Kemper overdrive/distortion sounds so bad

  • Hi there. I've owned my Kemper for about two years and have loved it since I bought it. I use a Fender Strat Elite and a PRS Custom 22 with it and own almost all the M.Britt profiles and exclusively use them because I've found they are the best overall profiles in my opinion.

    I've always had this underlying that the overdrive/distortion of the Kemper wasn't perfect but I just went with it never totally 100% satisfied but the clean tones are amazing. So I went the other day to a music store to check out some new stuff and decided for the fun of it to try some amps. I tried Victory amps, Mesa Boogie's and Supro and damn... those overdrive/distortion sounds I could get instantly from those amps sounded 95% better then my M.Britt profiles (grabngo, crankgo) and it took maybe 10 sec to dial them in. I could feel the punch from the amp and the guitar (Fender Strat) just felt like it was alive but the Kemper most of the time feels boring/lifeless/dead/sterile. No sustain and no live and really lacks clarity. When I play two notes at the same time (soloing) it creates this digital mush and a very un-pleasing frequency clash that I don't get while doing the same thing with a real amp.

    I was so disappointed after playing 3 gigs with the Kemper this weekend and using it during practise yesterday that when I got home I plugged my 99$ Boss Katana Mini and within 5-10 sec I could get better overdrive/distortion out of it then the Kemper. It's 7 watt and battery powered but the guitar felt more alive, with more sustain and the mini amp ''responded'' more to my playing then the Kemper.

    So what could I be doing wrong in my setup?

    Kemper to FOH via xlr (main out L) and main outs set to ''Master Mono''. I have no noise gate on, I've turned the noise gate knob manually off for all my profiles because I hate how it sucks the life out of my guitar. I have pure cab set to 3.0. The level to FOH is -18. I sometimes hook it up to my Barefoot Footprint monitors but when playing live I use Ultimate Ears Pro 18. When playing live I also use Shure GLXD16 wirless kit but I use cable during practises. :(:(:(


  • The difference is almost certainly just the difference between standing in front of a guitar speaker V IEM or studio monitors. Volume plays a big part in this as does the dispersion characteristics of the speaker itself. I have done A/B testing with my kemper next to my Mesas using my own profiles of my Mesas and run the profiles and real amp through identical Mesa cabs. I couldn’t reliably tell the difference. They weren’t identical but were so similar that I couldn’t constantly pick which one was the profile.

  • An electric guitar in any kind of proximity to an amp is going to be excited acoustically by the amp sound - basically feedback. The louder the amp the more the guitar will sustain due to the body and strings vibrating in sympathy with the amp sound. This interaction doesn't happen at all on headphones or in ear monitors.

  • An electric guitar in any kind of proximity to an amp is going to be excited acoustically by the amp sound - basically feedback. The louder the amp the more the guitar will sustain due to the body and strings vibrating in sympathy with the amp sound. This interaction doesn't happen at all on headphones or in ear monitors.

    Wow I never thought about that. Thank you so much for the reply!

  • Turn Pure Cab off. Not just set to 0, but completely off, and see if that helps. When it’s off globally: I find it works at 0.1 on some profiles, and completely off with others.


    If a Boss Katana is giving you better dirty tones, it’s possible that you inadvertently saved or locked some undesirable settings. Have you done a soft reset?

  • What speaker are you running? A full range speaker will give you a different experience than a guitar cabinet - something you might have to get used to.

    Higher values of Pure Cabinet might help.

  • Turn Pure Cab off. Not just set to 0, but completely off, and see if that helps. When it’s off globally: I find it works at 0.1 on some profiles, and completely off with others.


    If a Boss Katana is giving you better dirty tones, it’s possible that you inadvertently saved or locked some undesirable settings. Have you done a soft reset?


    Why would low values of Pure Cabinet help in this situation? I see the opposite.

  • Why would low values of Pure Cabinet help in this situation? I see the opposite.

    For some reason, when using high gain profiles the pure cab can get strange artifacts and a fizzy treble. Usually when it’s off it is a noticeable difference, and some profiles really smooth out once it goes just up to 0.1; yet others sound best off. There obviously can be profiles and setups that work with pure cab at higher levels, but I find pretty consistently that 0.1 or off works best for high gain.

  • For some reason, when using high gain profiles the pure cab can get strange artifacts and a fizzy treble. Usually when it’s off it is a noticeable difference, and some profiles really smooth out once it goes just up to 0.1; yet others sound best off. There obviously can be profiles and setups that work with pure cab at higher levels, but I find pretty consistently that 0.1 or off works best for high gain.

    I have pure cab off permanently. If some profiles sound bad, I can't see pure cab makes a difference. Bad profiles are bad profiles and I erase them and replace with profiles that sound good on all my guitars and pickups. Problem solved.

    Think for yourself, or others will think for you wihout thinking of you

    Henry David Thoreau

  • I have pure cab off permanently. If some profiles sound bad, I can't see pure cab makes a difference. Bad profiles are bad profiles and I erase them and replace with profiles that sound good on all my guitars and pickups. Problem solved.

    OP said he has Pure Cab on 3.0, hence my suggestion to shut it off and see if it helps

  • Why would low values of Pure Cabinet help in this situation? I see the opposite.

    I pictured a spectogram of a recorded guitar signal and how the pure cab seems to smooth out the visual peaks in a spectogram-like representation. So if we accept that fewer and smaller peaks in the signal equals less audible diversity (which isn't given, but I'm ready to make a case for it), and that more diversity = more complexity, on that basis alone I was ready to totally agree with the guy.


    But only because OP described their tone as "dead", "sterile", "lifeless" and that it lacks clarity :P