Volume pedal increasing gain without being plugged in (resolved)

  • Wheresthedug had a genius idea, in another thread, that appears to be relevant to my issue.


    I just did another test. I loaded the profiles mentioned before and disabled Stomps, Stack, and Effects. Plexi Drive is getting to -5 dB in my DAW.

    68 Mars 50 1 8R is getting to -13.5. Huge difference. Rig volume is 12 o'clock on both.

  • Both of these profiles have the gain at slight over noon. One was saved from a performance and one was saved from Browser. I have the stomps section completely disabled. Clean sense and distortion sense are 0 on 68 mars. They are -0.7 and -0.5 on plexi drive.


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  • I went to an untouched performance on my Profiler. It defaults to the Crunch profile. This is what is sounds like.


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    That seems to be WAY higher gain than what I remembered. Can anyone else please confirm?

  • 68 Mars 50 1 8R loaded in Browser mode


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  • 68 Mars 50 1 8R loaded in Perfomance mode


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  • and it gets stranger!




    I did some more tests...


    68 Mars 50 1 1 through 68 Mars 50 1 6 all sounded perfectly fine.


    I was going through the presets from lowest gain to highest gain. Going up to 68 Mars 50 1 7 had a HUGE jump in gain.





    I noticed that 1 - 6 all had a compressor on. I tried putting a compressor on 68 Mars 50 1 7. The gain massively dropped. I tried setting all of the settings to zero, and the gain was still fine. The sound wasn't changed other than dropping the gain. No other stomps seemed to fix this. I also disabled the compressor and put an eq with only a volume of -2.8 changed. This had the exact same effect as adding a compressor with no settings. Disabling the entire stomps block, with the compressor enabled massively boosts the signal.



    68 Mars 50 1 8R loaded in Perfomance mode with compressor all zeros

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  • Also, found another oddity. If I go to Rigs -> Volume Pedal Settings, it seems like moving the range is affecting the gain if the location is Input and the volume if the location is Output. I do not have a volume pedal currently plugged in. I had the range at +5, so I could use the volume pedal as a boost. However, I don't even have a volume pedal plugged in, now. Also, if I have the Rig -> Volume Pedal Settings at -5. then enabling the compressor with no settings on it has a less dramatic effect. I don't see why they'd be linked, or why modifying this with no volume pedal plugged in would matter.

  • Behaves fine with the volume pedal plugged in. I wouldn't think that the pedal range should affect the Kemper at all, when a volume pedal isn't plugged in. Odd to have it significantly boost the signal, as if I was using the pedal as a boost pedal, when it isn't even plugged in. Still not sure why a compressor with everything at 0 changes that behavior so significantly.

  • the two big differences I noticed in the last Browser and Performance clips was the Browser had reverb and/or delay applied where Performance didn’t. and, the noise gate appeared to be set higher on Browser than Performance.


    For volume pedal, the reason for before and after stack positions is exactly as you described. Before adds/subtracts gain more than volume and this is more apparent the higher the gain of the amp in the stack section. After has no effect on gain but does have a significant effect on volume. This is exactly what you would expect with a regular valve amp. The issue about pedal settings affecting the results even when no pedal is attached doesn’t surprise me either. I haven’t checked my own set up as I have a volume pedal permanently plugged in an it is almost permanently set to full toe down. However, I think the KPA defaults to maximum value when rebooting so if you have a +5 setting and no pedal plugged in you will get +5. As I said I haven’t checked this but I do know that if I move my VP to heel (off) then power down the KPA, I always get full volume when I reboot even with theVP still in heel position. It has always done this from day one through all OS updates.

  • the two big differences I noticed in the last Browser and Performance clips was the Browser had reverb and/or delay applied where Performance didn’t. and, the noise gate appeared to be set higher on Browser than Performance.


    For volume pedal, the reason for before and after stack positions is exactly as you described. Before adds/subtracts gain more than volume and this is more apparent the higher the gain of the amp in the stack section. After has no effect on gain but does have a significant effect on volume. This is exactly what you would expect with a regular valve amp. The issue about pedal settings affecting the results even when no pedal is attached doesn’t surprise me either. I haven’t checked my own set up as I have a volume pedal permanently plugged in an it is almost permanently set to full toe down. However, I think the KPA defaults to maximum value when rebooting so if you have a +5 setting and no pedal plugged in you will get +5. As I said I haven’t checked this but I do know that if I move my VP to heel (off) then power down the KPA, I always get full volume when I reboot even with theVP still in heel position. It has always done this from day one through all OS updates.

    I just started using a volume pedal pretty recently, but mainly only use it for band practice and gigging. When I have the Kemper at home, it's generally in my computer room/studio with no volume pedal plugged in. That is most likely the cause of the issue. It is still weird that a compressor with all zeros would drastically drop the gain though. Still haven't fully figured it out, but I feel a lot better now.

  • have you definitely checked both pages of the compressor functions? There is a volume on page 2 which could be reduced even if there is no actual compression being added.

    I set that to zero, as well, Oddly, the compressor even has an effect on this issue if you set the mix to zero, as well. It isn't as pronounced of an effect, but it's there. Also, if you set the volume higher on the compressor, it still drops the gain rather than raising it. I'm not sure why the compressor would be tied to the gain so strongly when the settings are zero. I do appreciate all of your help and suggestions.

  • If anyone else wants to test it, here's what I did:


    1) Go to Rigs -> Volume Pedal Settings and set location to input and to +5.0, with no volume pedal plugged in.
    2) Select Lock Vol. Pedal.

    3) Sort the attached profiles by gain ascending.
    4) Play each profile until you hear a large gain jump.
    5) Notice that the compressor is disabled on the profile where this happens.
    6) Enable the compressor and notice the gain drops a large amount.
    7) Set Intensity, Attack, Squash, and Volume to zero. Notice that the gain is still affected. If you set the volume higher, it still drops the gain, which is odd. If you set the mix to zero, as well, I believe it is still affecting the gain, but not to as high a degree.
    8)Set Rigs -> Volume Pedal Settings and set location to input and to +-5.0, with no volume pedal plugged in.

    Repeat the above tests. Now, the compressor still has the effect of dropping the gain, but it is very subtle compared to when the volume pedal at +5.0 with nothing plugged in.


    I'm not sure why volume pedal settings affect the tone when no volume pedal is plugged in. I'm also not sure why a compressor would so drastically affect the gain when the settings were at zero. I'm curious to see if anyone else can reproduce that behavior. Thanks for all the help.

  • According to Kemper support, this is all intended behavior. I will just need to remember to set the volume pedal location to off, when the pedal is not plugged in. Glad to know this there something wrong with my Kemper. Thanks for the help, everyone on the board and Kemper support!