FX Loop Latency

  • Hi, all.


    I have two external effects pedals assigned to the FX Loop effect. Both are Eventide pedals (Timefactor & Modfactor). I run the pedals mono, through their left-mono outputs. These are digital pedals, not analog.


    I hear obvious latency when engaging either / both pedals. It sounds like a slap echo, and a bit hollow. Not bad if that's what you want, but....


    I have successfully run these two pedals through FX loops, also in mono, on analog amps with no audible latency.


    I have tried the FX Loop in Pre and Post, and placing it both before and after the Stack section in the signal flow. While I do hear some audible differences, the latency remains. I can dial it out a little by reducing the FX Loop volume a bit, but that's not a perfect solution.


    I'm thinking that this may be the inevitable result of both the external pedals and the Kemper doing their A/D to D/A conversions, serially, and that the latency adds up. I'm not exactly sure how the FX Loop is routed logically within the Kemper. In analog amps it's usually an insert between the preamp section and the power section (if I understand it correctly) but that may not be the case with the Kemper, or even really matter.


    Thoughts? Thanks!

    Too many guitars, not enough strings!

  • The FX Loop Mix value in the Profiler?

    100%.


    I think I'm getting there. I believe the issue is that having two digital pedals in series that both A/D-D/A the original signal, combined with the Kemper FX loop doing its own A/D-D/A conversion, creates enough latency to be very audible. My Eventide pedals have a global setting for KILLDRY ON/OFF which, when set to ON, produces a 100% wet signal with none of the original analog input. The problem is that if I set KILLDRY to ON in the first pedal in the series, the second pedal has no analog signal to process. And for some weird reason setting the first pedal to pass the analog signal but not the second one does not produce the desired result. But so far I can get one pedal in the loop with no latency.


    The Eventide pedals also have a setting for either DSP or RELAY (analog) bypass, and I'm trying to understand how that setting interacts with the KILLDRY setting.


    Onward!

    Too many guitars, not enough strings!