Clarky and the Helix

robinbowes · July 2017

Clarky said:

hmmm…. not getting on with the tone… particularly the highs..

Try rolling everything off above about 6k in the global eq.

Clarky said:
I've never been a fan of factory presets and that's all I've goofed with so far…

Yeah, they're not great. Try creating some of your own - it's very simple:

hubobulous · July 2017

Snapshots can turn items on and off and also set specific parameters on any of those items. So amps can be turned on/off and when they're turned on, they can have any settings associated with that specific snapshot

Teetonetal · July 2017

Clarky said:

editor installed and seems to be talking happily to the Helix..
the edit is rather nice looking so far…

only having two amps available in a preset will be a bit limiting..

I'm sure you can have more than that? At least 2 on each path, no?

siremoon · July 2017

Clarky said:

hmmm…. not getting on with the tone… particularly the highs..
also the feel is a little stiff..
gonna noodle around a see if I can do anything about this..
that said...
I've never been a fan of factory presets and that's all I've goofed with so far…

The factory presets are universally terrible imo. The best way is to put together a relatively simple patch, say amp, cab, and a couple of effects, play around with that and see how you go.

Personally I wouldn't use the global eq to tinker with the patches either. I get my patches to how I want them with that switched off and then use it solely to make overall tweaks as required on a venue by venue basis. Also I seem to recall that Global EQ gets reset on firmware updates so that's another reason to avoid relying on it in your patches.

stratman3142 · July 2017

Teetonetal said:

Clarky said:

editor installed and seems to be talking happily to the Helix..
the edit is rather nice looking so far…

only having two amps available in a preset will be a bit limiting..

I'm sure you can have more than that? At least 2 on each path, no?

In theory I think it might be 4 in parallel, subject to DSP load. Unfortunately I haven't got time to check today.

@Clarky. Can I just check? Are you referring to the number of simultaneous amps in parallel, or the number of amps that could be included in a preset and switched in and out?

duotone · July 2017

Would be interesting to know your thoughts if you do try playing it with headphones?

Cabicular · July 2017

Clarky said:

editor installed and seems to be talking happily to the Helix..
the edit is rather nice looking so far…

only having two amps available in a preset will be a bit limiting..

Hi Clarky
The limitation is on DSP rather than a hard limit. you can have as many amps in a preset as you can fit in
Some models are more intensive than others
Top tip
Run multiple heads through an IR is more efficient than amp and cab for everything. A dual Cab gives you two cabs in stereo so you can have a pair of 4x12s with different speakers and different mids. But obviously that takes more CPU than an IR
Run the paths together to use both processors in a signal chain (there is almost no reason NOT to do this, you can still route multiple ins and outs)
Most cabs like a roll off of up to 4.5K
If you think it feels a bit stiff, increase the sag in the amp model, (I decrease it because I like it a bit more modern feeling (i.e. SS rectified)

TimmyO · July 2017

Cabicular said:

Clarky said:

editor installed and seems to be talking happily to the Helix..
the edit is rather nice looking so far…

only having two amps available in a preset will be a bit limiting..

Hi Clarky
The limitation is on DSP rather than a hard limit. you can have as many amps in a preset as you can fit in
Some models are more intensive than others
Top tip
Run multiple heads through an IR is more efficient than amp and cab for everything. A dual Cab gives you two cabs in stereo so you can have a pair of 4x12s with different speakers and different mids. But obviously that takes more CPU than an IR
Run the paths together to use both processors in a signal chain (there is almost no reason NOT to do this, you can still route multiple ins and outs)
Most cabs like a roll off of up to 4.5K
If you think it feels a bit stiff, increase the sag in the amp model, (I decrease it because I like it a bit more modern feeling (i.e. SS rectified)

It's been shown that in terms of DSP usage that a dual cab uses more (but not double) than a single cab, and that a single 2048 IR uses about the same as a single cab

guitarfishbay · July 2017

What's the slope if you're rolling to 4.5k?

And is that mostly for a live tone or are people typically rolling that low with recordings too?

Cabicular · July 2017

guitarfishbay said:

What's the slope if you're rolling to 4.5k?

And is that mostly for a live tone or are people typically rolling that low with recordings too?

It depends a lot on what you are after but certainly I do that to most cab blocks in my patches (in chatting to Paul Hindmarsh he does it too) It also depends on what you are going through but I do roll that off in the XLR outs and when recording too

Cabicular · July 2017

TimmyO said:

Cabicular said:

Clarky said:

editor installed and seems to be talking happily to the Helix..
the edit is rather nice looking so far…

only having two amps available in a preset will be a bit limiting..

Hi Clarky
The limitation is on DSP rather than a hard limit. you can have as many amps in a preset as you can fit in
Some models are more intensive than others
Top tip
Run multiple heads through an IR is more efficient than amp and cab for everything. A dual Cab gives you two cabs in stereo so you can have a pair of 4x12s with different speakers and different mids. But obviously that takes more CPU than an IR
Run the paths together to use both processors in a signal chain (there is almost no reason NOT to do this, you can still route multiple ins and outs)
Most cabs like a roll off of up to 4.5K
If you think it feels a bit stiff, increase the sag in the amp model, (I decrease it because I like it a bit more modern feeling (i.e. SS rectified)

It's been shown that in terms of DSP usage that a dual cab uses more (but not double) than a single cab, and that a single 2048 IR uses about the same as a single cab

Yes sorry, the way I wrote that was unclear. I meant using multiple heads into an IR "or Cab" is more efficient than using an amp cab model. Wasn't trying to imply that IRs use less cpu than stock cabs. And I was also trying to say that a dual cab gives you different options for different amps but takes more CPU than an IR "or single cab"

Thanks for that Timmy, hope that's clearer

TimmyO · July 2017

Ah yeah, reading it back I get you :-)

TimmyO · July 2017

Cabicular said:

guitarfishbay said:

What's the slope if you're rolling to 4.5k?

And is that mostly for a live tone or are people typically rolling that low with recordings too?

It depends a lot on what you are after but certainly I do that to most cab blocks in my patches (in chatting to Paul Hindmarsh he does it too) It also depends on what you are going through but I do roll that off in the XLR outs and when recording too

I think the filters are only 6db/octave - it's been a point of discussion on the L6 about folk wanting to be able to have a steeper option.

IMHO the best place to put the filter is on the cab (or IR) block and yes I was wary of seemingly sweeping cuts down to 6k ish sometimes but having tried it it works really well sometimes.

I'm always wary of.doing it in globals - would always prefer to have that unused ready for some odd.sounding room/band mate

guitarfishbay · July 2017

6db makes sense. A 12db filter at 4.5khz would generally leave very little high end - it's always ears before eyes at the end of the day though. I think the Fractal does either 6 or 12db.

TimmyO · July 2017

It may even be less - someone tested/measured it - it's on the Line 6 forum

Cabicular · July 2017

TimmyO said:

Cabicular said:

guitarfishbay said:

What's the slope if you're rolling to 4.5k?

And is that mostly for a live tone or are people typically rolling that low with recordings too?

It depends a lot on what you are after but certainly I do that to most cab blocks in my patches (in chatting to Paul Hindmarsh he does it too) It also depends on what you are going through but I do roll that off in the XLR outs and when recording too

I think the filters are only 6db/octave - it's been a point of discussion on the L6 about folk wanting to be able to have a steeper option.

IMHO the best place to put the filter is on the cab (or IR) block and yes I was wary of seemingly sweeping cuts down to 6k ish sometimes but having tried it it works really well sometimes.

I'm always wary of.doing it in globals - would always prefer to have that unused ready for some odd.sounding room/band mate

Personally I stick an Eq block at the end of the path (reason being I have two paths sometimes. One going to FOH with an emulated cab and the other going to the 1\4 inches into a pair of amp returns (or power amp) and I tend to cut more going into the traditional amp setup. I would expect it to be the other way around but the FRFR speakers must be better able to deal with a bit of extra high frequency than the traditional guitar cabs (which just get really nasty and fizzy)
I also never use the global eq unless I have a particularly wild room as it is a quick way of adjusting all my presets. But it is a bloody rabbit hole and I really try and avoid it if I can

clarkefan · July 2017

I can't follow what you guys are talking about, I've tried, it's beyond me. It's like listening to Houston Mission Control when something went wrong.

firepaulmusic · July 2017

Clarky said:

hmmm…. not getting on with the tone… particularly the highs..
also the feel is a little stiff..
gonna noodle around a see if I can do anything about this..
that said...
I've never been a fan of factory presets and that's all I've goofed with so far…

Try using the Dr Z as your clean base and sticking a Valve Driver on it. Just an example of what I've found to have a more elastic feel...

Clarky · July 2017

some interesting comments…
I'll certainly be trying some of these suggestions..

so here's why I need 3 amps

riff = 2 hi-gain amps panned hard
solo = 1 hi-gain amp panned centre / delay / reverb
clean = 1 clean amp panned centre / reverb

this looks ok.. I can have 1 hi-gain amp in path 1 and the other hi-gain and clean amps in path 2
and use snapshots to switch them off / on and pan them [although I've not tried that yet so this is all theoretical]

so at it's most basic level, these are my tone switching requirements

robinbowes · July 2017

Did you try simply switching presets?

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Clarky and the Helix

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