Kemper as an amplifier not direct.

  • I fully understand the advantages of going direct and it sounds amazing and clear, but my favorite sounds I can produce to my ear with my KPA is through a guitar cab. It gives me the "amp in the room sound". I know some might think it a sin to mic a kemper but sometimes it's the path of least resistance to get the sound you like and are hearing to the board. As I have wrote, my biggest struggle has always been to get the sound direct to be as close to what my cab sounds like to my ears. To do this, I accept that it would be preferred to pick a cab that gets me there and use it for everything but I have not found that one cab yet as I get mixed results using a cab from say, MB on a Top Jimi profile or something. I realize with cab driver it shouldn't matter but (and maybe it's in my mind) some of the "baked in" tone seems to change for the worse when I mix and match cabs and use my live cab.


    This being said, and I know there are those out there, how many of you just use the KPA like any other amp and miking it like you would anything else. (not direct)The advantage being you know whats going through the mic and you have a monitor right there that's producing that sound. New/oldschool

  • I totally get this. I almost went down the rabbit hole of switching all my cabs to recreate the 1x12 friedman cab I use live. But I have since resisted because better is the enemy of good.

  • Recording tonight (studio) using one of my top 10 fav cabs and profiles using pro level microphones and Neve preamp, I could not better the direct tone I was getting direct from the Kemper. I was A/B ing the sound, adjusting the mic, and got them to sound similar, but not better on "tape". I went through this before, I guess I just have to concede that Kemper direct IS better and get my cabs figured out for live. (sigh) Why do I even have mics? Insanity has been defined as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. It's just that sometimes me+room+ live cab is just so great, My goal is to make that what the board is getting for live shows.

  • Easy Fix Eq Trick thread Merged profiles all the way. Even using a DI profile and merging it would give my ears a slight change in sound but it's like the difference between Morgan Freeman talking to your face a few feet away with or without a small paper napkin in front of his face. It can be tough to find a cab that always stays the same because after adjusting to a sound for a long time and then trying something new because the current sound of the cab ain't slappin that knock as much or so it seems will always yield the idea that something wrong or not quite right.


    As stated earlier and above, really the difference if any is pretty small. You might try something that aren't conventional and find some new tricks that work better for the time being. I use to SWEAR by the character knob in the cab section always cranked to 5 to really hear the profile. I did this for a long time but unfortunately some cabs would create a spikey whistle noise that was like ice on ice picking ice if ice could ice pick ice when also at the same time playing through a real cab and going direct ( can't remember why this is). I LOVED the sound in the headphones tho and would shout this "trick" from the mountain. No one I talked to did this like I did.


    These days I actually have been turning it the other direction for a more hairy zizzle kind of sound as my tastes have changed a little bit( I find many profiles to be a bit dark and kinda of blankety, also the hi low cut in the output section helped with this too.).


    I also used to run a treble booster in the x slot in a certain way for these types of reasons with great results as others have found too. I'll post the thread up top, it might help.