Posts by OneEng1

Quote from db9091

Your PLX 3002 at 550watts is about twice as loud full open as your VHT 50ST at 50watts assuming you have the same Ohms.

That is, the difference is about 10.4 dB

I'm not a techie, but it could be the volume knob fooling you, meaning you might have the knob half way but that doesn't mean the loudness or wattage is half. This is due to the pots being logarithmic (or antilog) and if using differing ohms that could also throw off the loudness comparison.

I had a number of differing watt amps at one point. 7, 15, 30, 50, 100 and the 15w shook the walls and hurt my ears. A 15watt can generate over 100 dB of loudness a foot in front of the speaker. Ever crank an AC30? That shit is LOUD.

The difference between a 50w and 550w is about 115dB and 126dB from my reading so, both are ear damaging and probably beyond your ability to perceive the loudness difference with certainty if really turned up. I doubt that's the case. You're dropping them to lower levels.

Point is, you may have your 550w actually turned down to a 40w or 45w level in terms of dB and the 50w wide open, hence, it sounds louder.

Please feel free to massacre me if I'm wrong. I've always been curious about this, and have partial knowledge, but am now Mr. Safety Officer on my job and one part is testing areas for loudness for OSHA compliance, so I'll actually have to know some this stuff, lol. Plus the differing ways to measuring dB averages.

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Nope. I agree with your assessment from an engineering perspective completely

I can't fault your numbers at all. ~ 10db will generally sound 2x louder. I suspect that it isn't the volume knob so much as the fact that running through my mixer and amp I have a built in VU capability that my VHT amp did not have. I wasn't clipping the amp, so there was still room to go in output. It is very possible that my VHT got maxed and I didn't know it.

I have heard an AC30 cranked. You are right. That is LOUD!

I think that it has much to do with WHERE it is loud. Most of the wattage will get blown away on the bottom. It simply takes more umph to move low frequencies. The HF content is much easier for an amp to push to high SPL's.

Sadly, most people don't understand SPL measurements. In your work, you likely use the A weighting (since that is what it is designed for ... hearing damage assessments that is). IMHO the C weighting is much more relevant when determining PA and pro sound equipment capabilities since it takes into account the lower frequencies much better.

Using the A SPL weighting is why a 10" speaker can have an SPL rating equal to a 15" 3-way speaker. If it puts out enough HF, it gets an overall high average output. This does NOT mean that a 10" 2-way speaker can cover the same room as a 15" 3-way (as we all know), but lots of poor guys think so because of the SPL specs.

I am still amazed at the capabilities of the KPA both as a direct in to a PA, and through an amp and cab. What a cool piece of gear!

Might have to look into the KPA power amp just for sit-ins. Sure will shock the devil out of my buddies with tube amps to be shredded by a digital head I know that a year ago I would have laid out good money on a bet that my VHT could not be matched by ANY digital device in this universe.

@Tandrin,

Wow. Never even thought of profiling something like that.... but hey, why wouldn't it work?

I wonder if CK has ever thought of making a profiling keyboard? CK?

So last weekend, my wife took the kids out of the house for a party and left me .... ALL ALONE! Hmmmm. What to do with 3 hours of time at home with no one else in the house

So, just for some background, I play in a band with my Kemper DI into the PA. I am the rhythm player and sing lead. When I am at home, I generally play though headphones along with MP3's to practice (through my little ZED 10fx).

When I bought the Kemper, I sold off my tube amp (VHT and 4x12), but still have my 2x12 cab. So I was wondering .... how does the kemper sound through an amp and speaker cab?

First off, playing through my basement PA speakers (Klipsch KP301 3 - way 15") is not that inspiring. The eq is all off and doesn't sound that great. The headphones (HD280's) sound very good though.

So, I re-route a channel of my QSC PLX3002 amp over to my VHT 2x12 cab, juice up the mixer and KPA and go through some rigs.

Wow! First off, you really do need to turn the cab off when actually using a cab. This made a huge difference. The sound was incredible! I played until my ears rang and stuff started shaking out of the ceiling tiles

I don't plan on changing my live rig. Going straight into the PA and using IEM's is still the best option for live, but I am here to tell you, I could really put some of my friends tube amp rigs to shame with my KPA and little 2x12 VHT cab (with an amp). The cab seems to give more texture and breakup to the rigs and warms up the sound compared to headphones or DI into my PA. Of course, having air moving at that volume also helps with the harmonics and interactions with feedback that you simply can't get without air movement, but the cab also gave a very different tonal quality to the KPA.

As an aside, into 8 ohm, the PLX 3002 puts out 550W into a stereo load. I was only using half of that, so lets say 225W. My VHT 50ST was a 50W (supposedly) head and could reach the same volume and maybe even a bit more than my PLX3002. How does that work?

It sure did sound good though. I might have to come up with a little amp to go with my 2x12 cab for those jam sessions I am sometimes invited to where there isn't a DI or IEM to be had

I can certainly understand that the KFC might well cost more than the FCB1010 simply due to the NRE (non-recurring engineering for those that are not in engineering or product development). The FCB development has been paid off years ago and now Behringer can simply skim a profit off of each unit without regards to balancing the books for the effort put in to design the thing.

Sadly, engineers do not work for free (I most surely do not), and good ones are darned expensive.

All of this of course is really not how you price a product (and if you do, you shouldn't be making these kinds of decisions). You price a product based on what the market will bear. No matter what your costs were for developing the product, you (as a company) can't set the price. The market sets the price.

The KFC is the boutique foot controller for one of the most boutique amps out there today. Without doing a market study (which is how I go about getting pricing for our new products btw), I am guessing that Mr. Kemper is going to have a hard time keeping up with demand even if the product is priced at $500 or more.... at least initially.

For me, $400.00 would be a bit of a stretch, but I might treat myself as a birthday present this year

If you do music to make money, then $400.00 is a small price to pay for the capability, small size, and single connection associated with the KFC. If you make enough money on your day job to put whatever you want into your hobby ..... same thing.

If you gig small venue's for fun and don't make >$100k a year, and got your Kemper by mortgaging your home and selling off every other piece of gear you accumulated for the last 30 years, then it is likely that the FCB1010 is going to be hard to part with

My gut feeling is that the majority of the kinds of people that buy the Kemper are from the first group .... but I could be wrong.

Many of the posts here seem to be from guys that are much more serious about music than I am and actually get a paycheck from it (while I get beer and gas money). I think the KFC will sell just fine.... and will contribute to my GAS issue.

Quote from JerEvil

Are you running wireless? If so, are you actually getting down off stage to hear your direct tone through the FOH during sound check? Do you ever opt to have the sound man mic your guitar cab (for you non FRFR guys)?

Are you all taking at face value your profiles are sounding as you'd expect? I mean every house system is different as is every sound mans idea of what sounds good

I use an X32 Rack mixer with DSR112 tops over PRX618S-XLF subs. I use IEM's and go directly into the PA with no speaker on stage (I play rhythm guitar and only an occasional lead).

I do multi-track recordings via USB on the X32, then feed the raw input back through the X32 Rack giving me a "virtual band" playing through the PA. I mute everything but my guitar, then tweak the channel eq to my liking. Then I put everything back into the mix and do one last tweak ..... since sometimes what sounds so good by itself doesn't sound so good when you have it in context with the entire band.

I make most of my rigs at home using head phones (Sennheiser HD 280). What I reliably find is that my PA sounds warmer with much more bottom than the headphones. I am thinking of giving my Shure E215's a shot to see if they are any closer to what things really sound like because of this.

With the ability to do virtual sound checks easily in modern (and pretty inexpensive) mixers, the days of my not knowing how I sound out front are completely over.

Quote from skoczy

The price of Profiler was raised about 120 euro some time after release.

Good to know It is the norm that prices fall though. This may not be a good example since it is a niche market with a unique market compared to higher volume gear.

Still, I can hope that the price comes down. I keep trying to tell my wife that the kids don't really need to go to college

Fender HRD, VHT Pittbull Ultralead, Triaxis .... all sold off

Not only do I not miss carrying them around, I feel that the KPA has been easier to tweak into getting the exact sounds I want at the FOH. I know it is a crazy thing for a guitar player to care about, but even with great tube amps, it is not an easy job to get the sound you hear in your practice room from your cab to come out of the FOH for everyone to hear.

I have no issues with consistency from gig to gig either. Even on a completely foreign PA setup, I usually need about 2 minutes on the channel strip and I am set.

I am truly hoping it is smaller than the Ground Control ..... and I agree that $600.00 for a foot controller is a bit on the steep side considering you can get a fully integrated FCB1010 for ~ $175.00.

Of course, it requires multiple connections and doesn't show the rig name you are on ... or what efx you have loaded into each slot.

Granted that Behringer is likely able to manufacture products at a lower price point than Kemper simply due to economy of scale. Based on that alone, I would expect a price no lower than $400.00. The $600.00 figure may well fly though for several marketing reasons.

The kinds of people that buy the KPA are not people that are adverse to spending top dollar for what they want. In my particular case, the ease of setup (single POE ethernet cable connection) is well worth a premium over the FCB solution.

Many of us that own the KPA do more than pluck guitar in a basement (ie it is either a professional piece of gear that pays the bills, or it is a semi-pro setup that gets used in anger non-the-less).

It is much easier to lower the price of a new product after the early adopters have paid top dollar for it than it is to raise the price after introduction. It may be that even if the introduction price is $600.00, things might come down a little after a year or two (not that anyone in THIS thread would ever dream of waiting that long ).

Yep. I have a stereo pair setup on the X32 that I run 2 XLR outs from my Kemper. It works very well.

These are my favorite 2 pieces of gear btw (X32 Rack, and Kemper). It is truly a great time in live music. Lots of changes for the better!

I so want one of these!

My faithful FCB is OK, but it has a few drawbacks:

• 3 cables are required to hookup (2 midi and power)
• I have to run power to my mic location to power the footswitch
• The buttons are too close together
• The names of the rigs are not shown (ie I have to remember what rigs are where)
• The names of the efx within a rig are not displayed
• The unit is too big

It sounds like the KFC will address all of these concerns

Looking forward to seeing more on this in January NAAM this year!

Quote from viabcroce

This. Unlike other units, the Profiler is unable to completely mute itself when shutting down. Eng. Kemper stated it's not dangerous for the cones tho.

That shouldn't be the case. It is hard to imagine that this is the case (although it is possible). All the volume controls appear to be digital inputs. It seems unlikely that there is some physical switch that can not be controlled through firmware that directly interacts with the output stage.

I do not have this issue with my PA going directly into the PA.

Hey Sam.

That was me.

Prior to 2.6 firmware, the switching latency was measured at around 200-250 mSec in performance mode.

Using the 2.6 firmware, I did another measurement and it is now around 90mSec (less than 1/10th of a second). As pointed out, the sound transient of my foot lifting off of the pedal as I tapped it happened after the rig change. It instantaneous as far as the human ear can tell.

There is a report that there is an issue with the 2.7 firmware though in another thread. I am still running 2.6 so I can't verify this.

I have always liked the more transparent sound of the VHT (I just sold mine on ebay today) to either the 5150 or the Mesa. Your comparison has re-enforced this for me.

Often it is hard to tell with the clips stand alone out of context, but I felt the VHT really had an edge in the mix.

I saw it and reported it. Kemper guys couldn't reproduce it ...... and neither could I.

Do you have a fool proof recipe to get it to happen? I must have had it at one time because I saw it on several occasions before I reported it myself.

Quote from paults

The Rig Exchange Upload button on their website is what you need:

http://www.kemper-amps.com/rigexchange

Wow! Didn't know that existed! Thanks!

Quote from paults

The online Kemper Rig Exchange is the way to upload rigs at this point.

To avoid any issues or controversy, be sure to retain the name(s) of the original profiler(s) in the Amp and Cabinet Tag fields, and indicate the rig is an edit.

Thanks for the reply Paul,

I am using the online Kemper rig Exchange. The only way I am aware of to access it is with the Rig Manager software. In the rig manager software, if I right click on the rig in my own Kemper, the pop-up menu has the "upload" entry grayed out (not active). You can't click on it.

I got a good lead on a free rig in the rig exchange from the original author. I then adapted the rig to my taste and my single coil Fralin pickups, and got permission from the author to re-post my changes on the rig exchange.

The problem is that the "upload" menu item isn't available (it is grayed out). Is there some trick to posting a modified rig?

Quote from klassiker

OneEng1: Thanks for the feedback. Feel free to upload any rig you created based on my rigs to rig exchange.

In the past I used commercial rigs which sounded ok, but something was missing. Obviously the rigs were ok for the guitars (usually Les Paul, Stratocaster, Telecaster etc.) which were used for setting up the amps to profile, but not with my Ibanez.

After I bought my ENGL Ironman and adjusted the amp sound to my guitar before I profiled it, I finally got the results I need for my band setup.

Thanks!

I am finding that the key to the Kemper is much the same.

I can easily get "good" sound from many rigs ....... but to get a truly inspired tone, it requires time and effort to tweak the rig to work with my guitars and PA setup.

The hallmark of a good rig (for me) isn't necessarily one that sound fantastic out of the gate, but rather that I am able to make sound good on many guitars and guitar setups easily. In specific, I have some rigs that sound great on position 2 of my strat pickup selector switch, but sound like an ice pick on position 1. Other rigs may sound good on 1 and 2 but are pure mud on 4 or 5. My really great rigs sound fantastic on all positions ..... not the same .... great, but different!

klassiker,

Quote

I'm also playing in a rock cover band, but I only use 6 profiles of my ENGL Ironball setup which I profiled at home. They work quite well for me at gigs and rehearsals.Our singer who is an audio engineer (SAE) loves them, too

If someone wants to give them a try, search for "ironball" on rig exchange:
ENGL Ironball E606 1
ENGL Ironball E606 2
ENGL Ironball E606 3
ENGL Ironball E606 4
ENGL Ironball E606 5
ENGL Ironball E606 6

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I did check these out. My favorite after some tweak time was 6!

I found that on my rig, all of them had some harshness up high, but then I am using a strat, so one might expect some brittleness compared to a humbucker.

I did some tweaking and got a really great sound out of that last rig (which I intend to try out in a few songs). Would you mind if I posted my tweaks of your rig #6 back up on the Rig Exchange? I think that anyone with a classic sounding strat would immensely enjoy this rig once it was "tuned" to that kind of a guitar.

I didn't have time to play with any of the other rigs other than giving them a quick listen. I probably spent 20-30 minutes polishing #6 .... and then about 1 hour loving the way it sounded as I noodled

Very nice. Thank you.

I have 2 strats. One with Lindy Fralin's, the other with Kinman's. To me, the Fralins (which are not noiseless) sound better. The Kinmans are just too brittle for me and lack warmth. I have silenced my rig with shielding (copper tape), and while it isn't totally silent on a high gain rig and using only a single coil (especially the back plated bridge pickup), it isn't bad at all..... even in my basement with all lights on a dimmer (about 30 of them).

At practice and most gigs, even my bridge pickup has negligible noise. I would take a shot at shielding first since I agree with some of the others here that you just give up too much when you go to a "noiseless" pickup on a strat.