This article makes it the 100th.
It's a milestone, so let me pause and look back.
Over 100 articles, what have I written? Lined up, I'd been writing the same thing to a surprising degree.
Over 100 articles, I've written the same thing all along
The subjects varied. '90s large heads, rack preamps, small combos, vanished brands, transitional gear whose verdict hasn't settled.
But every article returned, in the end, to one question.
How to keep this sound.
What CSL has handled is, more than staple greats, units that haven't been discussed. Not on store shelves, touched by few, with a thin shared image in the world. Such amps.
Such sounds, left alone, quietly disappear. No one at fault, simply unshared, they vanish.
So I record them. Keep a unit actually ringing, with conditions aligned. Over 100 articles, I've been writing that all along.
A record doesn't end at being read
But writing in text has a limit.
However much you exhaust words, the reader can't play that sound. Write "there's a core in the mids," "the compression is smooth" and it isn't the sound itself.
A record doesn't really end there.
What I want to keep isn't reading matter but sound. Only by making a unit that rang ringable once more does the record complete.
So, make it a profile
That "playable form" is the Kemper profile.
CSL has recorded the amps it documented under fixed conditions and kept them as profiles. Through which cabinet, which mic, which setting it was rung. Recorded with conditions and all, so you can recall it later on the same premise.
For a combo amp, record with that unit's speaker and all. For a head, per channel. For a rack, per front-and-back combination.
So what the articles wrote "this sound is interesting" about becomes actually playable on your own Kemper. That is the final push of the record.
What CSL sells is "a playable record"
Here, one thing to make clear.
What CSL sells isn't "the best sound" or "the one correct answer."
At that moment, how that unit rang under those conditions. That record. Handed over in a playable form.
So it doesn't hide the conditions. Not just the amp name, but how it was recorded. The good parts and the quirks, kept as they are. Rather than feigning a perfect sound, handing over a sound that actually existed.
Being able to keep an unknown unit at hand, as a playable record. There is the meaning of CSL's profiles.
At the 100th, starting from here
Having written 100, I can finally talk about the next.
I'll prepare, in order, the amps introduced in the articles as profiles. First, from a free sample, so you can actually try it on your own Kemper. If there's a unit you like, so you can keep that sound at hand.
The first amp is the Greco GVA CUSTOM — a 5-watt small combo, recorded speaker and all, into 24 profiles. First, try the free sample on your own Kemper.
A record exists not to be shelved, but to be played again.
From here, I'll hand over 100 records' worth in a playable form.
In short
Over 100 articles, CSL has written the same thing all along: keeping a vanishing sound, conditions and all.
But text isn't the sound itself. A record completes only by being playable again.
That "playable form" was the Kemper profile. What CSL sells isn't the best sound but the record of a sound that actually existed.
The 100th, I want to make the starting point of handing over that record, from reading matter to something playable.