Problems getting distorted sounds with a PRS 408

    Hello Kemper Community!


    I am very new to the kemper world. So far my experience with the kemper has
    been mixed:
    I get great clean tones, but I have trouble finding a good overdrive,
    distortion or lead sound.


    My Setup
    My guitar is a PRS 404 Maple Top and my headphones are
    beyerdynamics DT880 Pros. I know headphones aren't the best way to listen,
    but my neighbours....
    My Kemper has the latest firmware 2.4.2.


    When I set the gain above 4 or 5 the sound gets overly distorted, and below 4 or 5 is
    mostly clean.
    I have the volume and tone knob of the guitar mostly in the middle position.
    Is this normal, or is there a fault with my guitar or the kemper?


    For the PRS and especially the owners of guitars with 408 pickups,
    how is your experience with the kemper?

    Hey there


    I have the same pickup / guitar (darker sounding maybe due to rosewood neck) and can debug this with you if you want. Recording a reference rig with the same settings might give you a better way to compare.


    My Input > Clean Sense is set to -2.9 dB and Distorted Sense is at 0dB. Typically with a Marshall type profile and gain around 4-5 I get a medium hot crunch sound on the bridge HB pickup (think "AC/DC Back in Black" studio version) - with the neck HB pickup and volume rolled back to 3-4 I get an almost fully clean bluesy tone - neck HB at full volume and a gain around 5 gives me a tone similar to Slash in the solo of "Knocking on Heavens Door".


    However, my perception and description might simply suck and recordings at known settings and the same rigs might be better for comparison.


    Cheers,
    Martin

    I have a prs 20th Anni, which has VB and HFS treble PUs. So, not exactly the same for sure, but I can get decent crunch and distorted sounds. I think Martin may have got to the issue mentioning the clean and distorted sense. I am pretty new to the Kemper too btw, but am enjoying it a lot so far, but it was a bit of a learning curve and I still think I'm not 100% there on my tones. However, it's the clean and distorted sense that can change the sound to either, yup you guessed it, a clean or distorted sound when using particularly a crunch setting. It kind of blends the two signals - I doubt this is exactly what it does, but it feels this way. So if you have too much distortion on a crunch setting you can add some clean sense/remove some distorted sense and this adds definition to the notes. Make sure you have this set up correctly and see if it helps?:) and good luck!