It's been a long while ~ Two things to mention regarding KPA:

  • Greetings to all Kempsters! A couple of things:


    1) Has anyone found a truly great clean profile (ideally with some smooth compression) ~ I have tried for a long time, but it seems I always hear some artifacts in the background when sustaining a chord (perhaps from the compression)... :(


    2) A tip I have discovered just recently while overdubbing solos: When tweaking an OD/Distortion sound ~ Listen to it in the track while messing with the Cab parameters (as opposed to the standard EQ tweaking) In order of importance: High Shift, Low Shift, and Character. I have found EQ tweaks and Cab selection are more time consuming and often less effective for getting the exact sound for any particular track. Of course you must start with a Cab you trust and has worked in the past :) Perhaps many of you already knew this, but it's been a major discovery for me!


    Cheers,
    Radley

    All modelers known to man 8o

  • BTW: For my clean sounds, I still desire considerable sustain (similar to a DynaComp set to medium sustain), and I have had a hard time dialing it in on my Kemper so far without the aforementioned artifacts. Perhaps it is the Kemper compression that is causing this, either in the Amp or the effect model? Ideally the KPA would give us enough transparent guitar compression to play a highly compressed Jim Messina Teliecaster solo, and yet sustain full chords with purity (no artifacts). Of course, I could use an outboard compressor pedal, but then the KPA's noise suppression becomes much less effective...

    All modelers known to man 8o

  • You mention using the Kemper noise gate, thats probably what’s causing your artifacts, disable it completely, and use a stomp section noise gate instead if you need a gate (the main gate does it by frequency resulting in weird artifacts in clean tones).


    Also the Kemper compressors are in two locations, are you using the amp block compression or one of the other compressor stomps? The stomps can be a bit excessive, compressing harder than most real world footpedals can, at a certain point that makes the waveform start to go square and introduces distortion artifacts. Don’t go for equivalent settings is my advice there, just go for equivalent sounds.


    Oh and for me the heart of good clean is really good reverb. That’s the tricky thing. I find the Kempers own cleans to be too sterile, they don’t have that classic fender plumby sort of bloom and initial attack and gradual change in frequencies over the note. You can slap on a bit of treble booster, try to get a tiny bit of grit just at the pick, but the Kemper seems to tame things down too much. Reverb helps, but the Kemper doesn’t have a really effective lush spring verb, the matchbox verb just sounds one dimensional. Maybe in a future update, but you can use external pedals for now.

  • Also the Kemper compressors are in two locations, are you using the amp block compression or one of the other compressor stomps?

    Looks like he's tried both flavours of compression, Per:

    Perhaps it is the Kemper compression that is causing this, either in the Amp or the effect model?

    I was going to suggest Amp compression too; I really thought that would do it for him, but then saw the above comment.

  • Then I don't really know what you can do. I feel that the Kemper cleans seem more like just DI, super dry straight sterile sounding, but OTOH I've never profiled an amp at totally clean so I can't say if that's far from the truth of the source or not.


    I know that with real amps I'm quite particular about my cleans, there are some really dead sounding amps out there and some that just sparkle and bring it, but that's in the room sound, not on record .although you listen to some of those old tracks and they capture it, stuff like the Shadows, the opening to Angel Baby (Rosie and the Originals), Can't seem to make you mine (The Seeds), not so much bands like Captain Beefheart which I always thought sounded like they had a limiter slapped on the guitars and were again dead sounding.


    It's possible that my own inability to find really satisfying clean tones in the Kemper may have subconsciously steered me away from really exploring that side of this box and sticking with heavier tones. I should spend some time actually exploring and finding great clean profiles.

  • Wow guys ~ Thanks for some new information. I still love my KPA, so I keep trying to make it work in all areas. I have been getting some great OD, Crunch & Solo sounds... just haven't had as much luck with the Clean stuff (yet). I definitely will try bypassing the main Kemper NR and using the stomp NRs (I have used them once or twice before and they work well). It is also possible that using an outboard compressor could work, because of the additional stomp NR. BTW, I just bought a TC HyperGravity Compressor, and I am liking it (very quiet and programmable) 8o Thanks again for the input!

    All modelers known to man 8o

  • I'm new to the Kemper forum and recently profiled my 74 Vibrolux at a mid to low volume, turned the cab profile off, added a small amount of reverb and play it thru a home built EV TL806 cab loaded with an older EVM 12L. After all this effort, the biggest factor in obtaining a clean tone was playing on a guitar with single coil PUs, then adjusting the guitar volume settings. The humbuckers sound great but a P-90 turned a little past half way up, or a tele or strat set about the same did it for me. Although I don't use picks, and tend to pluck light or hard depending on the tune. I hope this helps, but believe the biggest factor may be lowering the guitar volume and picking lighter. The Kemper compressor as is, (no tweaking yet, still too new to the Kemper), took away from the sparkle so it was turned off. I hope this helps.


    A tone very similar to chris Rea on this tune:

    External Content www.youtube.com
    Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.
    Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.

  • Used to do a lot of concerts with Chris (I was playing with an all-star fusion group called Koinonia). Chris has an amazing voice! I haven't heard the Kemper produce this quality of clean sounds with no digi artifacts.


    External Content www.youtube.com
    Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.
    Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.

    All modelers known to man 8o

    Edited once, last by Radley ().

  • Hi Hadley. Nice to see you back! You might try Bert Meulendijk's "BM Fan Showgirl 62 Clean" rig that's in the free rig pack. It's a great clean tone, but not sure it has the sustain you require.

    Go for it now. The future is promised to no one. - Wayne Dyer

  • I've had great results putting two compressor stomps (set subtly) on clean sounds in conjunction with the amp compressor. The amp compressor becomes really useful if you often turn your guitar volume down some. I made a crunch profile on my Mark IV Boog which turns into a very pleasant clean sound with the guitar volume on 4 or 5. The amp compressor makes the volume difference just right to go from clean to lead turning up the volume on the guitar.

  • I haven't experienced the digital artifacts that you mention. I'd also make sure that the noise gate is off.


    My favourites are M Britt profiles. The 65 AC30 is awesome and I keep finding myself back there. All of the cleans sound great to me though, as long as the volume is up and moving some air.

  • I agree this is a gem of a profile.To be honest it’s not super clean though.
    Quite some grit in it even with vintage singlecoils

    yeah, not pop - clean but blues- clean rather. And you lower the volume and it gets less gritty should you want to. Actually it is a loud rig.

    Never too old for rock'n'roll