Clipping in most profiles when using pedals in front of KPA

  • OK, so please bear with me as :


    A - English is my second language only so I am doing my best to make me understood here...

    B - I am just starting using pedals with the KPA I have had for a few months now.


    That said, here is my concern. I have been lucky enough to be gifted some nice boutique pedals (fuzz, overdrive and Klon clone). Those I had been lurking at for a few weeks and they sounded spectacular so I managed to get them (you too know that big guy in red, don't you ? :D).

    At first I built my pedal chain in front of the KPA and played them with some ultra clean Fender profiles. That sounded OK but the more I play them, the more it sounds harsh and I now see that they put my KPA at the edge of clipping most of the time (flashing red input light). This happens with most profiles I tried them with.

    For the record, I nearly exclusively play my KPA via SPDIF though a Scarlett 6i6 then a Shiit Magni headphones amp to a pair of BT 990 Pro and that clipping is absolutely obvious to my ears, even when using the Klon clone just as a boost. I feel I hear it even when the input led is not going red, I don't really know.

    The main goal of my pedals are to give dirt but also to boost and thus lowering the boost is kind of a bummer but it actually mostly stops the clipping. I suspected something wrong in my KPA settings so I went as far as resetting it to factory defaults, that helped me fix some SPDIF volume volume as I had to reset everything but I still can't seem to play my pedals without getting some clipping. I sure checked my SPDIF clock and sample rate and everything is fine there.


    Of course I fiddled with the "clean sense" setting but that doesn't do the job consistently, some of my (commercial) profiles already have it set low too. So my question is (finally !) :

    how do you guys manage to play dirt and boost pedals in front of your Kemper ? What is the secret sauce I am missing ? Any profile you do use with success that I may try ? (I own most of MBritts if that helps).

    I read some others have had issues using pedals too but I didn't really find an explained solution so I thought I would ask the veterans here.


    Thanks in advance !

  • Interesting that pure cab was the culprit! Glad you found it dude!


    Curious, what kind of gain settings are you using on your fender profiles? Are you in the 0.0-1.5 range or slighlty higher?

  • A few things here, ONE, there is many threads on the 6i6 and spdif reguarding many issues. Check these out, I've seen a lot of issues with those.


    Two, clipping on the input is not a big deal ,this happens. If you're profiles that you are using are less than 1.5 on the the gain, the sound of the pedal will come through a lot more. Sometimes i will increase the gain of the profile or use a profile that has at least 1.6ish gain so the pedal and profile will compress together more. Less profile gain, less compression.


    Have you tried a distorion loop? Putting your drive pedals in a distortion loop before the amp stack will also give you more control on volume. Klon clones usually have a 9-18 volt pump converter so they have a ridiculously high amount of clean headroom volume boost. Some of these also have a buffer too.


    I'm not sure exactly where your clipping issues is coming from, and it's hard to tell what kind of outcome you are wanting exactly. You have clipping but are using, dirt, boost, and fuzz pedals that clip the front end to get the sound. Is it a headphone type of clipping?


    The Kemper headphone output is really good. I've had to make several adjustments to keep my headphones from clipping at various times. There is a give and take here, and sometimes i feel like i have to let the kemper clip a little bit on the way out and adjust the interface or playback system/ amp or PA.


    Cheers!

  • Sorry for the late reply, maybe using the word "clipping" was wrong. I should have wrote "fizz" or "metallic clics".

    Anyway, I don't really know what happened but I have not experienced it since. Even with my new Fuzz Factory clone at full blast it is now OK.


    Thanks anyway for your nice help.


    Now off to investigate on that new editor thing :)