Newish to Kemper - question about clean/dirty profiles?

  • Hey all


    I have a question about how clean/dirty profiles work. Sorry if I struggle to word this in the best way possible!

    So on a normal amp if you dial back the gain you get a clean sound, then if you turn up the gain you get an overdrive/distorted sound. With Kemper, when you buy or download a profile, does the gain knob work the same? Or do you get different profiles for clean and different profiles for dirty?

    For example. I download a Mesa profile. Do I use that same profile for both clean and distortion by adjusting the gain & adding pedals, or would I use a specific 'distorted' profile?

  • You can turn the gain up and down but it doesn’t know what the amps gonna do. So it generally is only good for small tweaks.


    It’s better to get different profiles for clean and dirt.

  • It's been my experience that some profiles will "clean up" better than others by adjusting the gain but in general I agree that you will see the best results by using different profiles for clean and distorted or overdriven sounds.


    Many of the folks that create and sell profiles will actually profile an amp clean and at several gain settings or even with pedals and sell them as a package. That way it's easy to switch from a clean to a dirty sound on the same amp by just switching profiles.


    Another option for you is to add a stomp effect to a clean profile for your distortion or overdrive sound.

  • In fact the Profiling process captures all gain settings up to and including the one the amp was set at pretty-accurately.


    So, with this in mind, you should be able to dial gain back on the KPA and achieve great results.


    Adding gain over and above what was Profiled is a different story 'cause you're asking the KPA to guess what the amp might have sounded like. Typically one hears a sort of synthetic character creeping in and a loss of attack definition.

  • In fact the Profiling process captures all gain settings up to and including the one the amp was set at pretty-accurately.


    So, with this in mind, you should be able to dial gain back on the KPA and achieve great results.


    Adding gain over and above what was Profiled is a different story 'cause you're asking the KPA to guess what the amp might have sounded like. Typically one hears a sort of synthetic character creeping in and a loss of attack definition.

    I've been saying almost the same thing for a while Nicky but with a little proviso.


    Turning down the Gain knob on the amp isn't always the same as feeding the amp less signal. Think of the change in distortion characteristics and tone from turning a guitar volume down Vs turning the amp's gain down. They aren't quite the same.


    I did an exercise recently where I profiled my THD BiValve (non master volume amp) at every volume setting from 1 to 10. I checked the gain number in the KPA for each profile. Then morphed higher gain profiles to match the gain of the real lower gain equivalent (OCD kicking in big time X/). They did sound similar but not identical. However, the sound of the higher gain/volume profile with the guitar volume rolled off was pretty much identical to the equivalent distortion level of a lower gain profile. I don't think I up loaded the profiles from the experiment to Rig Manager but can do if anyone wants to try for themselves.


    I keep meaning to try it again with a master volume amp like the Mesa Mark Five:25 to see if the input gain on the amp reacts differently to the non master volume amp.


    In short, I regularly use profiles with higher gain than I need but clean them up with the guitar volume rather than profiler gain knob. However, my experience is that reducing the gain on the KPA is pretty faithful to rolling back the guitar volume.

  • Makes sense, Alan.


    I intuitively assumed there'd be a difference between pumping different signal levels into an amp and using the gain knob to achieve the "same thing", which is why I described the associated capture as "pretty-accurately" as opposed to "superbly", "brilliantly" or other such terms that I'd normally use to describe Profile efficacy at its default-gain setting (the one set on the amp).


    I see you said "They aren't quite the same", which to me is the same thing ~ close, but no cigar. IMHO dialling gain back still sounds good 'though, which is why I said one should still be able to "achieve great results".


    As for the extrapolative-gain thing (adding to the Profile's captured-gain setting), I daresay it'd be a rare occasion where the sound held up to close scrutiny.

  • which is why I described the associated capture as "pretty-accurately" as opposed to "superbly", "brilliantly" or other such terms that I'd normally use

    :D



    which to me is the same thing ~ close, but no cigar. IMHO dialling gain back still sounds good 'though, which is why I said one should still be able to "achieve great results".

    Absolutely



    As for the extrapolative-gain thing (adding to the Profile's captured-gain setting), I daresay it'd be a rare occasion where the sound held up to close scrutiny.

    Agreed. That has been my experience so far; subtracting gain sounds natural (presumably because it is effectively built into the profiling process) but adding gain is less convincing (presumably because the KPA is fairly good at guessing but isn't a mind reader). ^^

  • ..and ( not that I've tried it) the results from reducing the gain on the KPA might actually be more pleasing..


    So I think the point here is, you can both adjust the gain of a heavy or clean profile, but you might be better with a different profile - you have both options.


    Probably the bigger factor here is you can have a mesa for heavy and an AC30 for clean and hence its more flexible to have different profiles for clean and heavy...