Thanks for the responses. I have two goals here, I want to pull back on the input level to my interface but have it sound the same. I also want to confirm that the Distortion sense is probably what I'm looking for because, although I've not played with it too much in the past I've just started to play with it and have notice it can make a preset that sounds okay even a bit bland sound really great yet still keeps its character.
Distortion sense increases gain for the distorted settings. Clean sense increases it for clean settings.
On paper, this isn't what you're hearing.
However, if you try a relatively uncompressed profile with gain around 5 or so and raise 'clean sense' way up you'll see that the sound 'swells' when it decays - when it starts getting cleaner after the initial attack, 'clean sense' becomes more important.
Could be that the gap between 'clean sense' and 'distorted sense', in your case, is causing the sound to do the opposite of swelling when it decays, which could make it seem punchier.
I would, however, make sure you aren't just reacting to a change in volume (dropping the interface's levels).
Interestingly the preset I'm working with the gain is at 5 so the clean sense doesn't really do much. I see what you're saying about the volume jumps, I'm aware that the louder signal will sound better and trying to compensate for the change when comparing.
When you dialed your interface level down by -4db try to level up your monitoring environment by 4 dB and tell me if it's still different.
I see what you're getting at but it's not that, because I'm feeding back from the SPDIF the output levels don't really change because I'm not changing the output levels on the Kemper. So, to directly answer you question, they don't sound the same.
I've just discovered that the reamp sense does what I think I'm after. I think this answers my question (taken from here: http://www.wikpa.org/Recording#Reamping_with_S.2FPDIF)
"Leveling
Proper gain staging is key in reamping. The Kemper manual suggests
adjusting your DAW send level of the DI tracks to get near the same
signal level for cleans as if you plugged into the front input. If you
recorded the DI via SPDIF and are reamping via SPDIF, you should not
need to worry about any such adjustments, so long as you never adjusted
the signal level in your DAW prior to reamping. If you recorded the DI
going straight to your interface, then you may need to make this
adjustment.
As far as getting the same distortion levels, this is where the
special Reamp Sense parameter comes in handy. Simply adjust this until
the reamped tone has the appropriate level of distortion. "
Well, one thing I will add is that I've always loved my Kemper but theses recent developments although subtle have really taken things to another level. I'm also really happy with my sounds, I'm just a little confused.
