Finding good tones for recording with headphones

    Hi guys,


    I've had my Kemper for a couple weeks now, and as much as I love it, I'm going through something that has been a consistent problem for me: Finding a nice tone for recording. I own a good pair of headphones (Audio Technica ATH-M500) and am aware that recording and mixing through them is usually not ideal, but in my current situation I have to keep things quiet and can't afford studio monitors.


    So far, I have been able to find great tones for just doodling around. I have found that while most of them sound great through speakers, they tend to sound fizzy through headphones. One thing to remedy to this is the "Amp in the room with headphones" trick, which pretty much consists of adding reverb and turning it all the way up in the mix to get the illusion that you're sitting in a room in front of a speaker. However, you obviously don't want to use that for recordings... But without that trick, my tone goes back to being this fizzy mess, and EQing helps but doesn't quite cut the deal. Some will say lower the treble/presence, but although it reduces the fizz, it doesn't get rid of it (unless you turn the treble all the way down) and makes the guitars in the mix sound lifeless.


    I have heard many demos of the Kemper,
    both full mixes and guitars only, and they all
    sounded amazing
    through headphones. None of them had that fizz that I'm getting. I have also tried presets that have been proved to sound great (Keith Merrow's new rig pack and Ola Englund's triple rec for instance). Same thing.




    What advice could you guys give me so that I can get a good tone for recording? I'm after Mark V or Dual Rec metal kind of tones.


    TL,DR: Heard tones that sounded amazing through headphones, can't get one myself. Too much fizz unless I use "amp in the room" trick. Can't record with them.

    Edited once, last by jbab ().

    The thing is while it will sound better when I play, what's being recorded will still be the fizzy tone...

    Another question: when you hear at the recordings you still do it through headphones? Try connecting the headphones to another sound source. I say that because I had once a blown driver in the cans and I've thought is something wrong in the system..... 8|

    "Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music" Serghei Rachmaninoff


    The presets sound fizzy through the headphone output yes. As far as speakers go, I had connected the headphone output to my living room sound system's (I know :P) aux input, just for fun. While it did not sound amazing, it did sound very good and most of the fizz was gone. And the cabinet is always turned on.


    For recording, I am using the Kemper's monitor out set to Master mono.


    Last time I checked my headphones they were fine, but I'll test them to be sure. However, I have listened to recordings through different media (earbuds and computer speakers) and it still sounded fizzy.

    I forgot to mention, everything else (including other people's mixes) sounds great with my headphones

    Monitor out has a 12db boost compared to main outs, check if you're overloading the input of your interface and try again with the main outs.

    "Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music" Serghei Rachmaninoff


    In my experience, getting good sounds on headphones as well as speakers is a studio issue, not specific to the KPA.

    They sound different, inevitably, and what sounds good on monitors will tend to be 'sharper' on headphones, whereas what sounds good on headphones could end up sounding 'smeared' on speakers. It's just the way it goes and talented people with tons of gear get paid a lot of money to do mastering jobs to prevent just that.


    Assuming everything is technically alright (not overloading, not turning your cab off somehow, using good headphones etc.) you just need to learn the kind of sounds that work on both your monitors and speakers.


    Try taking profiles who's recordings you heard and sounded nice, and see if there's a difference between playing them through speakers and headphones.

    Your KPA can produce the same tones if the settings are identical.

    "But dignity is difficult to maintain
    stamina requires constant upkeep
    repetition is boring
    and you pay for grace."

    Edited 4 times, last by Quitty ().


    wisely spoken. i'm still hoping for dedicated high- and lowpass eq and a dedicated headphone eq though. i really can't see why this is not gonna happen. please?

    I had the same prob. At first. Turned out most of it was in the h.p. output from my interface.
    Try plugging your phones directly into the Kemper. If that sounds good , then I,d suggest you buy a small mixer, like a Mackie.
    If the sound is fizzy direct from the kemper phones output, try and borrow a pro set of phones to try.

    Not sure if the impedance would make any difference in the fizzyness but have read some posts about headphone impedances and the


    ability for the Kemper Headphone out to drive them properly



    Dan

    Go to the cab parameters and lower just slightly the high shift parameter. You could also raise the character parameter.


    I'm assuming fizz is a high frequency.


    Just a hunch :D

    New talent management advice to Laura Cox -


    “Laura want to break the internet? let’s shoot another video of you covering the Nightrain solo in the blue singlet, but this time we’ll crank up the air conditioning”.

    I only use headphones right now. I use a Zoom R8 so I can play along with backing tracks etc. and I noticed that I didn't have a lot of headroom on volume although I liked the sound better than through the Kemper headphone out. Wound up getting a Sonus HP4 headphone amp and love it. No fizz that I can hear (although I'm a hobbyist). I found that without enough headroom I would get fizz especially on gainier profiles.