Did my first show with my powerhead last night....

  • Hi folks,


    I play in a traditional metal band and last night I did my first show with my powerhead. Was using a 5150 profile and it sounded amazing. I was using a 1960a on stage and went direct out to foh. As happy as i was with the tone, i had volume problems....I was maxed out on the power amp boost, maxed out on the monitor volume and my patches were around the 3 oclock mark and I really struggled to hear myself over the thundering drums and bass. We had nothing from the stage monitors so we all relied on our cabs etc...It was a small stage and all our gear was crammed onto the stage with little separation. I was using the cab in 16ohm mode and am now concerned that it wont be loud enough for future shows. Not sure if i had messed up settings somewhere but using the master volume control did nothing due to the way i had set the outputs. Any clue what I might have done wrong? I had thought the kemper could handle the volume required with ease but maybe I was expecting too much? Would switching to 8ohm on the cab be worthwhile to increase the volume?

  • Wow, it should definitely be more than enough power. I'm playing through a 2x12 with a V30 one side and a CL80 on the other and at 7 or so it is deafening, and that's with the power amp boost at default. That's at 8 ohm. Through a little 1x12 V30 at 16 ohm it's still loud as hell, but less in your face and balsy. Through that 4x12 and the kemper setup like that you shouldn't be having volume issues, no matter how hard hitting your drummer is. I can't think of any other settings though that would affect volume, have you got access to a different cab just to rule the 1960a out of the equation?

  • Our drummer is very hard hitting lol and our bass player is incredibly loud too... The volume on stage last night was ferocious, we were all half deaf coming off stage last night. The only thing i can think of was the way i had the output volumes linked. Can the monitor output and master volume be controlled independantly..so for example...say monitor volume is set to 12 oclock..can master volume then push the powerhead volume higher without affecting the monitor volume settings? As i mentioned in the first post, master volume did not affect volume due to the way it was linked in output section...did i have it setup incorrectly?


    I am 100% sure the cab is fine as i tested it with a 100watt tube head and it blew my face off.

  • Just throwing out ideas here, but where were you standing in relation to the cab? Traditional cabs are pretty beamy, and moving just a foot or two outside of that 'beam' makes a huge difference in the perceived volume. It's possible that what seemed not loud enough for you was actually sterilizing everybody that was in the direct line of fire.

  • Not sure if i had messed up settings somewhere but using the master volume control did nothing due to the way i had set the outputs.


    From the Profiler Reference Manual:


    Output Volumes and Output Volume Link
    Within the Output menu you find individual volumes for different physical outputs. When you press the correspondent "Link" soft button on top of page "Output Volumes" or "Output AddOns", you can link or unlink the respective volume to the MASTER VOLUME knob. Any volume that is linked will be controlled by the MASTER VOLUME knob...

  • Thanks chaps,


    paults i had read through that, however with reaching max volume so easily at the show, i thought i had misinterpreted the info.


    Frodebro, i was pretty much in front of the cab all night, the same sort of way i would usually be using a valve head and cab.


    Since posting, i have been experimenting with a few things. Tried the cab in 8ohm mode, which meant only using half of the speakers in the 4 x 12 but there was a discernable increase in volume. I had also forgotten that all the amp profiles themselves are defaulted to -5db so by increasing them to 0 there is a greater volume to ramp up using master/monitor volume. Am still genuinely surprised however that maxing the power amp and monitor volume wasnt enough volume for me.

  • I'd suggest to have your cab rewired for an overall impedance of 8 or 4 ohm if possible.


    Also, feel free to raise the Volume (not the Master) as long as the Output LED doesn't stay consistently on the red. If you can't hit the red with the volume alone, remember you have also volume controls in many stomps and fx (I assume you switched the Cab section off for all your rigs), or you can add a pure booster if you have any free slot.
    HTH

  • Well, the source of this problem might be the suspected: the output volume links.


    Check the page in the output menu.
    If more than one volume is linked to the Master Volume Knob AND the volumes have been offset manually, than the lower linked volume will stop increasing, when the highest volume has reached its maximum.
    This is not a bug, but a feature.


    Solution: link the Monitor Volume exclusively to the Master knob, or control it by hand in the output menu.

  • Well, the source of this problem might be the suspected: the output volume links.


    Check the page in the output menu.
    If more than one volume is linked to the Master Volume Knob AND the volumes have been offset manually, than the lower linked volume will stop increasing, when the highest volume has reached its maximum.
    This is not a bug, but a feature.


    Solution: link the Monitor Volume exclusively to the Master knob, or control it by hand in the output menu.


    Thanks for the reply!


    As i mentioned in my first post, i suspected it may have had something to do with the way i had the output linked. Testing at home achieves face melting volume so most likely a setup error on my part. It sounded so good through the house p.a that the other guys in the band started asking the other guitarist to go direct from his fractal.


    viabcroce I may look into getting the cab rewired for 8 ohms to simply have a bit more headroom in general. I dont generally use many stomps..usually delay, chorus or reverb but will bear that in mind.


    Thanks for all the replies

  • Well, switching from 16 to 8 ohm will give you much more than just a bit more headroom :D
    Just keep in mind that the power amp will release much more power (see the technical data about nominal power @ 8 and 16 ohm)!
    :)

  • If it's a marshall cab, use the 4 ohm input. MUCH louder. You'll just have to be careful with running it so loud that the power amp overloads and goes into thermal protection. I noticed this too live with mine - the 16 ohm wasn't quite loud enough, but changing to 4 ohms helped a lot. Also depends on how loud your profiles are too, some are certainly louder than others and if you have a quieter profile or scoop your mids much your cab isn't going to be as loud.

  • One other suggestion no one else brought up - you might be using amp profiles with frequencies that clash with the other instrumentalists. An "ideal" guitar tone for an individual can be very different than the "ideal" tone for a mix. Not to say that the other things you've mentioned aren't problematic - you may genuinely not be getting enough volume due to the volume level of the cab out, the individual profiles, and the fact that you're running 16 ohms (ohms is resistance - increasing the resistance means the amp is being resisted from outputting as much as you'd like, which is why running at 8 ohms is louder).


    Back in the day (I believe it was a Sunday, actually), I was playing with a Line 6 Ax2 212 (yep, WAY back in the day). The tone was my ideal heavy rock/metal sound at the time, and it sounded great on it's own (at least to my 16 year old self). But, in a band setting, I could increase the volume all the way up to 10, and still not hear myself. I realized that, due to the amount of gain I was pushing out, I was creating a wash when I played, and, due to a higher gain's natural corresponding increase in compression, my amp was essentially becoming a white noise generator. The room was louder, but there was no goodness coming out of what I was doing. Tweaking the EQ - adding some mids, killing some bass, and lowering the gain - actually allowed me to be heard much clearer than before, and the perceived volume in a band setting was much better. I was no longer stepping on the bassist or the other guitarist, and I was in my own sonic space.


    You can probably accomplish a similar feat by tweaking the master EQ out to your cab when it comes to live performance. You can then set it back to whatever you want for practicing at home. Or, if you're using performance mode, you can set up a copy of the amps you're using in a new performance (or set of performances) and tweak them accordingly.

    Guitars: Parker Fly Mojo Flame, Ibanez RG7620 7-string, Legator Ninja 8-string, Fender Strat & Tele, Breedlove Pro C25
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  • If it's a marshall cab, use the 4 ohm input. MUCH louder. You'll just have to be careful with running it so loud that the power amp overloads and goes into thermal protection. I noticed this too live with mine - the 16 ohm wasn't quite loud enough, but changing to 4 ohms helped a lot. Also depends on how loud your profiles are too, some are certainly louder than others and if you have a quieter profile or scoop your mids much your cab isn't going to be as loud.


    Hi,
    Yes it is a 1960a marshall cabinet...one from the jcm 900 line but sounds very nice and tight. I can run it in 16 or 4 ohm mono mode but had been wary about 4ohm for fear of damaging cab or head. I imagine the volume increase is quite significant so i may well have to go down this road if volume becomes an issue again. I dont generally scoop mids much with the kemper, the 5150 i use is a stock factory profile with some small eq adjustments. The tone fits well within the band mix and the only issue i had was volume. Have you used 4 ohm mode much for gigging? If so, how far can you push it without fear of thermal protection or speaker damage?

  • Hi,
    Yes it is a 1960a marshall cabinet...one from the jcm 900 line but sounds very nice and tight. I can run it in 16 or 4 ohm mono mode but had been wary about 4ohm for fear of damaging cab or head. I imagine the volume increase is quite significant so i may well have to go down this road if volume becomes an issue again. I dont generally scoop mids much with the kemper, the 5150 i use is a stock factory profile with some small eq adjustments. The tone fits well within the band mix and the only issue i had was volume. Have you used 4 ohm mode much for gigging? If so, how far can you push it without fear of thermal protection or speaker damage?


    I tried the 4 ohms setting and I was able to get it plenty loud without any thermal shutdown on the power amp. I was playing with a loud band onstage and also using a bottom cab, so I probably had it louder than it really needed to be since I didn't have the top speakers angled up. I bet that solves your issues!