Are Direct Profiles = cabinet off?

  • Yes. Direct profiles are profiles that do not have the cab portion.

    From my own experience with the profiler, there are three kinds of profiles.

    Direct Profiles which must be used with either real cabs, Cab profiles* or the Kemper Kone.
    Studio Profiles which include the entire original amp profiled including both the amp and cab.
    Merged Profiles which are a combination of either Direct Profiles and Cab profiles or Studio Profiles paired with different Cab profiles that were not captured as part of the original Studio profile.

    *Cab profiles are profiles created either from separating the cab portion of Studio profiles or are made from Cab/Speaker IRs that you import to Rig Manager.

  • I was just wondering as some of the profile makers include direct profiles in their packs. (ToneJunkies). Seems redundant if you can just turn off the cabinet to use with a conventional speaker.

  • Turning off the cab isn’t the same as Direct Amp Profile. In a studio profile the KPA estimates where the amp sands and the speaker begins. It does a pretty good job but is still just an educated guess.


    With a DAP profile you are actually profiling JUST the amp so you get the real sound of the amp.


    Merged Profiles are actually a special type of profile NOT just The result of combining one DAP with a separate Cab. A Merged profile is actually a subtractive algorithm where you make two profiles of the same setup one after the other without changing settings. The KPA the compares the DAP version to the Studio version and subtracts the Amp to leave an accurate Cab only. These are then recombined to give you a Studio Profile than can can accurately have its cab turned off without any guess work.

  • Seems redundant if you can just turn off the cabinet to use with a conventional speaker.

    If you capture a complete amp/speaker combo (i.e. studio profile), when you turn off the cabinet, the Profiler needs to make assumptions on what part of the sound is actually influenced by the speaker and what part is the amp, i.e. it will calculate something from the original studio profile that may or may not be the sound of the amp without the speaker. For some profiles, this guessing game works out nicely, for others it can sound pretty off.


    So capturing the amp without the cabinet (i.e. direct profile) takes out all the guesswork from the game - the Profiler can work with only the portion that is created by the amp. That's why "merged" profiles are nice - they allow you to use the amp with and without the speaker part without any guessing involved - essentially, you get the "amp" and the "cabinet" parts profiled separately, but wrapped into one profile (that's why they are called "merged").


    As long as you are happy with the results of the Profiler's calculations when turning off the cabinet part of studio profiles, there's nothing wrong with using them that way - it's just that using direct or merged profiles usually gets you a more precise image of the original amp when you want to turn the cabinet part off (or when you want to use a different cabinet profile / IR).


    Cheers,


    Torsten