remains refined when pushed with gain. Cleans are big and rich, and driven tones have tons of harmonic character. It’s very vintage sounding, but surprisingly versatile.

We’ve profiled the Chimera with a Royer 121 and Earthworks SR25 (our favorite mic combination) through a stereo Neve 1073 preamp with EQ.

The result is a perfect representation of this very special amp for the Kemper Profiler.

THE PROFILES

The profiles increase through the entire gain range of the amp.  We’ve included both SC and HB profiles, which were made separately with both single coil (tele) and humbucker (Les Paul) guitars.

PERFORMANCES

This pack includes two performances – one dailed in for guitars with single coils and one for humbuckers.

We’ve set up these performances to use all five slots and all four effects buttons of the Kemper Remote/Stage with morph functions in all slots. Here are the slots and associated effects:

SLOT 1: CLEAN-ISH

This is your clean tone, but we set it up so that it breaks up on the bridge pickup, as long as your pickup has moderate output. Here are the effects in the different slots:

1. EFFECTS 1: Tremolo (off by default)
2. EFFECTS 2: Pure Booster (off by default – gives you a bit of drive)
3. EFFECTS 3: Quarter Note Delay (off by default)
4. EFFECTS 4: Dotted 8th Note Delay (on by default)

MORPH: Morphing will increase the wetness of both the reverb and delays. The reverb goes into a big ambient verb sound, and the delays increase in both level and feedback.

PROFILE USED: Super Thunder SC/HB 2

SLOT 2: DRIVE 1

This slot gives you two levels of overdrive. It’s default tone is a light to medium-light level of drive (depending on how hot your pickups are). Hit the boost, and you’ve got a bit more gain on tap. The overdrive in this slot is provided by the Kemper Drive effect.

1. EFFECTS 1: Tremolo (off by default)
2. EFFECTS 2: Pure Booster (off by default)
3. EFFECTS 3: 8th Note Delay (off by default)
4. EFFECTS 4: Dotted 8th Note Delay (on by default)

MORPH: Morphing will increase the wetness of both the reverb and delays. The reverb goes into a big ambient verb sound, and the delays increase in both level and feedback.

PROFILE USED: Super Thunder SC/HB 2

SLOT 3: DRIVE 2

This slot gives you two more levels of overdrive, both louder than the biggest setting in ‘Drive 1’. It’s default sound is a big rhythm drive tone. You can add more gain with the boost on Effects 2.

1. EFFECTS 1: Tremolo (off by default)
2. EFFECTS 2: Pure Booster (off by default)
3. EFFECTS 3: 8th Note Delay (on by default)
4. EFFECTS 4: Dotted 8th Note Delay (off by default)

MORPH: Morphing will increase the wetness of both the reverb and delays. The reverb goes into a big ambient verb sound, and the delays increase in both level and feedback.

PROFILE USED: Super Thunder SC/HB 3

SLOT 4: LEAD

For our Lead tone, we set up a big gain sound with a level boost above the biggest drive sound in ‘Drive 2’. You’re guitar will lift nicely in the mix. Here are the effects available via the effects buttons: 

1. EFFECTS 1: Analog Octaver (off by default) – this adds a subtle low octave that will add a lot of body to your leads.
2. EFFECTS 2: Pure Booster (off by default)
3. EFFECTS 3: Quarter Note Delay (on by default)
4. EFFECTS 4: Dual Delay – 8th and dotted 8th (on by default)

MORPH: Morphing will increase the wetness of both the reverb and delays. The reverb goes into a big ambient verb sound, and the delays increase in both level and feedback.

PROFILE USED: Super Thunder SC/HB 3

SLOT 5: AMBI/SWELL

This slot can be used for volume swells or for super ambient playing (without swells). The delays and reverbs trail for a very long time – proceed with caution :).

1. EFFECTS 1: Tremolo (off by default).
2. EFFECTS 2: Pure Booster (off by default)
3. EFFECTS 3: Crystal Delay (on by default) – this delay creates an awesome Shimmer reverb sound.
4. EFFECTS 4: Dual Delay – 8th and dotted 8th (on by default)

MORPH: Morphing will increase the wetness of both the reverb and delays. The reverb morph adds more shimmer, and the delays increase in both level and feedback.

PROFILE USED: Super Thunder SC/HB 2

MAKING CHANGES FOR YOUR GUITAR

Start with the ‘Definition’ and ‘Clarity’ controls on the amp

These two controls have an enormous impact on the overall tone, and are very efficient at adjusting the gain structure and clarity/tone of the sound, all without straying too far away from the base tone. They’re perfect for tailoring a patch made with humbuckers to a single coil guitar (or vice versa). We always recommend starting here rather than EQ or Gain controls.

EQ Controls: From there, adjust the EQ controls (in the amp stack). If the tone is a bit dark or bright, adjust the EQ to compensate.

Gain control (proceed with caution). We recommend adjusting the gain on the amp last – especially raising the gain. This will introduce digital gain, which sounds pretty gross – it does not behave like a gain knob on an amp. If you need more gain, either adjust the definition control or increase the level control on the compressor. If you need less gain, turn the gain control down works well.