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Kemper KPA Core Tone Tweaking

1 byte added, 03:27, 8 October 2015
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The simplest and quickest way to do this is to use the Green Scream effect, which is a model of a '''''Maxon''''' ''OD808'' pedal, which mirrors the circuit of the original '''''Ibanez''''' ''Tube Screamer''. The typical settings when using such as an overdrive is to set Drive down to 0% and Tone between 60 and 100%. '''The Green Scream effect's Tone parameter at the <0.0> setting matches 100% on a real Screamer.''' Turning up higher than <0.0> has no impact on the tone. I find I am almost always between -1.3 and <0.0>. Volume doesn't matter - I like to leave it at <0.0>. Some like to turn Volume up heavily, but this is only necessary on older real amps that couldn't be pushed into distortion without the input volume boost. It doesn't matter on a high-gain amp - you can use the Gain knob to get the right amount of distortion. The only time it may be worthwhile using a non-0.0 value is when you want to be able to toggle the Green Scream on/off to switch from a cleaner tone to a more distorted tone.
A more powerful approach is to use the Studio EQ effect. It gets you both a more transparent sound (the Screamer tends to add a little compression/color) as well as greater control over exactly how frequencies are manipulated. This features 2 fully parametric bands, plus low and high shelves. Sometimes it's as easy as boosting a parametric band by about + 4-6db, lowering the Q down to like -2 or -3, and then sweeping the frequency to find the sweet spot. Usually it's between 800 and 3000 HZ3,000 Hz. You can use the low shelf to trim some woofy low end - I find a -3db cut around 150 HZ Hz to do the trick. If this isn't refined enough I like to use the other parametric band for this purpose. I'll set the frequency to about 40 HZHz, gain to about -4 db, and then lower Q until I can hear the lows start tightening up. Then you can start trying different settings to refine. Sometimes, you may need to also trim some extreme high end with the high shelf if you get a harsh, crackly distortion in the high frequencies.
The Treble Booster effect also works well as a boost, but I find it doesn't offer enough control - it's basically a high shelf. It can be a bit more transparent than the Screamer and doesn't cut any high end, so the tone can get quite harsh if used excessively. The Lead Booster is more tame in that it is more of a hump than a shelf, taming both highs and lows; however, I find again that it is a bit too limited for my purposes. The Pure Booster only boosts the signal level, similar to adjusting the Gain knob. It is only really useful to toggle on/off to switch between cleaner and dirtier levels of distortion.
Always set the ToneStack EQ controls before adding a Graphic/Studio EQ effect. Save those for fine-tuning. In some cases you might not need one at all, and this will free up an effects slot.
It's a good idea to browse through the EQ presets that come factory with the Kemper. There's a cut-through-the-mix setting that is a good template to help a tone fit a mix. It is essentially boosting around 1.5 kHZkHz, with smaller boosts to the surrounding areas with more focus around 1 kHZkHz. I have found moving this peak upwards can get you a thin-sounding tone, but sometimes this works perfectly for a lead, where you want to cut through with a sharp edge to the tone. Sometimes, I find I prefer a lower-midrange peak, but be careful not to add too much of that boominess that resides at the high-end of the bass frequencies.
Another piece of advice is to move the tone stack controls in opposite directions. For example, I may want to boost mids, so I cut bass to prevent too much lower mid-range woofiness or boominess to the tone. Similarly, you can boost treble but back off presence to get a brighter tone but without too much top-end sizzle.
If you demo a bunch of the most praised metal profiles out there (Lasse Lammert, Ola Englund, and Keith Merrow's rig packs), you'll notice they are all very different sounding. Keith's tones are very upper-midrange focused, Ola's are kind of thin-sounding, and Lasse's are more wide-open but they cover a lot of different ground from one rig to the next. Playing solo guitar on these rigs can definitely sound very off-putting. But if you listen to any of their mixes, the tone is big and powerful and pretty natural-sounding. This just comes back to mixing, which always requires context.
So for example, if your mix has keyboards, bass, drums, and vocals, you need all the instruments to find their spot in the mix. If you EQ'ed every instrument to sound flat accross all frequencies, the resulting mix would sound awful. Everything would be "on top" of each other, and "fighting for space" in the mix. This is even more the case for heavy metal music, where the playing is fast and technical and leaves little space. But that doesn't mean boost the kick drum at X frequency, the bass at Y frequency, and the guitar at Z frequency. The numbers are arbitrary. One mix might like to emphasize bass around 200 HZHz, which means the guitars will likely need to dip around there. The guitars would then have very little punch and sound very thin on their own. Another mix might emphasize bass around 100 HZHz. Now there's room for the guitars to have more punch. So it's a real balancing act, and there's a reason there are people paid to professionally mix albums.
As a learning experience, I'd advise you to do the looping/reamping suggestion I mentioned above, where you can hear your guitar tone in a mix. First tweak the BMTP knobs to get the guitars to sound balanced - not too bright and not too dark with the right amount of overall midrange. Now use the Studio EQ and set one of the mid-bands to +6 db. Now sweep the frequency up and down slowly. Every now and then toggle the EQ on/off. See which frequencies help the guitars cut through and sit nicely the mix. When you've found good frequencies, you should be able to reduce the guitar volume and the mix will still be nice and full-sounding, but the guitars will have more clarity. Try the same test but use -6db; determine which removed frequencies help make the guitars clearer. This will give you starting points on how to think about EQ'ing. You may find a spot that has the biggest impact on the tone - now you have to figure out how wide/narrow and how large your boost/cut should be. Start with subtle changes.