TAF pack 10, how to use crunches

If you're referring to sustain as "the length of time a note rings after I play it" then yes, more gain will get you there. But that is the opposite of what you want.

I find most profiles sustain better when monitoring through a speaker or monitor, as opposed to headphones. This is because of the the loop created when your pickups "hear" the sound in the room. Headphones sort of kill that vibe.

Personally I have success with Michael Britt's profiles. Even his lower gain profiles sustain and resonate really nicely. I only have a few Amp Factory profiles and while some are really good I don't find a lot of them work for me and my style. Your mileage may vary. Lots of people get awesome tones with Andy's stuff.

As far as clarity goes, I would define that as the opposite of muddy. If you find profiles lack clarity, try adjusting the Definition and Clarity amp settings. Also swapping cabinets can have a huge impact. Check the manual for details on these settings.

Man I LOVE the crunches in Pack 10, especially with my Tyler, which has a humbucker in the bridge. It's pretty low output but sustains very nicely for me. How is your distortion sense set? Are the pickups on your PRS low output?

Pack 10 I find is awesome. Like same said check clean and dist sense. I use a PRS in fact 3 of them they all have different pick ups and I don't struggle with sustain. How loud are you playing the kemper?

Well, just even the slightest amount of amplified sound will help your strings to resonate for longer. I notice it when I'm playing through my NL12 and Ambrosi 60W amp with the output on the KPA at 0.1 (it's lowest setting) compared to headphones.

Quote from nkisaac

Hey thanks for all the help, I appreciate it!

My PRS has what I suppose are medium to medium-high output pickups, and I normally have left distortion sense at 0, otherwise the high gain rigs get too distorted for my taste, but I'll mess with it and see.
Also, I am using headphones for now, so I have no feedback loop to help me out, but even on stage, my band tries to keep the sound levels down, so that may not help much live.
And I'll check out Michael Britt, also, thanks for the heads-up!

You have to turn it up. Headphones are imo totally useless for this kind of sound and will not give you sustain. If you can hear raw sound of strings of your guitar, it's too quiet (if you really want to test it put a detune effect in first slot and detune half step). If it's not enough, a compressor with slow attack and slow release in front of the amp should help a bit. Slow and controlled vibrato helps too.

I have this pack and all sounds sustain forever on my PRS Custom while my headphones are gathering dust.

The reason you get so much sustain is because the gain stage of any amp acts more or less like a limiter/compressor. The peak parts of your sound get chopped off, and it creates that beautiful overdrive sound we all love. Cranking gain typically lowers the ceiling of where that cutoff happens. This is why turning your volume knob down works to "clean up" a sound, and why dynamics are harder to achieve with higher gains.

That said, for your clean sounds, I'd definitely recommend a compressor stomp or post-FX (either in X or Mod), depending on the dynamics you wish to achieve, or try messing with the "Compression" setting on the amp block. I pretty much always have a compressor on in my X or Mod slot, because I like the dynamic interaction between my playing, my analog stomps, and the amp block, but it tames the volume level a bit since I have been known to be "too dynamic" of a player from time to time. Putting a compressor stomp before the amp block lowers the dynamics of your amp because you have more of a steady signal going to the amp block/profile.

Try the compression adjustment on the amp block first though. That might help the most and you won't have stomps to deal with.