Is my Stage broken since I bought it? I’m desperate

  • I was explaining my issue to someone as the profiled amp has a curve where the gain and frequency response changes and my unit sounds like it never gets to the upper 1/3 of that curve. But when I watch videos or listen to mp3s of Kempers, they all get in that curve.


    If I tweak my CLEAN SENS up to about 6 the amps start to come to life more. I think this has been my main issue since day one. Watching videos of people saying "you can tweak it for different guitars but I always keep it at 0". And why would you adjust the CLEAN SENS on a distorted profile :wacko:


    Well 0 sounds terrible on my unit. All of the amps sound like modellers, not the real thing. So either mine is messed up (which I still believe it is) or everyone runs CLEAN much hotter than 0? I wonder if this is one of those things where people come on here saying they have no sustain? Adjust the CLEAN SENS?


    In order to troubleshoot things, I have moved my Kemper from its normal spot so I am not 100% this has fixed my issues. I will test and post here soon...


    Sorry for hijacking the thread. :thumbdown:

  • i see no hijacking here ;-). The forum is about helping each others.


    For the clean sense part. I use it to find a kind of balance since I’m using an HSS strat.

    If I feel it’s lacking or the signal on the neck pickup is dying too fast I raise it and just check that I don’t clip when I’m with the bridge humbuckers. Just trying to find a good in between solution.

  • I did some more testing today and on the M.Britt 68 Marshall the clean sense does not make any difference to the tone on my unit. It seemed to make a big difference on a high gain rectifier profile I was playing. Maybe I am just that bad at guitar. But mine sounds like it is very compressed so all of my playing sounds dead and weak. It is not inspiring at all.


    A weird side effect of the overly compressed sound is after playing for like 15 minutes everything just sounds terrible to me. I am constantly playing harder and harder trying to get some dynamics out of my playing and get some life out of the sound. It just does not happen.


    If I play a single note very softly or I tear into it as hard as I can, the notes volume does not change. The harmonics come up in volume a little so you get a feeling that it is louder. The volume may change 3dB max. On a real amp in the room the volume would probably change 20 dB or more. And the tone would change drastically.

  • I did some more testing today and on the M.Britt 68 Marshall the clean sense does not make any difference to the tone on my unit. It seemed to make a big difference on a high gain rectifier profile I was playing. Maybe I am just that bad at guitar. But mine sounds like it is very compressed so all of my playing sounds dead and weak. It is not inspiring at all.


    A weird side effect of the overly compressed sound is after playing for like 15 minutes everything just sounds terrible to me. I am constantly playing harder and harder trying to get some dynamics out of my playing and get some life out of the sound. It just does not happen.


    If I play a single note very softly or I tear into it as hard as I can, the notes volume does not change. The harmonics come up in volume a little so you get a feeling that it is louder. The volume may change 3dB max. On a real amp in the room the volume would probably change 20 dB or more. And the tone would change drastically.

    I know you really favour a compressor in front of high gain amps and compression in the amp section. The first thing I would do is get rid of both of them. A high gain sound is already uber compressed so adding more is only going to rob what dynamics are left. If you are playing with any level of gain a real amp isn’t going to have anywhere near 20db dynamic range so 3db is probably in the ballpark.


    I would also reduce Clean Sense rather than increase it. It shouldn’t have any effect on tone or affect distorted sounds but CK has said several times that clean sense contains a limiter so it would seem logical that pushing that to far would also reduce dynamic range.

  • Playing single coil strats i’ve always had both the clean and dist sense at 6

    And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

  • I have tried all of the possibilities. Clean Sens, Dist Sens, turned off all comps, sag, clarity, etc. It does not matter what I do the sound is compressed and dead.


    I made a similar Marshall tone with a J-45, screamer, and a tube drive on my PodHD. It sounds rich and dynamic. 100 times better. It has a ton more dynamics than my Kemper. It sounds like a real amps dynamics. The Kemper sounds so weak and choked. When you dig in instead of getting more harmonics and louder it just gets mellow and muddy. Loses all pick dynamics.


    I clearly got a bad one. Something is wrong with it. It is going back to where I bought it to get a Helix or maybe exchange it if they have another Kemper on site (they normally do not).


    I did the factory reset in the menu and its all packed up and ready to go. This is why I never spent more than $500 on a modeller before buying the Kemper. I went out on a limb and it snapped off :D


    Thanks for trying to help me out guys. I love the Kemper ecosystem and community. <3

  • you should record something and post it here. Your problem seems strange. Without listening it’s hard to tell

  • Playing single coil strats i’ve always had both the clean and dist sense at 6

    That's interesting! I always have clean and dist sense at 0 for humbuckers. For single coils, clean sense 0 and dist sense at 3 to match. What kind of music do you mainly play? I play country, blues, jazz, 60s/70s rock, no metal. It seems there are a wide variety of KPA settings that are in use. I love the tone of all the profiles that I use, but I had to sort through a lot to find them. I find Kemper's description of the sense inputs lacking in detail. A block diagram along with a description would be instructive for me. I've read the manual and watched the input settings video quite a few times. I am able to get settings I that I like, but the description would further my understanding.

  • That's interesting! I always have clean and dist sense at 0 for humbuckers. For single coils, clean sense 0 and dist sense at 3 to match. What kind of music do you mainly play? I play country, blues, jazz, 60s/70s rock, no metal. It seems there are a wide variety of KPA settings that are in use. I love the tone of all the profiles that I use, but I had to sort through a lot to find them. I find Kemper's description of the sense inputs lacking in detail. A block diagram along with a description would be instructive for me. I've read the manual and watched the input settings video quite a few times. I am able to get settings I that I like, but the description would further my understanding.

    Mostly cover gigs with a sort of John Mayer-ish/Steve Lukather-ish approach to playing the parts. All depending. But i play wireless, which has a certain “feel” to it, because of the companding going on. So i might just have set the senses to match my Sennheiser ew200 system. Never once had a regular cable into the kemper.

    And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

  • It seems we probably use sounds that are in similar gain ranges. Coincidentally, I brushed the cobwebs off my very old ew100G2 for my last gig. I made no changes. It worked and sounded great. I'll have to experiment with the input senses a bit more to see if there is anything better for me. Thanks for the info.

  • Some feedback about my problem.


    I played exclusively Bert profiles that sound really great I love them but they seem to really thin out and if i high cut about 7k there’s not much left in the « life » of the profile.


    I’ve got my first show of the summer tour this week I’m gonna make my tones from the Britt 69 (even if they are not as « rewarding » at home than Bret) those with the CL80 cab.


    Seems that they have a lot of mid body, not too much low end and the high end is more acceptable to my ears if I cut at 7k. I’m sure they are great at high volumes.


    Hope it will work.


    Anybody playing live straight foh with the 69 Britt pack?

  • I'm not playing straight FOH generally.

    I have played the Bert profiles. They are thin to me all the time - medium or high volume. I like the Britt 69 profiles for the most part. I find that they are a bit fizzy, but full bodied. My main complaint is that the Britt doesn't clean up well with the guitar volume knob. Gets a bit muddy for me in that situation. I recently started using the TJ 45/100. I have to tame the treble and presence by a dB or so, but less than the Bert and Britt profiles. The 45/100 cleans up nicely from the guitar. I really like this a lot as I am working the volumes from the guitar frequently. YMMV, good luck.

  • Well, I was not able to return my Kemper (which may be a good thing). Kemper support feels my unit is working normally. Since I do not feel the unit sounds correct I do not want to unload it onto some poor bastard on the used market.


    So I set out to get the original tone I was looking for when I bought the unit. To make sure I have tried everything. So I purchased M.Britts Profile 1 pack to get the 3P Plexi + Tim 6 2 profile used in Paul Davids Top 5 Kemper Profiles YouTube example. This sound is the main reason I bought the Kemper. What is another $40 when I have an $2000 brick sitting in front of me.


    Of course my unit does not sound anything like PDs video. Not even close.


    So I went to MBritts SoundCloud example of this amplifier. His MP3 sounds very close to my Stage. His is a touch clearer but they are very similar. This confirmed what Kemper support claimed, my unit is not broken.


    But MBritts example sounds nothing like PDs video. It is a little muddy and the bass is flubby. Very unlike PDs video, but very much like all of my Kemper profiles. So does MB have a dead Kemper that sounds like mine does???


    My unit has 2 issues: No singing overtones and distant compressed flubby sound. Playing low notes it just disappears into flubby nothingness.


    So I set out twisting and turning every knob on the Kemper. The knob that made it start to sound decent was actually the AMP COMPRESSOR. If I jack this up to around 5-6 the sounds gets a little more in your face with some overtones.


    This got me about 40% there to match PDs sound. Looking at his WAVE file display in Goldwave, I see that his loud parts were much more compressed than mine. But his sounds WAY more present and lively, how can it be MORE compressed than mine????


    So I added a stomp compressor AFTER the amp section set to the SOFT default. KA-Freakin-BOOM! It was as if someone turned on a light and I could see for the first time.


    So now I am about 75-80% there to where I want to be. I still dont have the overtones I hear everyone else get. And the answer to a dead sounding over compressed sound was to add two more compressors. Who would have guessed. So I am finally at a sound I am happy with. still not 100% but closer.


    I also tweaked a few other things like the Amp def, EQ, Direct mix. Maybe if I start all over again I can get closer to PDs sound.


    Here is a sound clip of where I am at this point. IT IS VERY LOUD!!!

    https://soundcloud.com/user-88…m_campaign=social_sharing

  • Amp Compressor is indeed a both overlooked and powerfull parameter. Specially if you want to use your guitar volume knob to roll back on gain.

    And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

  • Update:

    Probably 75% of the fun I have with my Stage is making profiles. So a while back I bought an Acoustic G10 amp for $49US so I could have the small cabinet and 8" speaker to make CABS with. Because my Kemper just seems to be missing those upper mid frequencies. I thought the smaller speaker may capture them better. I also hoped it would be a very clean solid state amp. It is not.


    Last night I was using it as an amp for the first time and that little guy sings with rich overtones. It blows my Kemper away. My wife was walking by and she was like "Wow that blows your Kemper away".


    Anyone in the states want to buy a broken Stage cheap?


    Or does anyone have any ideas why mine just lacks any over tones at all. Its frequency response is messed up and it does not sing like a $49 amp can? The stage is only like 7 months old (purchase date). Does anyone else have a model from this period? I am thinking of maybe trying to load an older OS onto it. Resetting it does nothing. It almost has to be software related I would imagine. At this point I am hoping some variable is not being set properly in the current OS versions, and since you guys have older versions your vars are working still even though you have updated.