Stacking Gain within the Kemper

  • Hey everyone,


    I've owned my Kemper for about 5 months now and I love it. At this point, I normally buy other peoples performances rather than create my own. However, I want to create my own performances but I always get hung up on stacking gains or creating different gains stages that sound natural. I mostly play P&W stuff as well as alternative rock/indie rock stuff so I don't need a ton of overdrive/distortion.


    Any tips and tricks to stacking drives on the Kemper or creating multiple performance slots that slowly build in gain would be appreciated. For reference, I've used Worship Tutorials Mk2 and Matchless HC30 performances as my normal go tos.

    Zach

  • I'm not really clear on what you are after. Building performances (groups of rigs) and building rigs (individual slots on rigs) are two different things (to me). When building performances, especially if I understood what you are describing, copy/paste is often your best friend. I can build performances easily with Rig Manager, but sometimes have weird anomalies if I try to do too much like move rigs around to different slots. (as an aside, sometime this year I plan on tearing everything down and rebuilding it so may at that time I will be able to share something more useful). Once the performance is built, I then go in and edit each rig. You can do your gain staging in multiple places including 'traditional' like within individual stomps and effects, morphing, etc.

  • I think you are thinking like an ordinary amp...taking a profile and adding progressively more gain to that profile for each slot on your performance.


    I don't do this...


    I have specific profiles for specific sounds e.g. rock rhythm I use a Marshall profile. Heavy rhythm I use an Engl profile, solo's mesa dual rec. You can add a bit more gain on each profile and use morph to add additional options (I use this to boost for riffs - I add a touch more volume, gain, mid and presence).


    Morph effectively adds another variation to each slot, effectively opening up 10 sounds instead of 5 in a performance.

  • And, if you use an expression pedal for morphing, you have all the in-between sounds, so can use any gain on the way to the full morph setting.

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

  • solo's mesa dual rec.

    You obviously don't hang out on the Mesa Boogie user groups enough or you would know that Dual Recs can't do lead sounds. They are only any good for rhythm. For lead you apparently need a JP2c, Mark series or Triple Crown.


    This information was a revelation to me as I mistakenly thought I had been getting a great lead tone out of my Dual Rec for the previous 20 years :D

  • You obviously don't hang out on the Mesa Boogie user groups enough or you would know that Dual Recs can't do lead sounds. They are only any good for rhythm. For lead you apparently need a JP2c, Mark series or Triple Crown.


    This information was a revelation to me as I mistakenly thought I had been getting a great lead tone out of my Dual Rec for the previous 20 years :D

    ..and I thought it was my playing :), I can now blame the amp!


    Having said this, not sure it is a Dual rec but I'll check. Thanks for the info...

  • I ran a Dual Rec from 1995 and in vintage mode it is as good a lead tone as I have ever heard. There are some really opinionated tone snobs in those forums.

    I concur. Was playing a Tremoverb for years, vintage mode as well. That amp being stolen from me has led me to where I'm at today.. Kemperfide.

  • Rectoverb 50 here. Still have it. It's a great sounding amp.


    To the OP- I have a 'jam' patch with 5 different amps - starting from a nice sparkly clean all the way up to a heavy patch. I just picked different rigs for each one and 'tuned' them.


    That said, I almost never use that patch- as I have different performances set up for each song we do.


    KPA Unpowered Rack, Kemper Remote, Headrush FRFR108s, BC Rich Mockingbird(s), and a nasty attitude.

  • That said, I almost never use that patch- as I have different performances set up for each song we do.

    I have different performances for different bands, but I find I have enough variation across 5 patches, plus morph plus stomps to cover any sounds I need for a whole set.


    Loads of options :)

  • No kidding. I *do* copy/paste some patches around - like I have a really good Smashing Pumpkins tone, and a couple of good foo-fighter tones. I usually tweak them from there.


    One of the things I like is looking down at my board to remind me what I'm playing.


    Ha ha.


    KPA Unpowered Rack, Kemper Remote, Headrush FRFR108s, BC Rich Mockingbird(s), and a nasty attitude.