General tone question about how to use less gain

  • I've always used too much gain, probably due to my sloppy playing. Are there any tricks to help sustain and keep a thicker sound when taking the gain down a tad?


    I'm practicing more and it's already helping. I play in a 80s/90s rock cover band, usual suspects - Bon Jovi, GnR, Aerosmith etc

  • You don't need to turn the gain down a lot to get more articulation. It shouldn't have too much of an impact on sustain. A lot of 80s people weren't using nearly the amount of gain people think they hear.


    Try that with a combination of the Clarity control and/or the Direct Mix control in the Amp section. Clarity works with gainier sounds to add....clarity. Direct Mix does what it says, but at higher values can get harsh (to my ear).

    “Without music, life would be a mistake.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

  • The previous comments can help, but I think the issue is related to volume, or lack of. Two, if not all, of those bands are mainly known for cranked, high volume Marshall Plexi type sounds. This is a generalization, don't shoot me because there are cases where this is not true. These are not necessarily high gain, but do have some amount of gain. If you match the gain with the Kemper, but keep the volume down, the response(sustain for one) is different than a cranked amp. If I turn up the Kemper plexis loud, they are much closer to the real thing. Solving the sustain problem at low volume is a compromise. Also, you have probably already done this, but make sure you don't have a noise gate cutting the sustain.

  • Are there any tricks to help sustain and keep a thicker sound when taking the gain down a tad?

    Try using a compressor before the amp - the Compression parameter of the amp block should only affect clean signals, according to the manual. Careful with the "attack" parameter of the compressor - if your attack values are too low, the compressor will kick in immediately, effectively killing your initial transient and making your sound flat and lifeless. Longer attack values let your initial pick sound get through the comp quickly, before the compressor "flattens" the decay phase.

  • That all makes sense. It wasn't specific to the Kemper, but it's great that there are settings like amp compression and clarity that sound like they will get what I want.

    I never owned a compressor before as I thought they were mainly for clean sounds, and rarely use those, so going to research and try out compressor settings over the weekend.

    Before the Kemper I'd have to go out and buy a compressor, and have 17 tabs open with "best compressor on a budget" google searches - tonight I can just load rig manager and demo them after a few clicks!


    Thanks for the replies everyone, I appreciate the advice.

  • The previous comments can help, but I think the issue is related to volume, or lack of. Two, if not all, of those bands are mainly known for cranked, high volume Marshall Plexi type sounds. This is a generalization, don't shoot me because there are cases where this is not true. These are not necessarily high gain, but do have some amount of gain. If you match the gain with the Kemper, but keep the volume down, the response(sustain for one) is different than a cranked amp. If I turn up the Kemper plexis loud, they are much closer to the real thing. Solving the sustain problem at low volume is a compromise. Also, you have probably already done this, but make sure you don't have a noise gate cutting the sustain.

    This!


    This is another significant factor.....turn up the volume and you can turn down the gain.


    So its all a balance of these factors for "the sound".....gain, volume, compression ( which is usually a byproduct of valve amps - natural compression), technique etc. so don't go mad on one of them, balance it out.

  • That all makes sense. It wasn't specific to the Kemper, but it's great that there are settings like amp compression and clarity that sound like they will get what I want.

    I never owned a compressor before as I thought they were mainly for clean sounds, and rarely use those, so going to research and try out compressor settings over the weekend.

    Before the Kemper I'd have to go out and buy a compressor, and have 17 tabs open with "best compressor on a budget" google searches - tonight I can just load rig manager and demo them after a few clicks!


    Thanks for the replies everyone, I appreciate the advice.

    I run a Boss CP-1X pedal before the Kemper input, amazing pedal and just seems to make everything sound better. It would be cool if Kemper could incorporate some kind of multi-band compressor for even more control.

  • settings like amp compression and clarity that sound like they will get what I want.

    Again, the compression parameter in the amp block will most probably NOT get you there for overdriven or distorted sounds; it is only active for clean sounds - if you want to get your overdriven sounds to sustain longer, you'll need to use a Compressor device in a pre-amp effects slot.

  • We all have different views. I almost never use a compressor for guitar. It robs me of my ability to control the instrument with my hands. I am the best compressor in my system. I dynamically change pick attack from note to note and compression does not work for me. This is true for an electric and even for a non-amplified acoustic. All that said, there are very niche specialty sounds where I might find a compressor useful. YMMV.