Once and for all: The Clean Sense Setting (a different approach)

I have a Gibson les Paul studio and clean sens is "-8"... Normal?

Don't worry about whether it is "normal" or not.

If that setting makes your clean sounds and your gain sounds balanced, then that is the setting that works for you.

Thanks paults. Let me tell you that before yesterday I handled clean sens like the way you suggest: Set and forget. Don't think too much about it, just make sure you're not clipping the input and the volume level between distorted and clean sounds is equal. But what I tried yesterday made me think. Let me point out what I mean:
I have a rig with gain at 6.0 and amp compressor at 2.5. With this setting I'm strumming and RMS value in Samplitude shows about -14.5. I'm now raising the amp compressor to 5.0, gain still at 6.0. The perceived volume is the same as before and again Samplitude shows -14.5. I'm now turning gain to 0.0 with the amp compressor still at 5.0. Again the perceived volume is the same and again Samplitude shows -14.5. Obviously my clean sens is set right. Input LED stays green in all three attempts. With the gain still at 0.0 I'm now turning the amp compressor to 2.5. The perceived volume is now higher, samplitude shows about -11.0 and input LED is going into red. Therefore I have to lower clean sens significantly (not only by 0.5 or 1.0). But what is the more proper setting of clean sens? It seems that different rigs can lead to different settings of clean sens. But if that's really the case, then there's no proper levelling with clean sens between distorted and clean sounds.

Am I talking BS? Don't be afraid, tell me the truth...

A Global Clean Sense setting can't be used to level clean sounds to distortion sounds, unless you have your clean sounds balanced to each other, and your distortion sounds balanced to each other. Doing that is something that has to be done with a two channel amp, let alone a 2056 channel amp

Using your example, if turning up the amp compressor setting makes the clean rig get louder, you would have to manually balance that one rig to your other clean sounds.

If you adjust clean sense for your loudest clean rig, your other clean sounds would be quieter, and out of balance.

I brought up the issue here before about a potential onboard digital 'levelling' at the output section. I got criticised by most members. I still think it would be a good idea as most rigs ( even commercial ones ) are at varying output levels. I also find that Clean Sens distorts with some of my guitars when set to maximum minus if there are have boosts etc.... set in the stomp / effects sections.....

I still think it would be a useful tool even if everyone else disagrees ......

In my experience this setting is best viewed as "raw input sense' in other words the guitar level before it hits the first A/D stage. In this sense I see this setting as having nothing to do with any rig or rig settings whatsoever. I set this using the raw GIT out over spdif and simply set it for each of my guitars so that the guitar level the first A/D stage sees is the guitar with as much signal as I can while still having plenty of room for the A/D to express the maximum level that the guitar may send at any point without maxing out. This has worked very well for me and is mandatory for balancing things for proper re-amping. Once I have this set optimally I then adjust other things including Dist Sens if I feel that a particular rig seems way off output level wise. Generally just optimizing clean sens for each guitar has been sufficient to get very good balanced results across rigs from many different sources.

Quote from Kempermaniac

.... and input LED is going into red. Therefore I have to lower clean sens significantly (not only by 0.5 or 1.0). But what is the more proper setting of clean sens?

The devil is in the detail. This behaviour shouldn't happen if clean sense is merely a tool to level volumes across profiles. I've run into this behaviour before with one guitar with super-hot passive pickups, if I didn't lower clean sense, the input LED would keep going red. And that can often confuse new users with the Kemper, with some users claiming that they can't lower clean sense enough, because their pickups constantly make the input LED go red.

This is possibly a bug. If it was merely a change in volume of the clean profiles, the output LEDs should be red, not the input ones.

I know that's not the way clean sense works or is supposed to work. But as you have pointed out, changing clean sense is affecting how the LEDs work. And that isn't working as documented in the manual. So what gives?

Quote from mwinter77

In my experience this setting is best viewed as "raw input sense' in other words the guitar level before it hits the first A/D stage. In this sense I see this setting as having nothing to do with any rig or rig settings whatsoever. I set this using the raw GIT out over spdif and simply set it for each of my guitars so that the guitar level the first A/D stage sees is the guitar with as much signal as I can while still having plenty of room for the A/D to express the maximum level that the guitar may send at any point without maxing out. This has worked very well for me and is mandatory for balancing things for proper re-amping. Once I have this set optimally I then adjust other things including Dist Sens if I feel that a particular rig seems way off output level wise. Generally just optimizing clean sens for each guitar has been sufficient to get very good balanced results across rigs from many different sources.

This isn't how clean sense works. It doesn't affect input gain, only volume. As far as distorted sense, it's more of a global gain control for all distorted profiles. Might see some difference in level, but not of the same order as the clean sense setting.

Quote from nightlight

This isn't how clean sense works. It doesn't affect input gain, only volume. As far as distorted sense, it's more of a global gain control for all distorted profiles. Might see some difference in level, but not of the same order as the clean sense setting.

I understand this which is why I never used the word "gain". What I said is that it affects the input level of the raw input signal before it hits any further A/D & DSP processing and in my experience looking at the raw GIT signal out from the Kemper this is correct.

Thanks paults and nightlight for your opinions and hints.
@mwinter: The raw git signal is always the same, no matter if your sound later will be clean or distorted. But clean sens is for levelling clean and distorted sounds to each other. Therefore I doubt that your method is the right approach.

Quote from Kempermaniac

Thanks paults and nightlight for your opinions and hints.
@mwinter: The raw git signal is always the same, no matter if your sound later will be clean or distorted. But clean sens is for levelling clean and distorted sounds to each other. Therefore I doubt that your method is the right approach.

Well actually it does work the way I am describing and the section in the Kemper manual on re-amping also confirms that setting the clean-sens is how to set the optimal level of the raw GIT signal for re-amping purposes and changing the clean-sens *does* affect the raw GIT signal out level (try it!). I have used this methodology demonstrably for re-amping in my studio along with calibrating my various guitars with different raw output levels (high gain vs. low gain p/ups) to have uniform clean levels and trust me - it *does* work as I am describing. Clearly (and this is described in the Kemper manual) clean-sens is intended to normalize (by changing the input sensitivity) the signal level seen on the Kemper input for different types of guitars so that the raw instrument level seen by the DSP will be normalized (balanced) across different guitar's raw (pickup) output levels.

Ah I see you're talking about reamping only, where the raw git signal (and only this) is needed. But in all other applications where you need the whole chain (amp, cab, effects etc.) clean sens is for levelling clean and distorted sounds to each other. At least this is what many users were told when they were asking about CS.