Need some advice for live usage

  • Hi guys. First forum post I made was Powered vs unpowered Profiler. At the very end I ended up getting the Head, and I bought a pair of Fluid F5 monitors for monitoring output. I am mainly using FRFR profiles with "pre miced sounds".. I am planning to play live quite a bit, but I got this feeling that I should have gone with the Powered one.. In case the pubs and places where I'm gonna play don't have a PA etc.. Kemper says I can still take use of my 45 days return and buy out the Powered one, but the VAT hell here in Norway makes me cringe by the thought of arguing with them again, getting the VAT money back and all that.


    So because of that I am looking in to the idea of having an active cab instead of a passive cab for this use. What kind of active cabs would be "good enough" for this use? I am not very well versed in passive and active cabs, and I do not know what is good or bad in that matter... Also, could I just use my Fluid F5 monitors as "active cab" in a live setting? Would it be possible to mic up those 70watts monitors?


    TLDR: Considering swapping for Powerhead and use my 45 days return, but I can also live with non-powered, if there is a good solution for those gigs where they have no PA..

  • You only need the Powered KPA if you want to use a traditional guitar cab. I bought the powered just to have that option but many people here don't use a guitar cab and are perfectly happy with active FRFR speakers.


    You will find various popular options in the forum ranging from Headrush and the relatively cheap but highly regarded Yamaha DXR10 right up to much more expensive cabs like Mission, Friedman etc. The preferred choice is very much a matter of taste so ideally you want to try a few in a local shop if at all possible.


    If you really want to run a traditional guitar cab but don't want the hassle of returning the current KPA there are severally very popular external power amps that you could use. Again these range from pedal sized amps and the Camplifier (which actually fits into the back of the KPA head) up to rack mount stereo power amps so much will depend on your own requirements.

  • Very informative. Thank you. The Camplifier looks like a solid option for me should I be needing a traditional guitar cab, without the VAT hassle that comes with the return of my KPA.. Yamaha DXR10 looks like an option aswell, I'll keep note on that.. Could I however still use my Fluid F5 70w monitors for live setting? I've never seen anyone use frfr studio monitors live, so I just gotta ask :)

  • I wouldn't go there. Firstly, studio monitors aren't built to take the knocks of live use and the speakers are unprotected so may get damaged in transit. Secondly, they are designed to produce a good sound relatively close to the listener. They are unlikely to project sounds well in a live situation. Also, 70w isn't a lot of headroom so in order to get them loud enough for live use you run the risk of clipping the amp and damaging the speakers. It's not worth it I my opinion.

  • I wouldn't go there. Firstly, studio monitors aren't built to take the knocks of live use and the speakers are unprotected so may get damaged in transit. Secondly, they are designed to produce a good sound relatively close to the listener. They are unlikely to project sounds well in a live situation. Also, 70w isn't a lot of headroom so in order to get them loud enough for live use you run the risk of clipping the amp and damaging the speakers. It's not worth it I my opinion.

    I see. But even if they were micced properly? I remember when I had Peavey Classic 30 back in the days, we micced it in to FOH, and the volume was only at 2.

  • but I got this feeling that I should have gone with the Powered one.. In case the pubs and places where I'm gonna play don't have a PA etc..

    If you are micing it you clearly have a PA so don't need the same onstage solution. If the venue has a PA you can probably get a monitor feed if you need to or use IEM. Again, it all depends on your needs. I wouldn't try and mic studio monitors for several reasons such as you would only be micing the woofer not the tweeter so wouldn't get the full sound. You would get on stage spill that you don't need when you could simply send the Main XLR outs to the PA.

  • Thanks. Good point! No need for miccing when I can plug it directly :) do you happen to know if its possible to incorporate micro seconds delay to left or right? I have this place I'm gonna play at next Friday and gonna run dual xlr stereo. Figured it would sound more stereo if left and right are microseconds from each other :)

  • I regularly play the kpa through returns of combo’s.

    For pubs and clubs....nothing beats it imho...much much better then an frfr to my taste.

    Some time ago I saw one of the top cats in my country going frfr next to a guy with a fender deluxe in a club...really night and day differnce.

    Also...that and feeding foh with your cabsimmed signal works great!!


    On a budget, go for a ss combo 100w and up..actually a fender frontman wasnt half bad.

    Peavey valveking sounds really good, those go for 200,- ...really heavy though.


    Tube power still beats ss imho.

    Personally I went for a egnater rebel. Those are small, affordable, and sound great.

    I pair it with a cab when required.

    I can also recommend the egnater renegade for this application...sounds even better..but tbh...cause of the compact format of the Rebel..it doesnt get out much,


    Probably all good tube combo’s with an effectloop do the job, and plenty of those on the used market.


    Going camplifier is also a very good option. I play the 2x90 regularly. Although I prefer tube power a tad....the convinience of the build in amp gets it a lot of playtime, paired with a lightweight cab its excellent for places with some distance between your car and stage.

  • you can use one of the delays to achieve that. If you want it in all rigs simply lock it.

    I'm actually referring to the output signal, not delay effect itself. For example so that the signal reaches left speaker a few milliseconds after the right speaker. This is usually what I do in daw when panning duplicate tracks left and right

  • I'm actually referring to the output signal, not delay effect itself. For example so that the signal reaches left speaker a few milliseconds after the right speaker. This is usually what I do in daw when panning duplicate tracks left and right

    Yes and that is what you can use a delay to archive.

    Kemper PowerRack |Kemper Stage| Rivera 4x12 V30 cab | Yamaha DXR10 pair | UA Apollo Twin Duo | Adam A7X | Cubase DAW
    Fender Telecaster 62 re-issue chambered mahogany | Kramer! (1988 or so...) | Gibson Les Paul R7 | Fender Stratocaster HBS-1 Classic Relic Custom Shop | LTD EC-1000 Evertune | 1988 Desert Yellow JEM

  • No you cant pad dry and delay to different sides.


    You need to use the Dual Delay and turn the dry signal off. Instead set Delay 1 to 0ms and Delay 2 to something you like (say 20ms for example). Then pan dealy 1 left and delay 2 right.


    It works very well but is a bit of a long winded way to achieve it. Personally, i would like the ability to pan different things to each side as I can think of several ways it could be useful.

  • Hmm I don' see the options you are describing under dual delay. I see mix (which I set to 100% wet), and then I see note value 1 and 2. And those cannot be set in milli seconds


    EDIT: If I understand you correctly, there should also be a pan option in the dual delay, which I also can't seem to find. There is also no dry signal to be turned off there. Only the mix to 100% wet


    SOLVED: Got it working. I had to turn off that annoying tempo thing. Then they were availaible

    Edited 2 times, last by keem85 ().

  • I had to turn off that annoying tempo thing.

    With all respect, but this feature is far from annoying. It syncs the delay repeats to the song tempo, which is a very common musical approach. If the feature is enabled the repeats are set to rhythmic values like 1/4, 1/8 and so on, which is very handy. Otherwise you'd always have to calculate how many ms correspond to rhythmic values.

    I could have farted and it would have sounded good! (Brian Johnson)

  • Kempermaniac That would be my next question. I tried adding the tempo I needed my song to go in, and on band practice it was not possible to hold that rhythm 100%. I started by loking at the tempo and playing it, but after a while we just played by feeling instead.. So I'm still very curious to what it's really good for. Why set the rhytmic value when you can set it in MS? What is the tap tempo good for. I was actually planning to make a thread for it trying to figure out how to turn it all of, because it's on by default on every new performance I make.. To me it seems more like an annoyance than of anything of value

  • For Tap Tempo see manual.

    For playing with the band it's the drummers job to maintain a constant tempo. Many bands are working with a clicktrack in the drummer's headphones because of this. Also there are these pulse metronomes which you can wear like a watch.


    You're right, without clicktrack or metronome you can't hold the tempo 100%. But still those rhythmic values will have more to do with the actual tempo than any random ms-value.

    I could have farted and it would have sounded good! (Brian Johnson)

  • Addition: For a non constant song tempo the tap tempo function maybe is your way to go because you can adjust the KPA's tempo any time you want by tapping your foot.

    I could have farted and it would have sounded good! (Brian Johnson)