I agree with this practice. It is good to get it right at the source and not expect the sound engineer to trim it up. Sound engineers are not all created equal either. Some of them are not that good with EQ settings for various things. Why not make it easier on them and make yourself sound better in the process?
Exactly.
I treat it like a regular amp and let the sound engineer make any changes to their PA
Me too basically but trimming up the top and bottom makes things a lot easier and only has positive impact. No sense taking up headroom to the pre if the engineer is just going to cut it anyway. I don't EQ because I agree that would be soundboard job, but I'll trim the fat.
Also two separate parametric eq would be ❤️.
There already is two separate EQs for main and monitors!
The low might vary a bit but for me around 100 low and 8K high. That normally keeps the bottom from being murky and top too strident YMMV.
Separate HPF/LPF for main & monitors please. There are two separate master EQ now, it would be nice to have two separate HPF/LPF.
One for your personal monitor and one for the house. I never use the EQs there but do HPF/LPF. Settling with one is OK, but 2 would be better.
The slope seems to work great where it is so I wouldn't go so far as to ask for an adjustable curve. Maybe 3 different ones if that was easier, but would be very happy with just 2 separate filters for Main & monitor outs.
Do you have Profiles tweaked differently for studio & live?
No, too much unnecessary hassle for me. Just fixing the HPF/LPF does it for me. If I can get it to sound good through my studio monitors, I know It can sound good through a P.A. I usually test in a mix with drums & bass to see how it sits.
The Kemper had me selling all my boutique and expensive tube amps and I have not regretted it one bit and doubt I will. (Like I did in 1985 and sold my JMP sweetheart 4104 for a Laney ) If you are not there yet, it is just a matter of you learning it and getting there. I still GAS for amps then go "I can get anything that amp does with the profiler". and it stifles it. Keep working with it and discovering, I promise it will be worth it.
Thank you. I always like to find a way to explain things so that it might make sense to everyone. It comes from drawing blueprints and understanding how people absorb knowledge. The KPA manual is pretty thorough, but there are some things I would like to rewrite to explain them to be easier understood., clean sense section for sure one of them. I think the manual is way off explaining how it works there. Once I understand complicated things (like music theory) I can find a way to explain it pretty easy. IE: Western music theory is all Do re me etc. and combinations of that.
The "correct" clean sense is dictated by the guitar, so you don't need different settings across multiple rigs.
But now I understand you may not need different settings but may want them...
If you knew certain guitars & rigs combos were going to be used with certain songs and didn't want to go to the input setting and change it, you would leave it unlocked and let it "call up" those settings for that particular rig & guitar... And if you may use different guitars not song dependent, you may want to have a setting for each guitar to pull up and lock it. Now that I understand how clean sense works and what it does, I'm getting it. The manual doesn't explain it the way the video does. I instantly "got it" when I watched the video. The way the manual is worded there is a bit vague IMO.
I find that having HPF/LPF set correctly makes a big difference in consistency. When just playing a live cab, it doesn't make as much difference as when I am using studio monitors or through a big P.A. I have different outputs adjusted for "Live" and "studio".
The way I set the LPF that helps it to sound like an "amp in the room" recording/studio monitors is I listen to my cabinet as I turn down the LPF. As soon as I hear it affecting the high end, I stop there and go up a little higher. (usually around 8K) That keeps frequencies that would normally not be heard with a "real" cab out of the recording/studio monitors for a more "natural" sound. Every speaker setup has a different crossover, EQ etc.
I imagine if you set up your Kemper with a perfectly flat set of monitors then played it through a perfectly flat P.A it would be the same, but most P.A. systems are not flat by any means.
If things sound different between setups, like it has been mentioned, it's not the Kemper's fault, it's the differences in what it's going into.
About clean/distortion sense;
After watching the video, and understanding what distortion sense is and why one would want to lock it, (switching guitars for example) it cannot be locked separately from clean sense and thus would also lock all the clean sense settings across all my rigs in a performance/performances correct?
Say, If in a performance, I had a Vox, a Twin and a Distorted ENGL, and the Twin and the Vox had individual & different clean sense settings to balance them as the gain knob is adjusted, as soon as I adjusted and locked the distortion sense changing to a weaker pickup guitar, my clean sense settings would have to be one setting between the two clean rigs. Not a big deal, as I can't ever see this bothering me the way I do things. I generally don't make big gain changes in a rig, I'd switch to a different rig. I was just saying this as I am better understanding how the input section is best saved/locked and for what purpose.
I thought it was recommended to use the volume parameter in the amp module to balance rigs not RIG volume..
In the manual RIG VOLUME: Use this parameter to adjust the level of each Rig to suit a song in a set list, we don’t recommend using it to balance the levels between all the Rigs.
I find I did not understand what clean sense was used for or what it did correctly. Now that I see I had it wrong, I will watch the video and see if that will straighten me out.
Edit: Now that I watched the video, I have a completely different understanding about clean sense than what I understood just reading the manual! I now understand it works within a rig so volume stays even when rig gain is adjusted like Drog wrote.
It has recently been made aware to me that I should be using direct profiles with the real cab.
Not necessarily. Cab driver does an amazing job and many players (including myself) prefer studio profiles when using a live cab.
One potential use case is switching between acoustic and electric guitars in the same set and not having to keep changing the Input.
Or switching between bass and Chapman Stick. ?
Wouldn't just simply changing the volume levels of those rigs do the same thing? The way I understood, clean sense was to change the whole structure of clean vs dirty sounds overall. Rig per rig could be done with a simple volume fix. "Clean Sens determines the volume of clean sounds" Not "sound". Plural meaning more than one. Now I am unsure what clean sense even does. If it doesn't balance all clean sounds overall, the same thing can be done with volume controls rig per rig..
I mean a way to bump them all up in one stroke and save them. Specifically raising the amp volume for 5 rigs the same amount at the same time using amp volume.
Just wondering, seeing if I missed something. I realize in all this time I could just bump all of them up by 2 and test, rinse repeat. More if needed, less if too much.
I'm asking too much I think. I don't want to sound like one of those guys "I plugged my kemper into a 5651onypphonix midi with SP/DF and am trying to change the swirl on the reverb using my Ipad 10, how do you do this?"
Really just seeing if there was an easier way than going into each one individually.
Display MoreClean Sens and Distortion Sens are global by default... in a sense.
From Manual...
INPUT Button (2)
Press this button to enter the Input Section. Here, you can set the input sensitivity and select the physical input for your guitar signal. In Browser Mode, the Input Section is locked by default. This means that the settings will be applied to every Rig, unless you decide to unlock it. If you do unlock this section, the input settings will be recalled individually with each Rig. In Performance Mode, the Input Section is not locked by default, because most users prepare and store their Performances with specific settings of the Input Section for particular songs and guitars. The Noise Gate, with its dedicated knob, also belongs to the Input Section.
Thanks but I already practically memorized this paragraph of the manual. Performance is unlocked by default. I wanted to know why anyone would want clean sense unlocked not the whole input section. Having read and understood the manual page well, I already was aware (as stated in my first post) that the input could be locked but don't understand what use clean sense has unlocked. Not the input section. Clean sense.
Heat is one of the main factors in electronic component breakdown. When stuff gets dust/dirt coated and sheds less heat it will die quicker.
No matter what, the less heat the Kemper keeps inside the better.
Saving clean sense per instrument kinda negates the purpose of it don't you think? I mean you could just adjust the volume per rig then.
I have a couple performances that due to using a different amp profiler and although balanced correctly within the performance are a bit lower volume compared to other performances.
Normally I use amp volume to balance rigs in a performance (like the manual recommends) is there an easy way to bump up the entire performance volume at once (kinda like a performance master volume?)
Something I just cannot wrap my head around is why would clean sense be per rig in the input and not a set global function? If I find clean rigs to be a bit loud, and I bump clean sense down and save, the next clean sound will still be loud. I'd have to go into each one and set it individually and I might as well just bump the volume in the amp section. Why would anyone use it on ONE rig only? I believe it to be to balance out all clean & dirty sounds not just one clean sound. I realize you could lock the input but don't understand how having clean sense unlocked would be usable.
