Line 6 Helix

Seziertisch

Cirrus said:

Seziertisch said:

 I eventually just loaded up a bunch of them with different mic options and said that if I can’t find one that works out of the 90 odd I have available to me, then the IR probably isn’t the problem. 

To be fair, I'm of the same persuasion.

Well, the song's fantastic, you should be very proud! Nice build up of guitar parts - there's a lot going on but they all work together.

Glad you liked it :-)

The guy who mixed it has done stuff for me before. In the past he complained about the difficulty of getting each of the parts in my songs  sitting in their own space in the mix; they all had similar sonic footprints, which wasn’t surprising as they were all recorded through the same couple of amps and speakers with the same mics/mic positions.

The great thing about IRs and the onboard cab/mic sims is that you can quickly and easily give parts a very different signature sound without having to worry about phasing etc. In my experience the cab, speaker and mic choice/position nearly play a bigger role than the amp itself in the sound you hear.

TTBZ

I’m trying not to get too bogged down in IRs - between the free Redwirez and free Ownhammer Mesa packs that should cover everything I need. I’ve found my favourite M160 and 121 positionings for playing at home and the best SM57 one if I want to take it live. I found it way easier to audition IRs by recording a track into my daw with no cab sim on then loaded them into NadIR and flicked through til I found something pleasing. 

PS I may be being dumb but where can I find the official update instructions for 2.8/2.81? Just trying to get everything ready for when mine arrives hopefully tomorrow so I can get it all sorted !

Jota

TTBZ said:

I’m trying not to get too bogged down in IRs - between the free Redwirez and free Ownhammer Mesa packs that should cover everything I need. I’ve found my favourite M160 and 121 positionings for playing at home and the best SM57 one if I want to take it live. I found it way easier to audition IRs by recording a track into my daw with no cab sim on then loaded them into NadIR and flicked through til I found something pleasing. 

PS I may be being dumb but where can I find the official update instructions for 2.8/2.81? Just trying to get everything ready for when mine arrives hopefully tomorrow so I can get it all sorted !

I was using those free OH IRs until I got the Celestion V30s and they just completely changed the game for me.

You can find the instructions on the Line6 site. I think they have it on the forum.

sgosden

TTBZ said:

PS I may be being dumb but where can I find the official update instructions for 2.8/2.81? 

https://line6.com/support/page/kb/effects-controllers/helix/helixhx-281-release-notes-r920/

Read through them And take it slow and you can't go.wrong. Even with the intentionally boot failure messages. 

TTBZ

My update was pain free, took all of 5 minutes once I’d installed HX Edit. As expected, really loving the Friedman model and suspect that’s where I’ll stay for most of my playing.

Dontgiveupyourdayjob

The Fullerton model is the big game-changer for me with the 2.8 update. Definitely worth the wait!

My go-to preset on the Stomp for general chilled out practice at the minute is this one, available free on the Custom Tone website...

rossyamaha

Eyup. Just in case people don’t see this, I’m looking for a bit of market research. Largely so I can do my job properly. ;-)

https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/162697/genuine-question-who-has-tried-the-line-6-powercab-and-been-disappointed#latest

TTBZ

Weirdly I’m now preferring the Mandarin boosted with the treble booster to any of the marshalls for my mid gain rocky tones. All the Marshalls seem too compressed and gainy. What’s everyone’s go-to for that classic rock style dynamic crunch?

rossyamaha

TTBZ said:

Weirdly I’m now preferring the Mandarin boosted with the treble booster to any of the marshalls for my mid gain rocky tones. All the Marshalls seem too compressed and gainy. What’s everyone’s go-to for that classic rock style dynamic crunch?

Little trick with that. Go to the master volume and turn it down then turn it back up with the channel volume. The master is literally the master so the higher it is the more compressed it will be. I love the Plexi cleaned up and then boosted with the klon. Litigator is pretty awesome too. 

TTBZ

Well that makes sense, I’ll try that tomorrow! 

Jota

TTBZ said:

Weirdly I’m now preferring the Mandarin boosted with the treble booster to any of the marshalls for my mid gain rocky tones. All the Marshalls seem too compressed and gainy. What’s everyone’s go-to for that classic rock style dynamic crunch?

I
 like the Trainwreck.

UnclePsychosis

Guys,

Clearly I'm being daft, because I absolutely cannot work out how the Y-split blocks work. 

I've set up a parallel path on my stomp, like this: 



Now, what I did was set a footswitch to "bypass" the Y split block. My expectation was that when I did this, I wouldn't be able to hear the effects on the bottom path because no sound would reach them. However, "bypassing" the Y-split makes absolutely no difference to the output: I can always hear the delay/reverb/etc. 

To get the expected behaviour, I needed to bypass/modify the "mixer" block at the end of the split. This seems wrong. 

I tried playing with the A/B split, the balance, etc. but nothing made any difference. Can someone explain the "right" way to get this to behave the way I think it should? What does bypassing a Y split actually do because it doesn't seem to do anything? 

hubobulous

Could you just use a snapshot to have the effects off?

UnclePsychosis

Probably, but I'd still like to understand the way the Y blocks work. 

sgosden

The Y split is used for panning left and right. 

You want to be using the A/B split. Then you get a balance of what percentage of signal goes to each bath. 

On your  balance dial - central will be 50/50 each way. All the way left will be 100% path A.
All the way right will be 100% path B.
With some level of mix across the full dial travel. 

So if you're wanting path A on all the time you could assign the balance dial to a foot switch. 
With the switch On, you have the dial in the middle for 50/50 sound split. 
With the switch off you assign it all the way left for 100% path A. 


Think this is what you're aiming for ?

sgosden

[Double post deleted]

TTBZ

Bit more mucking about today, I take back what I said about the stock cabs and also Celestion IRs. With the Jason Sadites shelf EQ template with the compressor at the end I was able to near enough match my favourite IR. However it does take up more blocks so will probably stick to IRs for the same tone with less faff.

I tried out a few of the Celestion IRs I have lying around and surprisingly really liked them with the Helix despite my past experience - think they help give it more of a raw amp tone. The Redwirez one sounds really processed in comparison. Think I might get the Celestion Suhr Pack and try to stop tweaking! I am loving the Stomp, just gotta get away from endless tweaking and back to playing.  

IntoTheRough

So after just over a week with my Floor and Powercab Plus I'm pretty damned happy. I'm rehearsing for a solo acoustic gig (no vox) next month so mainly just used the acoustic through it. The tone is excellent, just need some subtle tweaks to compression, eq, odd bit of delay and reverb and it really does sound ready to gig. The guitar is only a 2010-ish Takamine G-Series as well - nothing special.

I really thought I'd spend more time with my electrics and find some nice tones but all I've really done is noodle through the presets or build some basic amp sounds (the presets are nowhere near as bad as made out though - only the "out there" tones are useless, and I guess the high-gain ones are pretty crappy.)

The looper (6-button) is serviceable, to the point where I'll probably gig without my Ditto X4. It's basic but I can see why they'd invest resources elsewhere.

Would kill for some polyphonic pitch shifting to be able to do detuning or even something fancier.

I did find I had to boost a lot of input volume to the Powercab. I'm really not sure if it's loud enough to use with a band, but that's a non-issue for me as I can't see that happening again now I'm late 30s. It's going to be perfect for the venues I want to play in and sounds great so far.

Not even got started with IRs yet! Seems like an easy way to burn through cash before really finding out the true tweaking-limits of what's in the box already.

rich75

Has anyone else had any problems with the joystick on the Helix Floor?

Mine has just started to fail for the second time. It's fine when pushing up, down, left or right, or turning it, but pressing the button to actually select an option is really hit and miss.

First time it was repaired under warranty, this time it looks like its going to cost me around £150 to £160 to get it dealt with via the authorised repair centre for Line 6, as the previous repair was over a year ago and is apparently no longer covered (according to the retailer). Knob 6 under the screen is also starting to get a bit temperamental.

I should probably add that the Helix is kept in the Line 6 backpack and is well looked after, so it isn't caused by me being heavy handed with it.

I'm giving some thought to getting a reliable back up option as it has slightly knocked my confidence in the Helix to be honest. I will also probably be without it for a few weeks anyway while it is being sorted. I guess the question is whether to go for something like an HX Stomp (and hope I don't get similar problems) or otherwise an Atomic Amplifire. I'm exclusively using FRFR now so will need something with amp modelling in it.

Seziertisch

The joystick issue is apparently a cold solder joint problem and is easy enough to repair. As you are no longer under warranty I think it would be worth having a competent solder jockey have a crack at it. https://youtu.be/9wtzdXbtKJw