Multi mic profiling with "room" feeling

  • if you want something better than 'amp in the room', put the PROFILER in stereo through a good monitoring system (Studio monitors, wedges, IEM) and add a 1x12 cabinet, preferrably driven by the POWERHEADs internal power amp.

    Now you can take advantage of the full profiled sound including cabinet, speaker, mic, EQ etc. for FOH/reheasal room PA/FRFR and the extra impact a 12" speaker delivers, which is what many of us guitar players are used to.


    Best of both worlds.

    This is exactly how I have my Powerhead connected in my music room/studio.

  • exilech , any update from last week’s trials? I’d like to know what you found out.


    Another route you can go down is to blend close and far speaker IRs in your DAW and save them as a single blended IR to import back into the Kemper. Several paid profile packs (Celestion, OwnHammer) will give you close-miked, speaker rear, room, and other IR options.


    1) Record an amp-only pass into your DAW (temporarily disable the speaker cab sim on your Kemper)


    2) Duplicate the recorded audio track several times


    3) Instantiate the cab IR plug-in of your choice on each audio track. Lancaster Pulse is free and reliable. Use your DAW’s track level to control blend, keeping Pulse’s level settings identical across all tracks


    4) Once you find the blend you like, delete the audio tracks and import the IR .wav files you auditioned onto their respective tracks. The level controls should have preserved their blend.


    5) Export the new IR blend as a 44.1/16 mono .wav file


    6) Import into the Kemper via USB


    It’s tedious work, but the payoff can be big.

  • Thanks db db cooper for the detailed how to.


    I dind't progress that much as i'm still looking for some mics to borrow.


    I try a sennheiser MD409 and a shure sm57 close up and sum together with two small diaphragm mics like AKG C451B or alike positioned a few feet away from the amp and then do a profiling.

    The other approach you describe is definitely worth trying but will require that i take my kemper to the studio at home. We have some stuff coming up and my kemper is savely installed in a heavy rack. Or do you mean the amp only as in the amp i want to profile? If yes, can i hook up any amp speaker out to a DI?


    if you want something better than 'amp in the room', put the PROFILER in stereo through a good monitoring system (Studio monitors, wedges, IEM) and add a 1x12 cabinet, preferrably driven by the POWERHEADs internal power amp.

    Now you can take advantage of the full profiled sound including cabinet, speaker, mic, EQ etc. for FOH/reheasal room PA/FRFR and the extra impact a 12" speaker delivers, which is what many of us guitar players are used to.


    Best of both worlds.

    I have the KPA going straight to the FOH with the main outs in stereo and have a 2x12 cab as my own guitar monitor driven by the KPA Poweramp.


    What i'm looking for seems the longer i try to understand the physics of audio, be a bit of a utopia and maybe not even band-context friendly, but still, the "amp-in-the-room" feeling for me, is the 4x12 cab i hear when standing a few feet away from the cab, which sounds huge, and have that as a cab profile or studio profile come out of the PA to the audience.

    once a purist, then analog pragmatic and finally a digital believer who found out that you can't hear a mosquito fart in a band-context.

  • the "amp-in-the-room" feeling for me, is the 4x12 cab i hear when standing a few feet away from the cab, which sounds huge, and have that as a cab profile or studio profile come out of the PA to the audience.

    I would try to replicate that by placing a mic in the spot where your head is at then - as have been suggested previously, I believe.

    A condenser mic, something with a flat-ish response.


    Keep in mind that listening volume makes a big difference - you probably won't get the same in-the-room feeling at low volumes or with headphones anyway, without turning up bass and treble. But then that would probably make the sound less suitable for loud use (eg. on stage).

  • Or do you mean the amp only as in the amp i want to profile? If yes, can i hook up any amp speaker out to a DI?

    I wasn't clear. Run an amp you've profiled from your Kemper into your DAW without cab IR enabled, is what I meant. You're most welcome. This is the approach I've turned to for my profile packs. I find it a faster and more direct route than converting IRs, loading them onto the Kemper, cycling through on my machine, and deleting the ones I don't like. Plus, the blending option is cool.


    Keep us posted. I have a feeling the Kemper will just ignore the room sound and extract the frequency response at the mic position, but I'd like to know definitively.

  • I've tried converting some impulse responses meant for convolution reverbs and using them as Cabs, and it does seem to extract the frequency response characteristics while ignoring the time response. Meaning, it colors the sound but there's no perceivable decay or "tail." But, you can do really cool stuff using that idea...I've found some IRs for acoustic guitar and dobro that really work well for making acoustic instruments sound more realistic when played with a pickup.

  • if you want something better than 'amp in the room', put the PROFILER in stereo through a good monitoring system (Studio monitors, wedges, IEM) and add a 1x12 cabinet, preferrably driven by the POWERHEADs internal power amp.

    Now you can take advantage of the full profiled sound including cabinet, speaker, mic, EQ etc. for FOH/reheasal room PA/FRFR and the extra impact a 12" speaker delivers, which is what many of us guitar players are used to.


    Best of both worlds.

    How can something be better than amp in the room? By definition, the idea is to create the sound of the amp in the room! Nothing more, nothing less. And the profiler gives the sound of a recorded amp, not amp in the room and certainly not better than amp in the room!