What are IR profiles for and how to use them (what's the benefit)?

    Hi,


    I do understand Profiles, Merged profiles, cab profiles and I do understand why it's desired to have them.
    But for IR profiles I can't understand.


    I'm just a mucisian and apart from connecting my guitar to my amp, I also use my focusrite interface and am profiling an amp every now and then, But I just want to play guitar.
    Are IR profiles mainly meant for studio usage or is it also good for the musician?
    If so, then I have two questions:


    1) What's the benefit of IR profiles?
    2) How to use/apply them?


    Thanks in advance.


    Mauce

    Hi.


    It's not a Kemper-specific format, so IR profiles is a bit missleading. Impulse responses (guitarwise) are very common for reverbs and cabs.


    In short: Think of it as the recorded (sampled) proportion the reverb respectively the cab give to a sound. In other words: Reverb or cab minus the actual sound source.
    The KPA can take IRs and transform them into its own format, so you can use IRs with your KPA. That's what the tool Cab Maker (hope that's the correkt name) is for. IRs are usually used within software plugins, for the KPA direct or merged profiles might be the better solution though.


    In long:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impulse_response#Loudspeakers

    Gear: Strats & KPA. Plug Ins: Cubase, NI, iZotope, Slate, XLN, Spectrasonics.
    Music: Song from my former band: vimeo.com/10419626[/media][/media][/media] Something new on the way...

    Edited once, last by Fireloogie ().

    Like 1

    Thank you for your reply.
    It's helped me a bit to understand, but ....
    Still I don't see the benefit of having them and as you explained if merged profiles are prefered then my conclusion would be IR profiles are not really of use (to me).

    Quote from MetalMauce

    Thank you for your reply.
    It's helped me a bit to understand, but ....
    Still I don't see the benefit of having them and as you explained if merged profiles are prefered then my conclusion would be IR profiles are not really of use (to me).

    Generally IRs simply sound better than most hardware direct outs (cab sims) on e.g. guitar preamps. They are software based and are read out by IR loader vst plugins. IRs still make a lot of sense outside the KPA environment, convolution reverbs for exapmle benefit from that technology. Numerous IR loader plugins can be found for free as well as many IRs. As mentioned, your KPA allows you to import cab IRs (after they have been transformed into the KPA format), but if you haven't used any of these before, you will not need them now. Hope this helps a bit.

    Gear: Strats & KPA. Plug Ins: Cubase, NI, iZotope, Slate, XLN, Spectrasonics.
    Music: Song from my former band: vimeo.com/10419626[/media][/media][/media] Something new on the way...

    Like 1

    You can think of IRs in terms of a mic'd cabinet. There are tons of IRs for a ton of cabinets.


    If you use an IR Loader, you can record your amp-only (head) sound, which will sound pretty harsh. When you load in a IR (cabinet), it will change the sound dramatically. There are a ton of benefits to using IRs, including ER IR Tone matching, which is a whole other level of complexity.


    One of the IR Loaders that I use is LeCab2. It works well. You can find a ton of free IRs, and experiment with them, It's easier to understand when you see it in action, and how it changes your tone. You can see how your amp will sound through a bunch of different cabinets/speakers. Just be aware that you could become pretty engulfed in it. I fell down that rabbit hole a while ago, and realized I was having so much fun with IRs that I wasn't playing as much. I have to give myself an intervention and stop creating Tone Matched IRs, and just play the guitar.