what does FRFR mean?

    I think FRFR is the strangest term in our business, and a bit misleading.
    It pretends that FRFR is something special.


    But FRFR is EVERY speaker exept guitar speakers.
    Your stereo at home, your iPod earplugs, your car radio and the biggest festival PA are all FRFR.
    I would love to ban this word from our forum :)
    It is better described by regular broadband speakers or linear speakers. They all try to be perfect and non colouring. Some are bad, some are great.

    I am wondering why we would need such a speaker. We all want a real guitar sound on stage. Why would I need a linear speaker to reproduce a non linear speaker? To cover the wide range between the different speaker? Is that the reason? Or because we want better control about the sound on stage and of the PA?


    My question: What is the use of FRFR from a guitar players view?

    Quote from Bluesman

    I am wondering why we would need such a speaker. We all want a real guitar sound on stage. Why would I need a linear speaker to reproduce a non linear speaker? To cover the wide range between the different speaker? Is that the reason?

    Basically yes. Guitarrists may talk more about their amps but a large portion of the sound is actually the cab. When you turn the cab off at the Kemper and play a poweramp into a 4x12 Marshall cab every profile will sound much like a Marshall. You won't get that setup doing a convincing Tweed Deluxe or a AC30.


    To be able to switch from true Fender clean to vintage Plexi crunch you'd have to switch the corresponding cabs (or their simulatiions in the Kemper). And to reproduce that you'll need a fullrange speaker (or just a normal speaker as Chris already stated).


    If you are a "one cab guy" who plays all of his amps through the same cab anyway - not unusual, many people do that - then you could use a poweramp and just that cab with your Kemper (with the cab sim turned off). No need for a FRFR solution then.


    But the real beauty of the Kemper is the truly amazing cab module and the variety of sounds which can be had this way. So I'd want a speaker who could accurately reproduce all those details. And that has to be a speaker with at least a decent linear frequency response and a decent range. A G12M25 for example would have not much treble but a great midrange. A 1x12 Fender Twin with Jensens would have much more treble so you just can't replicate that while running through a 4x12" greenback cab.

    Quote from Bluesman

    Why would I need a linear speaker to reproduce a non linear speaker?
    Because we want better control about the sound on stage and of the PA?


    This is it!
    You should take some resposibility for the sound that your audience hears.


    Only on a small stage your audience will hear your speaker directly.
    In that situation it is often too loud, because the audience is in the speakers narrow focus and you are not, because you stand on top of it.


    On larger stages or recordings nobody hears the direct speaker, but only the miced sound.
    It is a shame that so many guitarists don't get familiar with that sound at all, but turn around and give the responsibility for the final sound to some sound engineer.


    Most of the professional guitarist have additional linear monitoring or in-ear on stage to control the final sound.

    Quote from Bluesman

    I am wondering why we would need such a speaker. We all want a real guitar sound on stage. Why would I need a linear speaker to reproduce a non linear speaker? To cover the wide range between the different speaker? Is that the reason? Or because we want better control about the sound on stage and of the PA?


    My question: What is the use of FRFR from a guitar players view?


    Hi bluesman,


    your question - which is quite common in the guitar world - arises from a logic mistake. We use a guitar cab in conjunction with a guitar amp, because this is what we've learned to love in 60 years of electric guitar. Their coupling gives us that historic, classic, typical sound (and all its consequent variations depending on the guitar, the amp, the cab, distortion and the like). But when the amp sound is generated by a simulation (be it a modeller or a profiler) all the typicality of the sound we love (phase cancellations, non-linearities, narrowed passing band, characteristic response curve) are taken care in software. IOW, the simulator doesn't rely on the non-linear cab to generate the sound we want.
    For this reason, all you need in order to amplify the modeller is an as-much-as-possible faithful reproduction system (Hi-Fi, or FRFR) to linearly reproduce all the non-linearities which have been already generated in software.
    As long as you can use everything for listening to a modeller, and as much as you may like the result, a guitar cab will never make a modelled sound sound as it was meant. Pleasant if you like, but not accurate.
    The myth that a monitor can't push as much air as a guitar cab is false as well: you might want to read Jay Mitchell's posts on the Fractal and TGP forums about the matter.


    This having been said, you may of course like best whatever pleases you! :D

    Edited once, last by viabcroce: typos and readability :) ().

    A guitar via a distorted guitar amp - connected to a regular linear speaker - would sound very bad - much to much high frequencies and fizz.
    If you own a KPA or any other modeler switch off the cabinet simulation and you will see (hear) ....


    The typical guitar speaker cuts off a lot of the very unpleasant high frequencies and - the resulting sound can be great (if all the rest is great).


    The same does the cabinet block in the KPA or in any other modeler.


    So when you play your KPA via an regular linear speaker (or headphone) the results is as great as the original chain (amp, speaker, mic, ...).


    When you play the KPA via a guitar speaker then you cut the high frequencies TWO times (in the KPA cabinet block AND in the guitar speaker) - the result may sound very strange, dull or muddy.

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    Quote from JasperEads

    My live rig is KPA, Peavey CS60/60, Stereo Peavey 5150 4x12.


    Could i replace the speakers with FRFR?
    Anyone have experience with this?
    If yes, What are some brands to look up?


    You can, but it probably won't sound very good. A guitar cabinet isn't designed the same as one for full-range/PA speakers, in terms of shape, size, baffling, blah blah blah. Your best bet in this case would be to get the most neutral-sounding guitar speakers possible rather than something that's actually FRFR, but I think most folk on here would agree that you're better off saving that cash for a proper setup. There are a ton of cheaper options that sound decent, and several not-crazy-expensive ones that sound awesome - Xitone and Atomic CLR come to mind.

    Sadly, it has been my experience that the many guitar players pay little or no attention to the FOH sound. There is a widely held belief that what you hear from your guitar amp is what the audience hears. This is simply not true for a wide array of reasons.


    Microphones make a huge difference in your sound. Crappy microphone, crappy FOH sound. Microphone placement also makes a pretty big difference. The FOH speakers being used as well as the channel eq you have on the mixer also color your guitar sound.


    Musicians that rely on their guitar cabs alone (smaller bands in smaller bars usually) generally blast one part of the audience (the people the speaker is pointing at) and can't be clearly heard anywhere else.


    The Kemper rigs (most of them) capture not only the amp, but the microphone behavior as well.


    I am a pretty senior engineer and have been watching and waiting for someone to come along who remembered their signal and systems processing classes to create a guitar processor exactly like the KPA.


    A good powered speaker and the KPA makes for a pretty incredible sounding rig. I don't even do this that much. My band uses IEM's so straight into the PA from the KPA gives me the lightest, most incredible sounding rig I have ever owned (I am an ex VHT user, so I appreciate a good tube amp when I hear one).


    To the OP, while many speakers state they are "flat", that is rarely the case for a number of reasons. First, the frequency response graph is typically performed at a moderate volume level. Different volume levels will give you different frequency responses. Better speakers tend to hold up more linearly from quiet, to full out loud while less expensive speakers tend to sound bad at higher volumes. Second, speaker manufacturers tend to say they are "flat" between the -10db HF and LF cutoff points, but the actual graphs show quite a bit of non-linear behavior.


    Your best bet IMHO is to browse the forums for people using their Kemper with a powered speaker to see which ones sound the best.

    Sorry for the partial OT...


    ... some time ago I had answered a similar question (OP) with a post which some members here (Ingolf and Larry among others) had appreciated. Someone had even suggested to add it to wikipedia (!?) (I'm writing this so maybe someone can remember the fact).


    I'm apparently unable to find my post. I'd like to link it in a different site. Sure, I might write it again from scratch, but in this specific application I'd just need a link...


    Do some older member here remember the thread? :|


    Thanks! :thumbup:


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