best setup for "amp in the room" effect

When you have tried FRFR solutions like the Atomic CLR or the Matrix Q12a or the Camper CX (or the Yamaha DXR 10), IOW more highend solutions and you still don't like it, then FRFR is not for you.
Nothing wrong with it.
But before writing off the FRFR thing as a whole you really should try one of these aforementioned cabs.

Major music stores have cabinets all connected and ready to try, with a switchbox so, you can A/B/C ----Z them with your Kemper.

A trip to one of those would save you all that ordering and returning hassle.

Theoretically FRFR shouldn't stop you from getting an "amp in the room" sound. You already have the amp and the speaker, so what's missing? That's right, the room! Some times the most obvious answer is the correct one: try a room reverb with reverb time 2.5, pre-delay 100ms, mix at 55%, damping at 5, bandwidth 3.5 and frequency at -1.5, that will give you a lot of dampening of high frequencies just like a real room does. That's just a starting point of course, tweak to taste. Rigs dialed in in this fashion will also sound great through headphones BTW.

If it's still too ear piercing in the highs you can try one (or two, or all) of the following:

1. Dial the clean sense to a lower value, the input LED should never go yellow
2. Reduce the definition parameter in the amp block (don't lower it too much or you'll lose... definition!)
3. Raise the bias control in the amp block, values from 1.0 through 3.3 seem to work well depending on the amp
4. Lower the treble in the amp block, but not too much - if I have to adjust it lower than -1.0 I'll usually look somewhere else for problems
5. Lower the cabinet high frequency shift to -0.1. I don't recommend going lower than that because things start to sound artificial
6. Add a Soft Shaper with drive at 0.5 in the "X" slot
7. Make sure your output levels aren't clipping

Good luck!

Hey Johnmarkus,

one of the issue here is that not all the so called "FRFR" solutions sound the same. A real FRFR system if very, very transparent and shows you exactly and only what you put in.

The point of a profile not sounding like an "amp in the room" is that you hear the... point of view of the mic, which is usually placed close to the cab's grid. If you used a real amp/cab and put (don't try this!) your ear against the cab, you'd hear the same sound (mic's personality apart) as your profile of the same amp/cab.

This is not a matter of just adding reverb then, even tho it might help of course. For a more realistic "amp-like" sound the profile (or the IR) should be taken with a mid-to-far field mic placement, but this would not be enough yet: the ability to master early Vs. late reflection would be required.
Basically, it's all in the hands of those who take the profile.

A real cab will certainly sound like a... cab in the room, but not like "that" cab. And will still have the specific mic's colour anyway, plus the double power amp's colour (the one profiled and the one you drive the real cab with).

As for trying different FRFR cabs in a store: keep in mind that cabs' placement will (often dramatically) change the produced sound in the room, and most importantly your perception of such sound. Also, even half a dB difference in Master volume setting can make the cab give a different response, hence impression. For a serious test cabs should be placed in the same spot with respect to the room and to the listener, and rigorously set to produce the same SPL. Not trivial, as you see.

Also, room's resonances will forge the sound in a specific way, a way you won't find back when you take the cab home and use it. This is something a person with experience could more easily (but not totally) factor in/out, but may be misleading for most less experienced listeners: just see how many users claim their CLR are "boomy"...

I'm aware I'm not giving you any easy or ready-to-use answer, but the above is what you will have to face in your quest, so I believe it's worth being aware of.

Just a thought, but could some sort of recording box be designed to enclose the miked speaker that would provide for optimum acoustics? Or, if not a box, a set of reflective panels that could be placed at particular points surrounding the speaker? The end goal being to achieve the amp in the room sound as opposed to playing in a tiled bathroom. Perhaps this sort of set up would permit the mike to be moved further out in the field.

Thoughts?

Do you mean when profiling, or when recording?

This is an interesting thread by Jay Mitchell about IR and amp-in-the-room.

Well i have the powerhead for 7 months and i tried to use a 1x12 guitar cab yesterday for the first time. I have an FBT FRFR cab and the 1x12 sounded way better to may ears. But if you use a guitar cab, you'll notice that some amps will sound almost the same as the cab is a huge part of the guitar sound. I decided to purchase two 1x12 guitar cabs and will run them in stereo. I'm considering to sell the FBT now. Maybe the mic'ed sound is not my cup of tea. With the guitar cab it sounds like a real amp in the room. But with the FBT it's not. I dont want to spend money if i can turn the FBT to a guitar cab so i will try the recommendation above.

Quote from viabcroce

Do you mean when profiling, or when recording?

This is an interesting thread by Jay Mitchell about IR and amp-in-the-room.

When profiling.

OK, the link is meaningful then.

In simple words:

"in the room sound" can mean two things:

a) to capture the frequency responce of the amp/speaker as close as possible
b) to capture the above and the responce of the recording room (reverb) in addition

a) is possible with the KPA
b) is not possible with the KPA

The link above talks about how long an IR must be to capture a) or b) and the conclusion is:
The AxeFx can capture a) - even with the "old" low/high res IR's
To capture b) the IR's need to be much longer then the AxeFx can store - even the new UltraRes IR's are to short for this
Bad UltraRes IR's capture a) and a wired (uncomplete) part of the room reverb

All this has little impact to what anybody likes or not - remember:
"nobody whants a guitar amp to distort"

I had similar issues...try running your fbt full range cab along with a 1/12 guitar cab... the combination of the 2 is just the best sound
Put your fbt cab on a speaker stand and raise it up so that it's just above ear level...(this gets the horn out of your ear).. then put the 1/12 guitar cab on the floor....try this.....you are in for a treat!

Quote from Armin

The link above talks about how long an IR must be to capture a) or b) and the conclusion is:
The AxeFx can capture a) - even with the "old" low/high res IR's
To capture b) the IR's need to be much longer then the AxeFx can store - even the new UltraRes IR's are to short for this
Bad UltraRes IR's capture a) and a wired (uncomplete) part of the room reverb

There's more than this, actually.

In Mr. Mitchell words:
If you really want to get an IR of the speaker that matches what you hear, you need three things:

• an accurate test mic
• data that is taken in the farfield (with no room reflections in the first ~22 milliseconds)
• an accurate FRFR monitor.

Shortchange any of the three, and you'll never get there.