Questions for you overdrive stackers

    As much as I love getting all my sounds from my Kemper, albeit using an eventide H9 for some effects here and there, I do miss the tactile feel and what you see is what you get flexibility of overdrive pedals, and even have a couple on my board just to give me a few more options. Mostly, I missed the last minute tweak without worrying about messing with my presets thing. (You know, you have a dozen presets with many of the same amp profiles, feel like tweaking that sound, yet don't want to mess with saving all the ones that use that sound) I often love the tone of many guitarists that stack overdrive pedals. However, in my own experimentation I find it extremely useful to do in practice.


    Obviously, the various combinations of OD pedals, which can be put in different order, set differently, with different guitars, primary pickup choice (bridge or neck) and amps and the way they are set up, aside from style of music, the technique of individual guitarists, and desired tone make pedal suggestions almost worthless. Rather, I'm curious about how you use them.


    My issue: Let's say I stack two overdrives with both of them being engaged in order for that to be my highest gain. In which case I turn one of them off so that I have a lighter gain sound. Finally, both off for my cleanest sound. What I find, is that if I like the way the combined drives sound and tweak the pedals individually so that sounds good to me, invariably when I go to just one of the OD's, I don't like that way it sounds without tweaking it. The biggest limitation is the volume jump. If you set up your first OD to push the second, and then turn the second off, there will be a big volume jump. In any case, it always seems to be a compromise between what tweaks sounds best when just one is one to what tweaks sound best when both of them on.


    So far, I have the best success setting up the second OD to be on for mid/light gain by itself and only using the first when combined with the second for the high gain sound. However, even in this case, I cannot find settings that allow both OD's to sound good by themselves and good together, let alone not have volume balancing issues. And this isn't even taking into account different guitars and different pickups selected on the same guitar. Any suggestion? are some of you doing this or are you taking the opposite approach, leaving the first OD on and turing the second OD on and off for higher gain?

    If I'm running OD pedals, I tend to run them into a slightly broken up amp. In general, I prefer, even for clean sounds, a slightly broken up sound when my pickups are up and I'm playing normal, thus I can get all clean if I roll back the guitars volume a touch and pick lighter. I've done the unity thing and can achieve volume balance that way, the issue, I'm guessing is true by definition is that if I set the pedals I'm stacking to sound ideal together, it's not likely that their setting will be ideal if I use them by themselves. However, for the most part, I've stuck with just using profiles at the different gain levels I need in different rigs (or the same profile tweaked for lower gain in another rig).

    So I guess my biggest question is: How do most stackers find success. push one pedal into another for high gain, then turn off the first pedal relying on the second pedal as their lighter gain? Or turn off the second pedal and opt for the first pedal to be their lighter gain. Obviously, it's possible to turn either one off and use either the second or first by itself.


    With all the experimentation that I've done, I always achieve better results having a dedicated OD for each gain level, rather than trying to stack them. It's not that I can't achieve great tones when stacking, it's just that so far it isn't flexible when trying to unstack and just use one. One or the other, either both on or only one on is a compromise. Obviously one could have two OD's dedicated to being stacked and kept in a loop.

    Since you said you're using an H9 for different effects, does that mean you're running the rest of your wet fx either in the kemper's loop, or using the kemper itself? In that case, why not try running your amp model with a little more gain? That way you eliminate the first stage overdrive, and you can just roll back your volume knob to get cleans. Then boost the kemper with an OD if you need it for a lead tone.


    But to answer your question, if you have one sound that is an OD goosing another, when you turn off the 2nd one, you're going to get a big jump in volume. There's no way around it. I just keep everything at unity and have a clean boost up front.

    Strabes, that's generally what I do. I keep the H9 in the effects loop placed in the X slot after the amp block, and use here and there. In general, I find it easier to just stick to using the Kemper's effects and use the H9 if I need something more ambient. I have a couple go to all clean rigs, but don't use them much preferring to have a little bit of break up in the profile, not too much but enough that it cleans all or most of the way up if I back my guitar's volume back and pick lightly.


    To clarify, I love using my Kemper by itself, but just had an interesting curiosity from the Kemper owners who were getting much of their gain from pedals and what they found successful in terms of successfully stacking so that "all on" and "one on" gains both sound optimal vs having your high gain sound ideal at the expense of low-gain and vise versa.


    I think though my issue is just the standard Gear Acquisition Syndrome. While I have absolutely no need to modify my set up, I keep looking for reasons to do so.

    Quote from Grooguit

    Strabes, that's generally what I do. I keep the H9 in the effects loop placed in the X slot after the amp block, and use here and there. In general, I find it easier to just stick to using the Kemper's effects and use the H9 if I need something more ambient. I have a couple go to all clean rigs, but don't use them much preferring to have a little bit of break up in the profile, not too much but enough that it cleans all or most of the way up if I back my guitar's volume back and pick lightly.


    To clarify, I love using my Kemper by itself, but just had an interesting curiosity from the Kemper owners who were getting much of their gain from pedals and what they found successful in terms of successfully stacking so that "all on" and "one on" gains both sound optimal vs having your high gain sound ideal at the expense of low-gain and vise versa.


    I think though my issue is just the standard Gear Acquisition Syndrome. While I have absolutely no need to modify my set up, I keep looking for reasons to do so.


    I used to stack a low gain pedal into a high gain pedal with my earlier setup. I would start with the low gain pedal so that I could get a pleasing drive sound - more of an overdrive than a dirt sound. After I had tweaked, I would switch on the high gain pedal and adjust things like volume and gain to get the best stacked sound.


    I am having the same kind of GAS these days, looking for all kinds of things to supplement my Kemper experience. I want to get a few Strymon pedals, I want to add a divided pickup to my guitar, I want to get an external EQ for my bass tone, etc. Planning to get a rack to rackmount my Kemper and all this gear... It never ends.


    One thing I am happy about is having pulled back my old guitar from the sale. It sounds amazing with the Kemper. So that tells me to also be happy with what I have, adding things to the signal chain may not be desirable.


    That said, I have a Liquid Blues running into my Kemper these days, always on. A very pleasing overdrive and the clarity and optical compressor do some beautiful things to a clean tone.