Lack of sustain running Direct---On stage monitoring live

  • Received my Kemper not long ago and played it live once, XLR out Left and Right to FOH. Despite the Kemper sounding fantastic and everyone loving the tones, I have noticed significant loss of sustain. I am contemplating buying an Atomic CLR, but before I do, does anyone have any comments/experiences utilizing an onstage monitor...and does using an onstage speaker/monitor add the sustain I get when using my ampifier. When playing through the mains, as I said, chunking...chording, playing leads is good, but no sustained howling notes are there. For me if I cannot resolve this, I will sell my Kemper and continue my amp use. Currently play through a 2x12 Rivera Quiana. (Oh, I have tried with the noise gait off with no improvement)

    Thanks!!

  • Always try to use your own stage monitor, no sense getting all those tones dialed in to kill them with house monitors. Maybe turn it up more, add some amp gain, add mids? Tough to tell what might help you without being there but the place to start is getting the tones right on stage. I get great sustain with the Kemper but sometimes profiles warm up in certain rooms, sometimes they don't (just like a normal amp). I'll keep changing rigs until I find the right one or just give up and crank it :D

  • Funny .
    I would say sustain is not so much up to speakers , but up to your guitar .
    If you have sustain on unplugged guitar , it will be multiplied once you plugged in.
    If not , it is another story, one must use heavy support to maintain sustain.
    I am using PC monitors , powered QSC, few real amps and few cabs.
    I have enough sustain and feedback on command with already crunch tones, to do not speak about leads and high gain tones.
    If playing on gig's volumes , I have a problem with abundance of sustain and feedback, I have to find exact guitar position versus speakers to keep it under control .

    Anyway , the real cab as a monitor, is my main and most natural source of desired sustain and feedback.
    I doubt FRF or whatever monitors on the stage will have the same response .

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    Edited 3 times, last by Rescator (September 4, 2015 at 12:51 PM).

  • It's a big difference playing guitar via a guitar-cab or stage-monitors and it's not a sustain-problem. Probably you're used to play with amps and guitar-cabs and you don't have much experience, hearing your guitar just from stage-monitors or FRFR-cabs without a guitar-cab "in the back". It's really a different story and you have to get used to it, better use your own FRFR-cab and not some -probably bad- stage monitors or just use a normal guitar-cab.

    For me the KPA is the perfect tool for studio-work (listening via studio-monitors) or bigger tours (using in-ears). I bought a really good Matrix Q12a-FRFR-cab, but I hardly use it, the interaction, feedback, "feel" ect. is so different from a regular guitar-cab and I'm used to play tube-amps and guitar-cabs my whole life. So I prefer -if I use the KPA live without in-ears- a regular guitar cab like my favourite Boogie 1x12" Thiele-cab (with a very old EV-speaker), of course cab-sim is switched off. I'm using my powerhead (--> stereo to desk, monitor-out --> guitar-cab) and this works better for me.

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  • Anyway , the real cab as a monitor, is my main and most natural source of desired sustain and feedback. I doubt FRF or whatever monitors on the stage will have the same response .

    Couldn't disagree more, if the player knows what he's doing. Even my $400 EV's got me there and in many more ways than any single guitar cab.

  • yep, some profiles seem to feedback through practically everything...

    To the OP: the assumption that the lack of feedback is somehow related to the Profiler in itself makes no sense. The electronic parts of the KPA work linearly, they just transfer to the output what you put in, after having processed the input through a block which reacts exactly like the profiled system.
    If anywhere, the culprit would be on the original rig. But it's more likely due to a combination of guitar\right hand technique\playback volume\tweaking\distance from the monitor.

    HTH