Kemper Amps Forum

Having the amp on during A/B comparison makes total sense in a studio with relative isolation from the amp, but for everyone else it's annoying and actually makes it harder to compare.

If the amp is in the same room for most people that don't own their own studio the following occurs :

1) The amp's volume and especially it's bass masks the frequency response of the profile. So you can only tell how the treble is reacting, 'm ready to believe this is why so many user profiles are brittle/trebly and lacking in miss and bass.

2) Unless you've set up your room with the chair, amp and monitors very carefully (and who does this?) you will get phase discrepancy between the monitors and the amp. In practical terms this means that the combination of speakers and amp can sound radically different between the Profile and the real Mic'ed version, even if in actual fact you wouldn't be able to easily tell the difference hearing the two signals side by side once recorded (and sound was no longer coming out of the amp).

That's why I think there really should be an option to disable monitor out when playing back the amp and direct out when playing back the profile. This is also why I always use a DAW when profiling and have to go through a huge rigamerole of reaping the same signal twice through first amp then profile in order to compare the two side by side without hearing the amp in the room at all (and why I suggested the profile looper idea, so that it wouldn't be at all painful to do and everyone could end up with perfect profiles without going through all that).

yes, the ability to mute the direct out when switching to the kemper while profiling is MUCH needed for ease in refining. this thread needed to be resurrected. . . so i did

Quoted from "shawnguess"

yes, the ability to mute the direct out when switching to the kemper while profiling is MUCH needed for ease in refining. this thread needed to be resurrected. . . so i did

When I unboxed my KPA (3 months ago) the first thing I did was to set up everything in my livingroom to do a quick profile of my Champ. And while I was doing the third or fourth test profile I almost instinctively took a Lehle switch and hooked it between the KPA's direct out and my Champ. That did it for me.

When doing a profile I don't want to hear that spectacular "A/B comparison". I want to monitor the KPA signal without my reference amp yelling along. And by the way listening to the profile sound on my earphones while the amp howls next to me is not quite as convincing as the spectacular A/B comparisons that I have heard on Youtube many, many times before I decided to buy my own KPA.

Quoted from "shawnguess"

yes, the ability to mute the direct out when switching to the kemper while profiling is MUCH needed for ease in refining. this thread needed to be resurrected. . . so i did

Added in version 1.0.9. "- added: in profiling mode, ON/OFF button mutes Direct Out signal"
Here,
OS 1.0.9 Public Beta available for download

Quoted from "imall41"

Quoted from "shawnguess"

yes, the ability to mute the direct out when switching to the kemper while profiling is MUCH needed for ease in refining. this thread needed to be resurrected. . . so i did

Added in version 1.0.9. "- added: in profiling mode, ON/OFF button mutes Direct Out signal"
Here,
OS 1.0.9 Public Beta available for download

Yep

Cool! So I don't need my Lehle switch.

Quoted from "imall41"

Quoted from "shawnguess"

yes, the ability to mute the direct out when switching to the kemper while profiling is MUCH needed for ease in refining. this thread needed to be resurrected. . . so i did

Added in version 1.0.9. "- added: in profiling mode, ON/OFF button mutes Direct Out signal"
Here,
OS 1.0.9 Public Beta available for download

dammit, call me an idiot -- not sure how i missed that. . . thanks

Quoted from "AndrewC"

In an ideal world, we would all have sound proof booths so that we are only comparing the miked sound from the reference amp with the Kemper profile, with no bleed from the amp itself.

I suspect many of us are in the less-than-ideal position where we are monitoring in the same room as the miked up amp. When trying to A/B the amp against the profile, I am currently having to do this:

Switch to Kemper Amp
Walk across room and unplug the cable from the reference amp input
Play guitar
Switch to Reference Amp
Walk across room and plug the amp cable back in
Walk back and mute Kemper outputs on the mixer
Play guitar
Repeat from the top



It would make life easier if we had the option on the KPA to just mute the Direct Out when listening to the Kemper profile and the Master Outs when listening to the reference amp. I understand that it would not give a perfect A/B comparison as the Kemper is profiling what the mic hears, not necessarily what we hear from the amp in the room, but it would make the workflow easier for those of us profiling at home rather than in a studio.

good idea