Issue with Kemper through JBL LSR305 Studio Monitors

    Hi,


    I I've been recording in Reaper using a raw guitar feed onto one track and a "Kemperised" feed into another.


    The chain was Guitar > Kemper > Focusrite 2i4 > iMac.


    I was silent recording in the house using some cheap £35 Roland headphones into the headphone jack of the 2i4 and it worked and sounded great.


    I have a garage 2.5 x 5.6 with a 2.5 metre high ceiling that is converted into a rehearsal room with soundblok plasterboard, walls full of insulation, foam on the wall etc etc. Works well. I was "encouraged" by my wife to record out there so set up a desk and after some research got a pair of JBL LSR305 monitors with stands.


    Playing back previous recordings it sounded great, really great. My chain was the same but I took the balanced monitor outs to the JBLs.


    I then tried playing my Kemper through it....the sound lacked a lot of bass...which didn't surprise me....so I adjusted the monitor out EQ on the Kemper to have max bass and cut some treble....not bad...not great but not bad.


    I compared it to my Yamaha DXR10 which I play the Kemper through and that was loads better....but of course it's massively more powerful with a 10" vs 5" speaker.


    I then noticed that the high gain guitar rigs were causing all kinds of raspy noises through the JBLs at any significant kind of volume. I don't really hear it unless I try when recording or playing along with a mix...but it's annoying as I didn't have that through my cheapo headphones.


    Playing without any backing the raspy noise is horrible. Now theoretically I guess it doesn't matter as I can monitor my guitar through the DXR10 (the Kemper has multiple outs that can be set with different EQs so I use the main out with a flat EQ to the DXR10 and a monitor out with bass boosted, treble cut, to the 2i4 and then the JBLs.


    However, I do wonder if this is normal behaviour? Any ideas?


    Thanks,
    Andy

    One thing you can try is take the JBLs off the stands. When a speaker is on a stand it's sort of "free-radiating" and the bass frequencies are spread out in all directions. You can really boost the bass by either placing them on the floor, or against a wall, or to get even more bass boost, try a corner between a wall and the floor. See this link for an explanation of why
    Configure your PA
    If you use the room to your advantage, you probably wont have to max the bass on the Kemper, and you might get by with the smaller JBLs if you aren't driving them so hard. Experiment with placement and see if that helps.

    Hi, yes, I did play with that..more because the rasp was so bad and wonder if the stand was vibrating, but it wasn't. It's that issue I'm most concerned with right now. Cheers, Andy