Cocked Wah Sound

  • Hi Guys.

    New to the Kemper (got a stage) and have been on a roller coaster of emotions recently.

    I thought I was in love, then I tried to record and it sounded terrible...my tones sound thin and have this cocked-wah kind of sound and are noisy. The sound is even more pronounced using headphones (Suhr SRH840), but generally similar to my monitors (Yamaha HS8)I've tried a whole bunch of free/paid profiles and none sound even remotely as good as I remember.

    Now I can't unheard that sound...and starting to doubt if it ever sounded good!

    Any ideas on what I could be doing wrong?

    I just went through the system/input/output settings and everything seems to check out.

    I'm on the latest firmware BTW (Rig Manager asked me if I wanted to update last night).

    Is there any way to do a complete system reset so I can rule out if it was b/c of anything I did?

  • I don't know if this is related to your issue but...


    I have a wah programmed in all of my rigs and performances, it is programmed to turn on automatically when I move the pedal. Recently I found that whenever I powered up my Stage the wah was on and I got that cocked wah sound. As soon as I moved the pedal and the released it the wah would work as expected, heel position turned it off and moving it turned it on. Also, I could manually turn the wah off by pressing the effect button. After working with support I ended up resetting the global settings and that fixed the issue.


    Like I said, I'm not sure if this is related to your issue but if you have a wah programmed you might turn it off to see what happens.


    HTH

  • If you already made recordings you could post them, so we hear what you are talking about.


    The noise makes me wonder, because the profiles usually are more quiet than the original amp / set up.


    The sound you are hearing from a Kemper is the sound of a MICED cabinet. This is different to the amp in the room tone some people expect or are used to.


    You can try the Pure Cabinet option in the output menu. Some like it (mostly on low to mid gain profiles) and think it sounds closer to an amp in the room tone.


    Please also try to turn off Pure Cabinet globally (on the output menu). Also look that it is turned off in the cab section of the used profile. Many user "hate" the effect that Pure Cabinet has to the tone and want that setting completely off.

  • Thanks both.

    Yes, I did double-check that I did not have a wah in any of the FX slots. I don't have an external pedal.

    Since I made this post I came across a number of other threads with users complaining about this cocked way kinda sound. It seems to be associated with some higher gain amps and an on-axis 57. A number of "fixes" were suggested and I will try them out when I am back home.

    I appreciate that this is the sound of a mic'ed cab, but I have miced cabs before and the tone was much cleaner and more robust.

    I have also played with the Pure Cab feature, and that does not seem to be the cause.

    On that note, can someone help me out with this:

    Are Output Settings Global?


    I will post a clip of a free profile that I'll get from RE so others can compare if needed. I think that is the best way to explain what I am hearing and to figure out how to resolve.


    In the interim, can someone please let me know how to do a factory rest on the stage so I can rule out that I did something to cause this? The instructions I have found here and on the web all appear to be for the toaster/rack and haven't worked on the stage. I contacted support over a week ago and never heard back.

  • FWIW I don't know if there is a "factory reset" but this is the procedure that fixed my issue. This is a quote from the tech support email...


    Press and hold the SYSTEM button while powering on. Hold until message appears "Initializing…". This will reset all global settings.