Yesterday a friend and fellow kemperian talked to me about his kemper and that he put his distortion sense from 0 to 5 which made his metal rigs significantly better (at least thats what he says). He uses the same pickups as I do and pretty much the same string gauge and the same rigs. So is it necessary for metal players to pump the DS up to 5 or what exactly would I do with that? I don´t hear that much difference when I turn the knob to 5 - the only difference is that my attack is getting less but the sustain is getting more? Does anyone here have any experience with that?
When should I touch the distortion sense knob?
- Hannes_ITS
- Closed
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What pick ups do you have? If you have a loud guitar and hot pickups this shouldn't be necessary. The wood of the guitar can have a lot to do with it's volume. My 6 string is mahogany and is much louder than my basswood 8 string, it is even louder than my alder 6 string.
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I have the same pickups and I leave distortion sense at 0.
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EMG's run hot regardless of the wood. I personally would use the green scream before turning up the dist sense as it will tighten the sound more, unless the amp was profiled with a boost in the chain.
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Hey Hannes,
do you find what's in the wiKPA unsatisfactory in terms of information under this respect?
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Turning up Distortion Sense is the same thing as turning up the Gain on all your profiles. It's designed so that you can adjust it for different guitars as a kind of global gain multiplier, so you don't have wildly different gain levels when going from guitars with a variety of output levels.
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Hey Hannes,
do you find what's in the wiKPA unsatisfactory in terms of information under this respect?
No absolutly not, everything I read there made sense to me but that´s exactly why I asked because I was suprised by my friends statement which was kind of contrary to what was in the wikpa. (more sustain, more mids, fatter sound etc. etc.). But as always - thanks for keeping and having all the good information in the wikpa
Turning up Distortion Sense is the same thing as turning up the Gain on all your profiles. It's designed so that you can adjust it for different guitars as a kind of global gain multiplier, so you don't have wildly different gain levels when going from guitars with a variety of output levels.Short and rather perfect desription, thank you!
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Turning up Distortion Sense is the same thing as turning up the Gain on all your profiles. It's designed so that you can adjust it for different guitars as a kind of global gain multiplier, so you don't have wildly different gain levels when going from guitars with a variety of output levels.
This!
I can only imagine it being useful If I had to do a gig with a loaned guitar having siginficantly less output than my own guitars.Interesting that these myths come up again and again.
This one is similar to 'louder is better' in the sense of 'more distortion is better' on first hearing. -
This!
I can only imagine it being useful If I had to do a gig with a loaned guitar having siginficantly less output than my own guitars.Interesting that these myths come up again and again.
This one is similar to 'louder is better' in the sense of 'more distortion is better' on first hearing.
Thanks a bunch guys! I´m glad it is just a myth and not something that everybody should do! -
Why cant the kemper be just like an amp. when I plug in my marshall amp or others, I don't have a dist. sense to deal with. it will react to any pickup I throw at it. I would like the kemper to do the same. I really don't get this option. anyway I leave it at 0. with whatever guitar I use. If I plug my strat, I want there to be less gain as like the real amp as opposed to if I use humbuckers which will drive the amp input hotter !!!
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leaving it at 0 would do exactly that. it's only there if you want to use it. think about someone who switches pickups or changes their setup (action, pickup height, etc), changing their output level; or someone who has to use a lower output backup guitar or something like that. Or trying to A/B two guitars for a certain part when they need the same level of distortion.
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From the wiKPA:
QuoteDisplay More[[ckemper]] Clean Sens is not a simple input gain: you will notice that it will not affect the gain of a distorted sound, while it has an impact on the pure input gain. A correct clean sens setting is not crucial for an optimal sound. It is merely a feature to globally balance the level of clean sounds to match the level of crunch and high gain sounds. Still it should be turned down a bit for very hot guitars to prevent clipping. At the same time, if you feel that your guitar is too weak for clean rigs (compared to distorted rigs) and that bothers you, increase it. It will not color the sound or change the feel, just the volume.
Distorted Sens is also not a simple booster, as it does not affect the gain of clean sounds.
These controls are necessary on the Profiler because we offer the volume compensation for clean sounds. That means when you turn the gain to zero, you get a fully clean sound at regular volume. You could not do this on an analog guitar amp. But if your guitar itself is loud or soft, the clean sound would become too loud or soft. This is what you level with Clean Sens. It took me a while to create this, and I understand that this might be a bit confusing, as those controls do not react as you would be used to. But just use it as described and don't think about it deeper.
The Clean Sens will also care for the best levelling of the digital instrument input, as some of you stated. Doing this is easy: just set your guitar so that clean sounds feel as loud as distorted sounds. When done, there is no risk to clip the input with that guitar.
The default for Distorted Sens is the middle position. If your guitar is quite hot, turn it down: it will be as you would turn down the gain on all profiles. And yes, if your guitar does not clean out well, there might be too much gain and distortion .
HTH
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Distorted Sens is also not a simple booster, as it does not affect the gain of clean sounds.
I'm a bit confused when I read ABOUT "clean" and "distorted" sounds... it seems as they are completely different animals, but they actually appear to me as two different input volume control settings, one (dirty) more powerful in both direction (gain <1 or gain >1) and one lighter... connected in series... for the same preset
To my ears it's obvious... but what technically within the KPA define a sound (rig?/preset?) "distorted" and "clean" ? The fx chain used?Sorry to appear a bit lame (probably I am)... Maybe I missed some paragraph in the user manual?
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I'm a bit confused when I read ABOUT "clean" and "distorted" sounds... it seems as they are completely different animals, but they actually appear to me as two different input volume control settings, one (dirty) more powerful in both direction (gain <1 or gain >1) and one lighter... connected in series... for the same preset
To my ears it's obvious... but what technically within the KPA define a sound (rig?/preset?) "distorted" and "clean" ? The fx chain used?Sorry to appear a bit lame (probably I am)... Maybe I missed some paragraph in the user manual?
It's not about the rig, it's about leveling clean/distorted. Notice how Clean Sense alters the loudness of the clean side when turning that Gain control back and forth. It's a bit peculiar as you cannot think in the familiar serial signal chain we're used to. Works quite well though
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No, it is also about the rig. There is reference to this from the mothership that any profile with gain below 3 is considered Clean, whereas anything above 3 is Distorted. However, changing your clean sense to a dramatic setting (+12 db), then turning gain up and down through 3 isn't going to give you a volume jump. Same thing with turning a pre-stack booster up and down. So it's not a distinct thing - it's like there's some interpolation. I think 3 is the cutoff though - if your Gain is at 3 or higher, Clean Sense has no impact on that rig's volume - need to double check that though.
Clean Sense obviously impacts the volume level of a rig depending on the Gain setting. Put any rig at 0 Gain, then turn Clean Sense up and down.
Interestingly, using my guitar volume knob seems to always work as expected - it never increases the volume like turning down Gain does if I set Clean Sense higher than usual.
This all has to do with how Kemper designed the KPA to have a usable, perfectly clean tone with Gain at 0, unlike a real amp which just goes to silence.
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Also, Eng Kemper said that both the Sense controls affect the crunchy sounds, because they have a part of both clean and distorted nature. It's in the wiKPA as well.
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Clean Sense obviously impacts the volume level of a rig depending on the Gain setting. Put any rig at 0 Gain, then turn Clean Sense up and down.
That's what I'm saying. It's not about the rig, it's about the gain/distortion. It applies to all rigs, when the gain setting is lowered towards clean.
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Suppose we have a clean tone. And then we up the gain on it. Now as per the profiling procedure, it's a clean tone. But we've distorted it by using gain. Does clean sense have an impact in such situations?
