Swapping Cabs: need advice on picking the right one

  • I really love the dynamics and feel of my M Britt profiles but unfortunately I think his go-to cab is not perfectly right for me.

    I'm looking for Jensens but am afraid that swapping the cab will take away from the depth of his profiles. As far as I know he has never profiled a Jensen speaker so I'd need to go to another profile creator.


    How do you guys pick matching cabs? Is there any system or do you just go by ear?

    Do you try matching the cab from a profile that has the same amount of gain as the one for which you want the different cab?


    Tone Junkie records lots of Jensens but his profiles are generally brighter than Britt's and I'm not sure he uses the same mic combination.


    Anyway, maybe one of you has a go-to cab that works well with M Britt and can give advice.


    Thanks!

  • Hi Kaschko, don't worry about the losing depth in the profiles. If you find the right cabinet, speaker and mic combination, it will sound even better!


    Here are some tips: don't use ir's, only cabs created with the Kemper. Only use direct or merged profiles, not studio profiles. As far as gain goes, use cabs profiled with a distorted amp for swapping out with other distorted profiles. Clean cab profiles for clean amps. That tends to work best.


    Really look for cabs that have been profiled in nice studios. You will get a lot less weird phase issues with the microphones.


    Don't have any recommendations for Jensen speakers. I'll keep a look out for some. This isn't exactly what you are looking for but you should try out the Michael Wagener rig pack in the download section. It's free and Michael knows how to mic a cabinet! Not my personal choice but you might really like it.

  • I think changing cabinets works well with Studio Profiles, too. Give it a try, and see what you think.

    I agree. Studio profiles sound good with the speaker imprints in the Kabinet as well. It's more important to use a good profile than having it being direct or merged. In the end it just needs to sound good and in my experience studio profiles just sound much better than their counterparts.

  • Hi Kaschko, is there any reason why you think the studio profiles sound better? I haven't noticed any major differences but I usually just go for direct or merged profiles first if possible. The reason I recommend them over studio profiles is because the Kemper is using an algorithm to split the amp and cabinet. Sometimes it works great, other times not so much. As you said, if it sounds good it is good.


    I take it you are using the Kemper mostly for live playing. I'm using it exclusively in the studio so little anomalies add up when you start quad tracking guitars.

  • Hi Kaschko, is there any reason why you think the studio profiles sound better?

    I tried Merged profiles. Top Jimi and Tone Junkie. In both cases studio profiles sounded much better to me. There's also 100x as many studio profiles than merged so of course I could find more that I liked.


    I haven't played the Kemper live yet. I have some favorite profiles of which 90% are studio profiles, so I'm definitely looking for a way to add a Jensen cabinet to them. If I play M Britts Fender profiles through the Kabinet and use the speaker imprints with P12s or P10s it works really really well for me. Now I wish to create that sound inside the Kemper for recording, since I'm not a fan of Britt's standard cabinet.

  • That is good to know my friend. The Kemper has taken me a while to figure out. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something.


    The STL Atrium Audio pack has 4 profiles with Jensen speakers in it but that is expensive just for a few cabs. Will keep an eye and ear out for you.

  • alancott Thanks, man! Could you tell me which pack it is with the Jensens? I could only find Celestions.

    I own all the Tone Junkie profiles (got the everything pack for super cheap during Black Friday) and will just test them all as well. He has profiles many Jensens. I just feel his EQ is usually a bit more trebly than Britt‘s so I hope they work together.

  • It's the STL Tones Atrium Audio Pack. Three profiles use 1x12 cab with Jensen C12-k speaker miced with a Neumann km184. One profile uses 2x12 cab with Jensen C12Q miced once again with a Neumann km184. It's a little expensive so you might want to try a few other makers first.


    Free ones on RE, 79 Sound/Tobias Fink. His Mesa Studio 22 profiles are using 4x12 Jensen. Till Schleicher, Till's 860. It's using Jensen and Celestion combination but he does a good job micing. Worth a try.


    Commercial, ToneHAWK Profiles. Ten profiles with Jensen 1x12 miced with a Royer 121 and SM57 combination. Haven't used them . They are cheap so worth a try.


    OK, hope that helps.

  • To answer your OP, I find that the cabs tend to reflect the profile: if the profile is bright, the cab will be bright, etc.


    I searched for Jensen speakers in rigs and found these:


    Turned out that there were two in the MBritt 2020 pack:

    67 Proverb 3 1

    67 Proverb 3 4


    From Rig Exchange(RE) or Free Packs:


    Princeton V1 T4.5 B4 by Ralph

    Mojotone Twin 5e3 N2 (live) by Iuri Sceankin (cws1)

    MN SR65 Le Freak by Mats Nermark

    Mmm Octaves! by Tone Junkie (matchless 1*12 + jensen 2*10)

    GF_BLACK KEYS by GFISH

    BM - Magmaton clean by BM

    Fender Deluxe Clean by StumblinMan

    Fender Tweed Blues Jr Overdrive by StumblinMan


    Four 57 Maestro profiles from Selah Sounds Odds & Ends Pack with Jensen speakers


    From Maurizio70 free pack:

    Brun Maranel by Maurizio70

    FEN Twin Neck by Pete Turley

    Pro Reverb 1b Mic AB by CarlosSartorius

    Pro Reverb 1b Mic C by CarlosSartorius

    Prince Brownie CLN by Jen

    ... and many more.


    Search RE for jen or jensen or jenny or any other Jensen pseudonym you can think of.

    Also, search your own rig manager for jen or jensen: I found a bunch that I did not realize were Jensens (like the Pro Reverbs above).

    There were also a lot of them in the stock packs included with RM.


    You probably know this, but you can save the cab from any profile/rig and then use it with any other profile/rig. You can also save them as presets in rig manager and they are easier to preview/try out with various amps.


    FYI, there are quite a few MBritt profiles that use something other than his 3P cabs and Celestions. Some of those might be worth a try.


    If you find a great one(s), please let us know here.

    Be Thankful.

  • Thanks again for your help.

    Turned out that there were two in the MBritt 2020 pack:

    67 Proverb 3 1

    67 Proverb 3 4

    These are actually exactly the profiles I want to find Jensens for - so well done ;)

    But unfortunately I'm pretty sure that's his standard cabinet again.

    It does say "Speaker Manufacturer: Jensen" if you load them into the rig manager but it still mentions his standard cab above. I swapped in Jensen speaker imprints for my Kabinet and they definitely sounded different from the rig sound. Guess it was a typo on his side but I was thinking of writing him about this to make sure. In his PDF for this pack, which I bought, he doesn't mention he used different speakers for this one and he usually does mention it in the rare cases he does it (like with his 69 Plexi pack).


    P.S. It's also ironic because I believe the original speakers for this amp were Utahs...

  • If you find a great one(s), please let us know here.

    Best Jensens I found so far is Tone Junkie's Jensen P10R 3x10 cab from his 57 Bandmaster pack. He also used them in his 57 Tweed Deluxe pack. I like 3x10 since this is also the original Fender Vibro King setup (again based on the Bandmaster).


    I just saw that I also have a Tone Junkie 67 Pro Reverb pack in which he profiled the Utahs. I will try them tomorrow with Britt's Pro Reverb and report back. Britt uses a 57/Fathead II combination, however, Tone Junkie uses Royer 121/57. Might still work.

  • I had the same thought, that Jensen might be a typo or holdover from another profile, but thought I might send it up anyway.

    As I acquire profiles, if I notice that they have a cool, rare, or unusual speaker, I always save them as a cab. I usually don't use them, but I go back and try them every once in a while.


    Glad to hear you like the Proverb, those profiles are definitely in my top 5 favs. The 66 Proverb in his Vintage Pack is also one of my favs: is just the tiniest bit brighter so I use it with my Teles when I want a "Stratty-er" sound.

    Be Thankful.

  • Glad to hear you like the Proverb, those profiles are definitely in my top 5 favs. The 66 Proverb in his Vintage Pack is also one of my favs: is just the tiniest bit brighter so I use it with my Teles when I want a "Stratty-er" sound.

    Yeah, currently I'm jumping back and forth between Britt's 66/67 Pro Reverbs and his 63 Vibroverb. The 67 seems to take my fuzz pedals best so far.

  • Only use direct or merged profiles, not studio profiles.

    Just because CabDriver doesn't perfectly separate the amp and cab of studio profiles doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't swap cabs using them. I've achieved some fantastic results by swapping the cabs of studio profiles. In fact, I use them about 95% of the time.

  • Here‘s already Michael Britt‘s reply:


    I did do some profiles of the speakers that were in the amp when I bought it. The originals had been replaced by Fender a long time ago using Jensen Vibrantos, which I was told were used to replace blown speakers because they handled more power. Not sure how true but that’s what I was told and I liked the Vibrantos better than the Utah’s I’ve heard. I know they’re supposed to be authentic but I have never really liked them as much. I’ll look up my notes and see if there is any more info.


    Mike“


    I guess that explains why these are my favorites of his. They don‘t sound like the imprints because they‘re Vibrantos but I really like them so much better than his go to CL80s.