The only sound i haven't yet gotten out of the kemper

Try some Pink Floyd/David Gilmour rigs from the Rig Exchange. This sound is similar to his approach with fuzz/modulation/delay.

Here's how he ended up with those intervallic shifts in the solo:

"And often I get wacky effects by chopping solos, making almost random cuts, and then shuffling the pieces. I love to experiment — those weird effects, for me, are what computer-based recording is all about. You can do those things using tape but it would take weeks!”

Yes, the glitchy sounds were probably cut up pieces of solos.

Adding more distortion/fuzz to Gilmour/Floyd solo profiles may give you the sound.

Try experimenting with combining the wave shaper stomps with the fuzz stomps.

2:36 Glitchy section sounds a lot like simple tapping or hammer-on/pull-offs. Nothing special, or sound-related.

Try a big muff in front of a DS-1 to a slightly overdriven amp.

I'm subscribing to the thread because I too love stacked dirtboxes (as well as cascading tube stages, but that's another story). I'm very curious to see what others find out as in my experience something very strange happens when you put 2 green screamers in series in the KPA, they seem to interact with each other in a very weird way and the resulting gain is actually reduced when you use 2 instead of just one, try it.

That behavior got me wondering what really happens in the KPA signal chain as it doesn't behave like its real life counterpart, not even close, and that worries me. I would love if the behavior of stompboxes would be more predictable for someone who is familiar with the real thing.

IMHO the stompboxes in the KPA deserve more attention, they're considered by many (myself included) the weakest link in the chain, and I don't think that much effort is required in order to improve them and add a few more flavors to the bunch. Sadly I know for a fact (as it has been repeated by Mr. Kemper himself over and over) that it's not a priority for the foreseeable future of the KPA development.

BTW it seems that if you stack different stompboxes they sound more like they should, I'm really not sure as I haven't had the time to experiment much on this. Maybe the 2 green screamer thing is a bug or the only exception to an otherwise correct sounding signal chain, other users' input and/or clarifications from the Kemper team would be more than welcome.

The reason guitarists use a dozen stomp boxes in front of their amp is because they can't have 10 different amps on stage.

Use a different Profile for your lead tones instead of using the same rhythm Profile with 5 OD/Distortion/Fuzz boxes in front of it.

Quote from Guitartone

The reason guitarists use a dozen stomp boxes in front of their amp is because they can't have 10 different amps on stage.

Use a different Profile for your lead tones instead of using the same rhythm Profile with 5 OD/Distortion/Fuzz boxes in front of it.

Wrong, the reason guitarists use a dozen stomp boxes in front of their amp is because cascading gain stages (along with tone controls) produces harmonics that cannot be duplicated otherwise. Some amps have cascading tube stages and thus are able to produce the effect, but most amps can't. Also Mr. Kemper himself has said that cascading gain stages is the ONE thing the KPA can't profile.

Quote from Guitartone

The reason guitarists use a dozen stomp boxes in front of their amp is because they can't have 10 different amps on stage.

Use a different Profile for your lead tones instead of using the same rhythm Profile with 5 OD/Distortion/Fuzz boxes in front of it.

Quote from Deny

Wrong, the reason guitarists use a dozen stomp boxes in front of their amp is because cascading gain stages (along with tone controls) produces harmonics that cannot be duplicated otherwise. Some amps have cascading tube stages and thus are able to produce the effect, but most amps can't. Also Mr. Kemper himself has said that cascading gain stages is the ONE thing the KPA can't profile.

http://www.guitargeek.com/bill…-pedalboard-diagram-2003/

Look carefully.

Quote from Lokasenna

http://www.guitargeek.com/bill…-pedalboard-diagram-2003/

Look carefully.

That is just awesome, although a little over the top IMHO :p But then again it's Billy Gibbons and his tone is amazing

Also it illustrates my point somewhat, although 6 ODs in series is a luxury not everyone can afford.

Anyway here's what information I've collected here and there from tons of articles and personal experience:

Several low gain stages in series sound a lot better than a few high gain stages. And when I say "gain stages" it could mean a preamp tube, a power tube, an overdrive pedal, the KPA amp block, a KPA stompbox slot and even a physical speaker. The reason is that the even order harmonics generated in the first stage are amplified by the second stage, and so on, which creates what many people refer to as the "creaminess" quality in guitar tones (think pre-Hysteria Def Leppard).

Now, to make things even more interesting, when you have several gain stages with tone shaping circuitry in some or all of them, if you dial things right you will end up with something like a dynamically controlled filter, or like a subtle pick-sensitive auto-wah because of all the complex interactions between the aforementioned gain stages. Notes seem to "blossom" or "open" the harder you pick, and bends on the 2 first strings up the neck seem to "sing", referred by many as "tridimensional sound". Think Joe Satriani and Steve Vai (they DON'T have a wah engaged 100% of the time, contrary to what many believe).

Some boutique amps and preamps (namely Boogies) can produce both effects on their own, without the need for additional stompboxes, because they have several tube stages in series depending on the selected mode.

One of the reasons many people swear by "power amp distortion" is because the additional gain stage "thickens" the harmonic content as explained above. What most people don't know is that they can achieve similar results at less-than-deafening volumes by adding an overdrive pedal to their signal chain.

There isn't a lot of difference between the resulting tones (depending on how you set it up of course) of several tube gain stages and several solid state gain stages. The Marshall JMP1 is living proof of that fact as it has an OPAMP/diode clipping stage in series with its tube stages for extra harmonics, I own one and think it sounds really good.

Last but not least, I'm happy to say that although it has been said by Mr. Kemper that the KPA can't profile multiple gain stages accurately, by adding one or two stompboxes to the signal chain both effects described above can be easily achieved.

What would Frank Zappa say?

After discussing the effect of several distortions in a row, you might be surprized that for this Steven Wilson solo sound no additional distortion is needed.
You might have noticed that there is a slight wahwah swelling up sometimes.

Take a bright distorted amp sound.
Turn Amp Gain all the way up.
Turn Amp Definition all the way down.
Chose the neck pickup.
Chose a wah preset
Turn up the wah volume up. If the overall noise get too heavy now, turn it down again a bit.
Play the wah on the heel position only, and swell it up sometimes.

Then play like Steve Wilson

Quote from Jesper

The sound i'm after is the sound in the solo that starts 2.22 in this song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcQkgbI2qFk

Am i doing something clearly wrong, have you achieved this sound, should i just give up, any suggestions?

Try these Profiles by r u sirius, they're made up of various Fuzz boxes in front of a Bogner XTC clean channel.
Add a Wah upfront.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.…tomp%20box%20Profiles.zip

Even if you will not be controlling it with a pedal, you can still add the wah to the Rig. You can set the position of the pedal in the wah settings.

Deny is spot on about the cascading gains. The "blossoming" effect has always been a huge draw for me towards the Boogie Mark sound.

AFAIK, the reason cascaded distortions don't work in the KPA is due to the whole clean/dist sense feature, which very often ends up as a complication. Many signal chains struggle to get things to work like their real life counter-parts. Some profiles behave differently in this regard than others.

I would START by messing with Clean Sense and seeing if it helps.

The way I see it, volume and distortion are not seperable entities, especially when you have more than 1 distortion stage in the chain.

Consider:
1) Amp with mild distortion + distortion stomp boosting volume but using no drive. Expected result of toggling stomp on/off = change in amount of amp distortion, mild dist w/o stomp, heavy dist w/ stomp.
2) Amp with mild distortion + distortion stomp reducing volume but using no drive. Expected result of toggling stomp on/off = change in amount of amp distortion, mild dist w/o stomp, clean tone w/ stomp.
3) Amp with mild distortion + distortion stomp with neutral volume but using heavy drive. Expected result of toggling stomp on/off = change in amount of amp distortion, mild dist w/o stomp, clean tone w/ stomp.

In no case would you expect a volume jump from toggling the stomp on/off, but depending on your Clean Sense settings, that's exactly what you'll get in some of the cases above. EDIT - maybe turning on the stomp in case (2) could cause a decrease in volume; but the complaints I've experienced and read about have the opposite occur - reducing volume in front the amp causes the volume to jump louder.

I almost feel like the KPA is trying to analyze the signal between the distortion stomp and amp profile and adjust the levels and amp distortion accordingly or something.