Posts by wwittman

    Science doesn't care what you believe.

    and, with respect, the people who make high end records don't necessarily care whether you are convinced they know what they're hearing or not.


    there is the (relatively) famous story about Geoff Emetic complaining that AIR's new desk had a channel that just didn't sound "right' to him.

    They took it out and benched it several times and couldn't find anything wrong with it.

    Eventually, after he continued to complain, Rupert Neve came in (it was his design) and tested the module and discovered that it had an anomaly at 56k Hertz! Now anyone would quite sensibly 'argue' that no one can hear that high, and neither could Geoff.

    But he clearly and repeatably, heard something that the anomaly in the super highs was doing to the audible range. Even though normal testing didn't show it and no one else could hear it.


    Similarly, Record plant NY had 4 rooms. At one point Shelly Yakus complained that he heard something wrong with the power amp on the lows of the right speaker in one of the rooms.

    they took it out and checked it, and it checked out perfectly. They put it back.

    Few days later, Shelly is back in the room and again says "hey, that amp is still there. it sounds wrong".

    So they swap out the amp and he's happy, and they send the offending amp back to the manufacturer (it's a Bryston) to be checked out.

    Bristol finds nothing wrong with it either, no matter how they test it.

    They send it back.

    Record Plant puts it back into service but upstairs in the mix room, not back in Studio A.

    Months later, Shelly walks into the mix room (for the first time in a while) hits play and immediately points his finger and exclaims: "There's that fucking Bryston!"



    I don't discount the people whose work I know is stellar when they hear things I can't.


    once again, "I can't hear it" and "most people can't hear it" is NOT THE SAME THING as "no one can hear it".


    and if only ONE person can really hear it, then it's real.

    It only means you're not testing for it correctly.

    high end recording studios spend a lot of money on regulated and balanced power... the way you power audio gear matters, including digital gear.



    all I'm saying is that some serious pros i know, who really know what they hear, swear by high end power cabling. (Ross Hogarth comes to mind).

    I'm not prepared to discount what they hear because i've seen it too many times where people like this hear things others cannot.

    Without wishing to open up a huge internets rabbit hole here I will just say this:


    when it comes to pro audio especially, there is a huge internets cottage industry of armchair “MythBusters“ who love to sell a “nothing really matters“ philosophy

    and one can see why that philosophy is appealing to people operating at a hobbyist or semi pro level


    So, It would be comforting on some levels to believe that pros are just fooling themselves with their $20,000 microphone and really you can do anything you want with $100 SM 57 etc.


    but I know I’ve said this before that if one person can hear a difference repeatedly (your Eric Johnson example, or I could give you many others) then the phenomenon genuinely exists, and it doesn’t matter or “disprove” that phenomenon if 95% of other people cannot hear it


    If you want to say that for what you do you don’t “need” a $20,000 microphone, or that not having that microphone shouldn’t stop you from doing what you need to do, those are entirely valid points of view .

    But don’t say “no one can hear the difference” or “ no one needs one”


    So again I remain unconvinced that a pricey power cable makes enough of a difference that I should have to worry about it

    but that doesn’t mean I’m prepared to dismiss the possibility that some people hear it, some people care and some people can afford to make everything sound as good as they possibly can

    I know I’ve demonstrated for myself that relatively expensive guitar leads and mic cables for example make a difference and are entirely worth it to me


    I will just introduce one other small tangent possibly which is that in my view the stronger the power supply design in a device the less important outside power tends to be but power supplies are often where manufacturers unfortunately cut costs

    Although I’m skeptical about the value of high priced AC mains cables, I will say I know some very smart and talented producer/engineers who swear that upgraded cables have made audible improvements in their gear.


    And these are not people whose opinions I’d tend to dismiss.

    I know lots of FOH guys who simply don’t want to have to do monitors at all.

    Not different with IEMs


    I know I’m spoiled. But a dedicated monitor engineer is the only way I’d really trust IEMs.

    Otherwise I’d rather a wedge.

    How long do you guys play in a typical show???


    Our routine is that our monitor engineer changes everyone's Batteries (AA in the Sennheiser receivers) before every show.

    Then next show day we soundcheck in the afternoon using those same receivers (with their day or two old batteries)

    If soundcheck goes long enough that those batteries are no longer working then we change whoever needs to be changed. But most often they are fine still.

    Then, after sound check, before show, again, everyone gets new batteries.


    I’ve never had batteries die like that.

    They certainly last a lot longer than the 2 hours or so we use them.


    I know people do it, but I can’t see using in-ears without a dedicated monitor mixer/engineer.

    Otherwise you’re locking yourself into having to live with whatever problem occurs during a show.

    Disconnect the Kemper from the Apollo completely.

    Plug a mic into the Apollo and do what you I’ve to do so that you are hearing yourself speaking into the mic through your phones.

    Now yank the XLR out of the back of the mic and plug it into the Kemper Main Out.

    You’ll hear the Kemper.


    Because the mic and the Kemper are both just analogue signals.


    The Kemper has no way to ‘know’ the sample rate farther downstream anymor than it would ‘know’ what tapespeed you were recording.

    I mic an amp the way I normally would to record it.

    Then I feed that chain through the Kemper.

    And we profile it.


    Now I can push that button and compare the live sound through the mic’ed amp to the profile of the same thing.

    And the differences are SO slight that everyone in the room can easily be confused as to which is which.


    If you’re feeling your amps are clearly to you SO much “better” then something is plainly wrong.


    But having said that, I’ll add that I do use some select profiles from other people.

    But the vast majority of what I use are profiles I’ve made myself.

    This is in no small part because I like my amps (and the friends’ amps I know I like) but even more because I like the way *I* mic and record them.

    For example: When I set up my favourite AC30 and record it, that’s a sound that’s, oddly, almost nothing like every typical AC30 model and profile I’ve heard out there.

    But the AC30 profiles I’ve made are indistinguishable from my amps.

    It’s quite conceivable that to the people who made those profiles that I don’t much like, MY profile would sound ‘wrong’. Who knows?


    But my experience tells me that although you can certainly poke about on rig exchange, or the internets in general, and find some useable profiles, the real key to Kemper happiness is to profile the sounds YOU know YOU like.

    I will just say that for recording it’s EXTREMELY rare that I want reverb from the guitar amp.


    I’d much rather a dry signal that I can add reverb (and decide on stereo placement of that reverb) separately to. (As you suggested you did with valhalla reverb).