Reamping, gain staging and the Kemper

    Evening all


    I was wondering if you could settle a little back and forth I am having in my head.


    For the whole time I have been recording I have always reamped my guitar signal be that with amps, Line6 modelling pedals or with the Kemper.


    With the Kemper and the 18i20 I have this routing set up:


    Guitar to Kemper - Di to soundcard - soundcard to SPDIF in - SPDIF Stereo out to Soundcard.


    All works, no routing issues and I am really happy. What I have noticed is when plugged directly into the Kemper, and not reamping but still monitoring via my soundcard, I get a lot more saturation and balls from my sounds, very inspirational. Then when I switch the input to SPDIF Reamp the gain drops off, not significantly, but enough to notice the drop in saturation.


    I combat this by turning the reamp volume in the input section to +12db and the distortion to +12db. This evens the sounds out and it sound perfect.


    My question is for those who reamp, would you create this +12db increase within the Kemper or would you create this using the gain on the soundcard? Is there any benefit to keeping this increase in the Kemper? I am just intrigued how others address this situation.


    I am considering replacing the 18i20 as it was a bad purchase, I sold my Ur824 so I could have SPDIF for the Kemper and really with I hadn't.


    Thank you


    Mike:thumbup:

    Hi Mike, I totally get your point and would assume that something goes wrong on your way to the re-amping.


    I do a lot of re-amping all the time and I take care that the signal of the re-amped "input signal" is comparable to the original one when the guitar comes into the Kemper. And it works out fine here without any tweaks on the Kempers input sections or sensitivies. I usually only struggle when I'm not careful with the routing in my DAW or any other plugins in the DAW come into the way of the re-amping signal. Have a look at that please.


    Any track or any bus the signal comes through could impact the signal and create your situation. Make sure the dry signal is carefully recorded without level changes and played back for re-amping with all faders set to zero (or however your DAW is handling it that there is no level change) on the way back.


    In my early Kemper days I did some comparisons of tracks directly recorded with guitar into Kemper and then re-amped with the exact same profile/rig. And they really, really sound alike... that works well :thumbup:8)

    Hi bud


    All channels are set to 0 and no bus or plugins added, completely clean channels with zero alteration in Cubase 10.5. It almost feels like the Kemper sends the correct level out but does not recieve the same level back so needs some attenuation.


    I wonder if it's the 18i20 as with the inputs on +12db it leads me to think thr Kemper is making up for the lack of volume in the return signal.


    Mike

    Couldl be. I am using a rather old but very reliable AVID/ M-Audio Fast Track C400. So it does not need a super modern interface. I have no experience with the Focusrite stuff so I can't comment on yours.


    You probably checked the software interfaces / mixes / drivers etc. of the Focusrite to be on the safe side...

    I had the same problems and checked everything with levels and settings in logic pro x and with the 18i20 settings, i change the spdif cables from shitty amazon ones to more expensive ones and it worked