Experimenting with cabs

Quote from Verminante

I've noticed that a lot of people like to tweak a profile's sound by changing the cabs.
However, when I've done so myself, I've had the impression that the cabsim has such a big influence on the sound, that its easy to loose the amp's initial tonal characteristics and even its 'feel'. So, for example, I really like the Siggi Mehl stock profiles and when I changed the cab to one of Till's, I thought at first, that it was very cool. After a while, though, I realized, it was more like playing a tweaked version of Till's profile, than one of the S.Mehl. (In fact, in direkt comparison, the tweaked cab profile did sound a lot more similar to Tills profile)
I ended up just going back to the stock profile, and tweaking the other parameters to taste and I'm actually pretty happy with the result. If I feel I need a "bigger sound", then I can just use a profile that already has it in itself, for example one of Tills.

Anybody else with a similar experience?

what is your approach to this, does it really make sense to pick a profile and change the cabs (which seems to make a HUGE difference), as opposed to just picking another profile and tweaking it?

Cheers!

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Well the truth is that the cab and microphone part of a guitar sound really make up a huge part of the sound in reality, expecially with distorted tones. Try for youself. Take a marshall and a Recto with the same cab, same mic position and record them with similar EQ and gain settings. They are closer to each other than you might think. This whole learning process when i made my cab profiles on the KPA totally changed my point of view. Having like 10 high gain tube amps and 1 cab makes no sense imo. The biggest difference between the amps reflects in the definition setting. If you even tweak your profiles with similar EQ and difinition settings, the sounds become very close...

Take Ola´s amp reviews for example. People often claim, that everything sound the same. Imo it´s just a result of being experienced in how to dial in "your" tone. Or check this vid by Lasse Lammert:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GalJHr4EOEk

^ This man speaks the truth, but i'd have to add that in my experience, that only applies to processed tones and not even with every kind of tone.
When your amp's dynamic range is more in play, you'd feel the difference easily - mid-gain tones, lower-gain metal tones, sounds that haven't been bandpass-filtered - these will all reveal the nature of the different amp easily.

In addition, bear in mind a (big) part of the poweramp 'leaks' into the cab section of the profiler.
I think a proper cab pack - not unlike Tills - should contain each cab through various amp 'types'. A Mesa cab connected to a Marshall head would still profile different than when connected to a 5150.

And that Lasse clip is one of the funniest things i've ever seen.

yes the cabinet is the main factor in the sound of the profile.especially with hi gain amps,through the same cab they will all sound pretty much the same. bit of an eye opener really cos i realised that very expensive/legendary/boutique amps sound no better or worse than "regular"amps through the same cabinet.
or even just a pedal like the boss Metal core will sound just as good when profiled and put through that same cab.

Hi, just make the decision:
one excellent cab (locked) and 5 playable sound from clean to lead -all I need for a while!

It took some work to find just amps that sounds good for one particular cab..but it works

Im lazyyyy...

It's the same with real amps:
Take 10 highgain heads and 1 cab ... they will all sound the same... at least to some point... I'd say the cab defines 70% of the tone.

Quote from mDan

It's the same with real amps:
Take 10 highgain heads and 1 cab ... they will all sound the same... at least to some point... I'd say the cab defines 70% of the tone.

The nice thing about the Kemper is that you don't have to spend hundreds to swap speakers or buy cabinets like tube amps in order to change cabinets and find these things out. I was (a self proclaimed) audiophile and enthusiast in many areas and knew the differences between different levels of quality with hifi, tube, and many types of digital and analog sounds and this Kemper has had my head spinning for like 4 months now. Definitely changed my perspective on many aspects on not just guitar gear but sound in general and how things work or don't work together. Making the Kemper work with many types of gear is quite satisfying. Not to mention great tones at pretty much any level of loudness and area of space.

TylerHB hit the nail on the head. Just to reiterate. Get your favorite cab and mic position, with your favorite mic preamps etc, and have 3 or 4 different amps (especially high gain stuff) and reamp through the same cabinet/mic position with those 3 or 4 different heads, and they will sound incredibly similiar. Anyone who has done this will agree and back up that argument, its honestly one of the biggest eye openers I've ever experienced when recording. So in essence, the Kemper behaves how doing the same thing in real life would respond.

Cabs make a big difference in sound and even you can dial in a Mesa/Peavey/Marshall to sound similiar going through the same cab (still there will be difference in frequency response and how they sit in the stereo field), what is totally different is the feel of playing going through different amps. A Mesa i.e. being really lush and big in the low end and feels pretty "slow" and sloppy while the Marshall is forward as hell and feels really immediate and tight. So, cabs make a huge part of the sound, the amp makes a huge part of the playing feel and thus will alter how you perform.

I experience the same, the cab is an essential ingredient to the tone. When i decided to get a Marshall JCM2000 TSL 100 and a cabinet for it back then, i had compared various cabs (Marshall, Mesa, H&K, Engl) to go with it. I got the Engl 4x12 with V30s as it responded to the amp and my playing best. The differences between the cabs i tested were quite an ear opener to me. I took a profile of my TSL just as i would record it and i'm totally stunned that the profile is as close as can be. In my band and live i use only that profile while recording i choose different amp profiles. I'm most likely satisfied with a profile when i combine it with my cab as i like the response and feel i get with it (yes, it changes the response and feel of the original profile immensely as Capitancamparro said). I have different flavors of distortion but still am able to get "my" tone. Funny enough i found a recording i did in `89 and the character of the guitarsound on it was quite similar to what i like today (how comes ?) though i used totally different hardware.
The other guitarist in my band uses the KPA powered head, we go direct to the interface of a Mac and use inearmonitors (our Engl "hardwarecabs" not driven most of the time as we can record drumtracks while rehearsing this way). On the first rehearsals with 2 KPAs we set the monitormixes and he felt that his sound (a Rectifier profile with its original cab) was not as present and direct as mine. I changed the cab on his KPA to my Engl and he was happy (with the response and feel), but still the Rectifier sound was distinguishable from my TSL tone.
On the KPA the combination of amps and cabs makes it easy to achieve great tones (esp. high gain) that are similar but with distinct flavors. For me it works better than tweaking EQ or Amp settings.

I agree about having a sound through the years. In my experience, over the years, I have alway had recordings, since the 60's, and, other than the effects, my sound through so many different amps and cabinets, has essentially been the same. By the way, if you use a piezo for acoustic sounds, and employ one of the acoustic profiles, turn off the cabinet. This really brings out the acoustic sound. I learned many years ago that the difference makers are the speaker(and enclosure), and the transformer in the amp.

Quote from Verminante

what is your approach to this, does it really make sense to pick a profile and change the cabs (which seems to make a HUGE difference), as opposed to just picking another profile and tweaking it?

Cheers!

I've took a profile from Rig Exc. than changed the amp part with my amp profile and I agree the Cab part Plays a Relevant Role in the ending Sound.
and I Can Really say That the soul profiled of my amp..the Amp Part is pretty Remained the same.
same feel and charatteristic tone...just changed the cab Chain..


Trying in this way, I consider it Better than the rig I've Obtained with My Own profiled cab ..so I'd Say My Specific Approach is: If It sounds Better I keep it.

maybe My Head (a JMP Modded 'vs' JMP Stock) a on That cab (1960TV NEVE and such others Great Stuff 'vs' my 1960AV sm57 in 'live setting')...Profiled n Refined Would be even better..who knows??


in this case I guess my unexperience in Micing and in terms of cash invested for the ''cab portion'' has been the Main difference!!
and Brings With it a Great Impact on the Final Rig!!
Thanks again Sean !!!

But If compare switching just Between 'My cabs' (my profiles' portion) I Can't Notice a relevant Drop/difference in Quality!..
the worst I can think It's maybe I wish I had Profiled that With different Settings...maybe just diffrent mic position.
I'd say that the You can Feel a huge difference only if there's a huge differences in terms of Quality of Signal chain..
but I don't really feel a (forgive me) 'scompensation' due to the fact the cab Isn't the Original Profiled One, according to the head.

hi,
totally agree with this statement; is there a thread where most used and best cabs are listed ? (like tills)

Quote from kamin21

hi,
totally agree with this statement; is there a thread where most used and best cabs are listed ? (like tills)

Even if there were, the best is going to be to hard to define as the overall tone will depend on many factors like your guitar, picking, speaker set up and general view of what tones sound good to you. Though from what I have noticed, a lot of people seem to prefer cabs with Vintage 30's and using a SM57. I guess a lot of the preference comes from how well the profile is mic'd. I like a few free and commercial profiles as is and prefer tills recto cabs for other profiles myself.

Quote from kamin21

hi,

totally agree with this statement; is there a thread where most used and best cabs are listed ? (like tills)

This could be a good idea wheter there is a lot different parameters what everybody wants & needs.
I started a thread with asking peoples few favourite sounds as clean, crunch etc. and got very good information that way.
So, TillS mixed 4 x 12 001 cab...