Line 6 Helix

nickp

wellsyboy said:

UnclePsychosis said:

guitarcookie1 said:

UnclePsychosis said:

i'm interested in doing a bit more playing with headphones with my stomp. 

Anyone got any particularly good patches/tips/settings/videos for Vox and Fender clean-ish tones using Stomp plus headphones? 

The M Britt ones are worth getting for these. 

I watched his demo on YouTube. Loads of Marshall crunch tones, but very few clean tones and no Fender ones at all? 

https://youtu.be/I-i_i1nrRy0

have a look at his website with a listing of amps.  I find his ir's to be good and not overprocessed

colourofsound

@rossyamaha How does one get hold of one of those fancy coloured Stomps you see on Reverb?

rossyamaha

colourofsound said:

@rossyamaha How does one get hold of one of those fancy coloured Stomps you see on Reverb?

They are limited edition jobs. If you see one you want then get it. They won't be around long. There were different colours for different countries. Not sure who had what but there are a bunch of different ones. I did fancy a red one. 

Seziertisch

UnclePsychosis said:

i'm interested in doing a bit more playing with headphones with my stomp. 

Anyone got any particularly good patches/tips/settings/videos for Vox and Fender clean-ish tones using Stomp plus headphones? 

In my experience, patches tend to be guitar or pickup specific. I have ones dialled in for specific guitars/pickups which don’t necessarily sound great using something else.

When building your own, start simple with just an amp and cabinet. I have found that on nearly all my Helix patches I tend to have treble and/or presence set very low on the amp model. 

Once I am happyish with the amp settings I then look at the high and low pass filters in the cab models - I would usually take out the very low stuff sub 70ish HZ and set the high pass somewhere between 6 and 9 KHZ.

In terms of mic selection and position, if this is new to you best to go with something simple like the 57 Dynamic set fairly close to the cab to start off. This is what a lot of people would do in the real world, if it doesn’t sound at least good with a 57 on it, then changing mics probably won’t help.

Then in terms of tightening things up I quite like the modelled Klon in front of Fender amp
models - gain set low or off just providing a bit of push.

In terms of fattening the sound try setting a slap back delay with one single repeat and the mix level at about 10% or less, you won’t necessarily notice when it’s on but you will when it’s off.

Otherwise, set the amp volume to where it sounds best to you, and then use the cab output volume to control the level.

UnclePsychosis

Cheers. One issue I've found already is that dialling things in for my headphones is really hard. Playing my stomp through my PC speakers and most patches are "ok" at worst, but through my headphones most things sound shit until I tweak the hell out of it. Even bypassing the impedance issue by using both stomp and headphones into my external audio interface doesn't really help.

Bummer. I really can't be arsed falling down a headphone rabbit hole. 

Seziertisch

UnclePsychosis said:

Cheers. One issue I've found already is that dialling things in for my headphones is really hard. Playing my stomp through my PC speakers and most patches are "ok" at worst, but through my headphones most things sound shit until I tweak the hell out of it. Even bypassing the impedance issue by using both stomp and headphones into my external audio interface doesn't really help.

Bummer. I really can't be arsed falling down a headphone rabbit hole. 

The problem is dialling anything in using monitoring you are unfamiliar with. Even with the best monitoring solution, if you don’t know how stuff sounds and should sound in it, you are at a disadvantage 

guitargeek62

My new Zilla cab's arriving tomorrow - quite excited to hear the Helix through it! 

longshins

I love playing my Helix stomp/native with headphones, I kept ballsing It up for a while by putting an ir at the end and making everything mono. Stereo with headphones is an amazing experience, I’m addicted to the trinity chorus or the double tracker and ping pong delay set super subtle to thicken things up.

One gripe I have is the crispy clipping of the tweed amps when breaking up into drive... my real ones don’t do that and it’s a bit of a shame as the models do the about to blow up sound really well, but fail at imbetweeny drive.

What does make up for things is the new Carvin pedal, I’m a huge Vai fan and this pedal into the clean Friedman nails his tone, you know, the fuzzy low end thing into singing lead lines. Really amazing addition. 

I’m going to end with the usual request to sort pitch shifting out and get some more exotic sounding effects into the unit like the EHX sitar, keys, organ stuff, but honestly the Helix is mega as is and any new stuff is a bonus.

UnclePsychosis

For future reference, if you own a hardware unit and used the discount to buy native, what's the (legal) position on selling the hardware but continuing to use Native? And does it stop the new owner buying Native? 

Jota

UnclePsychosis said:

For future reference, if you own a hardware unit and used the discount to buy native, what's the (legal) position on selling the hardware but continuing to use Native? And does it stop the new owner buying Native? 

Y

You still own the software you bought so you can use it without problems.

No but he can't get the discount cause Line6 got zero from his purchase.

UnclePsychosis

Hey guys

Gonna one of you do me a favour and try this patch out? 

https://line6.com/customtone/tone/4207036/

It sounds really good to me but its spectacularly hissy through both my headphones and my speakers and I find it hard to believe Jason Sadites dialed it in like that. I'm just wondering if its something about my setup or what. 

duotone

UnclePsychosis said:

Hey guys

Gonna one of you do me a favour and try this patch out? 

https://line6.com/customtone/tone/4207036/

It sounds really good to me but its spectacularly hissy through both my headphones and my speakers and I find it hard to believe Jason Sadites dialed it in like that. I'm just wondering if its something about my setup or what. 

@UnclePsychosis

I downloaded that a couple weeks ago & thought the same as you. I think I put a noisegate at the front of the chain to help tame it. In the end deleted it!

Shame there’s no kind of quality control on Line6  CustomTone.

UnclePsychosis

@duotone it seems to be something in the amp block that causes it. I'm guessing having the channel volume and master volume both at ten, but it just seems odd because in the video where he dialed it in I can't hear the hiss at all. Strange... 

FarleyUK

UnclePsychosis said:

@duotone it seems to be something in the amp block that causes it. I'm guessing having the channel volume and master volume both at ten, but it just seems odd because in the video where he dialed it in I can't hear the hiss at all. Strange... 

I've learnt by being burnt many times that you can NEVER take the videos or recorded sound as a genuine example of how the patch will sound. This goes for all modelling gear - I've spent a small fortune of patches etc., and only a handful actually sound like the clips.

UnclePsychosis

FarleyUK said:

UnclePsychosis said:

@duotone it seems to be something in the amp block that causes it. I'm guessing having the channel volume and master volume both at ten, but it just seems odd because in the video where he dialed it in I can't hear the hiss at all. Strange... 

I've learnt by being burnt many times that you can NEVER take the videos or recorded sound as a genuine example of how the patch will sound. This goes for all modelling gear - I've spent a small fortune of patches etc., and only a handful actually sound like the clips.

I get that - I'm just a bit confused as to how a patch by one of the most popular helix patch makers, with ~1800 downloads and a five star rating, sounds really spectacularly hissy when I use it. 

Its not "this doesn't really sound like the video", so much as "have I got something setup wrong somewhere"? 

guitarcookie1

UnclePsychosis said:

FarleyUK said:

UnclePsychosis said:

@duotone it seems to be something in the amp block that causes it. I'm guessing having the channel volume and master volume both at ten, but it just seems odd because in the video where he dialed it in I can't hear the hiss at all. Strange... 

I've learnt by being burnt many times that you can NEVER take the videos or recorded sound as a genuine example of how the patch will sound. This goes for all modelling gear - I've spent a small fortune of patches etc., and only a handful actually sound like the clips.

I get that - I'm just a bit confused as to how a patch by one of the most popular helix patch makers, with ~1800 downloads and a five star rating, sounds really spectacularly hissy when I use it. 

Its not "this doesn't really sound like the video", so much as "have I got something setup wrong somewhere"? 

I've found and wondered the same.

The Britt ones sound fine, but the Sadites and DeLaune ones are overly loud, harsh and have completely mis-matched volume levels between snapshots.

Seziertisch

guitarcookie1 said:

UnclePsychosis said:

FarleyUK said:

UnclePsychosis said:

@duotone it seems to be something in the amp block that causes it. I'm guessing having the channel volume and master volume both at ten, but it just seems odd because in the video where he dialed it in I can't hear the hiss at all. Strange... 

I've learnt by being burnt many times that you can NEVER take the videos or recorded sound as a genuine example of how the patch will sound. This goes for all modelling gear - I've spent a small fortune of patches etc., and only a handful actually sound like the clips.

I get that - I'm just a bit confused as to how a patch by one of the most popular helix patch makers, with ~1800 downloads and a five star rating, sounds really spectacularly hissy when I use it. 

Its not "this doesn't really sound like the video", so much as "have I got something setup wrong somewhere"? 

I've found and wondered the same.

The Britt ones sound fine, but the Sadites and DeLaune ones are overly loud, harsh and have completely mis-matched volume levels between snapshots.

I’ve found Helix patches, particularly more complicated ones, to be very dependent on the guitar/pickups being used. I have some patches tailored for a guitar which sound terrible with some of my other guitars, the EQ and gain profiles are completely off.

If the patch was “composed” using a humbucking and/or shielded guitar and you are using single coils and/or an unshielded instrument that could explain the hum.

It could also be the case that any noise gate settings in the patch need to be set to match the output of your guitar. Or potentially you might need to add a noise gate to the patch to keep things under control. The Helix gates are pretty flexible so you should be able to make them work, just set the threshold to the point where the hum is gone or mostly gone and adjust the attack and release to taste.

Otherwise, if there is too much top end stuff going on, the quickest way is to just reduce the frequency on the cabinet block low pass filter. I’ve found that somewhere between 6 and 9khz is the sweet spot.

kennedydream1980

FarleyUK said:

UnclePsychosis said:

@duotone it seems to be something in the amp block that causes it. I'm guessing having the channel volume and master volume both at ten, but it just seems odd because in the video where he dialed it in I can't hear the hiss at all. Strange... 

I've learnt by being burnt many times that you can NEVER take the videos or recorded sound as a genuine example of how the patch will sound. This goes for all modelling gear - I've spent a small fortune of patches etc., and only a handful actually sound like the clips.

I get that - I'm just a bit confused as to how a patch by one of the most popular helix patch makers, with ~1800 downloads and a five star rating, sounds really spectacularly hissy when I use it. 

Its not "this doesn't really sound like the video", so much as "have I got something setup wrong somewhere"? 

I found with the few Jason Sadites presets that I downloaded that the Wah was already on when uploading into my Helix. Took me ages to figure out why it was noisy and very bright.

stratman3142

UnclePsychosis said:

Hey guys

Gonna one of you do me a favour and try this patch out? 

https://line6.com/customtone/tone/4207036/

It sounds really good to me but its spectacularly hissy through both my headphones and my speakers and I find it hard to believe Jason Sadites dialed it in like that. I'm just wondering if its something about my setup or what. 

I just tried the patch in Helix Native, because it's easier than faffing around with my Helix LT.

I found that the Bias level on the Amp has a significant effect on the hiss. On my system the patch opens in Helix Native with an amp Bias level of 6.5. Backing it off a bit (to say 4.0) helps to reduce the hiss. It's a compromise because the sound loses some body if you back it off too far.

UnclePsychosis

Yeah I'm using it in Native too, but I'd expect it to sound the same on the hardware units.

'tis a strange phenomenon.