Recorded Tone VERY Different From Monitored Tone

    I know people have posted this before, but I just can't figure it out.


    Here's my signal path: Guitar/Bass into Kemper input -> Line Out for DI signal + Master Left Out for KPA tone -> into monos 1 and 2 on my Behringer XR18 (set to send the analog signal to the USB out without any processing other than gain) -> USB to Cubase 10 Pro.


    Whether it's a guitar tone or a bass tone, I have the same problem. I can listen to the tone going into my XR18 from it's main monitor outs, and everything sounds great. But then when I play back the recording, it sounds so different. Bass tones go from sounding full and rich to just cheap and washed out. Guitar tones have a cheaper crunchier sound. If there's the tiniest bit of noise or buzz in the live monitoring of the instrument, it's like that gets turned up in the recording and all the goodness gets turned down.


    I've checked all my levels. Nothing is clipping anywhere at any stage. Technically the live monitored signal should sound the same once it's sent into Cubase because I don't have any processing on the XR18. Just to be safe I tried recording with a similar setup on my friends Focusrite Scarlett and had the same results. I even tried recording into another DAW. Same thing. So it's not like I have a defective A-to-D converter in the XR18.


    All my drivers are updated.......I'm just at a complete loss here. There's no way that this is "just how it is" right?? Any help will be GREATLY appreciated.

    Is the XR18 an audio interface? or a mixer?


    It should sound exactly the same, especially because it reads like you are using the same Kemper output for recording and monitoring. If you were using 2 different outputs, you could possibly have different output eq settings. You could look at those settings in the output menu anyway just to check.


    It's mysterious, because my setup: Guitar/Kemper/Audio interface/Pc sounds fairly identical on playback.

    In case anyone is paying attention or finds this while searching for a solution to a similar problem later, I figured I'd post that I found the problem/solution.....


    In the USB Sends/Routing section of the XR18 mixer, there are a number of different stages where you can forward your signal to the DAW via USB. You can do it pre-eq, post-eq, post-comp, pre-fader, post-fader, etc. The first option is "Analog" which is supposed to mean that it just forwards the raw incoming signal without any processing. Since I do all my processing in the DAW, that's what I wanted. However, I realized that the better sound I was hearing in my live monitors was the post-fader sound. I switched all my USB sends to the "Pre-Fader + Mute" option. That way the signal travels through the whole mixer (with all processing turned off) but isn't affected by the fader (so I can adjust monitor mixes without affecting what is being sent to the DAW). After I did this.....problem solved.


    To me, this is a glitch, and I've emailed Behringer about it. The "Analog" signal being sent to my DAW should be the exact tone that's coming in from the Kemper. But in the process of trying to send a totally dry signal, the XR18 is ruining the signal. Now that I'm sending it Pre-Fader from the mixer (with all the EQ, comp, gating, etc. turned off), the tone is exactly the same as it is out of the headphone jack of the Kemper itself.


    Below are links to hear 2 sample recordings. I played this simple bass line once but simultaneously routed it on to my DAW 2 separate channels. One with the "Analog" routing option and the other with the "Pre-Fader + Mute" routing. The difference is huge!


    Pre-Fader + Mute: https://skku0-my.sharepoint.co…1VIav9ScoO0RE_Xg?e=DYWXRb


    Analog: https://skku0-my.sharepoint.co…WzfF06uCNZA_eN3g?e=739bHC