Different Cabinets Give Amps New Life

    What a difference a cabinet can make. But what happened came full circle, as a better cabinet made amp tweaking work with many other cabinets. My usable collection increased tenfold.


    Long story short (yes, I'm trying), I took one of my favorite Top Jimi JCM800 amp profiles and went cab hunting to see if I could find a "more natural" speaker/mic tone that made my amp profile sound like a great amp in a room without the close-miced filtered sound. Looking for vintage Marshall tones to work with JTM 45, Plexi, JMP, and JCM800...and more. After all, a great cab can work on almost anything, right? Around the same time I needed a headphone solution for nighttime use that sounded like studio monitors...something my old headphones weren't doing. I ended up with an awesome set of cans with the Avantone Pro MP-1 MixPhones that actually helped me shape tone that translated better than my monitors, but translated back to my monitors just fine, and are a real pleasure to jam with for hours without fatigue. They have two modes, one specifically for mixing, and one for general listening. The mixing mode sounds close to my monitors, and I use it most of the time, but the listening mode is also very good. I aim to sound good with everything.


    I must have copied and saved two dozen cabs from the free offerings. Then I put that TJ amp profile through every one of those cabs until I heard magic happen. With a little tweaking I had the cabinet that was just what I wanted...old Greenback tone in a room. Perfect definition from lows to highs, and very natural sounding. BUT the big surprise was what happened when I locked down everything and started running all the amp profiles (amp only) through this cab with a refined EQ combo. Wowza! Many profiles I "passed" on a long time ago suddenly "came to life". I recovered somewhere around 20 amp profiles, and out of that bunch about half of them were stellar. What a difference! Even the Fender and Vox profiles I purchased sounded fantastic. It didn't end there. The amp EQ I dialed in is somehow working with multiple amps which are now working with many cabinets. How that's happening I can't say, but I'm in tone heaven!


    So, what is this cab, and where did it come from? The cab is called "Mars" by M. Wienstroer and done at Studio 25 with an AKG 414 off axis. There are several variations of this setup, but I believe I saved the cab from the "Gundy - John6 For MM" profile by Gundy Keller on 2015-02-14 12:26:04 in Factory Content 5.1.


    SPEAKER CAB TWEAKS (by Gundy?):


    High Shift -0.7
    Low Shift -0.1
    Character -0.8
    Pure Cabinet 0.0


    NO Pure Cabinet on Output Page 5 (don't need it anymore).


    UNIVERSAL AMP EQ SETTINGS THAT REFINE ALMOST EVERYTHING NICELY:


    BASS 1.8
    MID 3.1
    TREB 2.7
    PRES +0.0



    And now that I thought about it, I just locked down my tweaked Top Jimi JTM-45 profile (another freebie...great Marshall amp profile!) with a gain level of 5.4 (same EQ settings) for everything except the cabinet and used Rig Manager to select all the M. Wienstroer and Dirk Baldringer profiles listening to all the different cabs. OMG! =O They all sound good! The method used to capture the cabinets with that AKG 414 was a brilliant effort. Very natural speaker cab sound. No "fizz" or "buzz". Thank you! :thumbup:


    EDIT: I might have tweaked the TJ-JTM 45 Max-2 amp by setting Definition at 6.1 and Tube Shape at 3.3. All other deep amp settings are 0.0. As mentioned, gain is 5.4 for my Les Paul with hummies and single coil options. EQ Above.


    And for those that have the Top Jimi Brownsound Pack, check out the Diver Down, Fair Warning, 1984 and VH II cabs for more open sound goodness with the authentic 20 Watt Celestion color that is vintage rare and unique. It's awesome! :thumbup:


    Last night I ran the amp and EQ combo back through all the cabs in my Kemper and picked up several more cabs that work really well. So, what came first? The chicken or the egg? In this case the cabinet or the amp??? Whatever...it works! I have many more amp and cab tone choices that work better than the original profiles. That's a good thing. ;)


    EFFECTS I LIKE WITH THIS "OLD SCHOOL" STUFF:


    STOMPS:


    A - W WAH
    CryBaby
    Manual = 4.0
    Peak = 7.5
    Pedal Range = +31%
    Peak Range = -43%
    Mix 50%
    Ducking <0.0>
    Volume <0.0>


    B - PPTC
    Pedal Pitch (Whammy)
    Heel Pitch = 0
    Toe Pitch = 24
    Mix = 100%
    Ducking = <0.0>
    Volume = <0.0>


    C - OCT
    Analog Octaver
    Voice Balance = -50%
    Mix = -5.2
    Low Cut = 1.7
    Ducking = <0.0>
    Volume = <0.0>


    D - COMP
    Compressor
    Intensity = 4.9
    Attack = 0.0
    Squash = 0.0
    Mix = 100%
    Volume = +0.4


    EFFECTS:


    X - GATE
    Noise Gate 4:1
    Threshold = 9.7


    MOD - WIDE
    Stereo Widener
    Intensity = 2.7
    Tune = 10.0
    Ducking = <0.0>


    DLY - LDLY
    Legacy Delay
    Mix = 40.0%
    Note Value 1 = 4/16 (1/4)
    Note Value 2 = 3/16 (1/8 dot)
    Feedback = 19%
    Bandwidth = 1.1
    Frequency = 3.8
    Modulation = 0.0
    Ducking = <0.0>


    REV - REV
    Hall
    Mix = 63.2% (set to taste)
    Del+Rev Balance = +58%
    Time = 4.0
    Damping = 2.0
    Predelay = 27 ms
    Bandwidth = 5.0
    Frequency = +0.1
    Ducking = <0.0>
    Volume = +1.6



    A LITTLE (optional) HISTORY:


    "Apr 28th 2012
    Hi Players, here‘s some more info on the profiling session for the Rig Pack 01.


    First I like to thank Markus Wienstroer and Dirk Baldringer for doing great work.


    Markus brought in some hot stuff from his great collection of amps,
    all these amps are fine tuned for reaching the max in performance and tone.
    Some of these amps are hard to find nowaday‘s and some just one of a kind, their simply unique.
    The S. Mehl amp, or the JCM from 1981, tuned by Dirk Baldringer, or the old S. Duncan Convertible amp.
    Even the speakers used in the different cabs are really old vintage stuff, broken in well.


    Christoph Kemper profiled a Leslie and added new local presets for the Phaser Stomp.


    Dirk Baldringer of Studio 25 spent a great amount of time and passion, for getting the most out of every setup we took a profile of.
    We really tried to push the whole thing a step forward and will do in the future.
    One of our goals will be to release new Rig, Profile and FX Packs on a more or less regular base and make them available for all KPA Players.


    By the way, I think the Rigs of this package are very „tweakfriendly“
    so, give them a tweak. ;)
    Have fun and a good rockin‘ weekend.
    G. Droid"

    Phil 8)

    Edited once, last by PHILBERT: EDIT for additional deep amp settings. ().

    Like 12

    :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:
    The cab is the secret sauce. I posted that several times too. Search for the 1960 AV from deadlightstudios Lars Lüttge and also the mega boobie 2x12 from freangers (also deadlightstudios).These ones were the gamechangers for and meanwhile also other guys have created great ones. Guido last pack‘s include some gems too and yes, you can also flip the cabs in studioprofiles to make them shine. It doesn’t matter if it’s a di, merged or studioprofile. If it sounds good it us good.


    My fav 3 for using their cabs:
    Deadlightstudios (Lars Lüttge and Frank)
    The awesome Sinmix ( Steve Stevens can’t be wrong)
    Guidorist


    Sorry to all others. That’s all I need.

    The world of IRs has really opened my eyes and ears to how impactful a cab is on a rig. I've either owned combo amps or heads with matching cabs so never realized how drastically the cab/speakers change the sound.


    I agree with @Eltzejupps recommendations and would also add Michael Britt's cabs pair well with other merged or direct profiles. If you don't already have his profiles, you can buy a collection of just his cab IRs (https://mbritt.com/product/mblended-ir-pack-1/).

    Thanks guys. I've been playing guitar for 3 days straight and don't want to stop! It just keeps getting better. Now I'm out on rig exchange finding other cabs that work. I have about a dozen JCM800 versions, and about ten or so JT-45 versions. As long as there are cabs out there that work well for my favorite amps, I'm grabbin' 'em. I wish I had a week off of work to keep this growing, but no such luck.


    I just wonder why the cabs that came with the amp profiles I like didn't sound as good. I really like the amps, but found the cabs lackluster. Doesn't matter, as I found plenty of other good IR's that work. I'll just keep collecting them and adding those to my favorite amp profiles. I do like Top Jimi amps though. He goes for "big" sound. I like that too.


    So the "magic cab" helped me to shape the amp tones that opened the door to all sorts of other great cabs. And some of these are so addictive that It's hard to stop playing to create new profiles. I'm overloaded! 8| Back to hunting and jamin'. :whistling:

    I might have grabbed some of those. I do remember checking those sources. I'll try again. Thanks! :)

    My goto Marshall cab regardless of the amp profile is from a free profile on Rig Exchange called:


    Jesse-RockBox-Plexi by Jesse Fildes


    The cabinet is called Jesse RockBox



    Its absolutely fantastic with any Marshall type amp.


    For cleans I usually use a cabinet called "Deluxe EVM112L" by author Heater, which is also on the RE.
    check em out
    cheers

    I'll look for that and give it a try. Thanks Joe. I welcome suggestions, for sure.


    I had to force myself to get some sleep last night. Played a cab called Rand L , and with a bit of modification to my TJ JCM800 tone stack it has a nice color and balance to it. Very responsive and crunchy. That's one I never would have thought of. Bonus!


    The cool thing about cab hunting is that you can find sought after speaker types that capture the flavor the way you like it. For example, the real V30 (made in England...not China) is ,by design, a bit shrill to my likes, but works for modern high gain amps if you get away from the center of the speaker. I found a 2x12 V30 cab someone did that had the sweet spot just right, so now I have a good V30 cab. Great! G12-25 Greenbacks are also tricky in the highs, but I got a couple of good cab models of that over the weekend too. Check!


    Other speaker types I'm after are Blackbacks with a little more high end, and also Creambacks. I saved a couple from Studio 25 (I think Dirk did them), but I'm still looking for the right shades for these speaker types. But now that I have the amps right, it's just a matter of locking down everything but the cab section and auditioning thousands of profiles in search of exactly what I'm after. You couldn't ever do that in real life. What took hours to setup (for just one cab and mic profile) takes me seconds to try with Rig Manager. My cab collection is growing quite large now. This is AWESOME!


    And here is the thing....I'm writing new songs with these inspiring amp sounds. And it's not just the tone bringing that out, but also the "feel". I'm shredding so much now that I'm breaking strings! :D It's been a long time since I got that pumped up over the guitar/amp relationship. Kinda like the adrenaline kicks in and you start flying on the fret board in disbelief that you are actually playing what you are playing. Time to start recording this stuff!


    PS - I couldn't resist it anymore...broke down and got the Top Jimi Engle PowerBall profile pack. It's a unique slammin' amp I just had to have. Help me! I'm obsessed with this "thing"! :wacko:

    Thanks to all for your suggestions. It is a pity there's no way to swap cabs in the Rig Manager. You have to go thru them all in such a cumbersome way, but sure it can be worth it and not just with direct profiles you need to add a cab to. Basically, if cabs were well organized (and named) by category it would be easier to go for the ones you think may work well, say, an alnico blue to tame a boomy profile or whatever.

    Never too old for rock'n'roll

    Like 5

    glad that you found the tone you where looking for (or at least is almost there)


    you could profile your amp you will have a snapshot of your own amp and be able to cab tweak it


    you will get a closer tone in the same cabinets after tweaking a bit

    Quote from PHILBERT


    Other speaker types I'm after are Blackbacks with a little more high end

    My ‘78 JMP 2104 2x12 combo has original Blackbacks in it. I keep saying this, but one of these days I’m going to profile the sucker properly, DA and Merged profiles. Hopefully VERY soon, just finishing off a rejig at the studio first.

    They’re pretty rare over here unmodded @paults
    It really is a great sound, once you dial it in (the blackbacks and open back give a fierce high end that you have to be careful with at high volume, as you probably know!).


    Back on topic, I haven’t been bothered to experiment too much with Cabs in the KPA, one reason being the relatively cumbersome handling of them internally. An expansion to Rig Manager with better Cab handling would sort that, and a formal tag to differentiate DA, DI, Studio and Merged profiles would help, too. I’m kind of perplexed that Kemper added the Acoustic tag before rectifying this last point, actually :wacko:

    Quote from PHILBERT

    What a difference a cabinet can make.


    Excellent testimony, Philbert.


    It is always great to hear a new user has had an epiphany. Indeed, changing the "stock" Cabinet is one of the most fundamental and powerful customization you can make to a KPA profile. While this topic has been discussed many times before, by myself and others, there is no shame that you might have missed these threads/topics. I am just sorry you had to stumble along into this realization all on your lonesome, so to speak.
    :)


    Typically, this realization comes when you are trying to work with a commercial profile that you spent good money on, and you just are unable to get it to sound the way you expected it to sound. Once you have this "Eureka" moment, the next logical step plays out something like this:



    "Hey, if this worked so great for rescuing a so-so profile...why don't I perform the same experiment with my absolute favorite profiles, and see what happens. You know, the profiles that I previously didn't think needed any improvement or tweaking".


    As it turns out, I have modified every single one of my top profiles (typically based upon a commercial amp profile) by swapping/switching out the normal (stock) cabinet, and replacing with a selection of exclusive cabinet presets I have compiled. Yes, this requires some auditioning, but the final result can be so very much worth it.