Funny "distortion" or clipping in Kemper Rack ...

  • Turned the volume pedal off in the Rig settings, to no effect. Have an FCB1010, but I don´t use it here at home; it´s connected but turned off.

    Meanwhile every rig is unusable, sounds really bad. Every distorted profile is very nasal, overly and digitally distorted.

    Like some kind of input or output filter is running away.

    Calling customer service tomorrow.

    Must be a different problem than the one I had. That fixed mine. The only other things I can think of are to check that nothing is locked, check the input setting, make sure the cabs are on for your output method. If that doesn't work, you can try a soft reset. If that doesn't work, you can take a backup, do a full reset, and reload the backup.


    Kemper support will most likely ask for a backup, so they can load it and test it out. They are very fast at getting back to you. I'd get them involved at this point. They've always gotten me on the right track.

  • Mine was making similar terrible sounds with profiles that I knew I liked previously. I tried updating the OS. Going back to older OS and all of that. None of it helped long term. It made the Kemper unusable. But was very frustrating because sometimes it sounded fantastic.


    Here’s what fixed mine. Every time after I boot up and I’m ready to play I need to press And hold on the reverb button. Then just turn the selection knob like I am going to change Reverb’s. Then it will show that some other random effect is in the chain with my reverb. One day it will be a distortion pedal. Another time it will be something else.


    All you have to do to fix it is turn the category knob to select any effect other than reverb. Then turn it back to reverb. Now it all jumps to what it should be and takes the odd effect out of the reverb chain. Save that as your reverb selection and everything sound great again.


    I just have to do that each time I boot the Kemper up and it sounds great from then on. I assume this is the same problem a lot of us are having.

  • I talked to Peter from support this morning. I initialized the device, made no difference.

    Already talked about sending the thing in as a worst case scenario.

    I uploaded some WAVs of the problem, which is on every profile. High gain is ridiculously nasty, but it´s easier to hear and identify on the cleaner sounds.

    Sounds like clipping, but its only a SD Custom and I am seeing orange at best.

    These recordings are from a wiped Profiler and TopJimi Amps from the TJ Rigpack.


    https://www.dropbox.com/sh/5w3…UITrd5mDCu07dFqzssCa?dl=0

  • Guys,

    my Kemper is not defective. It was... a cable. I´m embarassed. When I checked that part of the equation with spare cables, I was on a sound which turns out always sounds bad. Wiped the profiler before, left my sounds on the computer. Thought that sound would really show the problem.

    The bad cable was touch sensitive, and did not show the problem when I hooked it up to another head.

    Kemper support was really helpful and had a calm systematic approach, which I was lacking.

    Keep your calm when doing studio housekeeping chores.

  • Guys,

    my Kemper is not defective. It was... a cable. I´m embarassed. When I checked that part of the equation with spare cables, I was on a sound which turns out always sounds bad. Wiped the profiler before, left my sounds on the computer. Thought that sound would really show the problem.

    The bad cable was touch sensitive, and did not show the problem when I hooked it up to another head.

    Kemper support was really helpful and had a calm systematic approach, which I was lacking.

    Keep your calm when doing studio housekeeping chores.

    Haha. Glad you got it resolved. That's the same way I resolved my most recent issue (with the help of Kemper support). That's also why I take at least two of everything to a practice or a gig, or at least something that can be used as a substitute. I don't have two Kempers, though, unfortunately.

  • I’m having a similar issue. I’m sure it wasn’t there before the latest update. I did have to flip my lead around as the right angled jack wouldn’t fit in my telecaster. It’s definitely interesting, I guess I’ll start with the lead and work backwards.

  • so, oddly, the latest OS update seems to have mostly fixed my issue. I had tried everything else I could think of, including the good thoughts from this forum. Go figure ... software.

  • I’m not sure if it’s the same issue, but I have issues that sound similar. With certain clean profiles it sounds like it’s somewhat clipping, as if there’s some acoustic simulator running in the background or something. I had this issue a year ago as well, it seemed to be the cable back then, but now I’m sure it’s not that.