Looking For - Open Back Cab Profiles

Quote from BuckeyeBrown

Anybody given the "Till" treatment to some open back cabs. There are a slew of closed backs from Till and others to really help improve many of the rigs that might use closed back cabs but I'm looking to get my hands on some cabs to try on those Fender rigs.

Any suggestion?

I just uploaded a few experimental openback files. Check them out if you like, they can be found my cab thread...

I have tried all of the Tills open-back cabs, and have not found any as useful as the Marshall/Recto 4x12 closed cabs - for some reason, they don't sound as natural or balanced as the closed-backs, and I am trying to figure out what the variables could be....

Quote from Radley

I have tried all of the Tills open-back cabs, and have not found any as useful as the Marshall/Recto 4x12 closed cabs - for some reason, they don't sound as natural or balanced as the closed-backs, and I am trying to figure out what the variables could be....

Radley is right, i dont not like them either that much and will not be integrating them in the cab packs. Maybe it´s the quality of the speaker itself but i think the main aspect is that the KPA cannot reproduce the main benefit of an open cab that good, which is the the "room sound" projection. With the sound that exits the back and reflects on the walls you get a very spacious "surround" sound. Without any reverb tails you simply will not be able to archieve what you are looking for. So the only thing you will get when miking the open back is some phase shifting. Though a little touch of that can add some nice "character" to your tone it sounds very unpleasing when it is too obvious. I think it was a nice experiment you for the next stuff i will return to just close miking the front.

Tills,

Please know that I always have highest respect your efforts - you have provided us with the best all around Cab profiles available for the KPA, and that is HUGE! I have also noticed that the cab profiles of my lovely open-back Fender amps have been somewhat lackluster/unfocused when profiling with the KPA. Perhaps it's a matter of mic technique...?

Quote from Radley

I have also noticed that the cab profiles of my lovely open-back Fender amps have been somewhat lackluster/unfocused when profiling with the KPA. Perhaps it's a matter of mic technique...?

I dont think that it is necessarily the miking technique. Since the KPA seems to work very differently from impulse responses it wont capture any reverb. On the one hand this is great because it prevents any early room reflections to "smear" the transients. On the other hand you loose the room information. Perhaps the kemper guys might find a way to combine the profiling with some sort of "room sound capture" sometime. Perhaps take the profile as known, then capture an IR with sufficient lenght and then subtracting one from the other. This way you would still have those sound components separated and could even increase / decrease the amount of room sound.

Dont know if this might be possible technically but it is a nice thought.

Perhaps this will help in discovering what works with open backs. I don't know what Till Treated is but here's something I stumbled on.

I profiled a little Fender Champ II last night with open back 8" speaker. It sits under my oak wood studio desk on a shelf. The desk encloses the amp with 10" behind and 4" top and sides clearance. I used to remove the amp to record it, but found it sounds "better" sitting in the ported enclosure. The mic has to be positioned under the desk since the shelf is recessed 8 inches....and there is bass treatment under there as well. After 3 profiling attempts, I got what I was looking for....an airy, open yet full range sound. Mic position and overall volume where key.

Have I stumbled on something as a complete newb that helps? The profile was just uploaded under author "BDTN" as "BD '83 FNDR CHAMP II"

bd

Quote from musicman65

Perhaps this will help in discovering what works with open backs. I don't know what Till Treated is but here's something I stumbled on.

I profiled a little Fender Champ II last night with open back 8" speaker. It sits under my oak wood studio desk on a shelf. The desk encloses the amp with 10" behind and 4" top and sides clearance. I used to remove the amp to record it, but found it sounds "better" sitting in the ported enclosure. The mic has to be positioned under the desk since the shelf is recessed 8 inches....and there is bass treatment under there as well. After 3 profiling attempts, I got what I was looking for....an airy, open yet full range sound. Mic position and overall volume where key.

Have I stumbled on something as a complete newb that helps? The profile was just uploaded under author "BDTN" as "BD '83 FNDR CHAMP II"

bd

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Seems to make sense - some hi fi speakers are designed to be used at about 8inches from a wall and these are usually rear ported. For the good profile you got - how far away from the grill was the mic?
I guess it's a balance between capturing the front frequencies and the reflected sound but as tyler says there is a limit to this before it Becomes full on reverb

eatapeach,

the mic was dead center between 5 and 6 inches away and off-axis pointing away from the cone so it was catching the reflected sound from around the sides of the amp. I just moved it around til it sounded like what my ears heard directly. Not very scientific but it worked.

bd