FoH and IEM - different EQ and Cab-Sim possible?

  • Hello people, when i am going with the main outputs (l+r) into the FoH and using (only) In-Ears on stage I am using the headphones out on the Kemper (I like this better than using the monitor outs especially because of the space effect for headphones). One problem I find with this setup is that now the EQ and Cab-Sims for IEM and FoH are identical. Headphones and P.A. need, in my opinion, different EQ and Cab to sound great on both sides. What do you think? And is there maybe a way to use different Cab-Sims and EQ for this setup?

    Thanks Max

  • You can't have 2 different Cabs in the same Rig unfortunately.


    To get different EQ's the only thing you have to work with is the possibility of adding the Space parameter to the Main outs and send that to your IEM's, then you can send the Monitor outs without Space to FOH. This way each signal would have it's own EQ and the Space parameter would be added to your IEM only. I have sent Monitor out to FOH with 1/4" cables many times and it works great. You would lose stereo to FOH though, that's the big trade off.


    From the Manual:

    By selecting the option “Space>HeadphOnly”, you can select whether it is applied to the HEADPHONE output only, or to the MAIN OUTPUTS as well.


    Another option? Place an EQ pedal in your IEM chain.


    Hope this helps! 8)

  • You cannot have different cabinets but you can EQ the monitor output separate from the main outs. Save it in the output section.


    Unlink the main volume from the main outs and you can then adjust your monitor mix without changing the FOH mix.


    I personally would not use the headphone out as a mix.

  • Why would you want different EQs on your IEM, for the guitar amp solely?

    And why would you use a different cabinet even?

    Don‘t you like the cab you have chosen for your audience? :)

  • I personally would not use the headphone out as a mix.

    Why not? What could be a problem here? I also ask because what happens if you want to use - next to FOH (Stereo) and IEM (Stereo) - also a cab (Stereo or Mono) on stage?


    Why would you want different EQs on your IEM, for the guitar amp solely?

    And why would you use a different cabinet even?

    Cab and EQ coin the tone the most. I find it hard to get a very good IEM sound that will 100% also fit the P.A. I don't own 2000 Euro+ IE Headphones - maybe that is a problem (I never tried the most expensive (and therefore maybe the best?) headphones). But I get a good tone from my headphones when adjusting cab and EQ. Unfortunately - as I said - this sound mostly isn't satisfying (not to say "the same") over P.A. Don't you have this problem also? Maybe it is solved with high quality headphones - but I don't want to spend a fortune on those. So therefore for me it would be great to split IEM and FoH sound (at least in terms of EQ and cab) more. I think technically it shouldn't be a problem on the Kemper. I also wonder:

    ...but if you want to use 1. FoH (Stereo), 2. In-Ear-Monitoring (Stereo) and 3. a cab on stage (maybe even stereo) ist that possible with the Kemper?

    why this setup is not really perfect with the Kemper. Why not? Isn't this a growing way to play live? Using a P.A. + using a different IEM unit + using your cab on stage? At least that is how my band is playing.

  • yes but is common to get the band IEM feed as a personal mix from the desk rather than direct from the Kemper.

    true, but: mostly the locations that we play are not equipped for IEM (yet) but have regular monitors (which we don't want to use). When your band wants IEM you need to organize the unit yourself and bring it along to the gig. So I give the mixer at the location my 2 outputs for FoH and the band's IEM unit needs another source - with the Kemper I use the headphone out. I haven't played like this before, since I just switched to Kemper. Will see how that turns out the next gig. But another solution I don't see. What do you think?

  • well we do have a IEM mixer so I send in there my guitar signal and get back a mixed signal of the band including guitar. That works pretty good. I am just wondering how the Kemper will do here (headphones out). But, as I said, for that setup I need 3 outs.

  • Sorry, I’m a bit lost. If you have your own IEM mixer why would you need to use the Kemper headphone out. In order to get a band mix that would mean sending an out from your IEM mixer with no guitar back to the Kemper Aux In (in stereo you would need two inputs so wouldn’t be able to use the Kemper FX Loop in this scenario) then mix this in with the Kemper direct guitar signal. If you send a full band mix including guitar and add this to the Kemper guitar sound at the headphone output you may experience phase issues due to the difference in latency.


    This seems a very round about way of trying to achieve something that your IEM mixer was designed to do.

  • ...but our IEM Mixer needs signals from all the instruments in the band. IEM and FoH P.A. are totally separate. This is important because 1. we can't ask the technician at the venues (who also gets the signals from all instruments of the band) to unhook his monitor system for us and provide us with our signals for our IEM mixer and 2. sometimes there is a FoH P.A. at the club but no monitor system. So in order to always rely on a good IEM system, we bring our own. In this system all our instruments go firstly in the IEM mixer (therefore I would say I need the Kemper headphone out for that) and then a personal mix (every musician has a little IEM mixer remote) comes back with all instruments for all musicians headphones. I hope I explained understandable (English not my mother tongue). Don't you think that is the right way to do it?


    In this setting - and if I would want to use a (stereo) cab on stage in addition - I would need 1 Stereo out (FoH), 1 Stereo out (IEM) and 1 Stereo out (Cab on stage). The Kemper can do this with main out, headphone out and monitor out. monitor out and main out/headphone out can also be EQ'ed separately (and cab can be disabled) which is great. It would also be great if headphone and main outs could be separated in the same way (at least own EQ). That was my initial question.

  • OK, i hear you. I agree about preferring your own IEM mixer rather than relying on the House monitor.


    The problem you are describing only applies because you are running everything in stereo. If you were running mono you could send the Monitor/speaker out to onstage cab and direct out to IEM.


    In your situation (if you mist run stereo) I would try to split the signal from the main outs with isolated transformers before they go to the IEM mixer.