Hey fellow Kemperians,
I'm in the mood to spend some money and I need your help for that. In short, I want to make better recordings. And I rely on your opinion to know what I should upgrade next.
My momentary situation is looking like this:
For drums I'm using EZdrummer with 2-3 extensions and I'm quite satisfied with the sounds I get from that software. So I do not plan to upgrade it to Superior Drummer, except there will be a special offer or something.
My bass is a little crappy (Epiphone thunderbird, cheapest version), and will be upgraded as soon as I can get my hands on a good used one.
Guitars (Ibanez S5470, RG1570 and a Fender lite ash strat) sounds are coming -you guessed it- from the Kemper. So in theory I'm quite fine with the possibilities of forming my sound, but I think I'm restricted by my monitoring situation (and of course my lack of knowledge for choosing sounds, mixing ect).
My room is not optimal and not treated at all, it is a standard living/working room with desks, windows, cupboards, a big carpet and high ceeiling ( 3 meters?).
My monitors are Yamaha SH7 without a subwoofer, but sadly, with a wall directly behind them. The distance between the speakers and me is something about 1,2 meter. They are "disconnected" from the desk by thick foam pads.
I have to rely a lot on headphones (Sure SRH 840), well, at least I think I have to do that, because I can't say at all if my monitoring is any useful or not.
Secondly, I do not live alone. So I can't blast loud music everyday, especially when it is the same some over and over and over again while mixing.
My interface is an old (7-10 years????) Focusrite Saffire 6 USB, which to my knowledge, is the precurser of the Scarlett interfaces and basicly the same hardware.
The kemper is recorded through the main out into the preamps of the interface, because this old thing doesn't has SPDIF.
I can say that the pres are influencing the sound only to a minor extend, so in theory I'm fine with them. I compared Kemper>directly to monitors with Kemper>Interface>monitors and I was okay with the -very little- difference in sound.
My big problem with this interface is the headphone amp quality. The kemper sounds like sh*t. No comparison to the monitors or the glorious kemper out. I use it quite often to mix and I think that this is the particular weak point which is messing with my mixes.
So my possibilities are at the moment:
- a dedicated headphone amp for my old interface and recording the kemper through the preamps (cheapest option, 50-150 euro)
- a new interface with SPDIF and a good headphone out (200-500 euro?)
-If I go the cheaper route, I could think about other additional upgrades like:
get another headphone with an open back system like beyerdynamic 990 ect
buy something like sonarworks reference software for identifiying weaknesses in the room/monitor sound
What do you think woud benefit me the most?
A better headphoe sound (by a external preamp) + a "room correction" software threatment
or
going digital with SPDIF and get a higher quality interface?
So far,
thanks for the answers