Hi Mike! So i've had the kemper for a month now and got a few of your packs when I got it. It's very time consuming to sit down and go through tones and tweak but your profiles have made the plug in and play experience better than the stock profiles for sure.
I'm curious if you have any suggestions though regarding tone tips like maybe global settings, merging, swapping cabs, etc. So far i've been playing through samson RXA5 studio monitors and i'm not that happy with the results but I ordered your signature cab from Xitone which i'm really hoping brings these profiles to life like standing next to a real amp.
Thank you,
~ Guy
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Thanks for writing. Truly the hardest thing about the Kemper is deciding what to monitor with. All consumer and even many professional monitors and headphones will color the tone. I can make rigs all day and they may sound great in my iem’s but not as good on my studio monitors and worse still on my audio technica headphones. I end up tweaking them to sound good for each way but then I’m not sure what sounds good at all after a while. So, I feel your pain.
I feel the Kemper excels in situations where a mic’d amp would be used: through a live p.a., home recording, etc. But it’s a bit more challenging to get it to just sound like an amp in the room. The trick is always getting a captured sound of a mic’d speaker back out of a speaker. Many FRFR’s I’ve tried get close and they may sound good, but they don’t feel like a guitar amp. I have all of these laying around: Tech 21 Power Engine, Mackie SRM150, Mackie SRM550, QSC K10, Atomic Reactor wedge, Atomic CLR wedge, and my Xitone. They all have things I like about them:
Tech 21 Power Engine - feels more like a guitar amp. A bit midrange heavy due to the cabinet. EQ available on T21 amp. I have run this with or without cab sims on and can tweak to make it work.
Mackie SRM150 - little portable monitor. No low end to speak of but sounds really good overall considering it doesn’t get super loud. This works great in my office or in a hotel room. I’ve even used it as a monitor and kemper monitor for acoustic shows, where you don’t need a lot of low end rumbling around.
Mackie SRM550 - floor wedge with really horrible frequency response. I wouldn’t recommend this at all. Scooped mids, shrill highs, and boxy bass.
QSC K10 - very even sounding and fairly lightweight and easy to move around. Sounds better when you use 2 in stereo. It still has a pretty prominent horn so I just use it to check profiles every now and then. I have friends who use these happily.
Atomic Reactor - tube driven power amp, which is nice. The horn has a knob so it can be turned up or down, which I really like. It still doesn’t have a lot of low end response and it’s a little bulky. The horn is kinda farty sounding sometimes.
Atomic CLR - very loud and punchy. The horn can get shrill at higher volumes. I wish this one had the tweeter knob. I stick a small piece of foam in the throat of the horn to tame it a little without cutting it off entirely. I use this wedge mostly for checking profiles and for acoustic gigs. It’s beefy enough and has 2 inputs so I can run my monitor send into it as well as my Kemper. Works great in that capacity. I’ve tried using it on electric gigs but it just seemed bright and not warm enough on the bottom.
Xitone MB - It has a coax 12” and horn assembly but the horn is rear mounted and shoots through the 12” speaker so it’s not as harsh sounding as the Atomic CLR. It’s in a rectagular box instead of a wedge so it’s not pointing back at my head, which helps. The back panel is removable to move air out of the front and back which is nice for some room. It has different modes for a little eq tailoring. I use it on most of the different settings depending on the room. If it’s a lower volume room, I will run Mode 1 (FRFR) and keep the volume lower. On brighter hardwood stages, I will use Mode 2 or 4. At home I tend to use Mode 3 or 5. On loud stages I often run mode 5 (raw 12”) and turn the monitor cabs off on the Kemper.
As far as settings on the Kemper goes, the rule of thumb is that if you’re running into a p.a. or frfr type cab, you’ll want to make sure the “monitor cab off” is unchecked (page 3 of the output menu). If you’re running into a guitar cab, like I still do a lot, you’ll want to make sure the “monitor cab off” is checked. This still allows the cab sims to stay active going to the main outputs but disables them for the monitor output and the speaker output on powered versions.
I don’t typically use any pure cabinet, but please feel free to turn that on/up and try it out. It rolls off a little of the higher frequencies and makes the lower mids a bit more prominent. That’s usually how my profiles are voiced anyway so I don’t need it as much, but everyone’s taste in tone is different and all different monitors sound different as well, so you just have to try to see what works.
For people new to the Kemper, I would usually recommend just using a guitar cabinet and turning the monitor cabs off. This will usually yield a more guitar amp like quality. The Xitone might get you close as well. I would recommend using the monitor output eq (also found on page 3 of the output menu) to tailor your tone to the speaker you’re using. This will change the overall eq for all rigs so you don’t have to eq them individually.
I hope this helps. I know it’s a lot to take in. There’s a bit of a learning curve and getting used to how the Kemper works, but usually after a month or two, it gets dialed in and most people never want to go back. Just be patient and try things out. It took me about 3-4 weeks to find the right profiles and the right form of monitoring things that worked for me. Now it’s just minor changes here and there.
thanks
Mike
(Thought people may find this info useful)