Line 6 Helix

TINMAN82

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Whilst all my stuff is at the studio for bass recording, I'm using my Helix as a soundcard again. I forgot how cool it was hooked up to a computer. Epic shhiiiiiiii -- !!

Yeah I used my Stomp to listen to a music Blu Ray this morning. A/B’d with a Fiio E7 headphone amp as the soundcard, the Stomp was an easy winner.

John_A

Sorry replied to wrong thread

redrighthand

Just been having some fun with the new amps and pedals - Fullerton, Tone Sovereign and Heir Apparent in particular. Awesome fun - the Helix just keeps on giving.

For any stomp users here's a share of the presets that have been keeping me happy today. (Patches are clean-ish until the stomps are engaged.)

https://we.tl/t-u4Xp9YMx6z

Jota

Did my first show with the Heir Apparent in place of the SD-1 yesterday. Sounded good!

Today I tried making the Tone Soreveign to try and replace the TS boost for leads and having a free block for delay but run into DSP limitations.

For today's show I lowered the gain on the Heir Apparent a little and so far it sounded great on the sound check.

Let's see how I feel during a full gig with it. Learning to play in the band with less gain and less compression is something I've been trying to make work for a long time.

TTBZ

Pretty much ready to finally treat myself to a HX Stomp now before I commit I want to try one out ideally with the latest firmware and with some good headphones that are well suited to it, so I give it the best possible chance, as I'll be mainly using it through headphones. GAK and PMT have the best prices, anyone know if any of their Midlands stores have a good setup to try out? Or just recommend somewhere good to try one out?

In an ideal world I'd try it with some 250ohm Beyer DT770s since I know those headphones well and would like to get a pair to use with the Stomp.

Jetfire

So... I'm gunna be controversial.

I think the clean amps driven with a tube screamer are much more punchy and cut through compared to a distorted amp. 

TimmyO

Tubescreamers poke through a mix - it's not controversial it's what they do 

robinbowes

Jetfire said:

So... I'm gunna be controversial.

I think the clean amps driven with a tube screamer are much more punchy and cut through compared to a distorted amp. 

That's to be expected. The Tube screamer has a mid-boost between 800Hz and 2kHz (depending on the position of the tone control) which makes it stand out as the human ear is most sensitive in that frequency range.

R.

Jetfire

I think the bit is "two clean amps" rather than the tube screamer. I'm using a Archtype clean and a placater clean at the same time with a drive into both and it's really different sounding. Kinda cool

TimmyO

Jetfire said:

I think the bit is "two clean amps" rather than the tube screamer. I'm using a Archtype clean and a placater clean at the same time with a drive into both and it's really different sounding. Kinda cool

I think if the amps are cleanish to start with it just helps accentuate the effect a TS will have, given that there will be headroom for the boosted mids effect.

Also btw your OP says "the" not "two" - autocorrect? 

Dontgiveupyourdayjob

redrighthand said:

Just been having some fun with the new amps and pedals - Fullerton, Tone Sovereign and Heir Apparent in particular. Awesome fun - the Helix just keeps on giving.

For any stomp users here's a share of the presets that have been keeping me happy today. (Patches are clean-ish until the stomps are engaged.)

https://we.tl/t-u4Xp9YMx6z

Thanks for that, will give them a whirl tomorrow!

I've never been much of a tweaker whether it be with modellers or previously when I was analogue only - I basically have zero patience! I like to be able to just download ready-made presets, maybe fine tune them to suit my guitar/pickups, and then crack on with playing.

The one frustration I have with the Stomp is the relatively limited number of presets to download (either purchased or free on Customtone) compared to the LT/Floor. I never feel the need for more that 6 blocks, it always amazes me when I see tutorials just how complex some people manage to make the blocks/signal path when setting things up for the full fat Helix models - I'd be hopelessly confused by it all I think!

shuikit

NPP said:

initially that's what I did but then found IRs that sounded so much better (to my untrained ears) than the stock cabs that I am using these now. There's something counter-intuitive going on - you'd assume that reflections are what you need if you play through headphones, but the reflection-free IRs I use have a far more natural, pleasant feel to them so I'll stick with these and add in a bit of room through reverb. This does work, I just want to move from random fiddling with the controls and reverb types to intelligently adjusting them. Using stereo reverb as suggested above is a good point. 

Do you mean the Jay Mitchell IRs from TGP?  I tried these and really liked them, there was a clarity and punch that seemed to be missing from other IRs that I'd tried.  But what it made me do is go back to the stock cabs and explore those a bit more and thought there was a similar clarity with the stock cabs, with early reflections set to zero.  Found it was much better to use different mics and adjusting the distance rather than going for the hi/lo cuts straight away.  This thread has some good ideas https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?threads/helix-stock-cabs-ideas.2038915/  

Interestingly, in the 2.8 update all the cabs seem to have a default lo/hi cut set to 80 and and 8k.

NPP

shuikit said:

NPP said:

initially that's what I did but then found IRs that sounded so much better (to my untrained ears) than the stock cabs that I am using these now. There's something counter-intuitive going on - you'd assume that reflections are what you need if you play through headphones, but the reflection-free IRs I use have a far more natural, pleasant feel to them so I'll stick with these and add in a bit of room through reverb. This does work, I just want to move from random fiddling with the controls and reverb types to intelligently adjusting them. Using stereo reverb as suggested above is a good point. 

Do you mean the Jay Mitchell IRs from TGP?  I tried these and really liked them, there was a clarity and punch that seemed to be missing from other IRs that I'd tried.  But what it made me do is go back to the stock cabs and explore those a bit more and thought there was a similar clarity with the stock cabs, with early reflections set to zero.  Found it was much better to use different mics and adjusting the distance rather than going for the hi/lo cuts straight away.  This thread has some good ideas https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?threads/helix-stock-cabs-ideas.2038915/  

Interestingly, in the 2.8 update all the cabs seem to have a default lo/hi cut set to 80 and and 8k.

yes, Jay's IRs. I checked the stock cabs again, but continue to prefer Jay's. Also, having just two IRs is a good way to stop fiddling. 

Meanwhile I tried to find out a little more about the Helix reverbs but most people taking the time to discuss the topic are into extreme and excessively complex settings. Yet, watching one video on Helix reverbs I came across the legacy effects that I had somehow overlooked, and found that the room and hall reverbs are very good for what I need. I dropped them into my go-to patches in place of the more complex reverbs with fanciful names and they do what I need so I'm happy now.

PolarityMan

So I think I figured out what doesnt gel with me about the helix delays. It seems like the feedback is really really linear (I mean technically I suspect its supossed to be) but it feels like if you set it so the first repeat is just right then the second repeat is almost inaudible.

If I compare this to the delays in my old GT-10 they seems to have a lot more of a curve so that additional repeats werent attenuated so quickly. 

So some questions...is there a paramater that controls this?

If there isnt what do you think about the idea of running a split jsut before the delay, running the delay on 100% mix, using a compressor to balance the repeats then re joining the main path and using the mix at the join as if it was the mix of the delay?

Should work right?

revsorg

I  wonder if you might run two delays in parallel, one with double the time of the other?

digitalscream

PolarityMan said:

If there isnt what do you think about the idea of running a split jsut before the delay, running the delay on 100% mix, using a compressor to balance the repeats then re joining the main path and using the mix at the join as if it was the mix of the delay?

Should work right?

After I read the first bit of your post, I was thinking of exactly that solution.

Have you tried the legacy delays? Do they behave any differently?

WiresDreamDisasters

PolarityMan said:

So I think I figured out what doesnt gel with me about the helix delays. It seems like the feedback is really really linear (I mean technically I suspect its supossed to be) but it feels like if you set it so the first repeat is just right then the second repeat is almost inaudible.

If I compare this to the delays in my old GT-10 they seems to have a lot more of a curve so that additional repeats werent attenuated so quickly. 

So some questions...is there a paramater that controls this?

If there isnt what do you think about the idea of running a split jsut before the delay, running the delay on 100% mix, using a compressor to balance the repeats then re joining the main path and using the mix at the join as if it was the mix of the delay?

Should work right?

I've mentioned this multiple times. Best thing to do is to use a separate pedal.

PolarityMan

Not having delay kinda defeats the point of using a multi-fx for me

Cirrus

Funny, I don't have a problem with the delays but thought the older M-series has rubbish for getting the mix and decay right.

menamestom

Got to admit I don’t always feel the delays on the Helix sit right, but rather than worrying about it too much I've just used less delay.  The Memory lane Junior I had was hard to turn off.  I've not tweaked the Helix too much so I've been happy to assume it was just my settings.  I also find the delays work a bit better into the amp models rather into the front end of a guitar amp.