Ok so I've only owned my Kemper for about two weeks so it's ok to approach me as an idiot . I play mostly worship music at a very large church. Until now I've been using a traditional setup with pedals and a 65 DRRI. I just got to the point where I was tired of lugging the amp, plus the sound guys have stated that eventually we will go away from live amps and replace them with amp sims. I don't want to play through something like a POD so I thought this would be a good chance to build my own rig that will easily run to FOH. So, this weekend I tried to run my board in front of the Kemper while using a clean Matchless profile (can't remember the exact profile name). The rig sounded pretty decent while practicing at home with the headphone jack but when I plugged in at church that's when things got ugly.
My volume seemed distant and none existent in my in-ear monitors. My overdrive pedals were also very muddy and sounded like fizzle. I believe all the hype regarding the Kemper and know for sure that it has to be something I've done incorrectly but it's left me wondering if I need the Kemper for what I'm doing. I would love to know how you guys run to FOH. Where is your master volume set on the Kemper, which jack do run out of the Kemper, etc... and what's the best way to set OD pedal volume / gain in conjunction with the Kemper. I know that's a lot of questions but I don't get the opportunity to plug in at church and fiddle with stuff so anything I can get from here will be useful.
The alternative would be to return the Kemper and get some sort of cab sim like the Torpedo CAB and just use my pedalboard to run to FOH. I really don't want to do that because I see the possibilities with this piece of equipment. If I have to be truthful, I'm looking for the easiest way to go direct and ditch the amp. Any tips are greatly appreciated.
My chain this morning was:
Fender American Tele --> Vol Pedal --> JHS Double Barrel --> Strymon Riverside --> Xotic Booster (level all the way down) --> POG --> Strymon Mobis --> Strymon Timeline --> Strymon Big Sky --> into Kemper Instrument Jack --> Clean Matchless Profile as is.
I use a tail loop so the OD pedals are off and I toggle on the one I need (no stacking of OD currently).