Line 6 Helix

TimmyO

menamestom said:

The only downside is a sore neck from looking down so much!

haha :-) 

Drew_TNBD

menamestom said:

 

The only downside is a sore neck from looking down so much!

I agree, but the wife seems to enjoy it.


... ohhhh.... something else, sorrry nowt to see here....!!

TimmyO

Right I need to man up and buy a bag/case of some sort - duo rehearsals loom.

@Drew_TNBD  does the Novation bag have somewhere to put an expression/volume pedal? 

Drew_TNBD

TimmyO said:

Right I need to man up and buy a bag/case of some sort - duo rehearsals loom.

@Drew_TNBD  does the Novation bag have somewhere to put an expression/volume pedal? 

Yeah man, it's got a front pouch that can fit a *lot* of stuff in it. I manage to fit a wah and volume pedal, as well as a bunch of cables. It also has two side pockets where you can put some smaller things. A Boss pedal in each one is doable. Finally inside the internal compartment where the Helix goes there is also a bit of room for cables, no pedals or anything though.

TimmyO

awesome, ta

RandallFlagg

TimmyO said:

RandallFlagg said:

I'm disappointed with my Helix for the first time since getting it last year.

I bought a new amp recently, a Morgan PR12, which sounds great and I want to use the Helix for effects only through the front and it works a treat for that no problem. I have everything I need either in stompbox mode with scenes for each of my guitars or I can use presets as and when required. All good.

But, this weekend I spent some time A/B'ing between guitar direct to amp and via Helix with everything off and there is a change in the dry sound running through the Helix. I'm losing something that is really hard to put into words, but a smoothness, rounding of the tone, is lost and the dry tone through the Helix sounds a little colder, brighter maybe, a little more solid state amp sounding. It's subtle but noticeable.  

The Morgan's pure tone is so good that it's really worth preserving so I am in a dilemma now as to whether the Helix is really cutting it for me in front of the amp but I love the mulit-fx programmability and convenience and also have the Helix available for direct to desktop playing and recording, just wish I could keep that pure Morgan tone.

2 things

 is that direct, unaffected sound an important one to you? If not then..... ?

You went looking to see if there was a small, hard to perceive difference and found one. ? ;-) 

The direct sound of guitar into the Morgan PR12 is superb, and through Helix it sounds colder, harder and just lacks some of the feel, it's not just the sound but the dynamics on the first transient of the notes is affected, something is lost. I tried through my old 1982 BOSS BF-2 Flanger and the amp tome is preserved, no change.

I even dragged my wife in and A/B'd for her and she made the same comments.

So. I have sold my Helix. I'm going back to pedals hopefully with a good analogue signal path, for use with my amp. They are not as convenient and I will miss having the flexibility of saving patches but I can't accept the change in tone. maybe it's just me, maybe it's just the Morgan amp, I don't know.

However, I am very much considering a software modelling solution for computer playing and recording though and very interested in Helix Native, although I wish it was going to be standalone as well as plugin. It's a pain in the tits having to fire up Logic just to practice or have a quiet noodle through headphones. Looking at Bias FX Desktop as well.

Drew_TNBD

edit - already asked you!

guitarfishbay

@RandallFlagg

Its really easy to set up a simple project in Logic and then leave the icon on your desktop.

I have one called 'practice project'

It has channels with my guitar and bass FX chains already set up. It would be easy to do this with Native when it is released, same amount of clicks to get started vs using standalone

RandallFlagg

guitarfishbay said:

@RandallFlagg

Its really easy to set up a simple project in Logic and then leave the icon on your desktop.

I have one called 'practice project'

It has channels with my guitar and bass FX chains already set up. It would be easy to do this with Native when it is released, same amount of clicks to get started vs using standalone

Nice one.

Drew_TNBD

I am very very fond of the Adriatic Delay.

Spent the evening trying to get my Nemesis Delay and DD-500 to sound similar to it, and it just can't be done!! ffs!! Too much gear in the world!!

menamestom

I've just been checking out the bypass on my LT, in a very unscientific way and I can perceive a slight difference when going through the LT vs a few pedals (3 TB pedals all off) into my Princeton.  I like the bypass tone on the Helix, certainly not in anyway cold to my ears, probably warms / fattens if anything, but the difference is very small.  Interestingly switching to line output seemed to make the bypass tone punchier than instrument out, which was probably mainly perceived from a small volume boost.

We all hear things differently, so nobody can be really wrong, but I would imagine it's a very small minority of people that would have an issue with the bypass, so I wouldn't advise that stopping people trying the Helix.

Cabicular

menamestom said:

I've just been checking out the bypass on my LT, in a very unscientific way and I can perceive a slight difference when going through the LT vs a few pedals (3 TB pedals all off) into my Princeton.  I like the bypass tone on the Helix, certainly not in anyway cold to my ears, probably warms / fattens if anything, but the difference is very small.  Interestingly switching to line output seemed to make the bypass tone punchier than instrument out, which was probably mainly perceived from a small volume boost.

We all hear things differently, so nobody can be really wrong, but I would imagine it's a very small minority of people that would have an issue with the bypass, so I wouldn't advise that stopping people trying the Helix.

I do wonder how much impact the impedance auto sense and the global input have on these things.
They make a pretty dramatic difference to the modelled amps. Has anyone had a play with those into a 4cm setup?

Sporky

menamestom said:

probably mainly perceived from a small volume boost.

Izzackerly - any comparisons that don't level match to about 0.2dB aren't valid because your brain interprets louder as better.

menamestom

  Sporky said:

menamestom said:

probably mainly perceived from a small volume boost.

your brain interprets louder as better.

Yes it does - pity the rest of my bands brains don't seem to work like this

Cabicular

Sporky said:

menamestom said:

probably mainly perceived from a small volume boost.

Izzackerly - any comparisons that don't level match to about 0.2dB aren't valid because your brain interprets louder as better.

Louder IS better!

menamestom

  Cabicular said:

menamestom said:

I've just been checking out the bypass on my LT, in a very unscientific way and I can perceive a slight difference when going through the LT vs a few pedals (3 TB pedals all off) into my Princeton.  I like the bypass tone on the Helix, certainly not in anyway cold to my ears, probably warms / fattens if anything, but the difference is very small.  Interestingly switching to line output seemed to make the bypass tone punchier than instrument out, which was probably mainly perceived from a small volume boost.

We all hear things differently, so nobody can be really wrong, but I would imagine it's a very small minority of people that would have an issue with the bypass, so I wouldn't advise that stopping people trying the Helix.

I do wonder how much impact the impedance auto sense and the global input have on these things.
They make a pretty dramatic difference to the modelled amps. Has anyone had a play with those into a 4cm setup?

I might be wrong, but I think the impedance is 1M ohm on auto unless the model of the first pedal has a lower impedance.

So if it is a model of a fuzz, auto lets the impedance simulate what impedance the fuzz would have.  So on bypass, with no blocks, I think auto would be the same as the high Z setting. 

I've never tried 4cm as none of my amps have effect loops.  And even if they did I don't have enough leads.  It's on my bucket list however 

Sporky

Cabicular said:

Sporky said:

menamestom said:

probably mainly perceived from a small volume boost.

Izzackerly - any comparisons that don't level match to about 0.2dB aren't valid because your brain interprets louder as better.

Louder IS better!

Ah, but suppose there are two things you're comparing, A and B; if they're within 0.2dB then A sounds better - just slightly. If you make B just 0.5dB louder it'll sound better - you won't notice it's louder, but it may be enough to make you think that B is the better sound.

This matters particularly with bypasses - as ICBM has pointed out a few times, the problem with the Boss bypass is that it loses a teeny bit of volume; stack a few together and then compare that with straight into the amp and it sounds like the Boss pedals are making things sound worse, when they're just removing a bit of level, not actually changing the sound in any other way.

guitarfishbay

Sporky said:

This matters particularly with bypasses - as ICBM has pointed out a few times, the problem with the Boss bypass is that it loses a teeny bit of volume; stack a few together and then compare that with straight into the amp and it sounds like the Boss pedals are making things sound worse, when they're just removing a bit of level, not actually changing the sound in any other way.

But my experience was that you couldn't get it to sound the same by turning up the input gain to compensate, though I can't re-test this since I sold all my amps.  I'm not suggesting it won't be able to sound good (which is more important IMO), just that you probably won't get an identical outcome between plugged straight in vs plugged in via a bunch of bypassed boss pedals and adjusting the gain.

At least this was my experience when using real amp + pedals.  I decided that since I needed the pedals that I just shouldn't worry about comparing with vs without, since it didn't matter if without sounded better if I couldn't play the songs.

Sporky

guitarfishbay said:

But my experience was that you couldn't get it to sound the same by turning up the input gain to compensate

Quite possibly not - guitar amps aren't linear and it's only going to be a small amount, which is hard to do accurately and repeatably that way.

But put the Boss pedals in a TB loop that has a nice linear boost, set that to ensure unity gain when the loop is engaged, and you'd probably find it darned near impossible to tell whether you're going through the bypassed pedals or not.

guitarfishbay

Yes I suspect you're right re linearity/repeatability