Kemper Clean Up

    Following a recent Tone Junkies video, I thought I'd do a quick exploration of the KPA cleaning up a driven tone. I find the dynamics and tube like qualities excellent. Guitar: Suhr standard, profile Mars Solo from the @MBritt Crank n Go pack. Bridge humbucker, neck SC and out of phase selections. The usual caveats of ignore clams and such are in place.

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    A brace of Suhrs, a Charvel, a toaster, an Apollo twin, a Mac, and a DXR10

    I find it to be less good i must admit. On my old jmp1 preamp rack system, i could go from very distorted to pretty clean on the volume knob. But something happens with the transient on the kemper that makes me not wan’t to do that. It simply feels uncomfortable. This is ofcourse without a noise gate on. This is actually my biggest regret about using a kemper.

    And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

    Quote from Kim_Olesen

    I find it to be less good i must admit. On my old jmp1 preamp rack system, i could go from very distorted to pretty clean on the volume knob. But something happens with the transient on the kemper that makes me not wan’t to do that. It simply feels uncomfortable. This is ofcourse without a noise gate on. This is actually my biggest regret about using a kemper.

    Do you feel like it gets compressed and chopped when you roll down?

    Larry Mar @ Lonegun Studios. Neither one famous yet.

    I find it very profile dependent, and yes their are some great tones cleaning up the dirty ones.

    New talent management advice to Laura Cox -


    “Laura want to break the internet? let’s shoot another video of you covering the Nightrain solo in the blue singlet, but this time we’ll crank up the air conditioning”.

    Quote from Kim_Olesen

    I find it to be less good i must admit. On my old jmp1 preamp rack system, i could go from very distorted to pretty clean on the volume knob. But something happens with the transient on the kemper that makes me not wan’t to do that. It simply feels uncomfortable. This is ofcourse without a noise gate on. This is actually my biggest regret about using a kemper.

    Personally I can't confirm this. When I dial the amp compressor (the one in the amp menu) to about 3-4 the profile cleans up in a great way, oftentimes better than the original amp does.


    Also crucial is that you have a good treble bleed installed in your guitar. This is what I'm missing from the example video above. When he dials back the volume and picks more lightly distortion goes away but the tone also gets darker and lacks transient information.

    Quote from Ingolf

    Personally I can't confirm this. When I dial the amp compressor (the one in the amp menu) to about 3-4 the profile cleans up in a great way, oftentimes better than the original amp does.


    Also crucial is that you have a good treble bleed installed in your guitar. This is what I'm missing from the example video above. When he dials back the volume and picks more lightly distortion goes away but the tone also gets darker and lacks transient information.

    Cool, my ears have had too much crash cymbal exposure . The odd thing is, I don’t use that technique much anyway, if I want a clean sound I use a clean profile. I just thought in the Kemper‘s ability to clean up was not represented well in the TJ video and didn’t match my experience. Good info about the compressor settings.

    A brace of Suhrs, a Charvel, a toaster, an Apollo twin, a Mac, and a DXR10

    Quote from Morph

    Cool, my ears have had too much crash cymbal exposure . The odd thing is, I don’t use that technique much anyway, if I want a clean sound I use a clean profile. I just thought in the Kemper‘s ability to clean up was not represented well in the TJ video and didn’t match my experience. Good info about the compressor settings.

    I'm quite the contrary. When I was young (long ago) I used to switch channels a lot, but I've become a real single channel player over the years.

    Even with my Marshall JVM 410HJS (effectively 12 switchable channels) I roll back the volume on the guitar to clean up., because the thing I like most about cleaning up with the volume pot is that you get sound textures out of an amp that you wouldn’t get otherwise.

    Just try the amp compressor, it’s truly awesome, and Kemper is he only one that has it. ;)

    Quote from Ingolf

    Personally I can't confirm this. When I dial the amp compressor (the one in the amp menu) to about 3-4 the profile cleans up in a great way, oftentimes better than the original amp does.


    Also crucial is that you have a good treble bleed installed in your guitar. This is what I'm missing from the example video above. When he dials back the volume and picks more lightly distortion goes away but the tone also gets darker and lacks transient information.

    I think the Suhr Morph is playing has a treble bleed in it.

    Quote from Ingolf

    I'm quite the contrary. When I was young (long ago) I used to switch channels a lot, but I've become a real single channel player over the years.

    Even with my Marshall JVM 410HJS (effectively 12 switchable channels) I roll back the volume on the guitar to clean up., because the thing I like most about cleaning up with the volume pot is that you get sound textures out of an amp that you wouldn’t get otherwise.

    Just try the amp compressor, it’s truly awesome, and Kemper is he only one that has it. ;)

    Me too. When I was you it was all about how many channels the amp had ultimately going as far as midi preamps like my Triaxis. Now I could use a single Plexi profile with no FX all night, just riding the guitar volume, and be perfectly happy. I do tend to use a few rigs in a performance with an occasional FX here and there but if I didn’t have them I would still be happy.

    Quote from Ingolf

    Personally I can't confirm this. When I dial the amp compressor (the one in the amp menu) to about 3-4 the profile cleans up in a great way, oftentimes better than the original amp does.


    Also crucial is that you have a good treble bleed installed in your guitar. This is what I'm missing from the example video above. When he dials back the volume and picks more lightly distortion goes away but the tone also gets darker and lacks transient information.

    I’ve used the same main axe since 2009. So i can confirm.

    And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

    Quote from Kim_Olesen

    I’ve used the same main axe since 2009. So i can confirm.

    Well, I'm not sure why you feel you have to de-validate my (different to your) experience?

    This here is about exchange of experience after all.

    And as if it matters: One of my main guitars is in constant use since 1989. ;)

    Quote from Ingolf

    Well, I'm not sure why you feel you have to de-validate my (different to your) experience?

    This here is about exchange of experience after all.

    And as if it matters: One of my main guitars is in constant use since 1989. ;)

    ahh you are right. I was being harsh.

    And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

    Backing the volume off to clean it up?

    2 problems with that:

    1) Never turn the volume down

    2) Who needs clean!

    I am of course joking.

    For getting different tonal textures and to tweak the "bite point" I think it works pretty well but does depend on the profile and the set up.

    It works less well for me as any kind of boost/alternate between rhythm and solo ( not sure if anyone was even suggesting this, but I've seen people talk about this) because cleaning up tends to cut more, and turning up the volume turns up the gain not the volume.

    I set the amp compressor to about three. And that seems to make the rolling back your guitar’s volume so much more versatile because you don’t lose as much perceived loudness.
    I often try to just switch to a cleaner version of the profile, by rolling the amp gain back some. But given that I’m also singing simultaneously in many instances, I always like being able to clean up with the my guitar’s volume knob, the amp block compressor helps. I use a treble bleed in my guitars, which also cuts down on the need for as much amp block comp