How to deal with HIGH GAIN rigs?

    Hello guys,
    I'm a new member of the Kemper family. I just bought a PowerHead and I want to discuss with you about this:


    Those are the high gain presets that I added to my favourites (so we can talk about something concrete):
    -5150 Blockletter Mesa by Deadlight Studio

    -GB Oranje RV 50 808

    -Plexi SL Max 3 by ToneJunkie


    When I plug in my Fender Telecaster Journeyman '63 with single-coil pickups (E standard tuning. Yep, not the most reliable guitar for high gain things and the guitar i'm not using live for it) it turns into a machine gun with an incredible sound, full of harmonics and nuances. Really something that I can use to play every kind of heavy metal. My first reaction when I started playing with this guitar and those presets was something like -> 8|8|8|


    When I plug in my Gibson Les Paul (with passive humbuckers and Drop C# tuning. The guitar that I'm going to play live) instead the tone becomes too muddy, too much saturation, low notes becomes weak. It feels that the output of the guitar is too high (btw the input led never turns to red, just yellow sometimes).

    I tried to turn down the input distorted level by 5-6 dB and it goes better but this way I feel like i'm loosing something in the sound.

    Like when you turn down the volume knob on the guitar too much.

    Are there other settings that can help me to deal with this?

    And so I started questioning myself: What if I plug a modern guitar with active pickups? Would my Kemper sound like a crappy free vst plugin found online? ?(

    Have you got the same kind of "issue"? How do you guys deal with guitars with high output and high gain rigs?

    I'd like to start a proactive conversation about this, share your opinions! I apologize for any language errors but my english is not very good, I tried to do my best :)

    Download links of your favourites rigs are really welcome!

    Welcome to the forum, Matthew.


    Have you tried using the Clarity control to dial things in when you use your LP?


    From the manual:


    Clarity

    “Clarity” changes the sound of the distortion in a new and unique way. Turning the “Clarity” soft knob to the right will bring the clean character of the sound into focus without lowering the amount of distortion. The distortion itself will become less forward in the mid frequencies and sound far more transparent.


    Hope that helps!

    Shred 'til yer dead,

    Jeff in Houston

    Like 3

    I will try it as soon as possible, thank you very much Jeff!

    I'm a fairly new user but I have found in many cases that the profiles I use with my Strat do not work with my Les Paul or even my mahogany bodied strat, even though they are all passive pickups. So Ii use different profiles with different guitars.

    “I used to jog but the ice cubes kept falling out of my glass.”

    Dave Lee Roth of Van Halen - 1979

    Hi, welcome and have fun here in the forum and with your Kemper :thumbup:8)


    At least the third profile you mention is an extremely thick one. Very saturated so I am not surprised about your observation. There are others which definitely come with more clarity and transparency for mid and high gain pickups. And I remember that there are Max 2 and Max 1 versions of that profile which are less saturated.


    What I often do is simply dial back the gain by 2-3 digits on the knob. Then as SliderJeff already said try to experiment with Definition and Clarity controls. The differences are far away from being subtle.

    P.S.: mdan's Driftwood Merged profile is a good one for high gain on the RigExchange. As it is merged you can easily put other cabs to it which can change the character extremely.

    I recommend increasing Definition also, and you might want to look into lowering and possibly angling your humbuckers.

    make the bass side a little lower than the treble side, use the measurements you find online as starting points and use your ears for fine-tuning.

    setting up pickups correctly is one of the best, easiest, cheapest and most-often overlooked ways to improve your guitar's tone right at the source.


    hth

    Hi folks!

    Little update:

    I'm getting used to the main functions of our beloved Kemper and i found that the root cause of my problem was the pickup height on my LP (as suggested by DonPetersen, thank you Don!). Probably the KP has a more sensitive input than the other gear that I usually use and this was causing me the excessive saturation of the sound.
    Definition and Clarity parameters on the amp section helped me too to get a sound closer to a "real" one.

    Perfection is still far away but I'm working on it. Thank you guys for the support!