Question about profiling amp with OD pedal in front

  • Hi!

    I am striving in a K.I.S.S. setup and still use a noisegate (Fortin Zuul mini), tuner (Polytune mini 2) and my own custom OD pedal that I created.
    It gives me the perfect setup in regards of tone and noise cancelling/gating.

    Question #1:


    I know the Kemper KPA has a pretty good tuner in place but am not sure if the noisegate(s) are as good as the Fortin Zuul gate?
    I play mainly death metal and use high gain heads that I profiled with my Kemper DI box (VHT Sig X, Framus Cobra, Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier).

    Question #2:


    I use the amp's profile and use my OD pedal in front of the kemper but I would like to profile the amp with the OD pedal in front of it so I don't have to boost it anymore.
    Is this possible? And if so, where do I put the pedal in the chain? I use a guitar cable from the Kemper Out to the input jack of the amp, should I put the OD pedal in front of the amp (the Kemper sends the guitar signal towards the input of the amp in the DI profile setup if I'm not mistaken) ?

    I like my OD pedal better then the green screamer OD kind of pedals in the Kemper hence I want to profile it together with the amp if possible (if I get a reliable profile).

    I was looking for a picture of a video that shows how to do this but could not find it.

    Thanks for any tips and pointers!

    Michiel

  • In my experience, there's cases where a pedal in front profiles similarly to a non-OD set up; and there's others where it doesn't. It's difficult to predict what happens.


    Typically so-called "multiple distortion stages" can cause problems. But it's not a given. I've had cases where there's significant distortion across multiple stages and the results were comparable to profiling the set up with a single distorting stage, whether from pedal or preamp.


    I've also seen people profile set ups with OD pedals in the chain, get less accurate results than otherwise, and call it "close enough". The results would certainly not have been acceptable to me. I'd instead use the pedal in front of Kemper + non-OD profile, in some such cases.


    In other words: there a "personal" element that comes into play. Considering this, if I were you, I'd experiment profiling this set up.


    If I felt the results are as accurate as profiling without the OD, I'd use the OD profiles. If I felt there was a sacrifice in accuracy, I'd pin the 2 profiles (screamer + profile of amp vs profile of OD plus amp) against each other to evaluate which approach is best.


    The reason for this is simply that it's possible to have a less accurate profile but nonetheless prefer it to the screamer plus profile solution (and that's happened to me in some instances as well). One way to found out what works best for you :)

    The bonanza

    Edited 2 times, last by Dimi84 ().

  • Thanks all for the input!
    i've tested it with my VHT Sig X and OD pedal in front of the amp but I got multiple times the message that I used to much gain/distortion so I had to cut back a lot of gain and drive from the OD pedal.
    The end result is pretty OK but not sure if I like just the amp profile with my physical OD pedal in front more then the amp + OD pedal profiled.

    As Dimi84 mentioned, I also think that every amp profiles different. I have some amps that really sound close to the original in the way how I like it (PRS MT 15 + Framus Cobra), but some sound very digital and really off (ENGL Ritchie Blackmore 100 for example)

  • Hey man!

    I know a lot of people like to profile with OD in the chain.
    Personally, I always find that the result is far from accurate, especially with a tubescreamer type of OD in front of the amp.

    I would recommend setting up your amp the way you would when using the pedal, profiling that, and continue to use your pedal in front of the profile amp or even puting a virtual OD from Kemper, even though many don't like them, in the Stomps section.

    Both of those ways gave me results that are way closer than profiling with the OD in front of amp.
    Hopefully that helps!


    -Max

  • I've not used the Fortin, but I've had an ISP decimator and MXR Smart gate. The general noise gate is ok but the Stomp noise gate ( 2:1 or 4:1) I find are excellent and should mean you don't need the tuner or noise gate.