How are you guys getting really great transients/articulation with your patches?
A thread came up today on Gearslutz where the suggestion was made that the Kemper's transients were lacking and this was causing a particular poster to feel unhappy with their Kemper purchase suggesting that it was difficult to mix/didn't sound the same in the mix as the original amps and more importantly didn't feel that similar and they felt it was down to these transients, the upshot was they were ready to sell off for a DV Mark and 11R.
Now personally I love my Kemper, but I do sort of get where he's coming from, there is often a softness in the attack when I play back what I've recorded with the Kemper, or even just when playing the kemper as opposed to playing my real tube amps which feel just somehow a little more immediate.
To be clear here in this case we're talking about lead tones like these (his examples) :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JshF46VufF8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrB2DkXnC6I
(he claims impossible to get this clear/sitting in the mix with the Kemper)
and finally because he's using a Marshall the guy thought this was closer to his tone)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGCc9KflS6c
So my thoughts are
1 ) Use an amp that's in that fusion/rock vein, so Dual or Triple rec comes immediately to mind.
2 ) Use a treble booster/green scream. Pushes the important upper frequencies that create that fluid and immediate feel as well as primarily make up the transient sound itself.
3 ) Reduce the Clean sense and/or the volume on the guitar itself, to avoid any soft clipping that might be going on and create greater dynamic range/headroom in the Kemper going in.
4 ) Pick an instrument with bright pickups or even single coils for some of these sounds.
5 ) Adjust the playing style to be more aggressive on the pick (digging in) and fretting to slightly detune the notes on initial press, giving them that trademark cat with it's bum sewn up fusion lead legato sound.
6 ) Increase the pick setting on the Amp block from 0 (which I assume is a true bypass of the algorithm, if not then maybe that's the fault) though not too much as it creates an odd overtly even and artificial sounding click at higher settings.
7 ) Make sure to play at loud volume to get natural feedback and the interplay of sound and instrument that helps it feel like the real deal as well as sound on record like something alive.
8 ) Possibly try a Radial Dragster (I experimented using the SPDIF out on my Pod HD in order to use it's input impedance adjustment settings in order to do something similar) to help with the general feel.
9 ) Up the mix parameter in the amp block to bring in a little bit of the clean strings.
Any other suggestions, or tips and tricks for getting great articulate transients both on single notes and in chords?