Line 6 Helix

Sporky

I'm clearly overthinking it now, but you could have a mic into the mic input that senses the external volume level...

Cabicular

Lol
Or an algorithm that detects if it sounds a bit shit and switches it on

Sporky

That, right there, is pure liquid genius.

Cabicular

The thing is The Helix gives people a large amount of every different type of amp, most FX you can think off
a large selection of cabs with settings, a ton of IO options and almost unlimited EQs
and you still get people saying 'it sounds like ass'
I struggle to believe that's entirely the units fault ...

Cabicular

I think people get overwhelmed by the presets and the options. I think he best plan is to start with guitar and amp and get a good clean sound and a good dirty sound
once you have that everything else is easy

Sporky

Indeed. Same as you would with a conventional set-up.

Though I also like to distribute and change blocks in a largely random manner, then find out what it sounds like. I have a patch with eight tremolo blocks which turned out to be much less wiggly than I'd imagined.

Cabicular

I've just been trying a stereo Wet Dry Wet set up through the XLRs but just a standard stereo set out the 1/4 inches
yiu have to be pretty careful with the routing

kjdowd

Cabicular said:

I think people get overwhelmed by the presets and the options. I think he best plan is to start with guitar and amp and get a good clean sound and a good dirty sound
once you have that everything else is easy

Exactly this. It's so straightforward to start from scratch and get a good sound. I don't think I've ever used any of the presets. 

Sporky

I had a go through the presets after the 2.0 update just to get an idea of the new amps - and they were good enough that I ended up playing for a lot longer than I'd expected.
Definitely worth making your own, of course, but some perfectly decent basic sounds straight off (into monitors, for me).

kjdowd

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the presets had been tweaked in 2.0. Might give them a go. 

Teetonetal

Cabicular said:

The thing is The Helix gives people a large amount of every different type of amp, most FX you can think off
a large selection of cabs with settings, a ton of IO options and almost unlimited EQs
and you still get people saying 'it sounds like ass'
I struggle to believe that's entirely the units fault ...

hmm.

My first impression with helix was that it sounds like ass. Demoing it in store is a nightmare, you have to take it home and use it a lot imo.

My current impression is that to make it sound nice through monitors is easy, through headphones is hard.

The FX are really good, the Cab models are good (Run an attenuated head through them and they are better than lots of IRs imo)

The inbuilt amps sound best with dual cabs.but sound a bit thin on single cabs

Getting the volume right through each block is crucial as Line 6 overdid the realism (Bubble vibrato needs instrument level etc)

I spent 3 weeks really, really fighting with helix. and in the end it boiled down to firmware updates and some fairly minor tweaks to get it to sound nice, most of the time. I still can't get a lot of the amps to sound good and even when downloading other peoples supposedly wonderful patches, I'm left cold... so I just avoid those amps. I'm pretty much settled on the Essex 15 and the new Line 6 hot rod.

So all in all Helix is like almost all other gear, not perfect and it's quite possible that it's tonal palette doesn't sit right with someones ear, but the good sound is in there somewhere. the question is can you be arsed to find it? 

Telling for me has been how much I like the FX integration, really cool. But the amp side, I can take or leave. It's not as good as either Sgear or an amp attenuated with a reactive load IMO - but it's not far behind.

 ,

Sporky

The issue with other peoples' patches is always going to be that they made them in a different room with a different amp and a different guitar. Also different ears.

fretmeister

Sporky

With your posh Reflex wotsit can you do this...

Activate an FX block and wah and as you wah change the FX settings (fuzz) so there is more fuzz saturation at heel down position than at the top? Or the other way round as I haven't decided yet.

Sporky

Yes, but you can do that with any expression pedal.

fretmeister

Oh.

Now I feel a bit of a wally. I'll have to investigate it more.

Sporky

You can assign loads of things to each expression input.

The main advantages of the Reflex are the multiple outputs (three expression/CV, three MIDI and one Source Audio) and that you can assign LFOs to the outputs, with the treadle affecting speed or clock division. And each output is completely separate.

For me it was mostly the LFOs that did it.

Teetonetal

Sporky said:

The issue with other peoples' patches is always going to be that they made them in a different room with a different amp and a different guitar. Also different ears.

Which is why I am amazed people can make a living out of selling them...

kjdowd

Teetonetal said:

Sporky said:

The issue with other peoples' patches is always going to be that they made them in a different room with a different amp and a different guitar. Also different ears.

Which is why I am amazed people can make a living out of selling them...

Must be a bit of sideline, surely, but I share your amazement. 

Sporky

I get it for things like those Shadows patches, or even U2 ones. People just want to buy a multiFX box and play their favourite guitarist's stuff without faffing.

Beyond those they're a mystery to me. Crafting sounds (ooh, la-di-dah) is part of the hobby for me.

Cabicular

And yet I bought Glenn Delauneys set 
just to see what he was doing. And I picked up some good stuff from it