Excessive distortion, like clipping

    Hey guys, have a questions, don't know whom to address to, hope a local community can help me. I'm not sure that it is an issue, but it frustrates me a lot so far. The question is that any profile I use - I use mainly heavily distorted profiles - built-in or found on RigExchange, does have excessive noise while palm-muting or even on long opened notes. I attached recording, where it can be heard simply, the noise sounds like vinyl effect or clipping effect. The profile I used is "Lasse Lammert, LL - ChugChug" with default settings, input dist sense - 0.


    The noise is reproducible on different guitars with different pickups - active or passive - without PC, only headphones directly connected to kemper. I've tried to lower Input "Dist Sense" to -12, it helps but not 100% and moreover profiles start sounding like crunch. Also tried to play with a height of pickups and volume on guitar - the same result: cracklings are getting less but profiles are getting worse.


    Guys, maybe I do not understand something, maybe it should be like this. I found one guy around in my city - kemper owner - and asked him to record the same profile and send to me that recordings - I can hear the same excessive noise.


    Decided to create another one thread, although I've seen a couple of the same, because wanted to add my recordings, thought that it is not really convenient to jump in to the somebody's thread and ask not really related questions to the original topic.


    https://www.dropbox.com/s/rn8hktuyyojpqmz/1.wav?dl=0

    I lost a huge amount of time trying to find in here the way how to downgrade the firmware, there should be a specific option like "legacy firmwares" in "download" page in accordance to the posts on the forum, but it is not there now. Maybe anybody can advice on that?

    I have only listened to the recording on my computer speakers but it just sounds like a high gain amp to me.


    Is the input led going red when you play?


    One of the most confusing things about the Kemper Input section is that the Clean Sens (not distortion sens) seems to serve a dual purpose. One is to balance the levels between clean and dirty sounds. The other is to act as an input gain to stop the digital converters clipping. It may be that you are clipping the input. In my case I need to run Clean Sens at around -5 to make sure I don't see the input going red and that's with standard PRS pickups not anything high output.

    It sounds really interesting, the thing about clean seans I mean, I thought it works only in case of distortion knob is set zero. let me try it at home, thanks!


    Meanwhile, does anybody know where to find old kemper OS versions officially? In forum I've found only relations to non-existing dropdown menu "legacy something".

    If you contact Support I'm sure they'd be more than happy to send you whichever version you require, but don't be surprised if they talk you out of trying to "go backwards" for no good reason. The constant work on the firmware is in the name of progress, after all.


    Like Alan, I can't hear the noise on my "computer" speaker; it just sounds very-high-gain to me. Are you familiar with how much noise to expect from real-world-equivalent amps cranked to the same degree? It could be that it's normal, if not quieter than IRL.


    Lastly... welcome to the forum, mate! 8):thumbup:

    Hey guys, as I said before it is getting more like I've got crazy a bit about it and started hearing something in the sound, maybe I reached sort of "sound crisis") My expectations were like: I take Kemper with stock settings (I wiped flash memory), I take a default profile of Hi-gain amp from built-in library, plug in my guitar, tweak input section, because in that chain of things my guitar is obviously something Kemper can't control, and play. in practice I encountered that particularly LL ChugChug effect requires EQ and Gain knobs tweaking to get smoother without cracklings, input section can't help me even set to "-12". And I really do not like tweaking EQ of profiles, because it is seemed to me that profile should stay like it was created, if you rotate EQ knobs you use already some Kemper emulation of knobs behavior, which is not really natural. And I can give in with this with explanation that it is specific profile, unless ever hi-gain profile behaves the same. It is just deliberating about the general things, I can't get rid of the feeling that I was 200% happy with kemper two month ago, played a lot and hadn't noticed anything strange, until sent some recordings to the mastering-guy who asked me "what the strange clipping noise you have" and after that I'm in contemplation for weeks.


    Look, another question about that Clean Sense parameter which was noticed in thread above. It behaves completely strange) Can explain somebody how it works? When I play hi-gain profile clean sense parameter doesn't effect anything, at least I can't hear any changes in sound, and docs say like it works only in case Gain know is set to 0. But! Just imaging the sound when I put "Dist sens" to +12, the sound is clipped and input led is red almost all the time, and if I put in that situation "Clean Sense" to "-12" the sound is clipped the same, but input led is green and hows okay. I can't get it, red the post from "Wheresthedug" couple of times, it doesn't help with understanding.

    I think I have just realised something blindingly obvious about Clean Sens and input clipping. Everything from Kemper documentations seems to suggest that the AD converters are very forgiving of clipping as they soft clip rather than distort in an unnatural way. Even if the input light is flashing RED it may still be that the breakup is normal profile distortion not input clipping. Logically I you completely by pass the profile and effects by turning off all three blocks (Stomp, Stack and Effect) you should be able to hear whether the AD converter is actually clipping and adding unnatural clicks and distortion to the signal. I don't know why I never tried this before :/ but when I did it last night I found that the input LED could go into RED by quite a long way and still not cause any audible clipping. I am now not nearly as paranoid about the LED as I used to be :S


    It is correct that the clean sens shouldn't affect the hi-gain profile. Apparently the KPA measures the onset of distortion as part of the profiling stage. it then creates a clean profile up until the onset of breakup and a separate profile for distortion. There is a range when the two seem to be blended as you transition from clean to distorted. I am not sure exactly how this works but that is the general idea of what is happening. Tone Junkie did a good video on it


    https://youtu.be/3enW3QmGWh8