Recorded tone darker than input monitor tone

  • Had my Kemper for about a year, done tons of recording with it, however one thing has bothered me for the entire time. When I'm tracking guitar, every profile is much brighter and clearer through input monitoring than what actually gets recorded. When I listen back, what gets recorded is always noticeably darker/muddier sounding. I mainly record clean/low to mid gain sounds, no ultra high gain stuff. All profiles are high quality (M. Britt, Amp Factory, Top Jimmy).

    My setup is pretty basic:

    Left Main Out (either jack or XLR) > Focusrite 2i2 > Logic X > Yamaha HS5 Monitors.

    Pretty sure my output settings on the Kemper are correct for what I need, just wondering if anyone else has had this kind of experience with their setup/similar setup, or whether that's just how it works and I'll have to adjust my settings when recording.

  • It could be your interface or something on the output bus of your DAW.


    On the other hand, how loud do you monitor when recording? Are you monitoring on speakers or headphones? It is often surprising how much acoustic noise you can still hear when playing at even moderate volume using monitors. The acoustic string attack is typically very bright so if you are hearing this along with the profile when playing it could confuse your ears.

  • I never monitor at high volumes or with headphones, so I've just figured it's either my interface OR my ears just being tricked by the acoustic sound of my guitar. It's always fixable to a degree and once a track is finished there's nothing bad about any of the sounds I've recorded, it's just one of those things that niggles me every time I come to record, that I can't just use the same presets live I have to have different sounds saved lol.

    Would be cool to know if other folk have the same experience though! ^^