Kone & Kabinet Q&A

  • FRFR mode as in Kemper Kone ON, Imprints OFF? Yes I have played into a 2x12 EVH...sold the 5150 to get the Kemper of course :)


    I had a Marshall 1960 4x12 before that but didn't own the kemper yet. I think I'm just coming to the conclusion the Kone itself is probably just fine and maybe a great idea to throw those in a 2x12 or 4x12, but a 1x12 just can't give me a enough for heavy rock, metal, or high gain playing where that low-end thump is needed.

  • Our friend Tim, produced this:


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  • FRFR mode as in Kemper Kone ON, Imprints OFF? Yes I have played into a 2x12 EVH...sold the 5150 to get the Kemper of course :)


    I had a Marshall 1960 4x12 before that but didn't own the kemper yet. I think I'm just coming to the conclusion the Kone itself is probably just fine and maybe a great idea to throw those in a 2x12 or 4x12, but a 1x12 just can't give me a enough for heavy rock, metal, or high gain playing where that low-end thump is needed.

    You just need more Kones. ?

  • Our friend Tim, produced this:


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    So what was the setup? V30 imprint and DI profile?


    I think the Kone sounds fine for its purposes, the 112 factor is just not enough for heavy music imo.

  • Long time reader, first time poster here. I wanted to share my experience with my Kemper Kabinet used with an unpowered toaster, amplified by a Ritter Camplifier Studio.


    So far I've only played though Studio Monitors, some classic FRFR solutions didn't really convince me. Even though money is fairly tight (student budget) I took the dive to try out the new Kemper Kab, because after some time with a Helix, Strymon Iridium and others, the Kemper was the first digital solution that I was fully blown away by. Therefore I was excited to see what Kemper had to offer with their new product on the market.


    To make it short, I was pleasantly surprised! For me it is great for both, linear response as well as the amp-in-the-room feeling with the imprints. You could say, it's a great all-in-one solution and with the Bass Boost option it sounds way bigger than it should based on its lightweight size. It works perfectly together with the Kemper Head and the Speaker Imprints really do capture the character of each speaker - much better than a traditional IR in that regard as the microphones and its placements are out of the equation. Please note, that I'm currently not a gigging musician and play & record in my modest home studio instead - often at lower volume levels and even with the speaker imprint mode it does sound better than a traditional cab on low volume.


    However, during my playing and testing I asked myself 2 questions:

    1) Why do the parameters in the Cab-section (High- / Low shift, Character) still significantly affect the tone in Speaker Imprint mode even though the Cab should be turned off?

    2) Why does selecting a direct-profile force the Kemper to use only the linear fullrange mode? I get that it makes sense to do that for acoustic and bass profiles, but most vendors offer both studio- and direct profiles. To me it would make much more sense to only enforce the linear mode if the profiles are tagged accordingly in RM and still enable the Imprint mode for standard guitar direct amp profiles.


    I did Email the Kemper support and they basically said:

    1) The parameters of the cab-section are currently still active, even though Cab-off is enabled with Imprint mode. The developers are informed and try to figure out whether to change this behavior in a future update.

    2) The profiler does currently not differentiate between direct fullrange (i.e. acoustic) profiles and direct-amp profiles. If that behavior changes in future updates remains unclear as of yet.


    I personally think that it is a chance missed out on. The workaround of creating your own merged profiles based on direct amp profiles works, but it is a rather inconvenient hassle. If anyone wants to read the original (german) support answer I'll put it below


    [EDIT: As Wheresthedug pointed out it is also possible to load up an empty cab to a direct profile to make it work with Imprint Mode]



    In conclusion I am very pleased with the new Kemper Kabinet and Kone for that matter. I can only recommend everyone at least to try it out for yourself - especially if past FRFR solutions weren't your thing in particular. In addition, much like the Kemper Profiler, it will only get better with future updates and I'm looking forward to it. A bit thank you to the whole Kemper Team for a great product!

  • Question. If I wished to use a wet/ dry /wet setup, using the Kabinet for the dry, and two powered monitors for the wet effects, how would I then be able to send a combined signal(dry + effects) to the FOH system?

    I'm interested in this as well, but only for home use. My thinking is that the powered monitors don't have to be that big (5" woofer should be enough) as the bass part of the wet signal should be very small. What do you guys think about it?


    Second question is the following: From what I've read in the manuals the wet (stereo) part of the signal can only include the Delay and Reverb slot. But what about stereo effects in the Mod slot? Is there a way to add these to the wet signal?

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

  • 2) Why does selecting a direct-profile force the Kemper to use only the linear fullrange mode? I get that it makes sense to do that for acoustic and bass profiles, but most vendors offer both studio- and direct profiles. To me it would make much more sense to only enforce the linear mode if the profiles are tagged accordingly in RM and still enable the Imprint mode for standard guitar direct amp profiles.




    I personally think that it is a chance missed out on. The workaround of creating your own merged profiles based on direct amp profiles works, but it is a rather inconvenient hassle. If anyone wants to read the original (german) support answer I'll put it below

    i think they got it right to be honest.


    there is no specific tag for Direct profiles for the software to identify. However, you don’t need to create a “workaround” merged profile but simply load an empty cabinet. If you are going to use only direct profiles then the empty cabinet can be locked.

  • there is no specific tag for Direct profiles for the software to identify. However, you don’t need to create a “workaround” merged profile but simply load an empty cabinet. If you are going to use only direct profiles then the empty cabinet can be locked.

    Well, I would think it the Instrument Tag in RM would be sufficient for starters as I'd think the Kemper could easily use this tag as well. Acoustic and Bass Tags on a direct profile could automatically set to fullrange mode and direct profiles tagged as guitar could also be used with the imprint mode.


    However, I did not think of the possibility to simply load up an empty cab to a direct profile - thank you for pointing it out!


    Also I have to add, that I don't exclusively use direct profiles with the Kabinet. In fact, I got varying results and made the experience that studio profiles sometime sound better with imprint mode than the merged counterpart of that profile for some reason. So I would totally recommend everyone to try out the speaker imprint mode with all types of profiles.

    The direct profile "issue" was just something I've been wondering about.

  • I'm confused, was everyone thinking the Kabinet was going to sound like a 4x12 Marshall? I'm beginning to think a lot of players here are just now discovering how important cabs are to the tone equation. Maybe that's a good thing

  • I hear you about getting better results with Studio than Direct or Merged sometimes, It may be a personal taste thing or just the way some profiles come out. At the end of the day, whatever sounds good is good :)


    I rarely, use direct profiles myself so it isn't really something that bothers me but I can see why the system is set up the way it is.


    In my opinion the Instrument tag is unlikely to work. If you look at the 15,000 rigs in rig exchange there are only 13 that show Acoustic in the name. Other than that you have Bass or Guitar. There is a reasonable possibility that some of those "guitar" rigs could be "acoustic guitar".


    For this to be a viable selection method for Kemper Imprints v full range you would need to make sure that all existing profiles included the correct information in the instrument column. There is a reasonable possibility that many profiles don't include the correct data as this use wasn't envisaged when the profiles were created. There is also the issue of people just not filling in meta tags properly. I have never updated this field when making a profile. It is pulled over automatically from the reference rig so in most cases it should be right but you never know for sure.


    As there is no specific tag for direct or merged profiles it isn't possible to identify these reliably. Even if a field were added now it wouldn't automatically update existing rigs so someone would need to go through the existing rig pool and tag these manually.


    The existing logic seems a viable methodology which may or may not be better than the alternatives but certainly doesn't seem any worse.

  • Will the Kabinet sound good as a FRFR for other modellers or preamps?

    As per documentation, the Kone is driven to linear mode by the KPA's DSP. So its sound would be much different with other devices, altho not necessarily unpleasant.


    the speaker out on the Kemper says 8 or 16 ohm, would it be safe to have just a 4 ohm load here?

    Yep, K confirmed this :)


    I realized you ARE NOT supposed to turn of the cabinet as well as the monitor cab off... why? Shouldn’t they serve the same function?


    If the Cabinet is off for Monitor Out only you have the possibility to send the full profile to FOH.

    Definitely not the same function, and basically the same as without the Kone in the equation, if that makes sense.
    :)


    The workaround of creating your own merged profiles based on direct amp profiles works, but it is a rather inconvenient hassle.

    It's not actually a merged profile, but I too find this is an unnecessary (from the user's standpoint) complication.


    it is also possible to load up an empty cab to a direct profile to make it work with Imprint Mode

    It doesn't have to be an empty cab, since it has to be switched off anyway, no?

    Still chasing a worthy one :/

  • This situation is solved very easily, as mentioned.


    No tags needed.

    If you want to play direct amp profiles solely through the Kone or Kabinet, and never want to use a virtual cabinet, then chose an arbitrary cabinet and lock it. Done.


    The virtual CAB must not be switched off. But you wouldn't hear it anyway.

  • This "easyness" is going to hunt your support team down for a few years, me think.

  • Might be a stupid question


    Why is the mounting holes of the kone partially obstructed?


    It's my first speaker swap. Just seems weird as the bolts won't fit through without damaging the inside black bit.


    Had celestions in before

  • It is not a stupid question - you've not seen it before, because this is your first speaker swap. I've installed many brand new speakers that just were like that.

  • It is not a stupid question - you've not seen it before, because this is your first speaker swap. I've installed many brand new speakers that just were like that.

    So just put it through and don't worry about the damage?

  • My stuck at home Gear Roundup...




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