Just purchased the Kemper Cab. Am I understanding this correctly? The IR's only work on the monitor output using a kemper cab and we're told not to mic that cab? How do you record the different speaker IR's then? No stereo option?
Kemper Cab
- lionelframpton
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Imprints work with anything connected to the monitor or speaker output. Results will vary and as expected work best with the Kabinet.
Imprints are not available through the main outs though.
It is meant for stage monitoring, and therefore micing the Kab is not recommended.
Doesn't mean you can't do it though.
I have a SD700 power amp, and I can have the outputs on it go to the recording device with imprints. Not saying it's a good idea, just possible.
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Hi lionelframpton.
Congratulations on getting your Kemper Kab.
The Kemper Kab is all about the speaker-in-the-room experience - that is - your experience as you are playing. It does not provide that experience in a way that is intended to be shared with the audience (unless it's a very small audience), or for recording.
Short answers:
The Kemper Kab uses Speaker Imprints (not IRs).
"Due to its special cone design, the KEMPER Kone speaker is not suitable for close mic‘ing. Use it for personal
monitoring only." - Source - Kemper Manual.
You don't record Speaker Imprints.
For stereo, you need two Kemper Kabs.
To understand all of this please check out the following chapters in the Kemper main manual (link below)
- The Sound of Guitar Cabinets versus Mic'ed Speakers
and
- KEMPER Kone / KEMPER Kabinet
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not quite sure why I would want to hear something different than the audience.
If you send the sound of a conventional amp through FOH with a microphone, the audience hears a different sound than you hear onstage. But, it is possible to use Kone to hear that sound, if you want to hear it.
Using the Profiler, you can send a Studio or Merged Profile to FOH, and use Kone with an Imprint onstage (if you don't want to hear the sound of the microphone in the Kone), or, you can use Kone in Full Range mode to hear the same sound you are sending to the PA.
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Ok thanks I'll check it out but not quite sure why I would want to hear something different than the audience. The "speaker imprints " change the sound but not the sound the audience hears. Doesn't make much sense to me so I probably wont use it.
Personally I find the sound of guitar speakers more inspiring than full range speakers.
That's the beauty of the imprints.
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If you send the sound of a conventional amp through FOH with a microphone, the audience hears a different sound than you hear onstage. But, it is possible to use Kone to hear that sound, if you want to hear it.
Using the Profiler, you can send a Studio or Merged Profile to FOH, and use Kone with an Imprint onstage (if you don't want to hear the sound of the microphone in the Kone), or, you can use Kone in Full Range mode to hear the same sound you are sending to the PA.
Ok I understand the audience hears a different sound from a mic'd speaker than I hear on stage but apparently using different speaker imprints doesn't change the sound foh? How does that make any sense? If I used different speakers in a normal cab it would change the sound foh. Otherwise what would be the point of having different speakers? Come on man.
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Personally I find the sound of guitar speakers more inspiring than full range speakers.
That's the beauty of the imprints.
I'm all about the imprints but I can't understand why...
"The Kemper Kab is all about the speaker-in-the-room experience - that is - your experience as you are playing. It does not provide that experience in a way that is intended to be shared with the audience (unless it's a very small audience), or for recording."
It's not intended to be shared with an audience or for recording? What? Why are we doing this then lol.
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You don't have to use the imprints through the Kabinet, you can select full range mode, which will give the same cab/mic emulation as foh.
Running a Kabinet doesn't meen you can't run stereo to foh from the main outputs, or stereo monitoring if you have 2 Kabs and a stereo power amp.
The imprints are there for people (like myself) who want to hear the sound of a real amp behind them, not a cab/mic emulation that you would typically get foh.
The choice is yours!
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There's no magic, one click solution when using FOH. All mixed guitar sounds are captured through a mic, the same as drums, vocals and keyboards. The audience's ears expect that but us guitarists don't due to years of playing beside an amp.
If the Kemper automatically changed the cab on the main outputs to reflect the imprint applied to the Kone, you might not get the desired result. You could get a sound that doesn't work on the FOH system you're using on that occasion and would have to adjust it after being told by someone else.
The best way to us the Kemper, Kone and FOH is to dial both in to suit. I'm entirely happy with the concept that with a well dialed in FOH, I can still change imprints to find my own tonal mojo. It's a monitoring solution that covers all the bases but accordingly will at be slightly less intuitive to some.
It's not an oversight. It's not a flaw. It's a feature that suits the majority of users.
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It's not intended to be shared with an audience or for recording? What? Why are we doing this then lol.
Because we're all selfish little brats.
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I think you are missing the point of the Kabinet and what it's there to resolve.
To get our sound, we cranked vavle amps to the max, stuck a mic in front to pump out to FOH BUT they inherently sound different - you can't get away from this fact. People didn't really think about this before as this was the only way.
When the KPA came out, everyone said its amazing... I can get an instant FOH sound, but I miss the "Amp in the room" sound. So Kemper developed the Kabinet to address this, knowing the sounds will be different on stage vs monitors, but it brings you closer. The imprints give you more flex for your monitor sound but as yiou rightly point out, you can't reporduce this FOH - which is fine becuase they never sound the same anyway.
In my mind, the most important sound is FOH. You can change cabs for each sound so full flex there. You want as good as sound on stage as you can and imprints, along with all the other options ( FRFR, Regualr cabs etc) give you this choice....but the inescapable fact is that you need to consdier the 2 signal chains as different. How close you want them to match is down to you. If you want them to match, go FRFR on the premise that it "misses" something for some people.
For me the Kabinet is great, fills a gap but doesn't ( and cannot) solve the discrepancy, but does help.
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I think you are missing the point of the Kabinet and what it's there to resolve.
I understand it’s more for the sound in the room. But you think changing speakers shouldn’t change your sound at all FOH? Interesting. What would be the point of different speakers then? Going in circles here maybe. Haha.
Thanks for all the feedback everyone.
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It does change your FOH sound but not via imprints. You can select different cabs for each rig but yes this is the point - there is a disconnect.
Its not an omission, its the nature of the way they have achieved the amp in the room sound. Sending imprints to FOH clearly does not work in the same way as they do not recommend miking the cab. This is the trade off and its a limitation of physics not Kemper. The good news is there are lots of options if this trade off doesn;t work for you, namely FRFR, which you can run the Kabinet in as well.
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It does change your FOH sound but not via imprints. You can select different cabs for each rig but yes this is the point - there is a disconnect.
There definitely is a disconnect. It doesn’t make any sense to me but thanks for trying to explain.
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???
Guitar amps sound different to guitar amps mic'ed up through P.A. systems.
The imprints are there to mimic the sound of a guitar amp.
The main output is there to mimic the sound of a mic'ed guitar cab.
I don't mean to sound rude but it seems like you're feigning ignorance at this point
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There definitely is a disconnect. It doesn’t make any sense to me but thanks for trying to explain.
I actually understand what your issue is. Sometimes you play with the Kemper Cab and switch the speaker imprint and BANG that's the sound you're looking for. But then you have to realize that your audience won't hear the same thing. Or even worse, you can't even record that sound. I was talking about something along these lines in two threads of my own, this one and that one.
The only solution is to find a good IR of exactly that speaker and swap it with the one in your profile.
Unfortunately, all of my attempts have failed. I managed to find a couple of IRs for some of the speakers from the Kone imprints but they just didn't sound like the Kemper ones (EQ differently, probably because of the mics).
In my opinion, Kemper missed a trick by not also adding the speakers from their imprints as optional cab modules so we can recreate the sound that our Kabinet introduced us to.
That being said, I'm sure the speaker imprints and cabs are completely different software so it's a lot to ask for.
To prevent further disappointment I stopped playing around with different speaker imprints. If there's a studio profile I like I just try to find the imprint that's closest to it. That way I can be sure the audience hears more or less what I hear and I still get bit of that "amp in the room" feel.
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I look at it the other way around.
1) Get a FOH sound that sounds exactly how you like it.
2) Choose an imprint that makes you happy on stage.
Job done.
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Guitar amps sound different to guitar amps mic'ed up through P.A. systems.
This!
I didn't really realise this until I got the KPA as I had to think about it, but its not a KPA issue. The disconnect between the sounds ( which is similar to why doesn't this profile sound the same as the video or Why does my porofile sound different through studio monitors) is because its a different chain which has always existed!
If fact its the opposite, the KPA gives me more options:
1) Direct sound so I don;t have to mic but I still can with a conventional Cab - this is what I did for the first 6 months I had with the Kemper and it worked well, just like a regular amp
2) FRFR which is as close to parity to FOH as you will get
3) Using direct profile with an IR
4) Using a Studio profile with baked in cab
5) Using a merged profile with a conventional cab
6) Using the Kabinet....
...and there are more.
