Posts by chu

    I had a Variax 500, HD500X and DT25 too. Except my Variax was transplanted into a G&L Telecaster. It was great, it did alternate tunings, acoustic, single coils, humbuckers.... All really nicely talking to each other and made playing live simple, whilst looking wonderful, and to the audience, old school.


    But in the end, I just liked coming back to other guitars more. It was a wonderful learning that for all the debunking of tone wood, pickup and finish myths, having a guitar that you lust over is massively important.

    One of the issues is the variety of tones available. Are you sticking to a core set of profiles, or using a bunch of contrasting ones?


    Many FOH engineers find it hard when you use a number or different cab profiles in a show. With the drums and bass EQd right and the pocket for the guitar sorted, if you suddenly swap to something distinctly different, your sound will get eaten up.


    Straight volume is often not the issue, but frequency levels compared to the rest of the band.

    I've long said that if a Player came out, it would have to support the flagship models, not undermine them. It was always going to be significantly restricted, because the cost of ditching the ability to capture profiles is just a few £....


    Who's going to buy a Stage, minus the XLR and Profiling ability for £20 less?


    The cost is less to do with manufacturing cost and more to do with creating something useful at an attractive price, but which won't stop people buying Stages, Heads and Racks.


    They'll sell loads, but the existing range will remain strong. Another excellent move 👏

    I have actually made a topic about it. And yes….there are limitations, I’m not fond of. For instance that you have to plug in external monitors to actually listen to your USB Kemper signal. Wt actual f :huh: Unless you want to either download third party software solutions that can route the USB Kemper output signal to your audio interface to listen through your connected monitors or listen through the monitor playback on the track in the DAW. Two solutions I’m not interested in. I want to turn on my Kemper, turn on my computer and hear both my guitar and a potential backtrack or DAW simultaneously. Not an option here. And yes….Kemper support themselves have verified this not being possible. So how about that for an explanation ;) Monitoring is a “nightmare” as is if not wanting a separate pair of speakers. And I don’t since I want to listen trough the same speakers as my playback for several “audio engineering” purposes. But I’m happy for you, that it suits your needs. That is awesome 😎

    I'm tired, so maybe i misunderstand but my monitors have multiple inputs, which work simultaneously. Would this solve the issue?

    I've used cheap MP3 players for soundscapes/intros. Just select the track you've recorded in a daw etc as a click track and press play.


    Or, create a preset in the KPA where the delay is set to 1/4 notes at the right bpm. Quick muted chop on the strings and you'll get the tempo and then start playing. You can then kill the delay if needed.

    One of the marvels of the Kemper is the current resale value, people are still buying new units after nearly a decade knowing they can sell it later without a huge risk.


    If a new, cheaper unit comes our that has the same profiles and effects lots of people will buy it in addition to their Profilers and Stages. Then lots of people will start selling their Profilers and Stages causing resale to fall. When that happens, the Profiler's main competitor will become itself and there is a big risk of a complete devaluation of the flagship models.


    This is what happens with Line 6 gear all the time. The HD500 was great until the HD500X came out and the resale plummeted. Then the Helix landed and the HD500X resale fell.


    So whilst it might make sense for the purchaser, it might be financial suicide for a company who's business model has been based on long term ownership and manufacturer support.

    I can't see a single reason why I would ever want to use a guitar synth when both on stage and in the studio I can grab any usb keyboard and trigger a VSTi or even internal sounds.


    I do use a Boss SY200 to layer my guitar sounds in my band, there's a few moments in the set when the synth is louder than the guitar but it's still all pads/fuzz-octave stuff to accentuate my guitar parts.


    Of course, your mileage may vary but outside of virtuoso playing, this tech is unlikely to have a significant impact on music.

    There are some pretty decent Fishman Aura profiles on RigManager. They're captured from that pedal which is designed to make your piezo sound natural. I've a preset made using one of them and use it with my electro acoustic.


    I have it set to parallel path mode and if I recall, the dry path has the acoustic sim in it. It's all about adding subtle amounts to enhance the pure piezo sound but it really does sound decent.

    May I ask which BE100 do you use?

    I think it's a clean profile from The Amp Factory. It's got that ever so slight breakup if you dig in but a lovely, full, smooth tone when not.


    Happy to double check later if you want but I'm certain it's aTAF profile.

    Two profiles for 19 songs in our set. One is a Mesa dirty sound which I tweak for leads. The other is a Friedman BE100 for cleans.


    I have the two profiles saved across different Performances with effects relevant for each song but the sonic familiarity makes getting a good FOH sound much easier.

    I have gravitated to IEMs to solve the problem for myself as well. I have created a simple rig for that. My vocal mic goes into a small mixer that I control. A second channel is fed by a high quality condenser mic placed on the stage very near my location. The condenser picks up all of the stage volume and I mix my vocal in IEMs to float over top so that I can hear and avoid monitor issues. FOH is handled as normal. It works for me and puts me back in control of what I hear.

    That's not dissimilar to what i do. I do skip the on stage mic though. I run the 1/4" outputs of my Kemper to my mixer, leaving the XLRs for FOH if using a house PA. My vocal mic connects to my mixer and one of the buss sends is a dry feed of just that, also to go to a house PA. But my IEM feed has the vocal mic slammed with compression and some reverb. Together with the bleed from the stage, I can hear the drums and bass just fine, with my guitar and vocals clear over the top. I can suffer a little with not hearing the other's vocal mics but only when they might choose to talk between songs.


    But when we use our own PA, I'm using the same mixer mentioned above so can add bass, drums and their vocals as much as I want.


    Whilst my method might not be producing true guitar hero sensations in my ears, I can hear my vocals and guitar perfectly, night after night without the input of a sound engineer.

    Singers seem to complain about a bad mix more than others. This is often for good reason and I can relate since I sing as well. Nothing worse than having to sing without proper input to stay on pitch. Being forced to over sing is a horrible situation and can lead to physical issues. My first attempt to cure this situation is to 'force' the stage volume down. Most times, the other band members won't comply. Not much to do in that case.


    My standard answer for the prima donna singer that complains for no good reason is "I'll add volume if you add more talent"

    Singer here too and i agree entirely, stage volume is a killer. I also find that my voice confuses my perception of my volume. I will often consider that i can barely hear myself yet if i capture the audio either from the desk or via a decent in room mic setup, i realise that i'm really loud. But as soon as i sing, it seems to disappear.


    Weird but that's why I now use IEMs and have my own XR18 mixer in my rack behind my Kemper. My very own monitor mix, at every venue we play, without any drama from the sound guy!

    I transitioned from playing live to FOH around 1994. I've been doing av installations here and there since 1995. It was a rude awakening for myself to switch sides, I found out I was the jerk that no sound guy likes to deal with, and I've had that paid back to me a hundred fold lol! I learned that trick pretty early on Ruefus, I always label a spare channel or two to adjust when audience members decide to be helpful, works about 99% of the time.

    I've at best been the sound guy when no one else turned up, I know what i'm doing but i'm not a pro, or anywhere near close.


    I've never done so and not experienced a primadonna musician that wants this and that, complaining that they can't hear themselves or someone else. If i get on stage to hear what they mean, I can always hear what they can't.


    At the same time, some guys will make the most basic request and maybe another later in the show, play their arses off with a smile on their face.


    I fully understand the desire to have a great mix but some act as if it's a make or break issue.

    A little more detail might help.


    You have an unpowered Kemper. You mention using a 4x12 and running straight to the desk. How do you primarily dial in your tones? Do you do so with the cab or through the PA?


    I had a really hard time getting the main outputs to sound close to the sound I got through a cabinet until I found a profile with a very similar cab sound and locked it across all my profiles. This massively limits the variety of tones I could have but achieved much better consistency.

    Agreed. I saw a show a few months back where the "engineer" was leaning back drinking a beer nodding his head like "all good" but the sound was atrocious. Kick drum was non existent and vocals were buried. You have to really understand and be able to diagnose low freq's to get good live sound. Ar bar level, many sound guys are the buddy that tags along and might as well be doing something worthwhile. Most aren't properly trained and the ones that are are working for a living and I can't afford.


    We played a gig last month for the bass player's birthday. We used my PA and lighting. One of things about the guys in the band is that they are super easy to please pros. Set the monitors and forget.

    The second band were great, a folky, party band with bass, banjo, washboard, drummer that just had a snare and a guitar.


    They were nice guys and knew beforehand that they were using my PA and that I'm not a professional sound engineer. Still, it was never good enough for them. They bemoaned the lack of DI box for their piezo outputs, wanted constant adjustments to the monitors and stressed about the FOH mix. Every time I stepped on stage, I noted that the monitor mixes were rather good. You could hear everything clearly, except the guitarists hollowbody piezo guitar that submitted to feedback at the slightest provocation. Further, I rarely got asked straight forward requests instead I got 'Can you fix my mic, it's loud enough but I'm really having to lean into it'. I queried if they wanted me to reduce the compression but they didn't understand the concept and so I never got to the bottom of the problem. They also complained about the mic I put on the snare being not high quality enough.


    All this whilst tiny children danced with elderly grannies, none of whom would notice if I turned the snare completely off, let alone used a better mic.


    They were paid and chose not to bring their own mics, DI boxes, preamps or monitoring solutions. The crowd loved them, they knew I was also there to enjoy the party and still they grumbled about things.


    Sadly, this experience is really common for me. I've been the emergency sound guy when no one else was around and had drummers demanding all sorts of EQing on their snare, more snare in the monitors, singers complaining about absolutely everything and so on.


    On the other hand, ive had immensely brilliant musicians make the smallest request and then say 'Good enough for me, cheers'.


    My personal rig is designed to take the soundman out of my monitoring so no matter what the PA setup, i tell the sound guy that I'm taking a split from the mic and that I need nothing else. The monitor can be turned off if they want.


    Aiming this at those ive personal experience with and not you, the entitlement of musicians never fails to annoy me. If your instrument needs a preamp or DI, bring one. If your monitoring needs are challenging, build a suitable rig to accommodate or bring your own monitor engineer.


    So whilst i agree there are some terrible sound engineers out there, there are more prima donna musicians that don't take responsibility for their experience.

    Man, that sucks. I hope you get better.


    I read a fair few examples of carpal tunnel injuries but I've avoided it luckily. I have sprained fingers and suffered some pretty significant cuts and crush injuries. I'm fortunate as I'm only an amateur and if I can't play, I don't.


    However, mid pandemic, I developed diplacusis following a series of ear infections. This essentially makes each ear hear a note as different pitches. It manifested mostly in the upper midrange, so bass was unaffected, as was high end. Most male vocals were ok within a certain range, but female vocals and distorted guitars were completely atonal and unbearable. It was as if there was a ring modulation effect in place, even when the spoken voice got even remotely raised.


    My GP could offer no advice other than it might improve a little, a lot or not at all. I ended up avoiding music and listening only to podcasts for 3 months until the symptoms improved. Unfortunately another ear infection came, bringing my diplacusis back with anger......


    I'm incredibly lucky, it did improve much more quickly but it hasn't fully gone away. My left ear is now intolerant of high volumes. I saw Devin Townsend a few months back and both he and Vola would have been unlistenable if I hadn't have taken ear plugs. The same for a gig I went to a few weeks ago.


    I'm just a hobbiest, I don't need to earn a living from music but it's been a passion for so long. However, I had grown used to the idea that my life might not feature it much anymore. It was surprisingly easier to take than I thought as I still had the rest of my health and other things to enjoy.


    But don't give up hope. Hope is not lost. Take your time, look after yourself and don't rush the healing.