[Public Beta] PROFILER OS 8.0.0.21450

    Quote from Nikos

    As far as I can tell unclemar s post was more about the guitars volume knob than about "hands"..which indeed is relevant.I mean for this thread.To be honest I always miss this part a lot when people dive into the OD pedal "controversy".

    Yes,, exactly what I was meaning, sorry for not being clear,, BTW I do not have my fists up,I am( was) just enjoying the conversation,, the dynamics of the player , In my humble opinion, greatly affect what happens in the signal chain,,,so the exact same test done by one person, with his guitar, pickups, picks,strings, cables, etc...... and touch, might not bring the same results, with the exact same settings, and another guy,Playing,,,but,, Im done here,, it was big fun, Thanks all for the cool insight,Still,,,, to this day, I have never head a piece of digital gear, sound, and behave exactly like the real analog gear,,close,,,very very close, but after all... it is what it is,, and real is real,, I will just be lurking,,,did not mean to offend anyone,its very hard not to,, these strange days,,

    Quote from lightbox

    1. Because even with Tone at noon and Gain at zero, the pedal still has a very unique character that is part of the boost. It's not the same like a 100% pure clean boost or turning up the amp gain.

    I have tested this situation again, and I can tell the Klon (vintage and KTR9) is indistinguishable from the Pure Booster effect in the Profiler.

    You have proven this correctly in your frequency plots that there is no character (exept some visible 1 dB wide drop in the mid range)

    Character or colouration would be there if there was a frequency responce significantly differing from the zero line, or additional distortion/compression.

    I can confirm that Mr. Finnegan has realized a true clean booster (when drive is set to zero).

    And he has done it in purpose. It's not a happy accident, considering the very complicated circuit he designed.

    For an A/B comparison I recomment to place the Klon (or Klon clone) on the input of the Profiler.

    To get away with the Profilers volume compensation set the Clean Sens to -12 dB temporarily and don't use AMP Gain values below 1.6. Otherwise you might get different output volumes from the amp that will disturb the A/B comparison.

    Quote from ckemper

    To get away with the Profilers volume compensation set the Clean Sens to -12 dB temporarily and don't use AMP Gain values below 1.6

    Thank you for being part of the conversation, sir.
    So Clean Sens at -12 turns off the volume compensation? I tried it the other day and still couldn’t get a volume boost out of the OD’s...

    Quote from ckemper

    I can confirm that Mr. Finnegan has realized a true clean booster (when drive is set to zero).

    And he has done it in purpose. It's not a happy accident, considering the very complicated circuit he designed.

    Josh Scott from JHS explained in one of his video that the "magical diodes" were completely excluded from the circuit when gain was set at zero, which made him laugh since many people are using the Klon that way, raving about the diodes that are supposed to make all the difference.

    Quote from ckemper

    You have proven this correctly in your frequency plots that there is no character (exept some visible 1 dB wide drop in the mid range)

    Character or colouration would be there if there was a frequency responce significantly differing from the zero line, or additional distortion/compression.

    Exactly. And if you roll down the Tone knob on your Klon a little bit (with Klon's Gain still all the way down), you will see that the tone knob is designed in a way that changes the frequency response to emphasize the low mids a bit. Not talking about extreme settings. The behaviour of the Tone knob very nicely adds the character to the boost. Same with the Gain knob. Careful use of these two knobs adds the special finesse to the "character" while the basis is pretty much a clean boost.

    See, Christoph. I'm not sure if it would be a good idea to incorporate this (pretty different) behaviour into the Kemper Drive. It's probably good as it is for many people. Adding more to it than it currently has would make it too complex.

    If I was to decide, I would keep the Kemper Drive as is, remove the Klon presets ... and create another flexible overdrive with a focus on the Klon type overdrive capabilities (as you correctly stated with a Pure Boost as the basis and nicely crafted Tone and Gain parameters added).

    And just to make this post a bit entertaining, here's yet another great video of Jeff McErlain and one of Pete Thorn. Hope you guys enjoy them. :)

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    I tried the Klon setting for the KD and I had a Rimrock Lik MO in the loop to go back and forth. I'm not much of a Klon fan but I could never get the KD to have low mids that the MO had. Maybe user error on my part. I'm off work tomorrow. I'm going to put my V2 and V3 Timmy pedals in the loop and try to see how close I can dial in the KD. Timmy is my favorite pedal for boosting Marshall amps so I'm hoping the KD gets close.

    Quote from ckemper

    I have tested this situation again, and I can tell the Klon (vintage and KTR9) is indistinguishable from the Pure Booster effect in the Profiler.

    You have proven this correctly in your frequency plots that there is no character (exept some visible 1 dB wide drop in the mid range)

    Character or colouration would be there if there was a frequency responce significantly differing from the zero line, or additional distortion/compression.

    I see what you did there.Good one.

    Quote from flyingheelhook

    Maybe you should tell that to Burkhard? Just sayin'...

    Haha - touché :D

    Kemper PowerRack |Kemper Stage| Rivera 4x12 V30 cab | Yamaha DXR10 pair | UA Apollo Twin Duo | Adam A7X | Cubase DAW
    Fender Telecaster 62 re-issue chambered mahogany | Kramer! (1988 or so...) | Gibson Les Paul R7 | Fender Stratocaster HBS-1 Classic Relic Custom Shop | LTD EC-1000 Evertune | 1988 Desert Yellow JEM

    Awesome work with the new Kemper Drive!

    The Precision drive presets are top notch. Sounds very djenty, I like.

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    Quote from ckemper

    For an A/B comparison I recomment to place the Klon (or Klon clone) on the input of the Profiler.

    To get away with the Profilers volume compensation set the Clean Sens to -12 dB temporarily and don't use AMP Gain values below 1.6. Otherwise you might get different output volumes from the amp that will disturb the A/B comparison.

    I tested this with my Timmy pedal. It was a real eye opening experiment.

    You can really hear how the Kemper clamps down on the input and pedal with clean sense on (at -2 for this experiment) it had a compressed and little bit wooly/blanket sound quality. When I set the Kemper clean sense to -12 the pedal was much clearer and not compressed and sounded as I had hoped it would. I was running my Timmy with gain at zero and volume maxed ( If I ran the kemper clean sense at zero I clip the input).

    The Timmy pedal with gain at zero still had more bass to the sound than the kemper with pedal off. Just as you would expect from a Klon Clone style pedal. There was no difference in overall volume though but definitely a sound difference.

    Profile used: S.Mehl 50 Vintage 1, gain at 4.5

    This experiment might change the way I use clean sense with certain pedals or all pedals (not that I use them regularly but that could change now, lol).


    Edit: I had forgotten to add my thoughts on the A/B comparison between the pedal and KD.

    I could the Kemper to sound very close, almost exact in flavour of the sound. But one distinct difference and especially with the clean sense at -12, the pedal has more note definition and note bloom/openness that I could not get in the KD.

    To me the Kemper sounds compressed in comparison. I could make the pedal closer in sound to the KD when I have the clean sense at 0. But I still must say the winner is still the pedal.

    I must say the Kemper team has done a great job with these and if they could just find a way to get rid of that compressed sound it will be all the way there. As they are, some really great sounds can be made.


    For myself, I have found a new life with the Kemper and pedals and was playing early this morning with a huge grin. My overdrive and distortion pedals sound huge now. So it’s a win all around. ?

    Edited once, last by drog (November 11, 2020 at 2:58 PM).

    I've been unable to install Beta 8 due to being too busy but finally got round to it last night. Installed straight from RigManager without a hitch. Some of the posts here had me believing that the new drives were going to be underwhelming but it pays to remember to be open minded and that opinions differ.

    The KD sounds great to me and intuitive to use and dial in perfect tones. I tried the presets but I really don't have an interest in such things. The sound of any overdrive pedal is so significantly dependent on the amp settings, that it makes no sense to me. I'm no more likely to use a preset than I would use an instruction manual and suggested settings with a Tube Screamer.

    Thanks again for the continued updates!

    Quote from chu

    Some of the posts here had me believing that the new drives were going to be underwhelming but it pays to remember to be open minded and that opinions differ.

    The sound of any overdrive pedal is so significantly dependent on the amp settings, that it makes no sense to me. I'm no more likely to use a preset than I would use an instruction manual and suggested settings with a Tube Screamer.

    I don't think anyone suggested the KD doesn't sound good, it was the debate on whether it can replicate certain sounds.

    This also is relative to your comment about presets, where people are saying they don;t sound the same. However, I think it gives a good starter for those not having used a Klon before as a benchmark.

    So, I have been doing some intense testing, learning and comparing.

    I am not a overdrive stomp user, but the inclusion of the new Kemper stomps in the beta 8.0 got me curious and I am taking advantage of the situation to learn more about overdrives and what they can give to me.

    I will not talk here about comercial profiles, but in one recent pack I have profiles of a 68 Plexi that was profiled both alone and with a Klon Type pedal in front. That gave me an idea.

    I would try to mach the baked in Klon tone, both with my real pedal and with the Kemper Drive. So I tweaked both of them until I got them as close as I could with my ears and my modest means (some spectrum analysis, for the graph lovers out there ).

    I hope that this makes sense.

    There are 3 sound files.

    Archer Ikon: this has first the "clean tone" of the '68 Plexi and then with the real pedal in the front input of the Kemper.

    Kemper Drive: this has again the "clean tone" of the '68 Plexi and then with the Kemper Drive preset that I created before the stack.

    MBritt Klon: this is the reference overdriven tone of the profile that has a Klon baked in.


    All the time I have Clean Sense at -12 dB and the base, non overdriven profile has a gain of 2.8.


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    Here you have the Archer Ikon setting.

    And here the settings for the Kemper Drive.


    Let me know what you think.

    Nice tone matching! To my ears, the profile with KD sounds more like your reference profile than the Ikon.