I hope you guys can help me understand a few concepts as I don‘t seem to fully grasp the volume behavior of drives yet. I’m not sure if this is solely Kemper related or might apply to real amps and pedals as well.
1. When I use a dirt effect like the green screamer or kemper drive, raising the effect’s volume doesn‘t seem to raise the actual output volume of the profile. Instead, the sound becomes more saturated. There is a gain boost but not a volume boost. Is that correct?
2. All drives have at least a gain and volume setting. If my first assumption was correct, both do in fact add gain. How can we explain the difference? Does stomp box volume push the amp profile and add gain to the power amp section, whereas stomp box gain is more like adding preamp distortion?
3. Raising “amp volume” does not effect the profile’s gain or add distortion. Unlike the last case, this one does effect the profile’s output volume. Correct?
4. Is it correct to assume then that “amp volume” does not exist in a real amp because a real amp’s volume would always also add gain to the power amp?
What Kemper function would be closest to a volume knob on a non master volume amp, meaning it adds output volume and poweramp saturation? Or is that not possible due to the snapshot nature of the Kemper?
5. If I use an expression pedal or the morph function on the remote to raise the volume of a profile (for a solo, for example), I need to raise the amp or rig volume, correct? If I’d raise the drive’s volume I’d get more saturation but might not get above the mix loudness-wise.
6. In that case, what’s the difference between raising the “amp volume” or just the entire output volume? Is it best to leave the output volume at max (or -12db) and use “amp volume” instead? (I guess instead of amp volume I could boost “rig volume” as well.)
7. I have the feeling that drives sound best if I raise their volume by 2 or 3db or so. Is that a common phenomenon (I think I read that somewhere here) or is it due to a number of varying parameters like pickup output, profile saturation and, of course, taste?
Thanks!