Problem with Distortion volume (too loud)

    I wonder if someone can help me. I have my clean sense set to 0 and my distortion sense to 0. I am playing with a clean amp sound, and I have a Rat stomp in block 1. when I turn on the Rat in order to get the right amount of distortion I have to turn the gain up to 3. But now the volume is more than twice the volume of when the stomp is disengaged. I have tried turning the volume of the distortion down to -5 but i cannot hear any volume difference between -5 and 0. I can hear a volume increase when increasing the volume to +5, however. If i turn down the distortion sense then the amount of drive is lowered and i have to go back to the Rat stomp and increase the gain to get the right amount of distortion again and then the volume is increased again to the same point as before- more than twice the volume of clean.
    The only other way i can think of to equal out the volume of the clean and distorted sounds is to increase the clean sense, but then the input light goes into the red.


    hoping someone has experience with this. i am using 2.2.1


    Kurt

    Thanks for the reply but that is not a very satisfactory solution. I dont want my clean sounds clipping. I think it is something that needs to be fixed, namely the volume control on the effects. I dont know what the numbers + or - 5 refer to but it is definitely not db's and also i cant even hear the volume difference on the negative values. A volume knob should go down to silence, and I wish this were implemented on the Kemper. its a silly problem that I cant balance the volumes of my clean and distortion sound, especially when this exact need has supposedly been addressed by the clean and distortion sense. This is keeping me from taking it out live, which is very disappointing since I love the sound of it.


    KR

    Quote from kurtr2

    Thanks for the reply but that is not a very satisfactory solution. I dont want my clean sounds clipping. I think it is something that needs to be fixed, namely the volume control on the effects. I dont know what the numbers + or - 5 refer to but it is definitely not db's and also i cant even hear the volume difference on the negative values. A volume knob should go down to silence, and I wish this were implemented on the Kemper. its a silly problem that I cant balance the volumes of my clean and distortion sound, especially when this exact need has supposedly been addressed by the clean and distortion sense. This is keeping me from taking it out live, which is very disappointing since I love the sound of it.


    KR


    BTW, man, CKemper is the guy who made the unit :) What he means is that the red light doesn't necessarily imply clipping, if it doesn't occur constantly. A lot of headroom in the device, I believe he said in some other posts.

    hmmm, right- he's the man. well I certainly think the Kemper is really incredible and I really want to use it live. I guess I'm just another user who's confused by red input clipping lights on input and output. I will try that but perhaps someone can try to adjust the volume of the mouse distortion and tell me if they hear any actual attenuation when they turn the volume down? I dont hear any, well maybe like 1/3 db. to me this is frustrating as this would solve my problem immediately instead of putting clean sense into the red. You could say "use your ears not your eyes" but I have too much experience recording, mixing and using audio gear to feel comfortable when an input light is telling me its clipping- thats what they are there for and its hard to ignore.


    thx
    k

    Quote from kurtr2

    perhaps someone can try to adjust the volume of the mouse distortion and tell me if they hear any actual attenuation when they turn the volume down?


    absolutely.
    I disabled the whole Stack section and played just the Mouse DS. Between Volume @ '0' and Volume @ '-5' I get 6dBs of attenuation.


    can you please send me the rig in question?
    pm me for email adress.


    thanks! :)

    So I have just done what CK suggested and these are my results: in order to get my clean sound and Rat distortion stomp sound in balance I have to set clean sense to +8.7 db and distortion sense to -12db, and set the volume of the distortion stomp to -5. now they are balanced but the input and output lights are solidly red the whole time. the clean sound is pretty much clean, however... but it is pushing the limits. i can hear it in the delays- that they are on the brink of saturation.
    ...it all seems pretty extreme. If that stomp volume worked better then i wouldnt have to crank the clean sense to the point of breakup.


    does the gain knob just slowly introduce breakup without adding volume? is that the idea?





    still to reiterate: the Kemper is really fantastic, i hope i can get this happening because it sounds awesome.


    thanks,
    KR

    Well it should be confusing - it is contrary to how real amplifiers and pretty much any other amp simulator work. Gain is inherently related to both volume and distortion, but the KPA is designed to attempt to make Gain influence distortion with no impact on volume. It's a noble goal, but I can't fathom it always working exactly as desired; especially in cases where you have multiple places in the signal chain that are potentially distorting.


    I would punt. Make one rig for the clean (stomp disabled) sound, and another rig for the distorted (stomp enabled). Now level them using the Volume control. Much easier.


    Having to use extreme Clean/Dist Sense settings defeats the purpose of the controls in my mind. You'd have to save them on a per rig basis. I would think you'd want to lock Input and set Clean/Dist Sense for your different guitars.

    Have you noticed that placing a external pedal, even a distortion, between the guitar and the Kemper reduces the redness of the input led a lot ; even if the pedal is on and the perceived volume is louder. Dunno if that's an option in meanwhile.