Why does it sound sharp and harsh

    Sorry, I was away for a time and forgot about this thread.


    I still have two questions:


    1.) The input singnal from the Kemper to my DAW (Cubase) is still way too hot. I don't understand why. I have basically all settings standard and have not tweaked in the DAW, Kemper or Soundcard. Don't really have this problem anywhere else. When I plug in my earphones and play stright through the Kemper the volume will be just fine but when listening through my earphones with the sound going through Cubase it will be WAY too hot and I will have to turn down the volume on the Kemper quite a lot to avoid clipping. I don't understand why. The output fader in Cubase won't clip, only the input fader so it is the signal from the Kemper that is too hot.


    2.) We were talking about "clean sense" mode in this thread when I mentioned the clips sounded a little bit too harsh. I'm not sure I understood. Should the clean sense setting have to be tweaked for every guitar I use or should I not touch it at all? It's at zero, I never tweaked it.


    Thank you.

    Just to be sure...I have hooked the Kemper to my PC sound card with a audio cable mono-stereo cable.


    When I go from MONITOR OUTPUT on the Kemper the signal will be too hot. When I try MAIN OUTPUT LEFT from the Kemper it will be to low. When I choose DIRECT OUTPUT I get no sound at all.


    I can adjust the MAIN VOLUME in the OUTPUT on the Kemper, not sure if I have it all setup correct though.


    EDIT: Ahhh...MONITOR VOLUME was set to 0dB while MAIN VOL and Headphone vol was set to -21dB. No wonder the Monitor output to my DAW was so loud.

    Quote from danniee

    We were talking about "clean sense" mode in this thread when I mentioned the clips sounded a little bit too harsh. I'm not sure I understood. Should the clean sense setting have to be tweaked for every guitar I use or should I not touch it at all? It's at zero, I never tweaked it.


    CS is meant to two purposes:

    • if the input LED clips when you strum hard with your guitar, you're (gently) clipping the A/D converter: lower CS down; if it doesn't, and you want more volume (from a vintage PU for example), you can raise it as long as it doesn't clip;
    • set the volume of the clean sounds Vs. distorted ones, for example if you want them louder or quieter in comparison. Of course you can use Distorted Sens to balance sounds in the other way, or if you want your distorted sounds to distort more at the same settings/volume.


    If you are ok with like say guitar A hits the input and CS is set to 0, then if you have other guitars (hotter or weaker in output) and you want to recreate the same sound balance (or you want your cleans to have all the same volume regardless what guitar you're using), then you can set CS otherwise and save the input preset with a meaningful name (typically the guitar's one).
    Then, when you use that guitar, just recall the preset.


    Done :)