Pod HD pro

    I recently upgraded to a kemper from a pod hd pro and i cannot get the kemper to sound nearly as good and playable. I have been trying for a week now i have brian hoods stl tone pack and am trying to tweak profiles to my 7 string schecter omen elite. I have the kemper going from main out xlrs to focusrite into reaper just like i have pod then I adjust the gain nobs on scarlett just under clip. Signal chain is noise gate, usually light drive distortion i have amp eq set to pre on a 5150 and eq after amp with high pass and low pass at 80 hz and 9000hz and its sounds not nearly as good as pod and one of the biggest factors i have noticed is the input seems way stronger on pod and sustains much more like how you would expect or like one of olas videos. I cant wrap my head around the clean sens or dist sens either. The disortion on the pod sounds so much better to me as well. Im at the point where i spend so much time messing with setting instead of playing that i hate looking at my guitars then i plug the pod back in and wanna learn a new song its really disappointing. Im playing erra mostly and they even record on it but i cant get it to sound that great any tips?

    I think we would need a sound clip of the POD and the Kemper to get a clear picture of what sound you are going for. You can make an account on SoundCloud and post there (most people here do).


    I have a POD XT and POD HD. Was never a fan of the HD. The attack never sounded natural to me, so I have not spent enough time on it. I bring it up because every profile I hear on MY Kemper has a lot of bass and is missing a mid-high freq presence. Hi gain / metal likes no bass and a lot of mid-high, just like the PODs are dialed in.


    If this is what you feel is missing you can try:


    Dial down the BASS before the AMP:

    - Adjust the AMP DEFINITION towards 10 to get rid of the flubby bass, but too much and the highs sound brittle/harsh. But it also gives you a little bit of mid range tweaking. There seems to be a sweet spot on high gain profiles.

    - Roll down the BASS amp EQ since you are running it before the AMP. Make up for it after the AMP.


    More gain and sustain:

    - Compressor, after the gate, set to SOFT default setting. Adjust the first setting between 4-5.5 to get a gain and presence. Adjust the attack between 0.5 for more picking and 5 for a softer more over driven attack.

    - People have commented that pushing the volume in a pedal slot is slightly different than adding gain. So you can also tweak the compressor volume up/down. Default is 1.5 for SOFT.


    MID BOOST

    A lot of gain profiles I hear on the web seem to have a lot of mid before the amp. So you can try to boost the mids in the amp EQ section. May need to add some highs also since the Kemper mid EQ is not the right frequency (too low). Again you have to rely on the post amp EQ to get it back to where you want it. But getting the right freqs pushed before the gain stage can help a lot.


    You can always set the amp EQ flat and use a STUDIO EQ to cut the 80Hz and dial in the upper mid voice before the amp stage. Then you can roll back the AMP DEF since the 80hz flubbyness will be gone in the EQ section.


    CABINET SETTINGS

    Adjusting the cab settings can help tweak the high freq fizz. And if you feel the cab IR is too dark I would dial back the character to around -4.5 and bring up the AMP SAG a little to get some speakery thump back.

    - Swapping out the CABS can totally change the sound also. I do this in Rig Manager. I have a list of cabs I copied out to a folder and just run thru them until I get something good.


    MID-HIGH

    - In the past I always used a Treble Booster after the AMP set to 2.5 and 10%. Just adds some brightness. But this is not a great solution for metal tones.

    - Like you I tend to EQ after the amp. I use a Studio EQ pretty often and set the HIGH to 800Hz. This gives a push in that mid-high range I feel is missing in most profiles. The STUDIO EQ can murder some of the attack. So you might try the METAL EQ first. Since it is limited in what it can do it is more transparent (less filters getting things out of phase etc).


    MIX CONTROL

    Adding a pedal before the amp gives a little more control. Because you can make small changes using the MIX setting. The pedals also seem to have more dynamic range than the profiles. So things can get a little more lively and responsive.


    A lot of metal guys add some CLEAN MIX in the AMP section also. Usually start at around .5 and slowly move up from there. It adds more mids and a more dynamic sound.


    Nothing we can really say without hearing some samples of what you want.


    I made a bunch of POD HD profiles that are up on the RIG EXCHANGE. I also just started profiling a Peavey Vypyr that hit a lot of the mid-high freq stuff I cant find in Kemper profiles but my POD stuff has. The bottom end on those is also pretty tight. I will be posting those pretty soon.

    To me, this doesn't sound like e.q. issues, more like something more fundamental.


    First plug headphones direct into the Kemper to eliminate connection or output issues. If that sounds crap, then try other profiles. You should be able to get a great sound that will blow away the POD.


    Clean sense and Distortion sense - ignore for now, its for balancing sounds. Should not affect the basic sound or signal unless you go mad with it.


    Just a note on sustain - sounds like you are overusing a gate.

    Im gonna be honest it sounds way better with headphones directly in the kemper im not with it right at the moment but yes i think it is something more fundamental too but im doing the same thing i would with pod i even re hooked it up and everything sounded fine and it seemed much easier to play. Im going from main out two xlr into scarlett i think it may be a volume issue ill have to check what master volume is at i know rig is at noon and i usually have main output at like -20db or so idk how much im losing with xlr and how to compensate and so forth other than adjusting the gain nob on scarlett by about 10% percent then it clips on pod i usually sit at about 25% on scarlett so ill have to see what i can do it’s frustrating.

    sounds like the scarlett mic pre is clipping. The Kemper has a pretty hot output which doesn’t play well with consumer level mic pres. the Scarlett has a combi input which automatically engages the mic pre when an XLR is plugged in. However, if you use a TS or TRS cable/adapter you bypass this and achieve sufficient headroom for the line level output of the KPA.

    Then as you say, its not the Kemper, its the connectivity.


    I think your suggestion it might be volume/signal is possibility.


    You need to unlink you volumes and you can then control the output level independently.


    I would use similar output that you send to FOH i.e. -12db. That should be plenty strong enough. You need to check your outputs are set correctly e.g. if running single XLR that its set to mono out.

    ...and and Alan said try to bypass the mic pre amp using TS if possible to rule out that clipping.

    the Profiler sends line-level signals at its outputs. If your interface offers TRS inputs you could either use an XLR to TRS cable or instead use regular TS cables to connect the Profiler outputs to the interface. Using the mic inputs will always sound inferior.

    Ok i ran home on break and reset the settings and took out the xlr and i have one ts going into interface and main output set to master mono and have my seinheisser hd 300 pros into scarlett and it sounds light years better and more playable its a drastic difference already thanks i know this thing has a learning curve and i just wanna get the most out of it so thank you guys very much