Kemper player direct PA help

1st Official Post

    Hi all, I'm a 1st time Kemper user and have only had a few weeks with the Kemper Player so far. I run a Marshall JVM head and 4x12 cab and basically wante something for jamming and for small gigs without having to lug my amp and cab around.

    So far at home I'm very happy with the sounds Im getting. I've found a bunch of DI profiles I run through the power section of my amp and 4x12 that sound fantastic. Also I've found plenty of studio profiles that sound good through my studio monitors.

    Today I rented a few hours at a local rehearsal space so I could spend some time playing direct to PA at volume. What I found is that for 99% of all profiles, the bass was just overwhelming. I could obviously turn the bass down on profiles and use the HPF to cut the bass and this helped, but as you'd expect it makes for a very boxy sound. I guess I'm just wondering if this is normal and to he expected? For example if most profile vendors are making profiles to suit studio and home players, it would make sense that significant tweaking is required for live use. People say MBritt profiles are tuned more for live use but they too were very bassy. I have a bunch of Bert Meulendijk profiles that sound amazing at home but are so bassy they are unusable through the PA.

    From memory a bunch of Top Jimi profiles seemed to work best in this setting and required less tweaking.

    The room was fairly small today with 2 15" mounted powered speakers and wedge. The speakers were mounted in the corners which is not ideal and added to the bass I'm sure. I will be going back to spend more time on this and I feel like if I can get sounds that are good but still a little bass heavy that is probably ok as a starting point for other spaces.

    The PA did have channel and global EQ but I kept them flat for this experiment. I was running into a line input and the main xlr out from the Kemper. Any thoughts/advice would be appreciated.

    Welcome to the world of Kemper!

    The fact that the profiles sound good through your studio monitors but not through the PA suggests that the PA speakers/cabs themselves are just very bass heavy or poor quality. Plus there’s the bass trap issue of being in corners, as you said.

    I think it’s just a PA issue: “The PA did have channel and global EQ but I kept them flat for this experiment.”

    I think you really need to adjust the PA’s eq. If the Kemper doesn’t sound good, but does through your studio monitors, that would be down to the PA’s quality, or cabs in corners, or both.

    If you’re going to correct the issue with eq changes on the Kemper, I’d do it at global output level for simplicity. You don’t want to be tweaking individual profiles, as when you plug into a different PA you’ll probably find it’s different again.

    Thanks for the replies. I guess my thinking in keeping the EQ flat on the PA was that I was expecting to have to tweak things when changing fromstudio monitors at home to PA but I wa shocked by how much in this instance. When i go back I will reduce try making some cuts on the PA EQ. There's other larger rooms at this rehearsal space. I can try them afterwards to see how well the sound translates.

    On the kemper player is there a global EQ? I don't see anything in the output section. I have an EQ pedal on my board that is programmable and that I can control with midi too so I have lots of options. I just don't have a lot of PA experience so wasn't sure how much I should be bending to it rather than changing my profiles drastically.

    Thanks yeah that would be useful but I've got an EQ I can use globally.

    I think my best bet is to go back and try again using the mixer EQ for the PA to cut some bass given it's just an inherently bassy room. I always intended to have different profiles stored for a live mix anyway but I don't want a situation where I get everything sounding perfect there and then I'm screwed in a larger room. I don't have a lot of experience with PA systems so really playing through a bunch in different rooms and settings will no doubt help.

    BadBadger today I received a Yamaha DHR12M speaker that I had on order to use instead of buying a FRFR speaker (I mean with flat EQ settings that's basically what it is), and initially it sounded underwhelming and most of all, it was very very quiet. This got me scratching my head and because I'm running 2 boss FX pedals (MD-500 and DD-500) after the Kemper, I was using a Radial StageBug passive DI box. When I pulled the DI box out of the signal path, it sounded freaking amazing and the volume went from nearly full on the speaker down to 3 or 4 where it was freaking loud.

    I'm trying to think back as to whether I tried to bypassing the DI box when using the PA but I might not have. Consequently I may have had to PA turned very loud to get reasonable volumes in the room and I wonder if this impacted the EQ in the room as well. Playing through this Yamaha is amazing. I'm standing next to my Marshall 4x12 cabnet and this thing is not far off recreating that power and volume in the room.

    The reason I thought I needed the DI was because I read the manual and it said if you're running through any FX after the Kemper to, you need DI as the outputs of the FX pedals will be unbalanced. Of course I've since learned that when using a passive DI box you need to connect to a MIC input, not line on the PA/speaker.

    I need to do a bit of research on the relative impedances etc. of the devices in the chain but I thought it was worth mentioning. I will update this post once I've tested with the PA again as it might be useful to someone else. Hopefully this is a major contributor to the issue.

    Edited once, last by naslanidis (August 26, 2024 at 8:13 AM).

    So a few things could be going on.

    First, most DI boxes have a setting/button that drops the volume. For example Radial boxes have a button to drop the signal -15db - that's a lot.

    Second, try removing everything but the Kemper and then start adding things back. It's possible another pedal is to blame for the bass issue. The Kemper Player has (2) FX slots after the amp you could use for modulation, reverb, and/or delay to eliminate the other pedals.

    If you find after this there's still too much bass, go into the Output settings of the Kemper Player and add a low cut of 100hz. This will be a global setting so it should solve any bass issues quickly.

    The 1/4" monitor L/R outputs on the Player are balanced/TRS signals so they can be run straight to the mixing board/PA without a DI box if you eliminate the pedals after the Kemper Player. If using other pedals after the Kemper Player though, I would go to the DI Box like you mentioned.

    I play in (3) groups right now and every one of them tunes/EQ's the PA system at a gig. This is a normal practice.

    I gigged the Kemper Player several times with Britt profiles and did not experience what you are describing.

    Cheers!

    Thanks nwmusic32. I am clearly still learning when it comes to PA's and the Kemper Player. I was definitely using the DI box incorrectly by connecting to a line input on the PA. I didn't realise it was supposed to go to a mic input. When I sorted this at home with the Yamaha DRM12 it sounded freaking amazing. My Bert profiles were still bass heavy but he himself recommends a hpf of 90-100.

    I have 3 pedals that I currently run after the Kemper, an MD-500 modulation, a DD-500 delay and an SA EQ2 EQ pedal, all controlled by midi. I can apply a HPF on the EQ2 to speciifc profiles if I don't like the doing it globally but I'm going to rent the space again this weekend and have another go. I don't doubt that the room in question is very bass heavy due to the position of the speakers but I was not giving it a fair test with my own ignorance. I may eventually decide I don't need the modulation and delay pedals but they offer a lot of functionality and flexibility and I still have my amp and cab and I use this board for both analog and digital.

    • Official Post
    Quote from naslanidis

    I don't doubt that the room in question is very bass heavy due to the position of the speakers

    what could be even worse are standing waves that create low frequency resonances in the room.
    that's something you can't really get rid of and rather typical for smaller, rectangular spaces.
    bass traps can help, but proper ones are surprisingly expensive and they take up a bit of space.

    I have a global HPF on my Stage, that's something our FOH would do anyway - or, if you don't know the mixer well, or he changes depending on the venue etc. it's even more important to have it activated in case the mixer forgets or just doesn't care.

    low end from a guitar is pretty pointless and will encroach on bass/keyboards territory anyway.
    angling the pickup away from the bass strings helps (and does it right at the source - something I am a big fan of)

    anyway, how your guitar sound solo'd over a system isn't really important - it's always about mix context close to the proper volume levels. ;)

    hth

    I've set a bunch of HPF presets 60, 90, 120, 150, 180 hz) on my EQ pedal that I can activate via midi so I will experiment when I have access to the PA this weekend. I will obviously be tweaking things in the mix when we're all together as well.

    Just an update should anyone read this or have similar issues.

    I went back and tested through the PA again and having correctly used the passive DI box into mic input on the PA and applying my various HPF EQ presets I was able to get some great tones through the PA. I did drop the bass a little on the mixer given that once again it was a small room with large speakers mounted in the corners which I think exaggerates the bass response.

    Shout out to Top Jimi profiles though. I found these seemed to work the best with the least amount of tweaking through the PA and also handled the HPF better. Some profiles sound terrible if the filter up to 150 or 180hz. His generally do not.