Seeking advice on external looper volume equalization

  • Hi,


    I'm using an external Boss RC-2 looper with my Kemper,

    I've been using it with a "loop mono" on the X slot. This is generally working great.


    One pesky problem I'm having is when I'm overdubbing and each overdub is using a different rig.

    The problem is that each rig has a different volume, so some overdubs are bound to be drowned in the looper mix.

    This is of course not a Kemper issue, but I've been looking for a way to compensate for the volume differences.


    The only way I managed to do this so far, is by moving the mono loop into the MOD slot, and assigning a pure booster to the X slot, to boost/attenuate the volume while a new overdub is recorded.

    This is almost perfect, but there's one silly issue with that.

    As I'm "wasting" another slot, I'm left with only two post amp slots, which is sometimes not enough,

    because I need lots of effects to drown out my playing as much as possible 8o


    So my question - is there a way to get a post stack volume boost, without wasting an effects slot ?


    Thanks!

  • You'll need to set up your rig volumes to be more equal. This differentiates the Master Volume control from the Rig Volume control. Can you tell that the same sort of volume jumps occur without the looper? If so, it sounds like the rig volumes should be adjusted between clean and distorted. I believe this is exactly where the clean sens and dist sens come in for each guitar you use.

  • You'll need to set up your rig volumes to be more equal. This differentiates the Master Volume control from the Rig Volume control. Can you tell that the same sort of volume jumps occur without the looper? If so, it sounds like the rig volumes should be adjusted between clean and distorted. I believe this is exactly where the clean sens and dist sens come in for each guitar you use.

    I guess I was misusing the word "equalizing".

    For looping, it's not really that you want to equalize the volumes of the overdubs, but rather, adjust a mix on the fly.

    For example, you lay out a rhythm, and you want the lead to be louder. That's why it's convenient to have an option to boost/attenuate on the fly.


    But, actually, I did end up finding a great solution for this!


    1. Use "distortion loop" instead of "mono loop". This apparently is causing any boost to occur before going into the FX loop.

    2. Configure a volume pedal to the "post stack" location and set it to boost (e.g +2 instead of the default -5).


    With that setup, it is possible to boost the signal that goes into the looper with the pedal, which is way more convenient anyway.


    The only tiny limitation that's left, is the signal volume can only be increased and not decreased this way,

    but in this case, incrementally boosting is more common, so that's good enough for me.


    Still might be room for a feature request where a volume pedal can have min/max values rather than just max. That would effectively turn the volume pedal into the fully featured pure booster, thus saving a slot for everyone.


    Hope this helps someone with the same problem some day. 8)

  • The way I would do it is replace the distortion loop with a wah volume FX. That way you can control it using the wah pedal as a volume and have the ability to boost and cut.

    Hi,


    - What is "wah volume fx" ?

    - What do you mean by "replace the distortion loop" ? Do I not have to use some kind of a loop somewhere in order to use my external pedal?

  • Yes, you do need to use a loop for your external pedal. One of the other suggestions though was to use the Distortion Loop Instead of the Mono or Stereo Loop because Distortion Loop allows control of volume.


    Wah Volume is one of the Wah FX types which lets you use the Wah in the Stomp or FX blocks as a volume pedal at whatever point in the signal path you insert the Wah Volume FX. It functions exactly like the normal volume but can beused as a second volume so you can have volume pedals at more than one point in the signal path and control them independently. There is more information in the manual. Its a great idea but badly named as it is totally counnter intuitive and most people (including me) react the same way as you did when told about it - "what's wah volume?" ^^

  • Yes, you do need to use a loop for your external pedal. One of the other suggestions though was to use the Distortion Loop Instead of the Mono or Stereo Loop because Distortion Loop allows control of volume.


    Wah Volume is one of the Wah FX types which lets you use the Wah in the Stomp or FX blocks as a volume pedal at whatever point in the signal path you insert the Wah Volume FX. It functions exactly like the normal volume but can beused as a second volume so you can have volume pedals at more than one point in the signal path and control them independently. There is more information in the manual. Its a great idea but badly named as it is totally counnter intuitive and most people (including me) react the same way as you did when told about it - "what's wah volume?" ^^

    Ah, I see. Well, Kemper introduced me to so many types of Wah's with weird names, that it would be conceivable that's an actual type of wah 8o


    That's a useful trick, but my main goal here was to refrain from wasting two post stack effect slots, just for the looper.

    I don't have an issue with using the distortion loop in itself.

    This is why I had come up with the solution I mentioned earlier. By using the volume pedal as a post stack booster, and using the distortion loop at X, I can achieve a pure booster that doesn't waste a slot, and goes into the looper input. Well, almost a pure booster, because it can only boost, and not attenuate.


    Thanks!

  • Yes but if you replace the the pure boost with Wah Volume you can do the same thing but also attenuate and ride the volume to the exact level you want in really time rather than a fixed boost.

    That's true. If you're willing to dedicate an extra post stack slot for this, that's the perfect solution.

    If you however you're interested in saving that extra slot, the aforementioned solution will help you do that, at the price of not being able to attenuate.


    Nothing's perfect I guess ;)