[Public Beta] PROFILER OS 8.0.0.21450

ckemper explained Clean Sens in another thread a while back where he exained that the signal is optimised to minimise the noise floor and maximise dynamic range. I can't remember the details (and I am sure CK can describe itmuch better than I ever could anyway) but basically there is gain make up and limiting going on which applies independently to clean and distorted sounds. This is why clean sens is such a difficult concept to grasp.

I alwas run my clean sens around -6 or -7 and it performs le an amp. Turning it up to 0 gived the problems that Martin is describing where adding distribution reduces volume.

Thanks very much Kemper team for all of the work on the drives!!! Maybe it's best to quit worrying about labelled presets, and treat the Kemper drive as though it was an actual pedal, that you have to dial in, after reading the manual, to get the sound your ears are after. Discover your sound with your ears, and then save the settings. Pretty simple when you have such a large pallet of controls, shaping your sound. Personally, I could care less about the names and emulation accuracy, if it sounds good, I'm happy.

Quote from lightbox

I tried to understand and actually confirm what you wrote here. But that's exactly the stuff I don't get my head around yet because ...

1. If I setup an (actual) amp for a nice crunchy sound with my Burstbucker loaded Gibson Les Paul and then I switch to a (naturally lower output) Fender Strat, the sound will be much cleaner. That's natural and I want to retain this (natural) effect. Different guitars react differently with a given amp setting.
2. My Profilers have always been set to 0.0 in Clean Sens, Dist Sens and Reamp Sens ... since day one. Now when I profile the above amp, I get exactly that sound and also the different behaviour with different guitars. Great! When I turn down Clean Sens (or Reamp Sens), the entire sound cleans up and the crunch disappears. No way! I don't want that!
3. Now I want to boost this crunchy amp profile into a singing lead sound (with my Les Paul). I add a Kemper Drive e.g. in slot A, give it a touch of dirt ( e.g. Drive: 2.6) and start boosting the amp with the Volume parameter. The overall distortion slowly increases while turning up the Volume parameter and so does the overall perceived loudness. But at some point, the perceived loudness (and signal levels) starts to drop if I increase the Volume further. It's like "a compressor without make-up gain". And this does NOT happen with the real amp, at least not at the crunch setting it's set to and then a similar overdrive boost in front. It feels like "power is sagging e.g. by a weak transformer". And this can't be right but certainly has a reason I'm not aware of. Solution? Unknown.

Clean Sense adjustment does not affect how distorted a profile is, it only is used to balance the clean and distorted sound levels ( so you do not have huge volume jumps between clean and distorted sounds). The Distortion sense is the one that will give you more/less distortion in a profile. So if an amp is not breaking up as quick as you want, turn up distortion sense and visa versa.

As to CK ‘s suggestion, if you turn down clean sense (which can be saved per profile if you don’t lock the input) just a bit there will be a larger difference between your clean sound and boosted sound with the KD active, since it adds distortion and that is the balance between clean sense and distortion part of the equation. As per your adjustment.

So for example... your clean sense now is 0. If you make it -5 now any distorted sound will be perceived louder against a cleaner sound. So when you engage the KD it will give that added boost as it looks at the difference between clean and distorted value you have set with clean sense.

Quote from lightbox

Thanks for your answer ... and in theory it should be like you describe. But here's the point, one more time.

Forget about the Kemper Drive for a moment, ok?

I have a profile loaded that is just at the edge of breakup. When I strum hard, it gets a bit of grit. Great!

Now when I turn down the volume knob of my guitar e.g. to 5, the same (unchanged) rig is perfectly clean. Great!

The balance of loudness between the 2 situations described above is exactly right, exactly like on my real amp!

When I follow the official (and your) guidance and lower the Clean Sens, then the clean sound with rolled down guitar volume is too low. My real amp doesn't behave like that. And that's why I don't want to (and won't) start messing with Clean Sens.

Even though I'm still unsure about the actual (internal) cause for this issue ... I know that Clean Sens doesn't solve it for me, sorry.

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If you go to the amp controls, there is a compressor there. If you turn this up you’ll be able to roll back your guitars volume to clean up the sound without losing as much volume as you normally would. Try lowering the clean sens and see if upping this compressor setting in the amp block makes everything work together the way you’d like

Quote from Grooguit

If you go to the amp controls, there is a compressor there. If you turn this up you’ll be able to roll back your guitars volume to clean up the sound without losing as much volume as you normally would. Try lowering the clean sens and see if upping this compressor setting in the amp block makes everything work together the way you’d like

I love little tidbits like this. I haven't messed with amp compression much, but I know exactly where I'd want to use this.

Quote from lightbox

I tried to understand and actually confirm what you wrote here. But that's exactly the stuff I don't get my head around yet because ...

1. If I setup an (actual) amp for a nice crunchy sound with my Burstbucker loaded Gibson Les Paul and then I switch to a (naturally lower output) Fender Strat, the sound will be much cleaner. That's natural and I want to retain this (natural) effect. Different guitars react differently with a given amp setting.
2. My Profilers have always been set to 0.0 in Clean Sens, Dist Sens and Reamp Sens ... since day one. Now when I profile the above amp, I get exactly that sound and also the different behaviour with different guitars. Great! When I turn down Clean Sens (or Reamp Sens), the entire sound cleans up and the crunch disappears. No way! I don't want that!
3. Now I want to boost this crunchy amp profile into a singing lead sound (with my Les Paul). I add a Kemper Drive e.g. in slot A, give it a touch of dirt ( e.g. Drive: 2.6) and start boosting the amp with the Volume parameter. The overall distortion slowly increases while turning up the Volume parameter and so does the overall perceived loudness. But at some point, the perceived loudness (and signal levels) starts to drop if I increase the Volume further. It's like "a compressor without make-up gain". And this does NOT happen with the real amp, at least not at the crunch setting it's set to and then a similar overdrive boost in front. It feels like "power is sagging e.g. by a weak transformer". And this can't be right but certainly has a reason I'm not aware of. Solution? Unknown.

> 2.

When you lower Clean Sens, then only the output volume of the amp is increased (!), to compensate for volume loss.

Also, for any effect before the amp, the Volume range gets gradually reduced from +-24 dB to +- 6 dB, for security reasons, because the AMP is too clean at Gain zero.

If you want to push an amp, then set a clean gain level with the Gain control above 2.0. Then everything should work as expected.

> 3.

Don' t know what happens there. This is not normal. Can you send me settings and a rig recommendation, so I can reproduce it?

Quote from dickjonesify

Thanks for the reply, CK

I’ve got it down a little. I’ll try and push it further
Consider though, that the volume compensation may be too drastic. I know many people who moved on to Fractal or similar only because of this one issue. They all say the same thing. The Kemper doesn’t have enough “headroom” for pedals.

I don't remember anyone approaching us with this issue.

They could have rised the AMP gain a bit, above 2.0, by instinct.

Try it out!

The distortions do a boost of 24 dB. That's a lot!

So how does this effect things like placing an Echoplex type delay in front of a driven Marshall profile sound. I could never get the interaction via the volume control on the guitar to be the same as using an analog delay in front of an actual amp and cleaning up the sound on the guitar.

Quote from Vinny Burns

So how does this effect things like placing an Echoplex type delay in front of a driven Marshall profile sound. I could never get the interaction via the volume control on the guitar to be the same as using an analog delay in front of an actual amp and cleaning up the sound on the guitar.

It would not affect it at all.

Try to profile your amp and check again.

Do you have the impression that the Echoplex changes the sound of the guitar?

How is it without Echoplex?

Quote from ckemper

It would not affect it at all.

Try to profile your amp and check again.

Do you have the impression that the Echoplex changes the sound of the guitar?

How is it without Echoplex?

It was a profile I already had of just my Marshall and I put the Kemper tape delay in one of the slots. I couldn’t get the delays to behave the way an analog delay did when I used one before a Marshall. I don’t have an echoplex here so can’t test it with the actual amp.
It wasn’t a tone change from the echoplex, it was the way the delays behaved at different volume settings on the guitar.
I need to go through and find the profile I did. I could get it sounding how I remembered and wanted it with the guitar volume down but then it wasn’t right with guitar volume on full. When set right for guitar on full, I couldn’t get it to sound the way I always remembered it when the volume was down. This is using it in a stomp slot before the amp section.

It was just a certain thing I was after. Normally, I would always just use a stereo digital delay post amp.
Cheers for the reply.

the 'delay before amp' thing works rather well IMO, without knowing what exactly you were after.

the 'point' usually is to have the compression of the amp change the way the repeats change in volume over time.
useful if you only want to have a few repeats (lower feedback setting) but these delays should be nice and present (like EVH did)

To me this works as expected, but you can alter the response of the repeats further with the already mentioned Compression parameter in the AMPLIFIER section.

hth

Quote from DonPetersen

the 'delay before amp' thing works rather well IMO, without knowing what exactly you were after.

the 'point' usually is to have the compression of the amp change the way the repeats change in volume over time.
useful if you only want to have a few repeats (lower feedback setting) but these delays should be nice and present (like EVH did)

To me this works as expected, but you can alter the response of the repeats further with the already mentioned Compression parameter in the AMPLIFIER section.

Yes, it was an EVH style thing that I wanted and when having the sound nailed with the guitar volume on full, it was nothing like it when turning the guitar vol down. My clean sense is on -5. Was wondering if that what was causing it. Cheers for the pointer on the amp compression.

Thanks. ?

Very-well explained and demonstrated IMHO, Martin.

Nicely demoed... The output doesn't seem to make any sense