Getting KPA + FRFR to sound more natural, tell me if this works for you

  • I've been fighting with my KPA + DXR10 for a while to get it to sound a bit more natural, I'm almost sure I'd feel more "connected" if I played it through a regular amp and cab but I wanted to make it work with my DXR10. Yes, there's a similar thread at TGP but it's aimed at AxeFX users so I thought I'd better steer clear of that one.


    Anyway, today I've felt that I've made some progress in that sense and I wanted to both share it and ask if you guys think it sounds better as well - some times my ears play tricks on me and I'd rather have validation from others. Here's my complete method (this one is more focused on distorted tones):


    1. Set clean sense so that even strumming as hard as possible the input LED never or almost never goes yellow.


    2. Set the noise gate so it's just at the threshold where there's no or very little noise when you're resting your palm against the strings.


    3. In order to get a tone that's richer in harmonics I'll often put a green screamer before the amp with gain set to taste, tone -1.2 and volume 0.0


    Most profiles will sound pretty good by then, but tend to sound a little too "hi-fi" if you get my meaning, and then most attempts to cut the high end will result in a loss of detail that's quite disappointing, giving what many will call "blanket over the speakers" effect. Here's what I've tried:


    - Lowering the tone in the green screamer (when present);
    - Adjusting treble and presence in the amp tonestack;
    - Including a high pass filter;
    - Including a studio EQ with various settings;
    - Lowering the cabinet high shift.


    None of those worked very well like I've mentioned, but today I've stumbled upon some settings that really seemed to work, and since I've been playing and tweaking for hours maybe you guys can give it a shot and tell me if I'm crazy or on to something.


    It's simple really, just go to the CAB menu and set:
    - Character to +0.5
    - Volume to +0.5


    Now careful, doing this might bring up a lot of bass and make the profile sound muddy, so palm mute, do some shug-shug and adjust the bass accordingly until it's not muddy or farty.


    So, what do you think?


  • It's simple really, just go to the CAB menu and set:
    - Character to +0.5
    - Volume to +0.5


    Now careful, doing this might bring up a lot of bass and make the profile sound muddy, so palm mute, do some shug-shug and adjust the bass accordingly until it's not muddy or farty.


    So, what do you think?

    It played around quite a bit with the character parameter. I think it really depends on the cab profile whether this works or not. From how i understand it, this parameter takes the deviation from a flat frequency curve (which would be the same as disabling a cab) and then reduces or increases the deviations and thus the steepness of the curve.


    From my experience a frequency curve that is flatter in the midrange works better than one that has a bigger hump or cut in the mids. The reasons for this seems to be that the typical high-end roll off of the guitar speaker is what benefits most from the increasing of the character paramter. It reduces high end fizz in very natural sounding way. However, if the mid hump is too big the sound will start to get boxy.


    I would say that this works better for neutral sounding condenser mics and not quite so great with mics that a strong midrange character like the SM57.

  • Deny, I've gone the same path as you. I have tried the low pass, the param EQ, the character setting (i had to put it at 3 or 4 though), never being satisfied with the resulting tone in the high ends.
    I ended up using the profiles without tweaking anything except for the tone stack, and i think my ears have finally been accustomed to it.



    From my experience a frequency curve that is flatter in the midrange works better than one that has a bigger hump or cut in the mids.


    That's exactly what i'm feeling too. But, Tyler, you created so many cabs, I'd be curious which ones you have identified as being of that kind ? which are the ones you're using the most ?


  • That's exactly what i'm feeling too. But, Tyler, you created so many cabs, I'd be curious which ones you have identified as being of that kind ? which are the ones you're using the most ?

    I did not use an analyzer on my collection of cabs to really judge that. Lately i have mostly used stuff i have been mixing together from all my favourite sounds, trying to blend the character of different speakers and mics to make something bigger out of it. Using this a lot on recordings right now i try evaluate what works and what not...

  • I thought it would be profile-dependent but wanted to share and ask for opinions anyway. After tweaking a bit further I've found out that increasing definition until it reached a "sweet spot" worked better than raising the volume in the cab section. I'm sorry if my findings seem misleading or superficial, but I've been on an endless quest to get my profiles to sound right at both low and high volumes and haven't had a lot of success. Personally I feel there's more bottom end and high end in some profiles than a guitar speaker is capable of reproducing, and that's what I try to get rid off.


    Interestingly enough the Keith Merrow profiles, even though he apparently mentioned have less bass than some are used to, sound perfect to my ears.