Solo booster

Yeah Gary, it absolutely depends on how dense your music is.
With 2 guitars and a keyboard player I want to be heard when doing a solo.

Paults - "sound technician" hmm... I've HEARD of them before... but...

I know what you mean Ingolf... I might have to adjust higher, I'll see. I AM our keyboard player besides lead guitarist, and only one other guitar - we may not be as thick as your band, so I might not need it as high as you.

I'm going to be trying lots of experimenting tonight;(1) trying out the Voodoo Lab Ground Control Pro. I love having lots of presets available instantly and I really hate the FCB buttons (they don't always work on mine) and volume and wah pedals... cheesy. Having the rig names show up... nice! So that will be interesting. Plus; (2) the ME EP-for Kemper. This has the great advantage of having a toe switch which I've programmed into slot X with pure booster. Don't need the KFC to include one this way. Should be a fun night... wish me luck!

Gary - I play some classic rock side gigs that are strictly "stage volume", and having a lead sound with the guitar wide open works great with the knob down around 5-6 for rhythm. I balance the rhythm volume with the other guitar or keyboardist, and then let it rip for solos. Since the Kemper cleans up like the original amps, it works really well this way.

Have fun with the Ground Control Pro - I used the older version (GC + Expander) for a long time. Once you get the programming steps under your feet, it goes really fast.

Hey Paul, thanks for the advice. I used it last night. It really was a breeze to program but still need to work on balancing volumes of different presets. Our set lists bounce around to so many different styles and artists, no simple setup works for all songs. My boost at 2.5 was plenty hot enough. It was sooo nice to have 10 presets readily available and readable on stage! Gig with different band tonight... more tweaking this afternoon.

But it's a work in progress... so many great sounds out there to choose from too! And I got sooo many compliments on my tones, you wouldn't believe. Another guitarist watching the show was amazed, is going to get Kemper next, get rid of his 5 or 6 amps.

To me this is a perenial problem....

Can't rely on sound engineer to boost unless they know your set and songs really well ( and stay awake). Graphic and boost pedals only work well on series effects loops, on parallel ( like marshals) they have limited effect. In front of an amp they increase the gain but not necessarily the volume.

Same for guitar volume, great for cleaning up the sound but doens't always increase the volume enough.

In a signle guitar band, these can work ok ( as previously stated). With 2 guitars yiou usually need more punch. I prefered 2 volume controls on my conventional Amps becuase you could set them independantly. You have to balalnce it so that you get noticable boost without a massive "jump" in volume which sounds unnatural. Ideally you waqnt to change the sound as well i.e. a separate channel. That's why I bought my Engl Invader as it does all of this.

I assume you can set different volumes for different patches on the Kemper ( not got mine yet) so I will be able to replicate this, although teh volumes will be relative..

Well, apart from - obviously - setting volumes for each rig (and you can then have the same amp saved at different volumes, which is another way to solo-boost), in the Profiler you can put an eq or a volume pedal after the amp, so increasing volume won't give more gain.

As for cleaning the sound with the guitar pot, Clean Sens and Distorted Sens serve exactly this purpose: defining how much volume the guitar retains when clean (or how much volume you gain when raising the pot).

HTH

Make sure to double check you're not clipping the output LED when you hit your solo boost, I think I was doing that for a month before I saw it red on stage one night lol. I activate my solo boost and set my rig volume from there now that I'm a bit smarter.

from my experience it's preferrable to have a solo sound than just a louder version of your main tone.
your main tone was designed to fit the style and the setting you play in, to 'gel' with another guitar, keys, bass, drums etc., whereas the solo serves a different function.
A Green Scream usually works nicely for me, pushing the all important midrange that makes your solo sound more vocal-like and easier to hear, while adding the compression and gain you need/want - or not.
sometimes a completely new sound works as well or even better, but the point is, I would approach the main (rhythm) tone and your solo sound as different entities that have different requirements instead of making it all about volume.
hth

Something to think about for sure Don, not that I don't use different amps on occasion for solos but it's the rarity for me as I play exclusively live and try to keep things simple. Your comment will have me punching up some mids next show just to see...

Quote from DonPetersen

from my experience it's preferrable to have a solo sound than just a louder version of your main tone.
your main tone was designed to fit the style and the setting you play in, to 'gel' with another guitar, keys, bass, drums etc., whereas the solo serves a different function.
A Green Scream usually works nicely for me, pushing the all important midrange that makes your solo sound more vocal-like and easier to hear, while adding the compression and gain you need/want - or not.
sometimes a completely new sound works as well or even better, but the point is, I would approach the main (rhythm) tone and your solo sound as different entities that have different requirements instead of making it all about volume.
hth

That's why I prefer the "next profile" approach to changes on the Kemper. Seems to me more intuitive than stepping on a button to activate stomps/effects, since it is, after all, just one push of a button at the end of the day.

Of course, the Kemper Foot Controller might change my mind, I like some of the possibilities with turning on pairs of effects, etc, it would almost be like multiplying the number of slots you have in a performance.

I have for many years used a amp that have a solo volume button. It is very nice and i love it. i was trying to get a smaller amp/top and the Mesa Mini that i bought did not have solovolume. i bought one of the finest boosterpedals around. Skrydstrup BR1 it can be set as a volumboost without destroying signal/tone
I traded the Mesa for a Kemper, and use the FCB1010. I simply make one A-B presets one for rythm and one for solo. I still got my lovely tubeamp. But i like the Kemper a lot!

Quote from nightlight

That's why I prefer the "next profile" approach to changes on the Kemper. Seems to me more intuitive than stepping on a button to activate stomps/effects, since it is, after all, just one push of a button at the end of the day.

Of course, the Kemper Foot Controller might change my mind, I like some of the possibilities with turning on pairs of effects, etc, it would almost be like multiplying the number of slots you have in a performance.

Me too.

Since I got my Voodoo Lab Ground Control it is much more valuable, and sounds better, to do the "next" preset for solo approach also. I can add multiple additional flavors to this with one step, not merely volume.

Right now I have 10 presets for each amp I use live (5 total), 6 for rythym and 6 for solos. All run by an FCB1010 in patch change mode. Could shrink that number in half if the new Kemper foot controller has the ability to send more than 1 CC message at a time

I use the equivalent of Patch Change Mode on a TC Electronic G-System:

The bottom row of five buttons is dedicated to my five main sounds.
The middle row of five presets change with Bank Selection, for specialty sounds, solo sounds.
The top row of five buttons allows stomp-style control of FX,CC#,or audio loops,
BUT,
with ten presets at a time, I hardly need to ever use the buttons.