Line 6 Helix

Cabicular

Some of those boys in the Line6 forum are losing the tottie
Bitching and whining about the level of technical detail in the manual.
Who would be a manufacturer in today's world where your support forums are just a Megaphone for the simple

dindude

Just watched the Pete Thorn demo, thought it sounded great.

hubobulous

I think it sounds awesome, but can't help feeling I'd settle on a couple of amp choices with delay/reverb and not push it further.

I can see it's massive benefits, but love my amps and pedals. I think, for me, the thought of it is out of whack with how much I'd really use it. Second hand might be an option down the line of course!!

Cabicular

hubobulous said:

I think it sounds awesome, but can't help feeling I'd settle on a couple of amp choices with delay/reverb and not push it further.

I can see it's massive benefits, but love my amps and pedals. I think, for me, the thought of it is out of whack with how much I'd really use it. Second hand might be an option down the line of course!!

That's the best approach. Dont get bogged down in the millions of options just get it to do the job

rossyamaha

hubobulous said:

I think it sounds awesome, but can't help feeling I'd settle on a couple of amp choices with delay/reverb and not push it further.

I can see it's massive benefits, but love my amps and pedals. I think, for me, the thought of it is out of whack with how much I'd really use it. Second hand might be an option down the line of course!!

You see, that's why THR100HD exists. As much as I love the idea of Helix, realistically I'm going to use around 2% of it. Having the option is nice though. That said, I know a bunch of people who would use it to it's full potential. 

hubobulous

There's a certain tactility with pedals and amps for me too though.

I've migrated away from the Rocktron Utopia G300 to amps/pedals. The Utopia served me excellently for quite a few years - a massively underrated and under marketed unit - so I know the benefits of multi fx well. But amps are 'fun'. 

It's all cyclical though. I'm sure the Helix and I will cross paths one day.

PJH

Hi everyone,

I've only recently discovered this forum. I've been putting together demo product videos for some time (MI Audio, Kemper, Tokai and Line 6). It's just something that I enjoy doing as my other interest other than music is video and graphic design.

I put together a series on the POD HD500X and I've now started a series on the Line 6 Helix. I've always come from a background of micing up real amps in the studio and believing that it was the only way to go. Since getting the Helix, it's made me think again about how I do things.

The company that brings in Line 6 stuff to South Africa saw some of my videos and have now made me an "ambassador" for Line 6 in SA. This means that I now get to play with most of the products (which is why I'm doing this series of vids on the Helix.

I've finished with Part 1 which just demos some of the amps with the built in speaker cab IRs. Because this is the Helix thread, I thought it might be interesting to hear what they sound like.

Cheers,

Peter.

Moltisanti

HI Peter, great video, you had some very tasty sounds in there, the Recto sounded incredible

PJH

Thanks, Moltisanti,

Yes, I'm still finding more and more great tones in this unit.

I'm hoping to upload Part 2 within the next week.

Cheers.

matt1973

Well I got mine last week. I gigged it a few hours after opening the box (using it direct to the PA) and was pretty darn impressed with how easy it is to program. I also really liked the tones in isolation. 

How these units sound within a live band mix is whole different ball game - almost like a it will be a journey in itself. I used a Line6 L3m to monitor the Helix and felt as though some of the frequencies that would cut through the mix had it been a tube amp, simply didnt do so. I play in a 6 piece band so there is a lot of sonic traffic to contend with. I guess this will mean a lot of tweaking and some experimentation with various FRFR solutions.

I was also completely aghast at the lag encountered when switching between presets. This seems quite retrogressive in an otherwise state-of-the-art piece of gear. So it seems, that for the moment at least, you're limited to 1 preset per song.

Not wishing to sound totally negative, I have to say that in every other respect, the Helix is a revelation. And the firmware updates will mean it only gets better from here on in. Terrific value for money too.

 

Cabicular

The plus side is you can get an awful lot in a preset but I'm hoping the switching lag will improve with FW 1.06
I have a preset which gives me clean, crunch via my KOT in a loop and a stacked full tone OD
I also have a pitch whammy momentary switch a chorus a flanger a phaser and a wah as well as switchable reverb and delay

My limitation is hat I'm out of foot switches (have it set to 10 mode)

kjdowd

Cabicular said:

The plus side is you can get an awful lot in a preset but I'm hoping the switching lag will improve with FW 1.06
I have a preset which gives me clean, crunch via my KOT in a loop and a stacked full tone OD
I also have a pitch whammy momentary switch a chorus a flanger a phaser and a wah as well as switchable reverb and delay

My limitation is hat I'm out of foot switches (have it set to 10 mode)

Are you using IRs or the built in cabs? Or neither?

Cabicular

Own hammer freebie sample
Sm57 m+ more midrange

Cabicular

New Firmware out with 9 new effects and 3 different flavours of a Matchless DC30 ( interesting to see how it compares to mine)

hugbot

And a timmy model called Teemah! As in, Southpark Teemah? OK that made me lol.

Cabicular

Turns out we laughed too soon
It's been pulled!

PJH

Hi everyone,

Here is the second part in the series on the Helix. This video is a demonstration of the Helix in a studio recording with a drummer.

I used the Helix directly into the mixing desk and tracked all the guitars including bass though it. I also only used the Line 6 IR speaker cabs and no third party IRs. I hope this also puts to bed the “myth” IMO that the Helix only sounds good with third party IRs.

There was no post processing done to the guitar parts except for levels in the final mix.

I found it quite difficult to choose which amps to use for this track as there were quite a few I could have used which also sounded great. I ended up using the Plexi for the Les Paul solo parts and the Crunchy backing parts. I used the Hiwatt amp for all the Strat parts and the JC120 for the clean chorused backing parts.

The bass was tracked using the Gallien Kruger amp.

I hope you enjoy the track as much as I enjoyed putting it together.

Cheers,

Peter

handsomerik

great demo!

hubobulous

Yep, that really is a great demo.

ElectroDan

Nice demo and playing @PJH