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The Police tone on a Helix


TheBreakneck
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Helix cant cop this tone. we've already been thru this once here ....or at least no one has been successful in replicating it. Anything is possible i guess.

Yes, I recall being through this. But I think the more accurate description is "... no one has been successful in replicating it to the OP's satisfaction". And I think the OP already had his mind made up on the topic and ended up simply trashing anyone who posted a candidate tone. He denigrated and ridiculed anyone who suggested that their tone was good. IIRC there were several good (imho) tones posted but none were good enough for the OP.

 

@TheBreakneck - if the previous poster is still around you can expect to receive some pushback on the quality of your tone - especially if you don't post it for others to try out.

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My apologies......as you could tell , there is some sensitivity on this subject, and I didn’t even realize that you were posting your Helix Summers Tone.....sounds good to me ! ......but you’re not that guy who posted here and in the Fractal forum that had us all wound up...are you....?

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My apologies......as you could tell , there is some sensitivity on this subject, and I didn’t even realize that you were posting your Helix Summers Tone.....sounds good to me ! ......but you’re not that guy who posted here and in the Fractal forum that had us all wound up...are you....?

 

Not to my knowledge, and I'm glad you liked the tone.

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Yes, I recall being through this. But I think the more accurate description is "... no one has been successful in replicating it to the OP's satisfaction". And I think the OP already had his mind made up on the topic and ended up simply trashing anyone who posted a candidate tone. He denigrated and ridiculed anyone who suggested that their tone was good. IIRC there were several good (imho) tones posted but none were good enough for the OP.

 

@TheBreakneck - if the previous poster is still around you can expect to receive some pushback on the quality of your tone - especially if you don't post it for others to try out.

I know what youre saying, and yes, i agree, the original OP (aka the OOP) was pretty abrasive with his comments, and yes there were some fair attempts at the tones, but no one replicated the tone.  His satisfaction is neither here nor there. 

 

Ive heard helix do a good job of copping a number of tones,sometimes nearly indistinguishable (especially to the UNTRAINED ear) but that wasnt one of them. Were the attempts bad? No. Adequate? probably, but REAL good?  Sorry to say it, but no.

 

Anyone in that thread saying the attempts were "real close", was either trying to appease the OP, end the thread, or plain just does not have an ear.

 

As an aside, not trying to defend the OP here because i could care less, but i dont really recall the thread the way you do. The way i remember it, the OP was actually pretty respectful until he was ridiculed by the members here.

 

 

Anyway the kids are covering some KISS tunes and thats what we're working on copping now, which that tone and most marshall tones, seems to be an area where helix is stronger. I'll leave you with a 45 sec clip for your time and comments here. Opinions welcomed.   https://www.dropbox.com/s/38pd1wsdtmtkh8z/lick%20me%20off2.wav?raw=1

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Not to my knowledge, and I'm glad you liked the tone.

Yeah thats pretty good. Ive actually heard this one rep'd before. Give Message a try if your into it. Thats the tone that dude was saying was unobtainable with Helix. There were some attempts made here and a couple of them not too bad, but none were "dead on".

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Yeah thats pretty good. Ive actually heard this one rep'd before. Give Message a try if your into it. Thats the tone that dude was saying was unobtainable with Helix. There were some attempts made here and a couple of them not too bad, but none were "dead on".

 

Message in a Bottle would be very hard to recreate. I can't seem to pinpoint how he got his flanger to sound like that.

 

Anyway, I may upload my preset to Custom Tone if there's more feedback given.

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I really like that song and it was always a mainstay in our set list over the years. I know I would appreciate the patch, for what it’s worth. After about a year and a half with helix it’s the first one I have any real interest in.

 

Also when those folks were trying to replicate the message in a bottle guitar tone I often felt like the effects were pretty close, it was the guitar tobe that was lacking. Even the helix preset isn’t too awfully bad in my opinion. At least the FX portion would be close enough for my tastes. It’s just that the guitar tone is worlds off

 

I messed with re-creating that tone, but time became a factor. I didn’t get real close to a carbon copy.

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As an aside, not trying to defend the OP here because i could care less, but i dont really recall the thread the way you do. The way i remember it, the OP was actually pretty respectful until he was ridiculed by the members here.

 

 

I don't want to go searching for that thread, but I believe he was doing a lot of baiting and berating... I'm pretty sure the same guy was banned from the Fractal forum as well (for the same thing).

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What if I told you... Andy Summers was the one playing on the demonstration I posted

 

 

Then the question would be, does it still sound the same if you or anyone else and not Andy, is playing?  So far, I think that all this proves is that Andy Summers sounds like Andy Summers through the Helix.

 

All that said, I do wish I could cop his sound on "De Doo Doo Doo"  -  Jangliest Tele sound ever!  Not twangy, Jangly!!

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I think the hardest/missing/weakest part of the Andy Summers tone to get using just the Helix is the Electric Mistress. There is a certain sound to the real thing that is missing in the Helix:

 

https://youtu.be/irW-k5icylw?t=5m22s

 

The (now defuct) Hartman Flanger got really close to the EM sound.. and without the noise, but the EM model in the Helix just isn't quite there. I would love to see them improve it in a future firmware update.

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this is all very weird to read and watch...

Ive seen The Police several times, and have also listened to several live DVDs, some from the same tours I attended and some from others...and the guitars sound different on every one.  In fact, I struggle to think of any guitarist  Ive seen on multiple tours where the guitar sound seemed identical...and thats even taking into account the vagrancy of memory!

Likewise...until the advent of modelling (or profiling for the pedants) I dont think Ive ever hear someone play live with the identical tone that was on a record.  Im not saying its not close....Brian May always sounded like Brian May, Eric Johnson always sounded like Eric Johnson, but only recently have I started to hear tones that made me think it was exactly the same.  I am assuming that in these cases (and confirmed on some cases where I did the research) that they either used a modeller in the studio (and the same patch for the song live) or profiled the recorded tone.
It actually disappoints me a little..Just as I dont really want to hear  a note for note reproduction of the studio performance I dont really want the same tones either...I like LIVE music!.


 

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I had initially assumed that this was the same guy with the creepy Andy Summers obsession who'd pestered us all a while back...and now I'm convinced. Oh well, back to ignoring this thread... don't know why I even bothered to give it a second look. Ugh.

 

I figured that out at post #1.

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You can "sound like" Andy Summers with just about any rig, as long as you play like he does. Most people chase the ecoplex>JC120 route for the "holy grail" AS tone, but frankly it just really doesn't matter. Look at his live rig in 2007 in the picture in the page below. Still sounds like Andy Summers even through a completely different rig.  But, I digress...

 

 

http://www.watersish.com/archives/2014/06/andy-summers-rig-the-police-reunion-tour-2007.html

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