Behringer TRUTH Monitors

    For the guys out there using these with the Kemper, are there any settings or quirks I should be aware of when tweaking my tones for live/recording use? I've read that they have a mid spike at a certain frequency band and that they take "getting used to". Not sure how true any of that is though. I'm also wondering what volume to play at for accurate tone tweaking. The manual says low volume to prevent ear fatigue, but what is considered "low volume"?


    Just wondering if anyone out there with experience with these particular monitors has any advice and/or suggestions. Thanks.

    I use them since several years for mixing now and my trick is to listen thru them some tracks that are tonewise in the same path than what I'm looking for. So in guitar application I would listen to a guitar track in the good path thru the Behringer first then tweak my guitar tone.


    As nothing is perfectly flat anyways it's always a good idea to work this way. I didn't notice any "spikey" undesirable frequencies thought.


    I always try to mix as near as possible of the volume at which the music will be use.

    Thanks guys. I'm hoping to power them up tonight and see how they sound with my favorite rigs. I'm also going to run my iPod through them as a baseline for some tones.


    Playing at volume isn't really an option for me. I have two kids and pretty much can only play after they are in bed for the night. I play loud enough to not have my pick hitting the strings drown out what's coming though the speakers, but not much louder than that most of the time. Certainly not gig volumes though. I'm hoping monitors will give a better representation of what my tone will be when I send it to FOH but at "reasonable" volumes.

    Yeah, the 2031a's.


    Define "loud"? Gig levels for me is pretty loud. My old rig was a 100W JVM (with some mods I did) and that thing was really loud. I play louder then bedroom levels at home, but certainly not gig levels.

    Like Marco said, look up on Fletcher Munson.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher%E2%80%93Munson_curves


    Looking up the graph you'll realize that at about 80-85 dB our hearing becomes more linear and we therefore will not feel inclined to grab for the EQ for compensation.

    Yeah, I checked that out. Man, 80dB isn't even that loud either. At least it doesn't seem like it would be based in the comparisons to alarm clocks and vacuum cleaners I've read about. I definitely play that loud at home and that's not even close to gig volumes.

    So I finally got a chance to crank up these monitors a bit. I'm not sure if I was playing at 80dB or not, but it was loud enough for my ears to feel a bit fatigued after playing. I'll say this, the TRUTH monitors do not sound like my RCA ART312 MKIII. They aren't as bright sounding (not to say they are dull, just not as piercing) and are a LOT more transparent sounding. When I play my patches, even the higher gain ones, the TRUTH monitors allow the note definition and clarity to really come through. Every profile has that certain "jangle" if that makes sense. In fact, I wasn't able to dial in anything really creamy with my patches. Not a bad thing though, just something I noticed. The monitors made everything sound very open.


    One thing I will say though, still not getting a large bottom end. This could just be the result of using monitors vs a guitar cab. The tone is good/great, but lacks a certain umph that you get with a traditional tube amp / guitar cab set up.


    I tweaked my gigging profiles with the monitors, and I'm curious to see how they sound with the RCA at practice on Thursday. I'm guessing I'm going to have to tweak the monitor EQ to cut some highs and add some lows across the board. I'm also curious how much of that result is a room factor. I have a gig the first week of march where I'll use the KPA, so I'll leave the monitor out EQ flat for that show and see how it sounds in a different room during sound check. I'll also try a couple different rooms in the interim if I have a chance.


    Overall, pretty happy with these monitors. $250 for the pair wasn't a bad investment.

    Practice was last night. My tone through the RCA312a MKIII was noticeably better after tweaking the profiles with the TRUTH monitors first. Not overly bright in any way and a lot smoother sounding. The clarity you get with the TRUTH monitors can't be matched by the RCA, but this isn't a bad thing. My medium to higher gain stuff through the TRUTHs sounded very articulate, but through the RCA there was a certain compression that occurred that was very welcome for those kinds of tones.


    One thing that needs to be corrected is the volume changes between profiles, which was much more noticeable with the RCA. Typically, the cleans were about 5dB down from the gain driven profiles and some of the lower gain crunch stuff also. I put a studio EQ in all my rigs, so I bump the studio EQ volume up to compensate and leave the channel and cab volumes flat. This seems to work well with not clipping the input or master. This has to be done through the RCA though for live effectiveness.

    Quote from guitarnet70

    Have you tried increasing the Clean sense? That's the main purpose of it


    Absolutely. I find any higher than where I'm at with my LP causes clipping on the clean profiles at the input when I bare down on the strings. I think this has more to do with the differences in how the profiles were created. The Amp Factory profiles (for example) tend to be much louder overall than the r.u.serious(sp?) profiles. I use a lot of profiles from the latter and they just aren't as loud as the others with the same settings.


    When I take a high gain profile and turn the gain all the way down, the level is the same with the now clean setting. Because of this, I think the clean sense is good as it works correctly inner profile/rig. I could be wrong though.

    Quote from musicman65

    I would think that balancing rigs would best be done by ajusting the channel volume or cab volume.


    That will work, but only to a certain extent before you start to clip the master. It's certainly a balancing act. That's why I raise the Studio EQ volume. The result is typically a balance that doesn't have any clipping at all. If anyone is having trouble with balance and clipping, they should certainly give this a try as well just to see if that works.


    Usually I try the channel volume before the EQ volume, but if I end up getting clipping at the master, the EQ volume is a pretty good way to get the level I want without the clipping.

    If you can't use the Cab or Channel volume due to clipping, your average volume on all rigs is probably too hot. Resave all your rigs with less output to free up some headroom so you have room to adjust and balance your rig volumes. Also, when your maxed out, you can't lead boost without clipping. The KPA has lots of headroom but its important to keep things well below clipping.


    bd