Trouble with clean

  • I keep on having trouble with clipped clean sounds. I need two sounds, one clean with chorus and one overdrive for lead guitar. Both must have the same output level so that there is no volume difference when playing the song. But the clean sounds stays clipped and worse, with a regularly crackeled bang coming out from the speakers when strumming. Clean sense is at 0.0. Lead sound rig is OK ,(no clipping) so can't decrease clean chorused rig because each time I would get a huge volume drop.

  • Otherwise, reduce the volume of both clean and distorted rigs.


    I'm rehearsing in my study so the volume isn''t really loud. Onstage I would need more volume, but probably even more clipped.


    You could try using a compressor (either in one of the stomp slots or in the amp section).


    But that would affect the clean sound and is more suitable for playing funky or having a more sustained solo.

  • Sounds like you have hot pickups. Set clean sense as per this video :


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  • Sambrox: I followed all instructions (Yes, you're right: hot pick-ups from a GLP)


    Michael_dk: Only output led is slightly flashing on green but turns red when strumming louder


    drog: It's internal from section 1, no popping/clipping when turned of/on. It makes no difference.


    Thanks everyone for your suggestions! In the meantime I have tweaked a lot. In fact so much that I don't know how I now achieved avoiding red clipping. So it's still hard to get really clean volumed sounds in the blink.of an eye.... I've learned too that it sounds much better to NOT choose a distorted amp from the amp section but to stay close to the chosen clean amp and then use the gain knob for a lead solo and store then as your lead rig.
    This would mean that if I finally (!) have a really clean and not red clipping rig, I can use this for a lead sound as well, by just increasing the gain.

  • I just read through this. One thing makes me wonder:


    If you have hot pickups and those are the problem your INPUT led should flash red to indicate overload. If your OUPUT led flashes, but not the input than you have bad gain staging in your chain within the Kemper. That means, here and there in stomps or the amp section your volume is set too high.


    Maybe the pickups aren't actually that hot and your input is set too low.


    Just my 2 cent.

    Ne travaillez jamais.

  • If the output LED goes frequently into red lower the rig (or the Amp) volume and resave the rig(s).
    But are you seeing any activity at all by the Input LED? It should react to your playing. From what you wrote I had the impression it doesn't work at all?
    OTOH, if it's not working and your Clean Sens is too high there would be no need to lower rigs volume on an individual basis.

  • I'm sorry to bring up the issue here again, but what I thought was right in tweaking, didn't help. The led from Output keeps on clipping red!


    I'll show what this rig consists of:
    BTW If one of the volumes is set too high, then my remark that I tried to decrease it earlier to 0 but with no improvement!



    So what is wrong here?


    As written before, I have a GLP Standard 1995

  • 0 dB would just be neutral, could eventually be too much. The +6,7 dB in Vibroverb is a lot. Why not reduce volumes incrementaly to the negative, until the output clip led gets calm?


    The booster with +3.3 dB might make sense, if you wish to get noticeably louder when you turn it on. Maybe start with reducing the amp volume...

    Ne travaillez jamais.

  • 0 dB would just be neutral, could eventually be too much. The +6,7 dB in Vibroverb is a lot. Why not reduce volumes incrementaly to the negative, until the output clip led gets calm?


    The booster with +3.3 dB might make sense, if you wish to get noticeably louder when you turn it on. Maybe start with reducing the amp volume...

    Reducing the Vibroverb's volume to 0.0 dB or even lower would make sense, but it hardly makes any difference. Besides, this results in a volume gap between this clean and the solo rig volume. And I'm not playing that loud, juist in my study.
    I shut down the booster and this helps a bit, but still there are red peaks. If a booster is the problem then it;s a quite usesless item for a clean rig.

  • If a booster is the problem then it;s a quite usesless item for a clean rig.

    All was just meant to narrow down what your problems are. I have no problems in using a booster or screamer for lead in otherwise clean sounds. The Kemper in general is very generous about the inner gain staging. I only had 1 (out of about 50) profiles where I had output clipping. I reduced the amps volume then. BTW: I got one guitar where I set the input distortion sense to +6.5 dB - without any problem.

    Ne travaillez jamais.

  • Normally the following should work:
    1. Lower rig volume until the red blinking output LED goes off.
    2. Compensate your general volume with the master volume.
    3. Now level all your rigs from there.

    This seems to be working. It's not easy though because of of big differences between both rigs in leveling rig volume and master volume. For master volume I have to go more than 5.4 dB and this is just study room volume. What is left for stage volume while there are more but no useable volume settings left (like fx) which cause red clipping?

  • This seems to be working. It's not easy though because of of big differences between both rigs in leveling rig volume and master volume. For master volume I have to go more than 5.4 dB and this is just study room volume. What is left for stage volume while there are more but no useable volume settings left (like fx) which cause red clipping?

    Master volume has plenty of volume on tap. I cannot imagine you'll be too quiet.
    Do you have a powered Kemper. How will you monitor on stage.
    The final loudness will be determined by the poweramp but moreso the sensitivity of the cab.