Posts by kurtr2

i have both and have done tours using the kemper for its amp and the axe-fx for its effects. i put the kemper in the effects loop of the axe-fx and put the fx loop after mono fx and before stereo fx like delay and reverb. it worked pretty well but in the end i felt that somehow it lost something compared with going straight into the kemper (in terms of the amp sounds) its also a lot to lug around. now i go back and forth between the two, wishing the axe-fx had better and easier clean amps and wishing the kemper had better routing possibilities...

KR

Quote from meambobbo

I would punt. Make one rig for the clean (stomp disabled) sound, and another rig for the distorted (stomp enabled). Now level them using the Volume control. Much easier.

that may be the best solution....

thanks,
K

So I have just done what CK suggested and these are my results: in order to get my clean sound and Rat distortion stomp sound in balance I have to set clean sense to +8.7 db and distortion sense to -12db, and set the volume of the distortion stomp to -5. now they are balanced but the input and output lights are solidly red the whole time. the clean sound is pretty much clean, however... but it is pushing the limits. i can hear it in the delays- that they are on the brink of saturation.
...it all seems pretty extreme. If that stomp volume worked better then i wouldnt have to crank the clean sense to the point of breakup.

does the gain knob just slowly introduce breakup without adding volume? is that the idea?

still to reiterate: the Kemper is really fantastic, i hope i can get this happening because it sounds awesome.

thanks,
KR

hmmm, right- he's the man. well I certainly think the Kemper is really incredible and I really want to use it live. I guess I'm just another user who's confused by red input clipping lights on input and output. I will try that but perhaps someone can try to adjust the volume of the mouse distortion and tell me if they hear any actual attenuation when they turn the volume down? I dont hear any, well maybe like 1/3 db. to me this is frustrating as this would solve my problem immediately instead of putting clean sense into the red. You could say "use your ears not your eyes" but I have too much experience recording, mixing and using audio gear to feel comfortable when an input light is telling me its clipping- thats what they are there for and its hard to ignore.

thx
k

Thanks for the reply but that is not a very satisfactory solution. I dont want my clean sounds clipping. I think it is something that needs to be fixed, namely the volume control on the effects. I dont know what the numbers + or - 5 refer to but it is definitely not db's and also i cant even hear the volume difference on the negative values. A volume knob should go down to silence, and I wish this were implemented on the Kemper. its a silly problem that I cant balance the volumes of my clean and distortion sound, especially when this exact need has supposedly been addressed by the clean and distortion sense. This is keeping me from taking it out live, which is very disappointing since I love the sound of it.

KR

I wonder if someone can help me. I have my clean sense set to 0 and my distortion sense to 0. I am playing with a clean amp sound, and I have a Rat stomp in block 1. when I turn on the Rat in order to get the right amount of distortion I have to turn the gain up to 3. But now the volume is more than twice the volume of when the stomp is disengaged. I have tried turning the volume of the distortion down to -5 but i cannot hear any volume difference between -5 and 0. I can hear a volume increase when increasing the volume to +5, however. If i turn down the distortion sense then the amount of drive is lowered and i have to go back to the Rat stomp and increase the gain to get the right amount of distortion again and then the volume is increased again to the same point as before- more than twice the volume of clean.
The only other way i can think of to equal out the volume of the clean and distorted sounds is to increase the clean sense, but then the input light goes into the red.

hoping someone has experience with this. i am using 2.2.1

Kurt

solved

I have been using the Axe-Fx for a long time. I have switched over to the Kemper and am now getting deeper into it and setting it up for my live gigs. what i can say is that it is MUCH easier and intuitive and satisfying to dial in a tone on the Kemper, and thus the tones i have been getting are much better than the axe. thats not to say its not possible with the axe, but i find i get so lost in the tweaking (and i have no problem staying focused for 6 hours straight) trying to find the sound i am looking for that it gets to diminishing returns and then your ears are fatigued and youre working against yourself. its much better to have the many actual knobs and parameters available to you right there, because things are interactive and crucially things change on a gig! with the axe it is set and forget- meaning you can forget about changing things on the fly. The Kemper has all the most important controls at your fingertips. thats a huge difference.
Another thing I find much better about the Kemper is the way it deals with clean tones. every amp can easily run clean- thats brilliant. maybe someone will say thats also the case with the axe but not in my experience. actually i spent probably more than 24 hours of intense focus programming trying to get the fender twin model NOT to break up. in the end I felt it was a fragile compromise. I play jazz and modern music so for me its about expressive clean tones and crunched or boosted leads.
I'm digging the Kemper and prefering it to the axe. I have the Axe-FX 2 side by side with the Kemper running into an Atomic CLR powered wedge. sounds amazing. On another note the thing i thought was going to be the downer with the Kemper is the effects. But i was wrong- the effects are great in the Kemper, although this is where the Kemper could use some improvement. But I really like how there are presets for the effects, on the axe there were no actual presets, just parameters that you had to tweak for each effects block. The effects sound great on the Kemper, although it could use more delay and reverb types and better real time parameter control.
i hope this helps...

k

hey everyone,
first post. new to the Kemper family, coming over from Axe-Fx. digging the Kemper in comparison. im in it for the cleans- jazz tones.

i have an issue: in performance mode i have loaded my rigs into the slots but when i select them it only loads the "initialised rig".

any help is appreciated.

thanks,
Kurt