Difference between firmware 3.0 cab "profiles" and impulse responses?

  • With the new direct profiling, you should have a clean cut between the amp and the cabinet, and not the "blurred line" between the two as previously. So no amp "residue" in the cabinet section of a rig.


    I am wondering what this means for the cab portion of the (new) profiles. Will they in essence be exactly the same as an impulse response of the same cab? Or are there other parameters involved in the cab section still?


    I hope this is understandable.


    The reason being that I would like to be able to have more control over the mic'ing scheme than what is currently possible (for fun, learning and recording). If the "new cabs" are essentially the same as impulse responses, then I would just use cab maker and my previously purchased RedWirez impulse response library.

  • Well, you'll always need a power amp in order to drive a cab and get an IR, won't you?
    The advantage of profiling IMO is that the cab is dynamic, that is changes the way it sounds depending on the amp's setting.This is something missed in the IRs AFAIK.

  • A cab profile or IR always carries some influence ot the amp within its sound. There always is some interaction with the cab that acts as a reactive load to the power amp. There is no standarized way of how a cab profile or IR is created. Thus the sound depends a lot of the amp and the sound setting which was used during recording the IR or taking the profile.


    Afaik the better separation line between the amp and cab section in 3.0 just results from being able to use the DI amp profile signal without further colouration on the monitor out when using the "cab off" option.

  • Yeah, I'm thinking about this wrong. I think :)


    FW3.0 cuts out the need for the "cabdriver" algorithm, which approximates the interaction of the amp and the cab. Thus, the (DI) amp profiles are more authentic, and merging them with a cab apparently does NOT change the CAB part of the profile (I was thinking it did - like subtracting information which was now captured in the new type of DI profile).


    I re-read the update more carefully:




    From this, it seems like IRs should work perfectly fine combined with the new DI amp profiles. This is subject to what you say about the IR creation, and how the amp used interacts with the cab while making the IR, of course.

  • I just wouldn´t be too methodological. Simply try what works for you and trust your ears. Over the years i think i tried almost every IR cab collection available, must have been hundreds of thousands IRs. To my ears, 99.9% of them sound not nearly as good as the stuff available for the Kemper. Take the Redwirez Collection for example. Working through this is a nightmare. Every cab comes with like 100 positions for like each of the 10 mics. I ended up liking 2 or 3 IRs out of 1000. Comparing with the same setup on the Kemper, the Kemper always won hands down. I can only speculate what the Kemper does different, but surely something of the Kemper "magic" lies within the interaction of the tube amp and the cab.

  • Darn :) or rather, if the kpa cabs are better, not-darn...


    But I was really hoping for a systematic library of cabs like "sm7 on cap, 1 inch back", "sm7 edge of cap, one inch back" - you know, systematically sorted... The kpa to me is a great learning tool, I'd like to have this for cabs as well.


    It´s a nice thing for educational matters. You get a feeling for miking positions and the resulting sounds. But in the end it´s very time consuming and leaves you with maybe 90% of sounds that you simply won´t use.

  • if anyone wants to import IRs for usage with DI Profiles i can say 80% will sound wrong beacause the most are created with a tubepoweramp. For best results you should use a clean as possible IR created with a class D poweramp ;)


    One of the features of Redwirez cabs is :"Cabs powered w/ Bryston 4B, known for flat freq. response, ample power and low distortion"
    So, if DI Profiles are used with Redwirez IRs we should have 100% authentic amp sound.
    According to "Kemper Profiler Addendum 3.0" :
    "An impulse response is the perfect companion of any Direct Amp Profile. While the latter is a perfect
    reproduction of the full guitar amp, the cabinet IR is the perfect reproduction of a speaker cabinet. Combined,
    they are as authentic as a Studio Profile."
    This is the advantage of having new "real" DI Profiles , although i've read here on forums that it is not quite true, because, depending on which cabinet was used in process of making DI Profile ,we get different sounding DI Profiles.
    Now, that confuses me because we have clear statement of being as authentic as a Studio Profile.

    Kemper non powered amp
    FCB1010+UNO 4 Kemper chip
    Fender AM Standard Strat
    Gibson Les Paul Studio

  • If combined they are as authentic as a studio profile, why not just make a studio profile in the first place;) yup I'm still a little confused to the usefulness of a lot of 3.0 to the average user

  • If combined they are as authentic as a studio profile, why not just make a studio profile in the first place;) yup I'm still a little confused to the usefulness of a lot of 3.0 to the average user


    I'm talking about taking a profile from e.g. the rig exchange and then experimenting with different mic placements, which I could do with an impulse response library. This is not necessarily a FW 3.0 related thing, though.


    FW 3.0 gives you the ability to make a profile of the amp head ONLY, tapping into the signal right before the speaker so to speak. Thus you would get more authentic results if you hook up the kemper to the cab later (for example if you have the powered kemper). With no colouration of the mic choice and placment etc.

  • If combined they are as authentic as a studio profile, why not just make a studio profile in the first place;) yup I'm still a little confused to the usefulness of a lot of 3.0 to the average user


    This is because, in order to kill the cab and get a more accurate sonic result, you need to make a "differential" profiling. The cab is the result of this difference, and you can use (merge) it with other DI profiles keeping (save bugs) the same authenticity.


    :)