Distortion Pedals - why?

  • Given that amps can be profiled from ultra clean to fully overdriven including distortion pedals of all kinds, in the long term, the KPA will have little need to use distortion pedals in the stomp section of the signal chain. I also find that the best high gain profiles for me are those which used only the amp without distortion or overdrive pedals. Either way this presumably leaves the KPA with more processing power for other stomps and effects, or am I missing something here?


    Paul

  • For me it absolutely make sense, and for my 2 years experience I can confirm that often with the amp distortion without additional pedal I found almost evry distortion tone I needed.
    Neverthless I love too a lot of amp+ distortion profile and I found also that the tone of some pedal (the Big Muff first of all) is not easily replicated only with amp profile... Luckily we start having now more profile with pedal Big Muff profiled together and anyway the overdrive stomp of the KPA are very realistic.

  • drive pedals are not only changing the amount of gain of a rig (be it analog or in the Profiler) they also influence the 'flavour' of the distortion and since they are positioned before the distortion, they also shape the distortion of the amp profile with their inherent EQ.
    generally speaking, stomp boxes almost never use tubes to saturate/distort the signal but clipping diodes and/or transistors, therefore they introduce something 'new' to an amp that can't really be achieved with the amp's gain control.
    Very good examples of this are the Muff and the Fuzz DS stomp.

  • Also, some more fx in the list won't take away any CPU power when not in use, just a bit of system memory.


    PS: I often use a drive pedal in front af an amp to tighten the sound up, since they almost always have got a shrinked bandpass if compared to an amp. You get a less bass-muddy, high-harsh and more mid-focused sound, which is great in many applications :)
    Of course, there are so many ways to sculpture a sound in the Profiler that there are almost always many different ways to get a great one, like sound-artists show every day on this board and on the Net :thumbup:

  • Also remember that profiles go after an amps sweet spot and for me adding amp gain can sometimes have negative impacts on the tone (always a matter of taste I know). I use pure boosters a lot to add gain on clean/semi-clean patches and it seems to add smoother sounding gain than using the gain knob.

  • Disagree. As was mentioned, dirtboxes offer a different flavor, and I much prefer having control of those parameters over using a baked-in profile. And I don't get the processing power comment. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I have to assume that the dirtbox stomps use no processor resources if they aren't part of the rig.

  • Quote

    Also remember that profiles go after an amps sweet spot and for me adding amp gain can sometimes have negative impacts on the tone (always a matter of taste I know). I use pure boosters a lot to add gain on clean/semi-clean patches and it seems to add smoother sounding gain than using the gain knob.


    Absolutely. IMO the Gain knob is the Kemper's Achilles' heel for this very reason. Thanks for reminding us that OD/Dist stomps can be used as an alternative that doesn't compromise the amp profile. (Typically, if I'm not in the right gain territory, I just go chasing after a different amp altogether. And 3 hours later...)

  • If you look at it from a producers perspective:
    Lets say you want to create a unique sound for a band you´re working with. You already profiled the amp and now you want to add a little extra because you feel like you need a bit more drive or distortion etc., you try the external methods of adding an OD pedal in the chain but it doesn´t really get you where you want. Then you try the internal pedals and they do exactly what you want. So it´s a very useful tool to have them at your disposal.

  • If someone gives you a guitar amp whose voicing just happens to be ideally suited to your guitar, then consider yourself lucky! Churning through amps trying to find the one that best suits your instrument is an expensive proposition, and so is churning through guitars trying to find the one that suits the amp.


    That leaves changing pickups (a cottage industry in its own right) or finding an overdrive and/or EQ pedal to revoice your pickups toward the amp's sweet spot while adding a touch of gain-stacking (always a lovely thing) for fullness and to restrict dynamics a bit. It's an addictive thing, collecting overdrive pedals - probably have a couple dozen or more by now. The pedal world is positively weedy with these, which is both a good and a bad thing. Fortunately, we have eBay. ;)


    But you're right, a distortion pedal would have to have a pretty exotic character to make it worth my while at this point.


    -djh

  • Also remember that profiles go after an amps sweet spot and for me adding amp gain can sometimes have negative impacts on the tone (always a matter of taste I know). I use pure boosters a lot to add gain on clean/semi-clean patches and it seems to add smoother sounding gain than using the gain knob.


    So the gain control doesn't seem to be that bad :)
    Taken from the reference manual: "When you place it in front of the amp or a distortion stomp, the pure booster has the same effect as the Gain or Drive control"