Boosts are crushing gain and volume

    Wanted to start a new thread to hopefully get more eyes on it. I have an EQ or Green Scream in Slot A as a boost. Booth set to 5dB+. When engaged live my gain is reduced and there is a drop in volume. It's like it has the opposite of the desired effect. Anyone have any suggestions? I'm wondering if perhaps this could potentially be a powered monitor issue but I doubt it.

    I just tried putting a Green Scream in Slot A and turning its volume to +5. It definitely increased, not decreased, the rig's overall volume. I'm at home so I can't try this at gig volume but at a reasonable indoor level I am unable to reproduce what you're experiencing. I'm running my KPA into a Yamaha DXR10.


    I, too, doubt that it could be a powered monitor problem but to eliminate that possibility have you tried running your KPA into something else instead of your monitor(s)? Maybe you could record directly from the output of the KPA.


    It's possible that only a particular combination of stomps/effects that shows the problem. I tried the Green Scream into a mid gain amp with no other stomps or effects. Do you experience the problem with a simple setup like that as well?


    Brian

    Yeah, I'm aware it shouldn't work this way. It does this on all my rigs so its not a gain thing. My chain is


    A - EQ Boost or Green Scream
    B - Misc (Fuzz/Trem/etc.)
    C - Wah
    D - EQ (Shelving Filters)
    X - EQ (minor tweaks)
    Mod - Modulation (Phaser/Chorus)


    All my gigging rigs are set up this way. Not sure why at gig volumes I'm getting this effect on my rigs. It makes no sense. I have no volume increases on any effects except slot A.

    Edited once, last by bbaug14 ().

    Quote from tenderboy

    What are you listening on? Maybe the limiter some active speakers and amps/controllers have kicks in when engaging the boost


    Playing through a RCF ART 312a powered monitor. If this is the case, I'd be surprised but at least it would mean its not the Kemper. As an experiment ill try Diming the output of the monitor and controlling master at the kemper. Usually I just put the monitor at about 50% output level. Perhaps it's clamping?

    That's just it, the effect is the same regardless of the amp block. Clean/medium gain/high gain all are noticeably reduced by gain and volume when the boost is engaged. I don't think it's clean sense because the input doesn't clip.

    Quote from bbaug14

    That's just it, the effect is the same regardless of the amp block. Clean/medium gain/high gain all are noticeably reduced by gain and volume when the boost is engaged. I don't think it's clean sense because the input doesn't clip.


    It's not about clipping. Clean sense alters the level of clean sounds. If set to high the cleaner sounds will be unnaturally loud compared to distorted ones. Try reducing it.

    Quote from Trazan

    It's not about clipping. Clean sense alters the level of clean sounds. If set to high the cleaner sounds will be unnaturally loud compared to distorted ones. Try reducing it.



    I understand that. My point is that all amp blocks (clean and distorted) are level in output with the input light staying green. When I engage a boost in slot A, the gain and level are reduced even though the boost is +5dB. It makes no sense to me.

    One other thing I should note. I don't have my mains master linked to master volume, so it's locked at -20dB to FOH. My Monitor out is linked to the master volume. I don't think this makes any difference as the effect is heard both through FOH and my monitor, bu I thought I'd mention it.

    Did you not try reducing Clean Sense? You WILL have imbalance between clean/distorted if it is not set right.
    For the saturated rigs....adding gain in front of an already saturated amp will only make it more saturated, not louder. Might be that the lack of amplitude boost makes those seem losing volume to?


    I do know that what I would normally expect from an analog chain doesn't happen unless Clean Sense is set right.


    Or upload the rig for people to peek at.

    Quote from Trazan

    Did you not try reducing Clean Sense? You WILL have imbalance between clean/distorted if it is not set right.
    For the saturated rigs....adding gain in front of an already saturated amp will only make it more saturated, not louder. Might be that the lack of amplitude boost makes those seem losing volume to?


    I do know that what I would normally expect from an analog chain doesn't happen unless Clean Sense is set right.


    Or upload the rig for people to peek at.


    It's not an issue of imbalance due to clean sense. My input on clean rigs does not clip and I match volume levels using the volume parameter. Also, this phenomenon happens on all my gigging rigs, meaning if its a fender twin clean or bogner xtc dimed, adding a boost of +5dB volume EQ in slot A reduces the level and appreciable gain. It just doesn't make sense to me. I thought maybe having too many EQs in the chain could cause this (3), but it's doing it with Green Scream too.


    I'm going to spend a considerable amount of time with it tonight. My fear is that it will all of the sudden be "working" and then I'll have a show again and it won't be "working". I don't want to run into this live again, so I must actually figure out what is causing this on all my gigging rigs. The worst thing that could happen is powering up and not having the issue because then there is no way I'll know if it will happen again.


    What's really odd is I've been using this monitor set up for awhile and I've never had this issue before. I changed my settings in my slots (a -mod) and this occurred. Makes no sense to me.

    Question: could this be the result of something going on with the mixer at FOH? It was at a show with a rig we hadn't used before and this happened. I can't see how sending a fixed master level (-20dB) to FOH could affect what happens at the monitor out when engaging boosts and what not, but I figured it's worth asking. I'm thinking if perhaps the FOH wasn't running line level to my main. Could this potentially be the issue? It's all I can really come up with at this point. I can't see that impacting monitor out, but I'm no expert on how the circuit is segregated.

    If the volume dips when you engage a pedal with boost, it obviously happens within the Kemper. Make sure you select with buttons on the Kemper to rule out unwanted msgs from a controller.


    Try initializing the Kemper.


    Upload a patch.


    (Again, the Clean Sense is leveling clean/dist sounds. Try putting an OD stomp in front of a clean amp and engage/disengage as you alter Clean Sense. Notice the difference..)

    Edited once, last by Trazan ().

    I'll try this tonight and report back.


    Thanks for mentioning the controller. Here's the scenario. I test my KPA prior to the gig and things worked great. Then I updated some settings and patches with my GCP. I'm curious now if there was any possible way I inadvertantly could have caused this issue via something with the GCP. I remember accidentally hitting a change that was sending MIDI commands to the KPA but I thought this function didn't actually even work and it wouldn't have made a difference.


    Anyway, update will be forth coming this evening.