Why aren't merged profiles more popular?

Quote from Deadlightstudio

I honestly blame it on Kemper themselve....they never explained it well to the users how to do it..and why do it etc.
I had to explain it million times to users till they did understand it..and many still don´t understand it.
Also there is still a good official tutorial video missing
and there were many with bad results because of user error, so that some people think its not as good as a studioprofile

I always appreciated that your sounds are merged; turning the cab off on a studio profile simply is not the same. The process of merging is simply explained in the manual and can't be that hard to master. A short official video would probably promote the use though.

I use a combination of in ears and a cab on stage that faces in towards the band. The on stage cab provides that weight I miss from in ears and is good for other bandmates that don't like in ears. I could never get the FRFR to satisfy me for distorted sounds. All the time, our engineer is happy with the direct sound from the Kemper and no spill in mics.

The reason why not more users care for merged profiles is because more and more guitarists embrace FRFR.

Your FoH gets spill in if you use a cab onstage. Does not matter if vocals spill in guitar mic or the other way around. It's always not optimal.

I guess that would be the same issue with FRFR too. The only way to get rid of spill is to all have in ears and still the drummer will enter the vocal mic.

Was there ever a request to mark merged profiles within the Kemper system?

It's not especially the sound which differs imho but if all the profiles I have were merged that would be endless easy tweaking possibilities just by switching cabs, as you would do with any amp head trying cabs.

Quote from nakedzen

People, DO NOT put a DI box between your amp and cab before checking it can handle the voltage.

You need to buy a DI box or dummy load that can handle the wattage which is a $200 investment by minimum. You can't use just any $10 di box off the shelf, it's likely you'll destroy the box and your amp. Most DI boxes have been built to handle signal levels (0.1V-1V), not 100W power amps. Want to be safe? Get a load box with line out, like a Hot Plate, and put that between your amp and cab.

There are threads on this forum pointing out plenty of DI boxes less than $100 that can handle the wattage and have a pass through to speaker to handle the load.

Quote from sercho

I play my kemper through a traditional cab, with cabs off in the monitor out. And I use studio profiles.

Why? Because I want my audience to hear my best possible tone through the PA. And so far it seems studio profiles sound better through a PA/FRFR/Studio monitor than merged profiles.

I don’t understand how this is possible when it’s still basically a studio profile when you have the cab engaged. I tried Monitoring the same amp’s studio vs merged profile from Top Jimi and they sound identical through studio monitors/headphones. The merged just sounded better through a guitar cab.

Quote from Sunshine

There are threads on this forum pointing out plenty of DI boxes less than $100 that can handle the wattage and have a pass through to speaker to handle the load.

Never said there weren't. I was wrong about the price range.

Just that you need to check before ruining your OT by haphazardly plugging a component into a live circuit.

Quote from nakedzen

People, DO NOT put a DI box between your amp and cab before checking it can handle the voltage.

You need to buy a DI box or dummy load that can handle the wattage which is a $200 investment by minimum. You can't use just any $10 di box off the shelf, it's likely you'll destroy the box and your amp. Most DI boxes have been built to handle signal levels (0.1V-1V), not 100W power amps. Want to be safe? Get a load box with line out, like a Hot Plate, and put that between your amp and cab.

Want to be 100% sure you have a DI that can do the job safely? Get the Kemper from the online store. BTW I think I paid around $130 for mine.

Quote from Sunshine

I don’t understand how this is possible when it’s still basically a studio profile when you have the cab engaged. I tried Monitoring the same amp’s studio vs merged profile from Top Jimi and they sound identical through studio monitors/headphones. The merged just sounded better through a guitar cab.

I guess that depends on the specific profile... ATM I don't own a merged profile equivalent to the studio profile I'm using live, so in my case I can say the cabs off version of that studio profile through my 4x12 satisfies me enough not to look for a merged version... but maybe I should anyway!

Quote from sercho

I guess that depends on the specific profile... ATM I don't own a merged profile equivalent to the studio profile I'm using live, so in my case I can say the cabs off version of that studio profile through my 4x12 satisfies me enough not to look for a merged version... but maybe I should anyway!

I suppose I did have this luxury when I bought my first commercial profile from Top Jimi. It contained both Studio and merged profiles of the same amps/settings. The merged profiles sound more organic to me. After comparing them to the studio profiles, the studio versions come across a bit more buzzy/electronic sounding. I had issues with studio profiles through a guitar cab not cutting the mix. the merged profiles FEEL like a real amp.

This being said, it also comes down to who is doing the profiling. I tried some DI profiles off the exchange that were pretty terrible sounding, and nothing has compared to the TJ profiles I have purchased so far. The only reason I haven't purchased more is because I will tweak my live rig endlessly if I give myself too many options...

When I got my KPA, it was for the sole purpose of capturing my amps so that I could use my own amps live without fear of having them break or get stolen (it ended up happening that my KPA was stolen so I was thankful it wasn't the real amps!)

Like the OP, I've never understood why the commercial profilers have not all embraced the merged profiles. I don't buy any profiles that aren't merged anymore and haven't in a long time. I embrace FRFR, I have two Atomic CLRs and I use in-ear monitors frequently with no cab... but I'm also a guitar player who loves to crank things up and feel the air move from a real guitar cab. And while the CLR can easily get louder than most of my real guitar cabs can handle, it's a different sound and to me it is less satisfying. But that doesn't mean it doesn't get the job done - it's just not what I would prefer personally.

I profiled many of my amps several times over the years. First, it was a learning process and I really had to learn how to mic up an amp better! I learned how hard it is to guess what you're going to need on stage in a band and I've learned to profile in many settings with many variables and try them all out before settling on one tone. That's tough to do and takes a lot of time and a lot of gigs.

When I started doing Merged profiles, I learned quickly that the process is different! I have dozens of commercial profiles that sound lousy through MY cabinet. Cabs have a HUGE impact on the sound, as we all know. So Merged profiles I made while running the head into my 4x12 sounded WAY different than profiles I made while running my heads into my 1x12 with a different speaker.

At the end of the day, I believe that making good merged profiles (and in my experience Merged is every bit as good as studio, and close enough to identical if done well) requires the extra step of having the amp sound excellent through the cabinet first, and preferably not super extreme so that it can be flexible (unless it's an extreme tone, of course.)

It's easy to mess with EQ and mic placement to compensate for a slightly bright amp or a slightly dark amp and it's easy to "bake in" some parametric EQ if there's a problem frequency while making a studio profile. But those modifications will be removed when that same profile is used direct.

That extra step, I believe, is what keeps many commercial profilers from doing more Merged profiles. "Old school" to an engineer is a studio profile, while "old school" to a guitar player needs a merged profile..

Just my $.02, of course

Quote from karlic

Was there ever a request to mark merged profiles within the Kemper system?

Yep. Not sure what happened to that.

Quote from timowens

I guess I'm old school, to me guitars into a FRFR monitor are like digital drums, they can sound fantastic in a recording but in a live situation they simply don't sound like real drums, they sound like a recording. I learned this lesson in my last classic rock band where I was running the KPA and a CLR while the other guitar player was running a real amp. After I switched to merged profiles and a real guitar cab our sounds out front were much more equal (before that he was kicking my butt).

The you have to wonder if your live situation is becoming a recording or not. If you manage to play live, without extra amplification from the FoH system, you might be right.

But from the moment you need a mic in front of a cab, going through the PA to be heard, all of the ear-candy from using a cab on stage is lost to your audience. stage noise and mic bleed aren't a FoH engineer's best friends, and those effects are bigger as opposed to the 'amp in the room sound'...

In 30 years of gigging, my amps have always been mic'ed and only loud enough for monitoring purposes; many times in front of me and tilted up
at my head so there is no sound pointed at the audience. The PA is for that and the audience receives a balanced and mixed sound.
FRFR allows me to hear profiles as they were originally captured. A profile captured with tone settings for a 4x12 cabinet will sound different if I run it through
a 1x12 with, probably, a different speaker than what was used to capture the profile. Imagine having to re-EQ for all those profiles.
FRFR sounds fine to me, as do studio profiles. Even Michael Britt ceased to make anything other than studio profiles after a brief experiment creating merged profiles.

Quote from jpoelmans

The you have to wonder if your live situation is becoming a recording or not. If you manage to play live, without extra amplification from the FoH system, you might be right.
But from the moment you need a mic in front of a cab, going through the PA to be heard, all of the ear-candy from using a cab on stage is lost to your audience. stage noise and mic bleed aren't a FoH engineer's best friends, and those effects are bigger as opposed to the 'amp in the room sound'...

You are painting with a wide brush here.

It should go without saying that noise pollution coming off the stage at high volumes is going to make the room sound like crap. On the flip side, having a well thought out and balanced mix before a mic ever approaches your cabinet is also a good idea.

Venues come in all shapes and sizes with different levels of PA support and quality. Even some bigger venues that have arrays of mains mounted above the stage have a dead area if you are standing right up against the stage. I have also played bars that have holes in the main's speaker cones. We never leave that much creativity up to FOH. We also play clubs that have in-house FOH guys, so they don't really give a crap in the end, anyways.

Quote from HCarlH

In 30 years of gigging, my amps have always been mic'ed and only loud enough for monitoring purposes; many times in front of me and tilted up
at my head so there is no sound pointed at the audience. The PA is for that and the audience receives a balanced and mixed sound.
FRFR allows me to hear profiles as they were originally captured. A profile captured with tone settings for a 4x12 cabinet will sound different if I run it through
a 1x12 with, probably, a different speaker than what was used to capture the profile. Imagine having to re-EQ for all those profiles.
FRFR sounds fine to me, as do studio profiles. Even Michael Britt ceased to make anything other than studio profiles after a brief experiment creating merged profiles.

I'm going to assume you are a working musician. The flexibility of FRFR clearly makes more sense in your case. I play in a band that only plays originals at the moment and only have to focus on my own tone, rather than emulate many different sounds. I happen to prefer a traditional cabinet in this scenario, regardless of volume.