A Power amp question...

    When I FINALLY get my Kemper I shall be using it with either my Carvin DCM1000 or Matrix power amp & 4x12 Harry Kolbe cab. I mostly play live.
    Question I have is: Won't using a power amp along with a profiled power amp sound funny? There's no Power amp on/off button, but that would just defeat the purpose wouldn't it?
    I have the Adams A7X but I will be going for some KorN or Buckethead jamming and want a whole lot of massive 4x12 air moving!
    I think I'm way off the mark as to how this all works, sorry.
    CH

    From a feeling point of view it works very well, when you defeat the cab and run it through an amp and cab it really kicks...
    I've also thought that having a power amp sim + a real one would have been...funny, but it doesn't! I thing that the power amp/cab interaction is built in the cab block (no info on it, just a feeling) and that could explain why Sheguitarplayer was noticing a negligible difference between the real deal and the KPA driving the real power amp and the real cab.


    It works a lot better than any other modeler I've tried to date. in this config, but keep in mind that I'm an FRFR convert since a lot of years...

    "Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music" Serghei Rachmaninoff


    Quote from CrossHairSB

    When I FINALLY get my Kemper I shall be using it with either my Carvin DCM1000 or Matrix power amp & 4x12 Harry Kolbe cab. I mostly play live.
    Question I have is: Won't using a power amp along with a profiled power amp sound funny? There's no Power amp on/off button, but that would just defeat the purpose wouldn't it?
    I have the Adams A7X but I will be going for some KorN or Buckethead jamming and want a whole lot of massive 4x12 air moving!
    I think I'm way off the mark as to how this all works, sorry.
    CH


    Shouldn't do.
    The power amp stage of the profiled amp has a profound effect on the sound of the amp as its designed that way.
    The Carvin is, I believe, a pa amp. These are designed to amplify the signal cleanly with little or no coloration, and succeed to a varying degree depending on the quality of the amp. They certainly don't have the sag and give of a loud valve guitar amp.
    EVH used to use HH mosfet amps to 'reamplify' his power soaked Marshalls, and I bet they were nowhere near as clean as your car vin.
    Im using my KPA with a 50watt atomic valve amp and an evh 5150 cab. It is absolutely fantastic.
    Ive made some profiles specifically using a power soak, which basically gives me a profile of the amp/power amp but no speaker and these work very well indeed with the power amp/cab combination.

    I must admit that when playing "live" (I still do now and then) I have to go into a real guitar amp. I tried going direct to PA once years ago and it just did not have the "trouser flapping" breeze and grunt that you get from standing in front of a real guitar cab. I should imagine that the kemper will be great using a power amp and a real guitar cab with the kemper cab sims turned off, or better still a direct profile of a real amps signal path through a THD Hotplate line-out or similar. I'm looking forward to trying this approach myself. Modelled or "profiled" cabs are ok for quiet noodling but other than that I need the roar of a real cab.

    Appreciate the insight,
    (For me) The AxeII is close to satisfying my stubborn ass. Thought..."well, you aren't using it to its full potential... you need its cab emulation". So I purchased the Adams A7X's. STILL...lacks the breath or air. Maybe for a recording situation these would apply.


    Now I am to defeat the cabs on the Kemper and still feel like I'm kinda cuttin' myself short. But I need the moving air of a 4x12!


    (?) are PA speakers FRFR? I have a PA (yamaha's 15" etc...) with a 1000w Ksub. (AxeII sounds terrible through it).


    Thx again guys,
    CH :)

    As an experiment I tried the kemper this evening straight into Reaper with the cab switched off and using an impulse inside reaper. Whoa daddy, now we're talking....fantastic sounds.


    PA speakers are trying very hard to be FRFR.
    FRFR means Flat frequency flat response. Its what all pa systems are going for but its a trade off of price vs power, and total FRFR is probably not actually possible with current technology.
    'Cheap pa systems get nowhere near.
    All these FRFR systems you see being touted on the likes of the axefx forum etc are actually pa speakers.
    For example the RCF NX12s that are the current 'go to' FRFR monitors are mid range pa speakers/monitors, and are designed and marketed as such.The atomic FRFR series (which I use to my regret) is designed to be FRFR but again, its really 'as close as we can reasonably get'
    Top pa systems (d&b and the like) are pretty much the state of the art and much more expensive than you want to spend on a guitar monitor system.
    A Pa system also highlights many low and high frequencies that make a guitar sound awful.
    If you were to mic a very expensive guitar amp through the pa system the engineer would eq it to remove the woofy lows and piercing highs. This is because the mic itself imparts a huge impact on the tone, usually adding big highs and lows and sucking out some mids.
    A modeller, no matter how high spec, would be the same. If it didn't, it wouldn't be realistically modelling the mic part of the 'chain'
    One of the things I really like about the KPA is it involves the amp, the power amp, the speaker, the mic and finally, the eq applied at the mixing desk after the mic to 'balance out' those piercing highs and lows. Whats more, it captures the way they all interact which can't be completely captured when trying to split them into component parts.


    Excellent post, lot's of truth right here.

    Yes it is and thank you Sheguitarplayer!


    I don't get why people are FRFR then...maybe the Kemp will change my mind :)
    And I just wish I didn't have to turn off "cabs" or "power amp" in order to get a good sound. Afterall, we profile particular amps with cabs and now we have to delete a portion of that profile in order to have a satisfying tone... I don't get it. Can't I have my cake and eat it TOO! :)


    CH

    Personally I 'cheat'. I profile the amp (and its power amp) using a power soak.. That way I eliminate the speaker and mic etc. and can decide how much power amp effect I need by how loud the master volume is.
    When I play that profile through my external power amp and guitar cab, it sounds just like the original amp through the same cab..
    Having said that I've found some cab and mic profiles on the KPA which I am impressed with to the extent that I've actually gigged with them FRFR and that's a first for me..sounded great and I'm usually not a fan of playing live FRfR.

    Yes the the hot plate is a power soak.
    Set it at 'load' so you don't need your guitar cab connected to the amp.
    Signal chain goes
    KPA>amp input
    Speaker out of amp>thd hot plate speaker input (set hot plate at load)
    Direct out of hot plate>KPA
    You can if you wish monitor the profiling process via the main outputs of the KPA>carvin amp>guitar cab
    By doing this you can monitor exactly how it's going to sound during playback through that power amp and cab, and set the amp controls up accordingly.
    When profiling is over you don't need the power soak any more.
    Just KPA>carvin>guitar cab

    If you intend to use KPA live, thru a Power amp (especially tube) + cab, the most natural way to do it, is to send


    only the preamp of a profiled amp. This means that you have to profile only the preamp section of an amp. , no


    power amp, no cab. ( KPA out ---- Amp in, Amp send-----KPA return)


    The problem here is that, if you want from KPA"s monitor out only the preamp signal,but a full signal to the


    main out, you can't get it due the lack of the Power amp profile.( you can use cab from another profile)


    This is what I requested a few days before, to the "feature request" section


    http://kemper-amps.com/forum/i…page=Thread&threadID=3134

    Yes the the hot plate is a power soak.
    Set it at 'load' so you don't need your guitar cab connected to the amp.This is very important.when set at load you can run the amp with no speaker connected. Without this, doing so will damage the amp.
    Signal chain goes
    KPA>amp input
    Speaker out of amp>thd hot plate speaker input (set hot plate at load)
    Direct out of hot plate>KPA
    You can if you wish monitor the profiling process via the main outputs of the KPA>carvin amp>guitar cab
    By doing this you can monitor exactly how it's going to sound during playback through that power amp and cab, and set the amp controls up accordingly.
    When profiling is over you don't need the power soak any more.
    Just KPA>carvin>guitar cab

    I want to play with a 2x12 at home so i was looking a good way to combine the kemper with a transistor power amp ! I have sawn this threat but i need a transistor power amp with less power than the matrix...Which do you think it would be a great deal for playing metal at home? or do you think a pair of 8" is enough?

    Quote from chopeth85

    I want to play with a 2x12 at home so i was looking a good way to combine the kemper with a transistor power amp ! I have sawn this threat but i need a transistor power amp with less power than the matrix...Which do you think it would be a great deal for playing metal at home? or do you think a pair of 8" is enough?


    depends which Matrix you are talking about.....