Line 6 Helix

johnonguitar

Sporky;1085301" said:

Have you upgraded to the latest firmware?

Yup, before I plugged in my guitar

Sporky

fretmeister said:

Sporky said:

Cabicular said:

Any examples Sporks?

I could make some!

http://inspirationboost.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Augustine-of-Hippo-Patience-Quotes.png

fretmeister

I'm trying to understand if I need a Reflex or not!

sweepy

If you are having artifacts in the distortion, turn the guitar pad on and change the impedance to. 500k

johnonguitar

sweepy;1085350" said:

If you are having artifacts in the distortion, turn the guitar pad on and change the impedance to. 500k

Cool will give it a try when I get back!

hugbot

I've been experimenting with impulse response and amplitube. A basic redwire marshall redwire cab does seem to sound way better than the amplitube cabs and I cant understand why this seems to be the case in so many modellers. If modelling cabs is a "solved" problem why do neither the helix nor amplitube get it quite right?

Cabicular

Try the OCD
It's my heavier drive
I use the Klon as an always on clean boost (which is unobtrusive but worth doing)
I must admit I have a Thorpy Gunshot (or a KOT depending on my mood) to take care of the crunchy drive side of things

johnonguitar

Ok so I tried using the guitar pad on the input and yes it did warm up the sound but didn't get rid of the "artifacts". Turning down the input impedance didn't help either

I decided to try a different distance of mic from the cab in the Ownhammers IR I bought (Fender Deluxe and a Marshall cab)

I'm not even sure which one number 6 is but on both the deluxe and Marshall IR's they completely removed the horrible "artifacts" I was hearing.

Don't get me wrong there's plenty of fruity frequencies you can pick up from a guitar speaker that can sound awful but I thought using the same basic technique I've always used to mic my amp live would be the best starting point for me in Helix. It's worked on any other modeller.

Anyway, I've found what I needed and I'm pretty confident I've cracked my recording solution coconut. The matchless model is really great, so is the deluxe.

The drive pedals now sound a lot better too. Speaking of which:

Klon is great for adding hair to a clean sound for rhythm or goosing a dirty signal for a bit more bite or sustain on single notes. It's strange that it can manage to do both things at the same time!

The OCD is pretty good and just like in real life if you run a TS into it you have a massive liquid lead sound.

The TS is still a massive disappointment though

The fuzz is passable at first glance but I'll need to have a bit longer to judge.

johnonguitar

Going 4cm for the first time was a doddle. Still haven't looked for a manual or help on a forum, it's all just there on that screen and everything seems just a butting press away.

The drive pedals I've been using (Klon, OCD and TS) all sounded better into my amp. Smoothed out even more. The Klon does a great job of adding some hair and presence to clean chunky chord work. Not quite my Nobels ODR-1 which ran those duties for me before but it's doing the job.

The TS sounds a little bette through the amp but still not making me want to play it.

I set up my chain so I could toggle between my preamp and the matchless model preamp with one footswitch. Both sounded great and the model sound fairly authentic. It didn't sound like "oh here's my amp and now here's the modeller". It sounded natural at home volumes at least.

I tried the plexi preamp and thought it sucked, very different to what I'd been hearing going start to DAW. I realise now that most of the gain comes from the power amp the way I run plexi modellers so will try again tomorrow with the full amp model instead of just the preamp

I only had a quick run through of the effects but here's my early thoughts:

1.none of the delays have reached out and grabbed me screaming "I'm the oooone me me me"

2. Harmoniser is decent

3. The synth is pretty good

4. Red Squeeze compressor might be enough for me to sell my Xotic SP

5. The wahs in general sound better than I thought they might. Very promising.

Cabicular

The dual delay is 90% of my tone
I have the mix set from 20-45 with a second exp pedal

johnonguitar

hugbot;1085464" said:

I've been experimenting with impulse response and amplitube. A basic redwire marshall redwire cab does seem to sound way better than the amplitube cabs and I cant understand why this seems to be the case in so many modellers. If modelling cabs is a "solved" problem why do neither the helix nor amplitube get it quite right?

I'm not sure... But I'm guessing if Helix was using hi-res ir's by default then it wouldn't have the processing power to do the dual stereo amps or four separate pathways thing that it's been hyped on.

I ended up running my ir's at 2048 samples and it sounds great but it doesn't leave much free DSP and you can only run one path

So I suspect the Line 6 guys can easily get it right... They are just working within the confines of the hardware with flexibility being the goal

Sporky

I've got a patch that uses dual cabs (can't remember if it's one amp or two) and still has wah, three compressors, octave down, three overdrives, two phasers, two tremolos, delay and reverb. It's not even maxed out, DSP wise, and it uses all four paths.

Two amps, each with a cab, does use significantly more power than one amp into two cabs though.

kjdowd

johnonguitar;1086190" said:

[quote="hugbot;1085464"]I've been experimenting with impulse response and amplitube. A basic redwire marshall redwire cab does seem to sound way better than the amplitube cabs and I cant understand why this seems to be the case in so many modellers. If modelling cabs is a "solved" problem why do neither the helix nor amplitube get it quite right?

I'm not sure... But I'm guessing if Helix was using hi-res ir's by default then it wouldn't have the processing power to do the dual stereo amps or four separate pathways thing that it's been hyped on.

I ended up running my ir's at 2048 samples and it sounds great but it doesn't leave much free DSP and you can only run one path

So I suspect the Line 6 guys can easily get it right... They are just working within the confines of the hardware with flexibility being the goal
[/quote]

Why can you only use one path with irs? I've got plenty of dual paths using irs, you just need to set the routing up correctly. I've got a few patches that have wah, compressor, dirt, modulation, two amps and an ir on the top path and delays, reverbs and maybe a rotary on the bottom path (routing top to bottom then out). No reason why you couldn't do this with parallel paths as well, I'm sure.

Sporky

Having multiple paths doesn't inherently use any DSP, I think - in fact it can help, because the upper two paths have one chip and the lower two have another. Running out of DSP can just be in one of those, and rearranging things can let you cram in a lot more.

Cabicular

There is almost no reason not to join the paths
If you need multiple inputs or outputs remember you can still split path 2 into 2A and 2B

johnonguitar

Wait, so one DSP is kept totally seperate for the bottom two paths? I just assumed that the second DSP would come to the aid of the first when things got a little hairy. That's good to know

Cabicular

Yup they are spilt to allow you to make some decisions on how to use them
Path1 DSP 1
Path 2 DSP 2
If you set the output of path 1 to be path 2 then it chains them together

kjdowd

Sporky;1086261" said:

Having multiple paths doesn't inherently use any DSP, I think - in fact it can help, because the upper two paths have one chip and the lower two have another. Running out of DSP can just be in one of those, and rearranging things can let you cram in a lot more.

Exactly that. And the only limit on irs - other than dsp - is 4 per patch.

johnonguitar

I'm also wondering if my problem with the tubescreamer is that I've been playing a keeley mod plus or red dirt (sounds the same) for 10 years now and anything else just isn't working for me.

fretmeister

I really like the TS in it - far more than the actual pedals I've owned!

You can probably make it sound right for you by putting an EQ in front of it.