Guitar cab or FRFR - and why?

All of us are wannabe guitarists...
That is why our bank accounts always cry and wifes scream

FRFR for versatility but if you have just one sound you need then a real cab for live loud use would fit the bill.

As far as the wife, cry and scream all you want just don't shoot!

Quote from deadpan

FRFR for versatility but if you have just one sound you need then a real cab for live loud use would fit the bill.

As far as the wife, cry and scream all you want just don't shoot!

Luckily, for us, most wives have not learned a fundamental lesson from Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez...

Ho guys
As you know i got a dxr10 and I am very happy with it . Now I would like to go stereo. Do you think i can match a dxr8 or should i get another dxr10? I found a good deal for a dxr8 but don't know how the two speakers work together...what do you think?

Stereo means two twin speakers. The 8 and the 10 would be unbalanced, but...

DRX10 sounds extemely good in combination with a DXR12. Perfect complementation.

Thanks guys. So you do not recommend a dxr8...

can somebody explain to me what the " amp in room " referance actualy means? Or maybe what it would sound like or feel like right now I run a Peavey 6505 Plus With a Mesa oversized 412.. so i have amp in room, or maybe tell me how frfr sounds different than this

As the KPA can run in many formats, amp in the room really refers to the sound you would normally get from an amp and cab.

Running FRFR is different because it includes the mic aspect and therefore shows the whole signal chain and so is closer to what you would hear via a PA or studio set up.

For many this does not sound the same as a valve amp on full chat but its actually more accurate to what the audience/listener hears...and this is the debate...

Unless someone can explain it better

Amp in a room means the sound you hear is the sound coming directly out of the cab. The KPA is a profile and hence it is the sound of the cab + mic(s) + mic preamp + speaker. This is the sound of every recorded instrument i.e. every guitar sound you ever heard on a recording and the sound of a guitar coming out of a PA.

It's different in a number of ways;

Every component in the recording chain influences the sound to some extent
A mi'c speaker cabinet is 'spotlight' on the cab sound (not the whole thing). Mic placement has a large bearing on the recorded sound

If you're used to the sound of your amp in a room then it will sound and feel a little different. It does however sound like the signal your audience will hear (assuming you're running through a PA when you play) or the tone you would get when recording.

I've never had an issue personally but some people do.

The advantages of FRFR;

You can take full advantage of the KPA profiles - if you run through a conventional cab then this is a significant contributor to the overall tone. I did this for a while but moved away as the profiles took on the sonic signature of the cab too much
You know (and can control to a certain extent) the sound your audience will hear.

I went to FRFR and have never looked back but you have to choose carefully as all FRFR are not equal. I went for a concentric driver based cab as this just sounded more natural to me.

Hope that helps,

Si

Quote from Metal Greg

can somebody explain to me what the " amp in room " referance actualy means? Or maybe what it would sound like or feel like right now I run a Peavey 6505 Plus With a Mesa oversized 412.. so i have amp in room, or maybe tell me how frfr sounds different than this

Hello Metal Greg,

In short, it is terminology that is used to describe (or try to describe) the subjective difference between the "immediacy" and aural "presence" of a physical tube amp and cabinet "moving air", when a guitarist is directly connected and playing -- vs -- the "one step removed" quality of playing through the exact same set up when it is mic'd up, and the guitarist is in (for example) a recording room, and listening through the recorded signal through studio monitors. Or, to put it another way, it is the difference between the "live" tone that the guitarist hears on stage from his on stage gear, versus what the audience hears through the front-of-the-house PA. Or, yet another way, the difference between the live sound and the sound that one actually hears in the recording/playback (from a mic'd source) of the same performance.

Now, a few caveats to the above generalizations...

A) The degree to which one notices and/or is affected by the above varies from musician to musician. Some musicians appear to be more sensitive to it, versus others. However, it is also important to keep in mind that...at the end of the day...it is the recorded guitar tone that we all have in our mind's "ear", so to speak. In other words, when we compare/contrast, analyze and criticize (whether positively or negatively) guitar tones, it is based upon recordings of a mic'd guitar-amp system.. This is precisely the sound/tone that the KPA authentically captures and recreates.

B) This recorded amp tone, described in "A", is best reproduced, with accurate fidelity, through an FRFR (Full Range, Flat Response) monitor.

C) If the Kemper owner wishes to achieve "amp-in-the-room" tone, this can easily be done by connecting to an external power amp (assuming that they have a non-powered KPA) and then directly to a traditional guitar cabinet , such as your Mesa oversized 412), and also turning off the KPA's cabinet module. In your case, instead of an external power amp, you could connect the monitor out of your KPA into the FX Loop RETURN of your Peavey 6505 Plus, and then connect the speaker out of your Peavey 6505 Plus to your Mesa 412, and disable the KPA's cabinet module.

With all that said, I personally prefer the vast variety of tones I can achieve when connecting my powered KPA to my FRFR monitor (which is a XiTone passive 1x12). Keep in mind that the guitar cabinet contributes the majority of the unique tone in any given amp-cabinet system. While it is difficult to quantify the relationship exactly, a common rule of thumb is that the guitar cabinet contributes (or is responsible for) 70% of the over-all tone. In other words, if you keep your amp head fixed, and switch and play through many different guitar cabinets, you will hear an appreciable and significant difference in tones and tonal textures. Conversely, if you keep your guitar cabinet fixed, and switch and play through various make/models of amp heads that have similar gain structure...you will not hear as dramatic a difference. Getting used to playing your KPA through an FRFR monitor allows you to take advantage and leverage the capability of the Kemper to authentically reproduce different amp/cabinet combinations.

Hope this is helpful.

Cheers,
John

wow that is a lot of good information thank you.. I understand the reasoning behind using frfr... ut if I am on stage and I put a microphone in front of my Half Stack.... isnt that what tgw audience hears lol? Let me give a little background... I originally started off when I was a kid with solid state amps, but the bands i played with did not have PA systems, so we cranked our solid state amls to the loint of soundig like complete crap just to have volune to hear over the drums... down the road I had the same issue but we would also play shows where there was no p a system other than for the vocals so I want a Line 6 Spider valve tube amp Half Stack, and I liked it now I have the PV in the Mesa and I hated it I tried lots of different cabinets and they all sounded like poop until I bought an EQ pedal and put it in the loop.. still not a hundred percent happy but it's doable I got tired of lugging stuff back and forth to the rehearsal spot so I recently picked up a Peavey vypyr VIP 1 and it blew my mind how good it sounded especially on the 6505 Channel it sounded better to my ears then my actual 6505 Plus and this little amp has an 8
" frfr speaker. All my life the tone I look for when I'm sitting at home playing or when I'm writing music the tone I want to hear out of my guitar is wiz the tone that I want on the album so I always had way too much bottom end in my tone and always came out mushy in the mix then I learned the guitars place in the mix so when we rehearse or play live I don't mind the somewhat sterile tone of my tube amp... but when I write I like to have that finished product sound.. so perhaps having the flat response full-range speakers is the way to go the only problem is I won't have the money to do that right off the bat.. I do also have a few questions about the kemper to help me make a decision can I ask them here I like you guys you seem to know what you're talking about or do I need to go to a different area of the Forum?

Quote from Metal Greg

wow that is a lot of good information thank you.. I understand the reasoning behind using frfr... ut if I am on stage and I put a microphone in front of my Half Stack.... isnt that what tgw audience hears lol? Let me give a little background... I originally started off when I was a kid with solid state amps, but the bands i played with did not have PA systems, so we cranked our solid state amls to the loint of soundig like complete crap just to have volune to hear over the drums... down the road I had the same issue but we would also play shows where there was no p a system other than for the vocals so I want a Line 6 Spider valve tube amp Half Stack, and I liked it now I have the PV in the Mesa and I hated it I tried lots of different cabinets and they all sounded like poop until I bought an EQ pedal and put it in the loop.. still not a hundred percent happy but it's doable I got tired of lugging stuff back and forth to the rehearsal spot so I recently picked up a Peavey vypyr VIP 1 and it blew my mind how good it sounded especially on the 6505 Channel it sounded better to my ears then my actual 6505 Plus and this little amp has an 8
" frfr speaker. All my life the tone I look for when I'm sitting at home playing or when I'm writing music the tone I want to hear out of my guitar is wiz the tone that I want on the album so I always had way too much bottom end in my tone and always came out mushy in the mix then I learned the guitars place in the mix so when we rehearse or play live I don't mind the somewhat sterile tone of my tube amp... but when I write I like to have that finished product sound.. so perhaps having the flat response full-range speakers is the way to go the only problem is I won't have the money to do that right off the bat.. I do also have a few questions about the kemper to help me make a decision can I ask them here I like you guys you seem to know what you're talking about or do I need to go to a different area of the Forum?

Hi Metal Greg,

Just a few points of clarification. Your Peavey VIP 1 does not have a FRFR speaker. It has a single, relatively neutral (i.e. quasi-flat response) speaker. In the industry, the terminology "FRFR" relates to a system that it is able to linearly reproduce (or as close approximation as "linear") an audio signal across the range of human hearing, which is 20 Hz to 20 kHz. A single 8" speaker driver cannot do this...not even close. If you look at a frequency response curve of a speaker system (taken as a whole), the term "linear" equates to a "flat" curve across the frequency bandwidth of interest. In this case, we are talking a "flat" response (in reality, a close approximation) from 20 Hz all the way up through 20 kHz. If you were able to find a copy of the frequency response curve of the individual speaker used in your Peavey VIP 1, you will find it has a much more narrow frequency response, with a significant drop off above 5-6 kHz.

So, how do FRFR systems maintain a flat (linear) response across the entire 20 Hz to 20 kHz range? They do that employing a dedicated low/mid range driver and a dedicated high frequency driver. These may be mounted separately, in a traditional 2-component arrangement...or they be mounted coincidentally on the same axis, otherwise known as a coaxial configuration, in which the HF driver (tweeter) is mounted within the low frequency driver (woofer). Typically, the audio speakers used in automobiles are coaxial speakers. However, in either case, these FRFR speakers reproduce the full frequency range with high accuracy.

So, you may ask the question...if a traditional, individual 1 x 12 guitar speaker only reproduces frequencies up to 5-6 kHz...why the advantage of an FRFR monitor that accurately reproduces the full range of human hearing (i.e. 20 Hz - 20 kHz)?? The answer is that any given guitar speaker has a very specific frequency response and fingerprint. A guitar speaker is not designed to be linear. In fact, that is the point. A guitar speaker wants to impart color and distortion. In addition, the nature and particular idiosyncrasies of the high frequency roll-off will vary from make/model. It is these two characteristics that impart a distinctive aural "fingerprint" to a given guitar speaker. Additionally, the design and construction of the cabinet which houses a guitar speaker (or speakers) makes a significant contribution to the distinct character and fingerprint of a speaker system.

And all of this is where the advantages of a FRFR system comes into play. In theory, an FRFR speaker system is able to accurately and authentically reproduce whatever audio signal you through at it. That is exactly why you play back your recorded guitar music (or any music) through an FRFR system. Just imagine if you mic'd your guitar amp / cabinet and recorded it...and then played it back through the same guitar cabinet. It would sound like absolute muddy crap...because your guitar cabinet not only cannot reproduce the full signal, but worse, it introduces a SECOND level of frequency roll-off.

So, the advantage of the KPA with an FRFR monitor is that it is able to faithfully and accurately reproduce the full audio content, including all the wonderful tonal characteristics and unique peculiarities that are intrinsic to the original source...in this case whatever amp/mic/cabinet system that has been profiled.

Cheers,
John

thank you John however I understand all of that already.. I understand the benefits, my original question is how does that sound different from an amp in a room which I kind of think I understand I guess I would need to hear both back to back.. I realize the Peavey Viper one in the camper are like comparing apples to oranges but even the VIP one is closer to actual FRFR then a guitar cabinet

I'm FRFR all the way. No matter what the musical situation I want my carefully crafted stereo image of a miked amp to be presented.

I want my sound to be blended with the rest and not force singers to struggle with a loud amp, so I never want that "loud amp in a room" sound unless I'm soloing, in which case I turn up and get the speakers pumping with my sound while not blasting the monitor mix.

the band I rehearse with does not have a PA and we play pretty extreme metal right now I use a hundred 20 watt tube head and I have plenty of volume and quality volume how many watts would I need for the solid-state setup using a camper to achieve the same thing?

You have to physically experience it to know I'm afraid. Some things cannot be described effectively unfortunately..

Simon

thank you Simon LOL I think I would enjoy that sound because I really want to hear the sound of a finished album every time I play my guitar even if it's just me in the bedroom that's how I want my guitar to sound I actually got to play on a kemper very briefly the guy had a Profile oven engl Savage or something like that and it was just being run through some small powered studio monitors and the sound made the hair on the back of my neck stand up it was so perfect

Sorry if my comment came across as flippant - didn't mean it in that way at all

I started with a 150w SS power amp before I bought my powered cab which is 300w. Tbh I felt that the 150w was a bit close to the edge but it was early days and I hadn't got gain staging optimal.

Hope that helps.

Simon