If you're like me maybe you've experienced what it's like playing direct profiles through a cabinet vs playing merge profiles through a cabinet while trying to also either use the main out to a PA or headphones. Especially when changing the cabinet section while using a regular cabinet with monitor cab off you might have noticed changes in the sound of the profile and how that little difference can keep you up at night when you know that playing direct profiles yield such a wonderful experience. You might have also tried all sorts of things to try and balance this out like I have over the years and I've wondered if it's my cab or my profile or the cab in the profile or the EQ in the output section.
So! Here's a little tip and trick I figured out today...
After so much fiddling around I think I may have found a simple solution while waiting for the Kemper cabinets and kone's to become more available. The simple shorthand solution for now that I figured out today is to try to match the sound of the cab in the profile with the cab in the room. Basically if the cab in the profile was kind of dark and warm sounding then I would turn the treble and presence down in the monitor output EQ section and turn the bass up. Opposite of that sometimes I play profiles that are very elastic sounding and have a fair amount of high-end sizzle like clarity. So in this case presents goes up first then treble. Sometimes even in this case I'll turn the bass up as well.
So obviously when you are in performance mode and you switch to a profile that's completely different cabs sound simulated and the monitor output EQ stays the same this can be conflicting but even then sometimes I find it to be a good sound when the real cab is dark and the profile going to the PA has a lot of sizzle and vice versa.
Some of you might be thinking that a studio EQ or graphic EQ and the X or mod slot wood also do this and that's true and would be better for each individual preset profile but I sometimes find that the monitor output EQ is better suited to tune the real cab overall.
This whole idea is also relative to how you feel about the sound of your cabinet in general. Some cabs I have I don't feel the need to add so much extra EQ at the end. Those ones sound the best and so I try to preserve the speakers as much as possible which leads me to use lower tier guitar cabinets and when that happens this little trick helps me a lot. Sorry for the lengthy post, I hope this may help some of you.
Cheers! 