Kemper Input has been neutered

  • No other way for me to describe so let me explain.


    I bought a Kemper back in December and it's worked fine until a week ago. I have it integrated with a Helix Rack, the guitar & headphones go into the Rack, the kemper is connected via 4cm. Helix controls the Kemper via Midi. Everything was fine until one day last week I noticed all the rigs had a strange reverb to them. Almost like a doubler effect. Subtle, but there was a definite change that impacted everything. I unplugged everything from the Helix, connected directly to the Kemper and it was still there. After doing some factory restores, the problem was gone.


    Yesterday, I connected the Helix to the input of the Kemper rather than the effects loops. Changing a couple patches on the Helix caused the Kemper to crash since it was connected via Midi. Now the Kemper sounds like the input signal is being choked. I'm skipping the Helix and going straight into the Kemper and it sounds like my guitar volume is rolled back to 6 or 7, but so far as I can tell everything is full blast.


    My initial factory reset didn't fix the problem. I was going to try again today but thought I'd raise the question. Anyone have something similar happen, or thoughts on why this would happen? Anyone have midi crashes that impact the sound of your rigs?

  • Maybe helix is sending a volume CC? Is the Helix pedal all the way down (100% volume) when you connect the midi to the KPA?


    That could be it. The helix volume pedal is set to disengage at 0%, but maybe its sending a weak signal. I'm plugged into the Kemper but helix is still connected via midi, so maybe theres something to that. I'll check.

  • it must have been a rogue volume midi command. Plugging into the Kemper with the helix off, everything sounds good.


    Hopefully that's all it was and Helix isn't constantly corrupting something in the Kemper. It'd be a shame, the Helix is really easy to set up midi commands not to mention the drive pedals are a great placeholder until Kemper gets updated.

  • Something sort of similar happened once. I was trying to set up for profiling, and must of got the connections wrong, I think it started a feedback loop or overloaded the input because of how I hooked it up. Whatever it was, it was bad! Then, when I switched back to just guitar, it was like you mentioned the guitar sounded choked, little to no gain compared to before, sounded really off like not getting enough signal from the guitar. Thought I had fried the Kemper. So turned it off for about an hour, turned it back on, no problems since.

  • Something sort of similar happened once. I was trying to set up for profiling, and must of got the connections wrong, I think it started a feedback loop or overloaded the input because of how I hooked it up. Whatever it was, it was bad! Then, when I switched back to just guitar, it was like you mentioned the guitar sounded choked, little to no gain compared to before, sounded really off like not getting enough signal from the guitar. Thought I had fried the Kemper. So turned it off for about an hour, turned it back on, no problems since.


    That's exactly what mine sounded like. Love my Kemper but I have no explanation for why that would happen and even less for how it was resolved. For bow anyway, everything seems to be back to normal, but I'm hesitant to plug the Helix back in.