would copying and pasting the stomps block and the effects block to all of the slots in a performance do what you need?
No. The idea is to have it locked so I can go from slot 1 to slot 2 without the on/off state of any stomps or effects changing but then be able to switch to a new performance that has its own stomps and effects. Leaving them unlocked would make the former impossible. Locking would make the latter impossible.
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.
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Nice tone matching! To my ears, the profile with KD sounds more like your reference profile than the Ikon.
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...
It would be easy to figure out for anyone playing live and using a Kemper as their whole rig. Being able to turn on a single stomp and get what you need from it (volume included) is far more desirable than activating multiple stomps or using morphing just for a volume boost (ridiculous waste of such a cool feature).
All I want for these other wise terrific sounding overdrives (thank you Kemper team!) is to be able to also get that volume push like a real pedal. The auto volume compensation goes too far and is not “natural”.
Yes, real tube amps have a tipping point where they will only get more saturated and compressed as you increase pure volume. Usually, it’s when the amp is at least 6-7 on the volume already (of course, that varies). Kemper seems to do it even for edge of breakup profiles resembling an amp on 2 or 3. You should still be able to achieve a noticeable volume increase with an amp set like that.
As a work around, couldn't you guys put a pure boost at the end of the post amp chain to get the volume back and then set both the KD and the PB to activate/deactivate on the same foot controller press?
Yes and I have done that for a couple years now haha. But it’s a needless workaround and waste of an effects slot. Or, we can just solve this mystery and get a realistic amount of dB from the Stomps
ckemper I can confirm that I experience the same volume drop behaviour that lightbox refers to. It happens with all Overdrive and distrotions that I have tested so far. It has always been like this as far as I can remember. I haven't really paid much attention to it in the past as I really never use OD stomps but any time I have tried I have always had this result. I get similar behaviour regardless of where my clean sens is set.
100%, yes. I’ve had this since day one of owning a Kemper.
I really appreciate you sticking around to weigh in on all these comments. It's been an honor to hear you speak directly on these topics. It continues to blow my mind all the engineering know-how that goes into every KPA module.
If I may, though, it sounds to me like you're quick to defend the Kemper Drive and issues with the Profiler's headroom rather than heeding suggestions from your most die-hard committed fans. This thread is full of real-world R&D. There may be things that can be improved upon yet in OS8. Just my $0.02.
I would agree that the Kemper Drive needs bass added in most cases to feel right. See my demo video several pages back. 3-5dB @ 191Hz goes a long way for me. I've also personally never found an analog OD I liked the sound of going into the Kemper's input — and I've tried endless varieties. Maybe a video directly covering Clean Sens and pedal integration could help.
Thanks for all the continued support after all these years! Team Kemper for life.
This is not due to a lack of headroom, but due to the volume compensation of the profiles.
Bring down Clean Sens, and there you have the volume boost that you are missing.
You create the volume boost mainly by lowering the volume (Clean Sens) of the cleanish amp, when the KD is inactive.
Thanks for the reply, CK
I’ve got it down a little. I’ll try and push it further Consider though, that the volume compensation may be too drastic. I know many people who moved on to Fractal or similar only because of this one issue. They all say the same thing. The Kemper doesn’t have enough “headroom” for pedals.
Man, profiles just don’t push like amps. I feared this day would come for a long time now after first trying a Pure Boost in front of a profile. You push more volume into it and it gets (more driven but)...quieter. I’m having the same problem with the Kemper OD. Always quieter than bypassed.
Yes, I know about amp compression and headroom, etc. profiles just don’t have near the headroom of amps. I wonder if the “volume” in the stomp could somehow push the amp a little harder WHILE ALSO turning up the amp block’s volume slightly. Make it a little more realistic... and yes, I also know that I could do that through various methods of trickery but the ultimate goal would be not using any “workarounds”. Turn on a KOD stomp and get the sound you want. Done.
I had a weird bug happen where I added the Kemper Drive to a locked slot in a performance, now that entire performance sounds like it's playing through a FRFR speaker. Does anyone know how to revert?
I assume you didn’t save it that way. Load a different performance and come back to that one, maybe.