kemper - sound in the mix

Hey majvlasic, welcome
The Profiler will certainly sound different with a guitar cab than with a linear one, like everything in the world: it's the cab, not the source.
The most important thing to keep in mind IMO is that the level at which you tweak your tones does matter, because human perception varies with the sound level. So you should make your tones with the band.

the second consideration is that every instrument in the band should cut a sonic windows for itself, and not overlap with other instruments. Some common things guitar players do are cutting below around the 100 Hz (someone arrives at 180 or even 200) and above the 5k. What to do in between strongly depends on the mix of instruments (hence frequencies groups), on the singer's voice, and on the instrument you use.
Remember that the tones you'll come up with this way will most probably sound quite bad by themselves: you'll need to develop experience and your personal sensitivity about this this.

as regards monitoring, many guitarists prefer to hear themselves on a guitar cab regardless what they send to FOH. Others, like me, want to hear what the audience hears. Whichever route you choose, be sure to send to FOH a tone which works well in the mix

HTH

Welcome.
If you want to improve on your tones within a band you need to sit down with the whole band and go through your arrangements first (occupation of frequencies like @viabcroce hinted at). Record yourself, record the band, evaluate the material and go from there.

The only way to get a sound that fits in a mix well is to EQ while the band is playing. What sounds good on its own won't necessarily sound good in a mix. I remember reading a famous producer said "I won't let the guitar player here his guitar soloed in the mix, he'll tell me it's horrible and ask me what I've done. But in the mix he will think it sounds incredible"

All great advice from the guys above.

The best band members figure out early where there tone needs to be to sit best with the rest of the players. I have some OD lead tones that sound pretty harsh and thin when I'm just practicing alone, and honestly I'm always tempted to tweak them in that scenario, but when played live at volume with the bass player and drummer doing their thing, its perfect. Sticks out just enough without having to jump on a huge volume booster.

If you can record your practices at all and listen back you'll quickly hear what freq's are getting buried or what you can dial back.

Good luck!

If you don't understand all the techno mumbo jumbo, then, the "Mid" knob is your friend. Using just the mid knob will get you most of the way there. For rhythm playing many kemper profiles are fine with minimal tweaking, just volume adjustments. To make any tone into a "Lead" tone just add mid until the sound cuts through. Also, setting guitar volume to around 7 for rhythm and 10 for lead is a good starting point for guitar-side tweaks.

Quote from Karl

If you don't understand all the techno mumbo jumbo, then, the "Mid" knob is your friend. Using just the mid knob will get you most of the way there. For rhythm playing many kemper profiles are fine with minimal tweaking, just volume adjustments. To make any tone into a "Lead" tone just add mid until the sound cuts through. Also, setting guitar volume to around 7 for rhythm and 10 for lead is a good starting point for guitar-side tweaks.

+1 here. I used to be all about a metal sound in my younger days, scooping every bit of mids I could take out. The result? I made a lot of volume and noise, but no one could hear me. It's a nice crutch for playing at home and sounding a little bit better, but... with a band? No way. Thankfully, most of the profiles are made with logical, usable settings in mind, and, on most profiles, I keep the EQ completely flat. I never adjust more than ±2, and that's plenty.

Additionally, consider your gain levels. If you're playing higher gain profiles, you're compressing your sound, losing all your dynamics. This is true just as much with a tube amp as the Kemper. Try lowering the gain a smidge, and, if you have the compressor enabled on the Amp block, try turning it down. I usually keep it just barely on because I'm a ridiculously dynamic player, but if you're pretty heavy-handed, you might benefit from turning that off.

Quote from majvlasic

thanks for the kind replies!

I would like to ask.. is it a good idea to record a live gig from the mixer, and at home tweek the kemper that the sounds fits into the mix or would be that just a waste of time?

It certainly wouldn't hurt, but you're not going to hear it in context. You'll get closer to the intended sound you want. If you can get a multi-track mix off the board, then you can mute your track, play along, and tweak. I'd certainly recommend playing loudly. The Kemper doesn't have the same effect as a tube amp, where a tube amp on 10 sounds very differently than a tube amp on 2. The profile is a snapshot of how the amp sounded when profiled, which, in my opinion, saves a lot of trouble of playing at band volumes at home. But you should still tweak in a loud enough setting to feel like you're really rockin'.

I'd also recommend starting with just one or two profiles you really love and will use often. It's easy to get into wanting to use 40 different profiles, but when you're going between something that's super chimy and something that's really dark, your overall volume levels are going to be... well... inconsistent. You'll bass out the house on one part, and cut someone's head off with the treble from another. Mess with the cabs and the pure cab setting too. It makes a tremendous amount of difference, almost even more so than the amp profile you choose.

Finally, if you haven't gotten into picking up any commercial profiles, I'd recommend looking into some as well. The ones that come with the Kemper are all fine and good, but you'll be floored at the quality with the right profile with the right cab. I use Pete's AC-30 for about 90% of my normal gigging work, but just recently started using a Matchless profile I purchased (but I can't remember from where). I also use a selection of different SinMix, Guido, and G1 profiles for specialty things, particularly the SinMix B7K for bass, the Guido Bogner stuff for fun Satch-style things, and the G1 Driftwood Purple Nightmare for a searing lead/progressive/metal sound.

My ultimate setup for arranging my tones involve multitrack-recordings from practise sessions, where the guitar is recorded with an additional raw/direct track. Once I have a decent mix going I have endless opportunities for tweaking with reamping of the direct guitar-track through the profiler. I use a Midas M32R mixing console with a Yamaha DSR PA-rig for band practise/performance, a pair of studio-monitors for tweaking and practise at home and a mac with Presonus Studio One for recording playback. Any modern mixing-console with multitrack recording/playback facilities and computer/DAW will do.

However, regardless of the possibilities I tend to stick to a handful of profiles for each of my guitars, and once you get to know the KPA it is really no worse to dial in on the fly than any old amp provided that you have a stage/practise speaker rig (or IEM) capable of producing the same quality sound that you expect to hear from a good FOH-rig.

Quote

The Kemper doesn't have the same effect as a tube amp, where a tube amp on 10 sounds very differently than a tube amp on 2. The profile is a snapshot of how the amp sounded when profiled

OTOH, Master volume being the same, a profile of an amp which was set @ 2 will sound as different from the profile of an amp set @ 9 as the two original amps. What matters most in terms of perception is the master (or overall) volume, which affects how we hear different bands of frequencies.

In addition to all the above try playing with Clarity in the Amp section for your higher gain stuff, I set it around 4 and all my notes seem to come through.

Quote from viabcroce

OTOH, Master volume being the same, a profile of an amp which was set @ 2 will sound as different from the profile of an amp set @ 9 as the two original amps. What matters most in terms of perception is the master (or overall) volume, which affects how we hear different bands of frequencies.

Right, that's what I was trying to say - if it's profiled at 2, the Kemper will sound like that amp at 2, regardless if the Kemper's volume is on 2, 10, or 0.1.

Well, not really, and this was my point, since part of the differences we perceive across two different volume settings in an amp is due to how we perceive frequencies at different SPLs.

IOW, if you want a realistic feel of how a certain rig sounded in the room at whatever amp setting you'll have to also recreate the same SPL.

Of course the Profiler allows us to use heavily pumped-up amps at bedroom volumes, and this is huge in itself

Quote from viabcroce

Well, not really, and this was my point, since part of the differences we perceive across two different volume settings in an amp is due to how we perceive frequencies at different SPLs.

IOW, if you want a realistic feel of how a certain rig sounded in the room at whatever amp setting you'll have to also recreate the same SPL.

Of course the Profiler allows us to use heavily pumped-up amps at bedroom volumes, and this is huge in itself

AH! We're talking about two different things:
1. Tone of the profiled amp at the profiled amp's setting
2. Perceived tone of the amp based on the SPL/volume level of the Kemper in the room.