Speaker sims

    I have been working on selecting a single cabinet to use with all my rigs for live to keep things as consistent as they always have been bringing an amp and cab to a show. (I'm trying to achieve a FOH sound in the ballpark of my cab sound in the room) The questions I have for people that do similar are: Do you prefer to use a cabinet from a "merged" profile? It seems it may be better represented that way or do any use the cabs "extracted" with cab driver? Just wondering if there was any preference you have found based on sound? Or any use "aftermarket" IRs?


    Does the Kemper Cab maker come with some IRs or is it blank when you download it?

    Probably depends on what you're listening for. Some think that cabs from merged profiles are more accurate to the originals. For me, I'm not concerned with how accurate a rig might be. I just tweak them to what I think sounds best. And I most often use a few cabs from studio profiles I like and haven't found any real improvement in the merged ones I've tried. I also find I like IR's even less. They just don't sound as real to me, and there are so many to go through.


    As I try out various Rigs, if I find a cab that works well, I just add it to my cab presets so I can easily try it out on other rigs.


    On Cab maker - when I got it long ago I don't remember getting any IR's. But if you use Rig Manager you shouldn't need it anyway. You can import or drag IR's directly in for use.

    Thank you for this and your opinion over merged/studio cabs. I will go by my ear too but wanted to see if anyone would say there was a notable difference. It's actually good to hear IR's are not your preference. It was just another layer I was hoping to avoid going through but if they were superior in people's opinions I might give them a try. I have found the cab driver works pretty well in extracting the speaker portion so to me , it should work the other way around as well. To my ears, I have found little difference in quality between merged and studio profiles to the point of it isn't better or worse, just different maybe if at all and manageable with an EQ tweek or two.

    Quote from cmbrowns

    For me, I'm not concerned with how accurate a rig might be. I just tweak them to what I think sounds best.

    This is my intention also. Sound first & accuracy to the original irrelevant except as an index to a starting point.

    Don't know if these would be to your taste, but two free cabinets I use frequently -


    In the Kemper Lars Luettge Rig Pack, look for a Rif with the Mars 1960AV cabinet. This one says it is from a merge. A similar one you can get form the Rig Exchange from author Martin Suijs. Get his cabinet called Marshall. I also use his cabinet from his Fender Deluxe sometimes.


    I use both cabinets with lots of guitars and for me they work with various amp types.

    I don’t chnge cabs much but when I got the KPA I did experiment with the idea. As cm and you both mentioned, cabs from Studio profiles worked just as well for me. Merged cabs were very similar and not necessarily better or worse maybe just a little different.


    As for IR, I loaded my old Own Hammer 1960a pack initially and tried them. I didn’t like them as much as profiles using Kemper’s cabinets.


    I should also mention that I have also tried recording without the cabinet section then running the result through the Two Notes Wall of Sound plugin to run Two Notes IRs. Again, preferred the Kemper cabinets and really valued the ability to avoid being sucked into the rabbit hole of tweak virtual mic choices and positioning Etc.

    I tried all the permutations with merged profiles and IRs so I could run a cab and go to front of house direct. In the end I found that straight studio profiles always sounded the best and went to in ears.


    You can take advice, but personally I had to try everything before making a decision. Choosing IRs can eat up all your playing time by the way!

    Karl


    Kemper Rack OS 9.0.5 - Mac OS X 12.6.7

    Like 2

    My personal view:

    • Merged vs studio makes no difference for FOH, the difference is with your on stage monitor. My focus is on FOH, not on stage. I think too many people focus on their monitoring rather than what people hear somehow trying to gte them to sound the same.
    • FRFR will get you the closest alignment of on stage vs FOH. This isn't always necessary but just notice its different. I use FRFR to get my ball park FOH sound
    • Merged are way better for on stage if going through a real cab
    • you need to tune your FOH sound at volume through a PA.
    • Don;t bother with IR's, its a rabbit hole which defeats the point/genius of profiling the signal chain. Changing the cabs as mentioned above is worth doing as I also use the MARS 1960AV ( I think)....
    • Go see a few peoples bands, find a player getting a great FOH sound, profile his sound....boom you have it! ( partially joking).