How many of you change cabs in rigs

  • I never change cabs, but I check a ton of cabs on DI profiles.


    There is a distinct difference between how the IR sounds with a loader, vs the Kemper.


    From my Atomic Amplifire days, I was into IRs, and bought a bunch. I use the following to find an IR that fits the DI profile.


    Here are the steps I use:


    1. make a quick recording of the DI (which usually sounds horrible) in my DAW
    2. Insert an IR loader onto the track, or the master track.
    3. Scroll through a ton of IRs until I find one that sounds great.
    4. I copy that IR onto the Kemper formatted thumb drive.
    5. I repeat until I get tired of doing it.
    6. Run CabMaker to create Kemper cab files.
    7. Load them onto the Kemper.
    8. Scroll through the cabs I created, and realize that they sound different from the IR Loader. Hopefully finding something that really sounds good.
    9. Repeat the process (the next day) if nothing strikes me as great. :/

  • For those of you changing cabs, how do you deal with the fact that the Kemper doesn't know where to delineate the amp from the cab in a studio profile?

    You're right, there's no way the Kemper can distinguish the two perfectly, but it does do a surprisingly good job of it. But, I only buy direct profiles when I can, then add IRs. My problem with most commercial sellers is while they offer a vast array of different amps, they tend to use the same cabs over and over. For example, I paid good money for a set of authentic Dumble profiles from a well-respected seller. Problem is, every cab used was the same M/B, Marshall and other V30 variation cabs. Don't get me wrong, the tones were great and very usable, but they weren't authentic. A traditional, open back with an EVM12L would have been preferable. Matching the manufacturer's amp and cab is a lot more interesting to me.


    Everyone is screaming for an editor, all I want is a cab control within Rig Manager

  • That can be a huge tool and I really often do. But since kemper changed the cab volume feature to "only" rig volume the A-B comparison is more complicated if cabs have different levels.


    Does anyone know if it is still possible to change the cab level only, or to save a cab with another volume level?

  • I've had a go a few times, but like others have mentioned:
    - I trust the pros
    - This is like a rabbit hole of complexity
    - It's fiddly and time consuming
    - I don't have a tone problem to solve :D

  • I've just started using IR's for my Matchless Profile. The profile sounded great stock. The IR's I'm using now are the Matchless ESD2x12 from Redwirez, and they sound a little closer to what I'm used to hearing from my real HC30!

  • I am the great fan of Celestion’s IRs

    I like their IR's very much as well. They put me in a place where I could find speakers that I really liked with specific amps. I have since gone to Rig Manager and looked for specific speaker/mic combinations based on the IR's and saved the Cabs I liked. I tested these against the IR's and found that I like the Kemper speakers better, in most cases, although the IR's really helped me get what I wanted and I use them on my other devices with great success (Amplifire & Amp into Logidy IR). I would be interested in finding a way to make IR's from the Kemper cabs that I have stored and trying them as IR's against the others I have on my Amp and Impulse loader.


    Has anyone tested this?

    "More Guitar in the Monitors" :thumbup:

  • I use them a lot. It opens so much tonal possibilities and really makes my Kemper sound more the way I want it. The pro' s have a good ear but the professional cab makers too and I benefit from that. Too bad that the Kemper is not IR use friendly. Software can be used in the most sophisticated ways everywhere but the Kemper cannot load IRs in a convenient way? Or is it lack of commitment to the customers?

  • I don't because I find that the major portion of the sound of an amp is the cab with the Kemper (more so than with other sims), even the distortion characteristics. Swapping out the cabs just results in me getting the same amp that the cab originally came from so I may as well just use that rig in the first place.


    I have a feeling that the reason for this could be with the with the Kemper algorithm the cab might contain not just the output frequency mapping but the input frequency mapping that results in the distortion characteristic itself/ i.e. it's both of the bookends on the amp waveshaper, not just an output eq. It might be different with "merged" profiles though but the majority of profiles I have are studio.

  • I don't because I find that the major portion of the sound of an amp is the cab with the Kemper (more so than with other sims), even the distortion characteristics. Swapping out the cabs just results in me getting the same amp that the cab originally came from so I may as well just use that rig in the first place.


    I have a feeling that the reason for this could be with the with the Kemper algorithm the cab might contain not just the output frequency mapping but the input frequency mapping that results in the distortion characteristic itself/ i.e. it's both of the bookends on the amp waveshaper, not just an output eq. It might be different with "merged" profiles though but the majority of profiles I have are studio.

    This is why it took me so long to try IR's. But my experience with the Redwirez Matchless ESD2x12 is that I get "more" of the frequency response from the amp, without the high frequencies getting harsh, or the lows getting muddy. In fact, I've been able to eliminate both a low cut and high cut I'd been using with the Kemper studio EQ after the amp. The IR seems to reproduce the higher frequencies a little better, and sounds more natural to me.

  • I'm not a "Long-Time-Kemper-Owner" but in the very very beginning (I think it was really the first day) I thought that I had to build my own rigs with different cabs for special sounds. It was a lot of work for me because I didn't have any experience with the Kemper but it worked. Short after that I ran through many many rigs and nearly always found for what I searched for. There was no need to change anything in the rigs (maybe reverb, distortion etc). Now (very quick) I have become much too lazy to change cabs anymore. I just take a nice rig and modify it a bit. Sometimes I take some complete different rigs for one performace and put them together for a hole song (each slot a different rig). Maybe my ears had to work too much with heavy music in the last 40 years, but for me it sounds just right, what I do so far :D

    "Haben" ist besser als "brauchen". :D