Posts by HowardBrown

    No, the back of the cabinet had around 3 foot of clearance from a wall, and for a couple of months it was towards an open space with 8 foot of clearance. I didn't hear much difference between the two locations. That being said, after closing it off I realized it has had sound bouncing all over the place and yes it was affecting the overall sound, lots of unusable low frequency.

    The closed back is a whole other animal, it's a drastic change that as I mentioned previously caught me by surprise, but in a really good way. I've moved the cab around the room and the overall sound stays pretty consistent, it's tightened everything up. I started reading up on cab design to get more familiar with the use of foam and when it may be needed.

    No, all the mics sounded fine. It was just my guitar so it has to be in the channels for my inputs from the Kemper. Thanks

    If the input gain to the board is strong as you mentioned earlier I would check that channels routing or try an open channel if there's one available. You could also plug into one of the channels you know is sending a good signal to foh temporarily and see if you are loud and clear, just change it from mic to line level first.

    The OP recently added a closed back to the cabinet. This will alter the frequency response a lot. Personally I like closed back much better. But you may want to fill the cab with some form of sound absorbing material so you dont get reflections.

    I had a 412 closed back cabinet around 1989-90 for about a year and a piggyback Bassman head with a 212 closed back cabinet right after that, that's the extent of my familiarity with them, everything else I've owned has been open back. I have some ½" birch plywood in my shop so I figured why not try it. The change made greater differences than I expected, all of which I consider positives, even my wife could tell the difference and that's a rare occurrence when my guitar or amp is the subject matter. I wasn't sure whether absorption material would be beneficial or not as my experience is limited, my 412 cab had none but my 212 cab did. I'm much more familiar with pa speakers, I've opened up a lot of them over the years.

    I think some issues are present because my perspective has changed, I moved from stage to foh almost 30 years ago. Sitting alone in a room playing for that many years takes away the context of working within a group with sonic limitations on oneself. What sounds good to me now would probably not translate well in a band situation.

    I jammed for just a few minutes with an old band mate lately who has continued playing throughout those years, I must admit it was a devastating experience. My ability to interact with another instrument is almost non existent right now, and having rhythm in a live situation is absolutely not equal to playing along with recordings. Realizing how much I've lost has made the desire to get out and play more of a priority.

    I have access to a venue where I did the pa installation, I'll get a few profiles loaded up that sound good at home and then go there to see if foh is decent or lacking when going direct. That should give me a baseline to work off of for adjustments. Thank you guys for taking time to help, I appreciate it.

    This certainly feels like a rabbit hole to me. All of those different options and you haven't achieved a decent usable tone.


    What was your sonic nirvana before you headed down this path?

    Rabbit hole is a correct assessment, but that didn't begin until 2021. I started playing forty years ago, traded a dirt bike for a Sears & Roebuck Hondo strat copy and a bass combo amp with a 15" speaker, and at the time that was my sonic nirvana. I've had a my share of amps over the years, Kemper being at the number 2 spot at six years of ownership.

    I've never really been a tone chaser, just used what I had at any given time and played. That has been very therapeutic for me over the past thirty years, anytime I've been stressed about something I would take a little time, grab my guitar and sit down to play, it doesn't take long to change your focus from the problem at hand when you are concentrating on the fretboard. For the first four years I owned the Kemper I just plugged into the effects return of a combo amp I have and played, but for the past two years I've agitated myself to wits end messing with settings and monitor searches.

    I believe my hangup is I realized the profilers potential and that I would like to tap into it but I approached that goal with the wrong components. I spent about 14 hours with the new Kone over a three day period, and at 10pm last night I put the em12 back in, the Kone just is not for me.

    I did change my open back cabinet to a closed back yesterday, and that was more of an improvement than I expected. I spent several hours with the em12 and it sounds very good, but it will never be as versatile as decent studio monitors or pa speakers. I may try a couple of passive pa speakers out over the summer and see if one may work for me because I'd really like to take advantage of what the Kemper is capable of. But if I can't come to terms with that type of monitor then the em12's will be fine. I'll find a dozen or so profiles that sound really good and give me a little variety, then start using my setup as I've done in the past with conventional amps, only the Kemper will have more effects options on hand than all I've owned previously.

    This forum is about my only source of human communication on the subject of Kemper related gear. I've gleaned a lot of helpful tips and tricks from simply perusing the conversations. I do apologize if my irritation over monitoring solutions has been tiresome to others here, I really value the insights other's give and certainly don't want to be a source of irritation to any of you.

    I recognize your frustration. I have a powerhead and have used quite a few different guitar speaker cabs with less that stellar results. Although, I consider them good enough for a live performance as much of the nuance is lost anyway.


    I have the luxury of owning a few good non-powered PA cabs and have found those to be more satisfying and they require less of a compromise when trying to tweak for FOH mains and whatever monitor cab I am using. My theory is that my monitor should be as accurate as possible so that I hear what the FOH provides to the audience. This is not perfect, but it is what I have settled on and I am happy with this. This process has also made me recognize that my conventional amp setup is not nearly as good as I previously thought.


    Note: I don't find the Kone to be compelling as I have personally concluded that 'amp in the room' is fiction.

    That may be the path I am finding myself on, my expectations can't be achieved because I'm implementing the wrong equipment to reach the goal. Finding a passive pa cab will be a challenge for me.

    I've been doing pa installations for decade's and I'm accustomed to walking into a building, accessing the need based on communicating with the personnel involved and their working budget. It's usually a straightforward endeavor and I have no difficulty recommending the proper equipment.

    But choosing a pa speaker solely for guitar is new to me, especially a smaller passive speaker. I don't need size, loud volume or weight. If you have any recommendations I'd like to hear them.

    I used an amp stand for my Marshall DSL40C and it does make a difference lessening the boominess of low end when playing on hardwood flooring. I usually have my Kabinet sitting on an area rug and that helps some.

    I've spent the last two days trying everything imaginable BayouTexan , but it's a total loss for me with the Kone. I had two others for about 10 months I sold last summer, and a powered Kabinet for a very short period. It's disappointing to say the least as I truly wanted them to work for me. No matter what I do I get nothing remotely close to the sound some YouTube people get, even when they are using a phone to record. After eight hours yesterday I went so far as to adjust my pickup heights back to spec, just in case.

    The em12 speakers aren't bad, just limited like other guitar speakers but a little flatter voiced, but it's enough to limit the overall tone. So I'm at a crossroads at the moment, liquidate what I have now and move back to an amp or try again. I don't do any recording so moving up to better studio monitors just for guitar doesn't make sense for me, and I still need something portable as I'm wanting to go out with and play a little.

    I've owned a zlx12p, qsc cp8 and tried a headrush 108 at a store, but didn't care for them, but at the time I had those I had not delved into the Kemper settings as much as I have at this point and maybe I missed something, just not sure. No matter what I've tried so far has yielded either harsh, unnatural sounding tones or the sound of a speaker with a blanket over it, again nothing like what I've heard in many lower quality videos, including ones demonstrating pa speakers.

    I've been at 4 events in the last three years where the guitarist was using a Kemper, all of them sounded great, so unless my outputs are all bad, which is very, very unlikely, I need to pursue another avenue for monitoring. With the investment I have in the Kemper so far I don't really want to take the financial loss liquidation would incur.

    I am considering trying a pa speaker one more time, it would be great if there were a passive speaker that might work as I have the powerstage 700, but I just don't find anything with similar specs to say the Yamaha dxr10, which seems to be one of the most preferred speakers I've seen on several forums. I could try something in a lower price range like the Alto ts8 or ts10, those I could return if needed, I just don't like doing that.

    It's so frustrating, the Kemper has everything sitting there in a box I would ever use but I just can't find a way that translates well for me and to be perfectly honest I'm tired of searching, I just want to sit down and play, not wrestling with settings trying to achieve something that's seems to be beyond my grasp, a decent usable tone.

    This is my fourth Kemper Rig iteration since buying the unpowered rack six years ago.

    1. Kemper into combo amp effects return for a little more than four years.

    2. Kemper into Bam200 and open back cabinet loaded with a Kone for about ten months.

    3. Kemper into a SD PowerStage 700, same cab with an Eminence EM12 for about ten months.

    4. Swapped out the EM12 this afternoon with a Neo Kone.

    I also auditioned several powered pa speakers, a non powered Kabinet and a powered Kabinet, this is my final attempt at getting what I'm looking for from Kemper as an amp. If this doesn't work for me I'll have to accept that a transition from conventional amps just isn't for me.

    I did try something different than I had previously with the last Kone, I moved the cab further away, I've been doing that recently with the EM12 also. It made quite a bit of difference with the Kone, instead of the top end sizzle and lows being dominate from my listening position, I was getting a direct hit from the speaker across the tonal spectrum, it sounded like two completely different amps.

    I have some experimenting to do though, I have room to move it back and I'll try tilting it too. An amp stand might be a good solution, it would get the cab off the floor and calm the low end down a tad and provide the tilt, my hopes are high that this setup will work.

    I have no profiles loaded on my Kemper and haven't for awhile, I need to get a few loaded up and call it good so I can focus on practicing and playing, at least thats the goal I'm shooting for. It's long past time to be grab and go ready, I'd really like to get out and play some, it's been way to many years since I have.

    I made this quick screen video to show you how quick and easy it is to use presets in RM. There are multiple ways to load presets including Double Click, Drag and Drop and scrolling through the list with only the Left and Right arrow keys. Absolutely minimal mouse clicking. I also show the steps to use the right click context menu which is a nightmare by comparison to the Preset Window. Hope this helps.

    Cleared my profiler of all but 2 acoustic simulated rigs, after six years I'm starting from scratch, again🥴. This will make for a much more pleasant fx auditioning experience, I had no idea this function was available. Thanks for the video!

    I avoided this by having a jump lead connected to a PoE and then to an Ethercon. I also bought an ethercon converter and kept the same remote lead.

    There's a picture either on the forum or I saw it on YouTube, but I'd never be able to find it again, where someone put a 1 rack panel with punchouts on the back of their rack and installed some ins, outs and remote plug that were attached to a Kemper rack. I thought that was a pretty good idea, easier access and if knocked over the breaking point would probably be there rather than on the unit. The British Audio install looks almost factory installed good, but I wouldn't want to pay that much when other options, such as what you've done, work and are much easier on the wallet.

    I can understand the switch cause you want to see something else but, imo, if you like your current PU, you should keep them, furthermore, your crackling problems will still be there....You'll have to solve it too....

    Oh, I don't disagree. Part of my original purchase decision for that guitar was based on demo videos. I had no way of trying one out in person, no dealer had one within 250 miles of my home at that time. I thought it sounded really good online at least, and the demonstrations covered a broad range of amps from clean to mean, the pickups held their own.

    But when going back and revisiting a bunch of those and newer demo's last night I paid particular attention for the crackling noise and never heard it. The possibility for it to occur couldn't be avoided if it was a common occurrence because a lot of time was spent on the neck pickup throughout all the videos back to back, and many fingers were making contact with the pick guard.

    I'll have time to check in the next couple of weeks, it's possible that something as simple as sheilding on the back of the pick guard isn't making contact with shielding on the body, or a poor ground connection.

    But if I can't find a solution to stop the crackling, more likely than not I'll go for different pickups and change out the switch and pots too. Hopefully I'll get lucky and solve the issue at hand, that's the easiest and most cost-effective solution.

    Thanks to everyone for taking the time to throw something into the conversation. I can get a very narrow focus at times and having other opinions to consider helps broaden my scope of thought and view something from a different perspective, I appreciate it.

    Last night I spent some time watching videos demonstrating the EBMM Cutlass HSS like mine and thought they sounded pretty good. I think doing a thorough cavity and wire connection inspection is needed. I can understand some noise with the single coils, but with the crackling sound occurring when just touching the pick guard I expect to find a grounding or sheilding issue. EBMM has a good reputation for QC but that doesn't exclude them from letting something slip through on occasion, or shipping could be the culprit by jarring something loose.

    I believe another part of my dissatisfaction with the tone I'm getting lies with my choice of speaker. Even though it sounds pretty good overall I think it smooths out the sound to the point I'm loosing some dynamics and attack that are present on my combo amp when using it by itself (Fender Mustang II). My low E string stays a little flubby with little to no snap, regardless of which profile I choose.

    I started out with my Kemper plugged into the effects return of the Fender after buying it in 2017. Never thought to much about it, just played and explored the Kemper until 2021 when I bought a power amp and Kone and realized for four years I had grown accustomed to a muffled sound. I found that the new combination with a Kone was to harse and somewhat brittle for me, so after a few months I changed to different speakers and at first felt they were the perfect solution, they fell somewhere between muffled and my perception of brittle.

    I've used these since August of last year and grown accustomed to them but their shortcomings have become apparent. I've decided to get a Kone again and see if the transition from my current speaker isn't as drastic as my previous experience from muffled to what I perceived as harsh. I think my previous Kone experience may have been information overload across the tonal spectrum, but now I'm at a point that I see this tonal information could be part of what I'm missing and why most profiles are pretty similar in tone with an upper mid honk on my current setup.

    I placed an order on the 11th for a Kone on the Kemper-USA website but hit a snag, my credit card shows a transaction was initiated with PayPal Kemper-USA and is in limbo as a pending transaction. I sent an email yesterday morning to Kemper sales/support and got the automated response that it was received and will be reviewed, but never received an email from the store that an order was placed initially. My online account doesn't show any orders placed either. I've never had an issue before, they are very prompt shipping and has been the next day on previous orders so I'm speculating that the order was never completed in the shopping cart. That may be an error on my part or a clitch online, either way I hope to hear something today. Anyway, the chase continues.........


    Edit: Just checked my online account again after looking at it maybe an hour ago before writing the post above, the new order now shows and is being processed. Kudos to Kemper support and customer service, this is the second time something out of the ordinary has popped up in a transaction and in both instances they have addressed it quickly.

    Thank you Kemper, your customer service has been great, or by today's standards exemplary may be a better term to use.

    My profiler has 2 rigs in it right now, both acoustic simulator lol! I cleared it out and started over, I'm going through both factory and purchased rig folders loaded in RM. I agree with your findings, it's better to listen than look, I wish I could get my wife to cycle through the rigs so I coud do a blind test, seeing the names cloudes my judgment. But please don't mention picks, I changed string guages and decided to try other picks. I know I bought at least 30 if not more, different brands, materials and thicknesses in each type. After several months I had to keep one and pitch the rest before I ended up in a little padded room.

    I had a guitar from 1990-1993 made from Chandler parts, ash body and Jackson style neck with an ebony fret board, great playing guitar. The neck was real similar to an Ibanez Prestige model I have now, but not quite as wide. The only thing I saw as a drawback were the pickups, a pair of EMG Selects, so in my infinite wisdom (mid 20's) I bought a SD Custom Custom for the bridge and another SD (unknown) for the neck. They are great pickups, but for some reason they didn't sound nearly as good as the Selects, so after a few months I swapped them back and sold the SD's. Now I've heard the SD's in other guitars and played a couple and they were awesome, so it may have been the combination of the rest of my gear at the time, and the Selects just played better with the other items. Once I sold that set up the guitar didn't sound all that great with the new gear I bought. The Selects were a much cheaper pickup but had their place in at least one scenario.

    That's the aggravating part of chasing the tone in your head , I have a preconceived notion of what I believe will take me to that point of tone nirvana but in reality it's to cluttered with YouTube gear demonstrations that may or may not translate well to my particular combination of equipment, environment or the sound my fingers produce when playing, just way to many variables. But receiving others opinions of their experiences are still very helpful and I value them. For example, my guitar I played for 26 years before getting the Cutlass sounded really good, I made the comment earlier in a post above that the EMG SA pickups were a little sterile. What I had not thought about until later was it did sound much better for the first 16 years I played it until I took it to have a fret job done, I had the guy change out the pick guard at the time and told him "just leave the tone pot out, I only need a volume knob", it never sounded quite the same and that could very well be the cause of it sounding a little sterile. I think suggesting to others that removing the tone pot from the circuit might not be the best option could be good information to share that may help them make a more informed choice.

    I'll add this for free, I don't regret the purchases I've made over the past six years that have brought me to the point I am at now, a very nice guitar that suits me well at this point in my life. The Kemper, it gives me unlimited choices in amps and more effects than I'll ever use, I still haven't tried them all as of yet. I added the Kemper remote last August (demo unit, looked brand new but I saved some scratch), I use it like a pedal board in browser mode, still haven't tried performance mode but I'm sure that will only enhance its use. SD Powerstage 700, improvement over my last power amp plus stereo, just for my own enjoyment, though I'm still struggling some with settling on a speaker. It sounds pretty good as is but I still feel like I haven't hit that sweet spot that would allow me to use the Kemper at it's full potential, but the investment has grown to a tidy sum.

    Just for comparisons sake and a little perspective, or maybe better called it a reality check for myself. I ran sound last summer at a smaller venue for a band that played a variety of genres, country, older rock, soft rock and a little 70s pop. They sounded good overall and played well but the guitarist/singer stood out. He had a really good sound, he didn't lack in tone nor talent, his gear was a squire strat, peavey bandit, compressor and delay stomp, and he utilized the bandits two channels and reverb. When I got home I was a little disappointed and begin to wonder if less could be more? Maybe I've spent way to much time and money on this venture when I should be in the woodshed practicing until my fingers are worn to the bone? So on this I pondered for several days...............................................

    Then I saw the demo remote unit pop up online and grabbed it as quickly as possible, completely delighted with myself in the money I had saved and how proud my wife would be because of this extraordinary purchase, and this made the world make sense once again and brought balance back into my life;)

    I was in that tone-hunt for some of my guitars for a long time and I feel so good now that it's done and I am back to playing rather than soldering 8)

    I have two other guitars to work on right now, small fixes really but since I'm a one guitar person I've just let them sit. But I can't put them off any longer, I rearranged my room this past week and don't have storage space for them anymore. Gotta get them finished, I need to sell them off along with a combo amp and a few accessories, all of which have been collecting dust for several years. I may be a bit of a horder.

    I built a set of kitchen cabinets a few months back and I haven't used my shop in quite a few years. As I cleaned up the shop and rearranged things so I could work in it again I found tools, new saw blades and a plethora of items boxed up I don't remember ever buying, but they all stacked up nicely in another spot😎

    I've had issues with RM when in browser mode intermittently over the past year or so, never jumped into performance mode yet after six years of owning the Kemper. Lately everytime I boot up my Kemper and RM it loads up all the folders including Rig Exchange, then I get a pop-up that says something like failure to connect with server, but everything seems to function🤷‍♂️

    At times I'll drag 2 or 3 rigs from a folder in RM to the profiler and while in browser mode cycle through them with the remote. Let's say this time I loaded 3, it will allow me to play each one from rig 1 to rig 3 but rig 2 does not show in the Kemper screen, it is accessed but still reads rig 1. Once I click the remote again it goes to rig 3 and shows it as such on the Kemper screen. I can unplug from the pc and it still continues, but I can turn the browser knob and see rig 2 in the line up but never on the screen. The fix has been to delete rig 2 from the profiler itself, go back to its folder of origin and click the add rig to profiler button, then it shows up correctly when cycling through with the remote. Rebooting hasn't solved either issue.

    Not related to RM but at times when booting up, my profiler gets the green screen of death that says contact support, I hit the exit button and the profiler reboots and functions as it should. I don't get to concerned as cliches happen occasionally with other software I use, Vegas, Soundforge, Paintshop Pro and others all give me a bit of a scare at times, especially if I have done quite a bit of editing and have forgotten to hit save for awhile. To be completely honest though, the green screen of death makes my heart skip a beat each time it happens 😄

    If you re going to experiment with pickups - I suggest buying used pickups, not new ones.


    You can likely re-sell anything you decide not to keep for pretty much what you paid for it, and not lose much money on each pickup you don't like.

    Im not opposed to that, admittedly I've bought and sold more accessories than I should have over the past year and a half on Reverb and Facebook, with no problems or duds thus far.

    I need to open my cutlass up and check the wiring before I do anything. Something I haven't considered is it may be a grounding issue or insufficient shielding. When my pinky finger rests on the pick guard while playing, and when on the neck or middle pickup it causes an intermittent crackling noise.

    Should have been my first thought but it never occurred to me until today. I would like to attribute that to buyers block, you pay a little more for something and don't consider that a quality control issue might be the culprit. But in all fairness the blame lies with me, another year under the belt and a little less active in the grey matter area.

    I do have a set of those rail hum canceling pickups in my trusty Fender Billy Corgan strat with ToneZone at the bridge, Chopper in the middle and Cruiser at the neck. This is certainly far away from 60s single coils but works super well for my rock and high gain stuff. But the Cruiser has a lot of real single coil character in the neck position. All dead silent by the way and for sure not on the expensive side compared to boutique makers!

    It was the AREA 58 that I saw the video on, thanks! I watch so many guitar related product videos since we moved from satellite TV to streaming for entertainment it's information overload at times, I only save links when on my pc. I forgot about the rail series, I'll do some research on those.

    I thought the HSS configuration I got would be versatile, and it is to a degree, but having three single coils for so many years I still haven't transitioned all that well. I'm not a high gain player but like to cover ground from the 60s through the 80s. Love to hear chicken picken but it definitely isn't in my wheelhouse. I do use positions 2-5 on a five way switch often but find I don't use the humbucker as much in this guitar because it is such a different change from the two single coils.


    There is nothing more silent than Fishman's Fluence.


    I've got a set in my Tele and they're like a morgue at 2am.

    Those I've been looking at for awhile now. Greg Koch caught my eye first when demonstrating them before his signature set came out, but guy's like him can make a 2 x 4 with strings sound good.

    I had a set of EMG SA single coils in my last guitar, they are quite but a little sterile so they're not on my radar. Do the Fluence pickups retain the character of a standard pickup as advertised, I only ask since you've had the opportunity to use them and have a reference point with standard pickups, I've never spoken to anyone, online or in person who has used them.

    I bought an EBMM Cutlass HSS in 2019, since removing the bridge cover and putting all five springs on the tremolo to lock it down I love the play-ability of the guitar for myself. I had to abandon my guitar of 26 years as working with my hands have caused them to show more signs of aging than the rest of my body, at least to this point in my life, and the smaller neck on the cutlass allows for more playing time, but I question the pickups. The following statement is in Ernie Balls description:

    "The Cutlass is loaded with two custom Ernie Ball Music Man mid-'60s-style single-coil pickups. But thanks to the installed active wide-spectrum Silent Circuit, you'll enjoy hum- and buzz-free performance."

    I don't find this statement to be accurate at all, they sound pretty good but I've wondered for sometime if there is a set of pickups that might actually be more on the silent side. I'd also like to be able to split the humbucker, if I can find one that has a good single coil sound when split or maybe change over to a sss configuration with a slightly hotter bridge. I've been looking at the Fishman Fluence pickups which wouldn't be a hard swap since I have a battery compartment already in the cutlass, and the MojoTone quiet coil pickups. I recently watched a video that had silent pickups that looked and sounded like single coils but were actually a stacked humbucker, but for the life of me I can't remember what pickups they were. I know this is a very subjective topic as it is a personal sound choice that varies by individual taste, but I still value opinions of those who have had experience with alternatives to the stock pickups I have now.