Cab Discovery - Maybe?

    So, what does changing the cabinet on a profile really do? I thought it just changed the cabinet + what ever speakers are in the new cab. I did some experimenting tonight and I think there's more going on ... or at least it sounds that way to me. Does changing to a new cab also change how that cab was miked, i.e., mic position, mic choice and the size of the room the cab was miked in? I made a profile of my Lonestar set on the clean channel with a Bogner Red pedal and a Wampler Euphoria pedal hitting the front of the amp. The profile didn't sound all that great. I figured that was because of my poor mic skills and my small room. When I changed the cab on that profile to one from a commercially made profile...WOW, suddenly that profile sounds great.


    What do you guys think? Does anyone know the correct answer?

    Quote from paults

    Yes - the sound of the cabinet includes the influence of microphone technique. If you profile your amp twice, with different mic positions, you can swap one of the cabinets and the two Rigs will sound pretty much the same (the two refining sessions add a degree of difference).


    So, the mic and mic positions are part of the profile. What about the actual size and acoustics of the room. Does a cab from profile done in a big studio room sound like it's been done in a big studio when you use that cab with a profile that was done in a little bedroom size home studio?

    Mic positioning is one of the key components of any profile - and indeed for studio work - it massivly influences the sound.


    Most of the profiles that I have made/downloaded are done using a close-miced technique using dynamic microphones so the overall room has little effect as there is marginal pickup from the rear of the mic.


    Can't imagine a profile would sound that good using a distant mic (room sound)

    Quote from David5150

    ...
    Can't imagine a profile would sound that good using a distant mic (room sound)


    That may be true, however, I'm interested in knowing if the room size is a factor when swapping out cabs. If, for instance, distant mic placement is used, does the "room" sound become a part of the cab? My home studio room is very small and not very well acoustically treated. I like the idea of being able to use a cab configuration that was created in a large studio and reaping the benefits of the acoustics of the large studio. Is that what is happening when I use a professionally created profile that was created in a large studio? :)

    I don't think it's correct to think of the "cab" as though the "amp" and "cab" profiles exist in complete isolation. I believe the "cab" profile captures not simply distinct characteristics of the cab(s) and mic(s) but also some of the resonance of the amp, which includes the power transformer interaction between cab and power amp. that being said, i'm a big fan of swapping the cab profile to improve a profile - I don't find it usually takes too much away from the amp profile, at least in some cases.


    Similarly, if you use a $5 headset to mic a blown speaker, chances are that the resulting amp profile won't sound good even if you swap the cab profile.

    If your real setup looks like this:


    ---- Amp ---- Cabinet ---- MicPosition ---- Mic ----- Preamp -----



    ALL of this has influence!



    The result will be stored like this:


    --- Digital EQ(Amp) ---- KPA-Modelling ---- Digital EQ(Cab) ------



    There is no way to separate the cabinet from the mic (and position) and preamp coloring.


    The KPA does not know where to put some influences from the amp, cabinet, mic position, mic and preamp - and put's some part into the first digital EQ (Amp) and some part into the second one.


    e.g.
    If you profile your amp at different tone stack settings (e.g. more or less treble) then you may find that only the second digital EQ is influenced.


    In case you use the cab part of a profile where a lot of treble was added for another profile - then you get a lot of added treble too.

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    Edited once, last by Armin ().

    Amiller, the profiler captures the response of the rig to its test signals through the mic. Putting the mic farer from the loudspeaker of course changes the tones the mic perceives, and the room jas of course an influence on this, as long as it has the ability to change the system's response: for example, if the room enforces the low freqs, the resulting profile will try and sound that way... And so on.
    I'd not say the size of the room in somehow profiled tho, if it doesn't change the signal perceived by the mic.


    HTH

    Quote from viabcroce

    Amiller, the profiler captures the response of the rig to its test signals through the mic. Putting the mic farer from the loudspeaker of course changes the tones the mic perceives, and the room jas of course an influence on this, as long as it has the ability to change the system's response: for example, if the room enforces the low freqs, the resulting profile will try and sound that way... And so on.
    I'd not say the size of the room in somehow profiled tho, if it doesn't change the signal perceived by the mic.


    HTH


    Basically, if you profile with the mic farther away, it captures the different-EQ part of your mic placement but not the room reverb. Right?

    Quote from Lokasenna

    Basically, if you profile with the mic farther away, it captures the different-EQ part of your mic placement but not the room reverb. Right?


    That's my understanding, yes.
    You're not gonna get the reverb of the cathedral should you try to mic your KPA from 50m distance in a cathedral.

    Sure. It's not a recording, it's a comparison between certain characteristics of an input signal and an output signal, which certainly doesn't include "delays". The Profiler will rather compensate for any delays instead!


    :)

    Correct - when the microphone is a distance from the amp, the profile captures the tone, and dynamic response of the amp, as the microphone "hears" it, and the tonal influence that comes from the microphone being in that position, but not any time-based reverb sound from the room.


    So, you won't get the "room sound" by swapping a cabinet, but you will get the benefit of the mic placement skill of the person whose cabinet you are using. And, they don't have to be made with expensive mics and high end preamps and mixing consoles in world class studios by well known to be great sounding cabinet profiles - a large number (if not the majority) of the most popular cabs for swapping were made with modest mics and an inexpensive mixer by a Kemper owner who is very talented with his mic technique.

    This.
    It might be worth mentioning tho that jay Mitchell wrote a post on TGP showing how you can get the "amp in the room" sound when profiling/taking IRs. It's a matter of being able to manage the early reflections/later reflections ratio. He specified that it's not a trivial task.


    This is because once you capture the sonic spectrum of an amp as you hear it (as opposed to a closed mic'ed one), the room you're playing in will add... the room.
    Basically, an amp in the room is made of a sonic spectrum (sum of the direct sound plus reverbered freqs) plus the natural room ambience.

    Yes, the frequency response of the room has an influence on the sound of a distance-mic'ed profile, but, room ambience is not captured as a reverb.


    The below rigs show the effect of changing Kemper cabinets, and can be downloaded from the Rig Exchange.



    The first one is the amp and cabinet, as profiled, and mic'ed from a couple of meters away, with the microphone at "ear" height.



    [/list]PaulTS Jubilee Marsh 2553 Marshall Jubile Marshall 2551A 4x12 PaulTS 3.00 / 5.00 December 17, 2012
    miked at ear level (I used an AKG C3000 )


    For the two other Rigs, I replaced the original cabinet with one from other Users or Rigs.

    PaulTS Jubilee Marsh 2553 Marshall Jubile TillS 1960 011 PaulTS 3.80 / 5.00 December 17, 2012
    With Tills011 cab



    PaulTS Jubilee Marsh 2553 Marshall Jubile Slash Sweet PaulTS 3.50 / 5.00 December 17, 2012
    With Sweet Slash cab