Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility Jump to content

Leaderboard

Popular Content

Showing content with the highest reputation on 07/07/2019 in all areas

  1. This post is probably for the ones that are new to Helix (unless you are like me). The reason why I post this is to share my renewed friendship with the Helix. When I got the Helix, some 1,5 years ago, my interest in "new gear" was by far gone. I bought it because it seemed to fit my needs. My main focus and enjoyment is now playing the guitar, not messing around with technology. Still, I now know most of the features of the Helix (floor). The first thing I did was to make a patch with the WhoWatt 100 - a "super-patch" that had everything I needed. It sounded so good that I ended it there (for a while). I had no urge to look further. Every day I could pick up my guitar and have great sound. But I did not understand what I missed out on... For some reason, I decided to give all the amp-, microphone- and cabinet models a try. This is how I built a patch for each amp-model: Gain - Amp - Cabinet - Cali Q Graphic - Low and High Cut - Room reverb - Volume. (So far I've not touched the equalizers - I put them there to have them when building new patches.) My main goal was to find the cabinets and the microphones that fitted the amps to my ear. (Most of the time, because of my taste, I chose the 4x12 XXL V30, and a few ones had the 4x12 Cali V30. Most of the times I ended up with 7 Dynamic microphone for the clean amps, and some times the 160 Ribbon. 160 Ribbon I also used for the more gainy amps, so also the 87 Condencer. (A very few amps needed another cabinet/microphone.) I went through them all (cabs and microphones) for each amp. Then I played around with the amps (without the equalizer-blocks that I've mentioned) to make them sound as good as possible by themselves. (The only thing I used was the low cut on the cabinet.) Then I truly discovered the glory of the Helix!!! One thing was to discover how the "Master-volume" could affect the sound of the amp in conjunction with the "Drive". (Be aware that "Channel volume" don't affect the tone AT ALL. ONLY the volume. I've seen quite some videos where guitarists use it to "enhance" the sound.) Another thing I discovered (especially in some clean amps) was how "ripple" and "hum" made the sound more rich and complex (more overtones - and I assure you, I'm not a hi-fi freak :-). I've still not started to deeply explore the sag and bias, but I for sure know that I get different sound and feel by playing around with these parameters. After exploring the amp by it self, I added boost to see how the amp reacted. One of the amps that I for sure thought I'd never use came to its glory with boost. That was The Soupro. I made a crunch-tone with much boost in front of the amp, and it sounds like heaven! I made a patch in the Helix (as mentioned abowe) for each amp-model. First I set the level (in Cubase), with ONLY the amp engaged, to -6dB with the "Channel volume". If the Channel volume could not deliver enough gain, I used the "Output level". Then I turned on the cab and adjusted the patch to -6dB with the "Level" in the cab. The reason why I did so was because I will soon buy a PowerCab, and that all my patches stays at the same level (PowerCab in mind). (Yes, I know that a driven amp sounds louder than a clean one.) These patches will also be a nice starting point when building a new patch. My experience after this is that the amp models in Helix sonds GREAT!!! And I have gained some good insight in "knowing my instruments" (my Helix amps). Fiddeling around with the basics in Helix made me understand what a KILLER INSTRUMENT the Helix really are!!! I might be wrong, because I've never tried it, but I think a Kemper can't give the "true" amp-tweeking-feeling that I got playing around with the Helix. Line 6, you have really made a h*** of a job! (I'm sorry about my poor English, but hopefully it is understandable.)
    6 points
  2. Participation Trophies are for wuzz'es, wannabees, and people who want a tuner in the editor! errrr...
    3 points
  3. One update is too many and a thousand is never enough. My name is Pete and I'm retarded.
    2 points
  4. Here we go again! Round 6483! Woo hoo!
    2 points
  5. I'm thinking this all started with participation trophies....you were entitled to one just for showing up. Sound familiar???
    1 point
  6. Yeah...um...not really sure where the notion of Joy to the Update Cycle came from. It's mostly "where's my pony?"-types of posting largely from people with 'Just Startin' ' beneath their names.
    1 point
  7. Hey all. I've had the good fortunate of dealing directly with Paul and James on a local level (they're HQ is here in town), and their pedals have solved a lot of Helix users' needs. I just ran across the following tidbit on a FB page: (From Paul Shedden): Hi All, for those that missed it, we are having a silly sale on b stocks. The first 49 pedals sold out in hours... so we have added another 100 approx.It’s doing a ridiculous good deal on our 'b' stock (brand new in every way, but with slight cosmetic flaws) pedals- to clear some shelf space here lol. Every Mission B-Stock pedal is just $79. Yep, that's right, we are not kidding. Expression pedals for Fractal, Kemper, Line 6, RJM and even Missions top selling fully buffered VM-PRO are all just $79. So a good time to expand or bag a back up. So check the can from your last busking gig, or between the pillows on the couch, and head over to the mission space to see what's there. https://themissionspace.com/?fbclid=IwAR1A4zXpy34WCNoU4IKCW7UQCdhfIyuhdeUlzQPD9jddOykjUntqj-5CYR0
    1 point
  8. Not sure what threads you've been reading, but 99.97% of the ranting that goes on around here is entitlement- driven whining about the lack of sufficiently frequent updates, and/or the substandard nature thereof, when they do finally arrive... it's practically a sport at this point. The 200 meter Freestyle Firmware Lament might just make it into the next Olympics...
    1 point
  9. Thanks for the info, Kilrahi! I doubt I'll need to extra IO (I'm suck I'll kick myself for passing up the mic input), but the Helix LT would be easier for me to justify as "not wanting anything to happen to my more expensive Kemper". The expression pedal on the HD500x was perfectly fine, for me, for years. As long as the LT one is close to that, in functionality and durability, that should work for me.
    1 point
  10. Sorry, but I beg to differ. One of the top reasons I bought the Helix was because the community ranted about the regular updates. Having said that, I'm fine with waiting. But Line6 can do a better job at setting customer expectations. I mean, this was announced at nam. That was a long time ago. Spring has no come and gone. And we still have no idea. All I'm saying, is set expectations.
    1 point
  11. Well, first the earth cooled... Then came the pod. Then the Pod Pro. Then the different combos. Then came the "Flagship" Vetta, and Vetta 2 combo (which I still have) and head... The Variax is in here somewhere- Then the HD series floor and rack with Dream rig technology with the DT series amps. Then all the renditions of Helix boxes where L6-Link was downgraded but I'm not supposed to say that- oops... ; )
    1 point
  12. Give the following a try. By boosting the graphic EQ's low sliders all the way up and cutting the high sliders all the way down, the isolation is pretty good (30 dB). You'll need to bring the level down a bit at the Graphic EQ output because of the low end boost. Follow that with the High Cut, and I think you'll have what you need. (FWIW if you look at the screenshots in my multiband preset pack demo video, I used the graphic equalizers to do multiband splitting - using a graphic EQ also has the advantage of being able to tweak the amount of leakage between bands. You may want to try this with bass as well, depending on your application.)
    1 point
  13. The point of Morning Glory is transparency... IMO, the most transparent overdrive currently in the Helix is the Tee-mah (Timmy) so I would lean that direction. The morning glory is based on a Bluesbreaker pedal, and there is "currently" nothing of the sort in the Helix. I hate to even bring this up, but the 2.8 update every is anxiously awaiting will have a KOT (King of Tone) included which is another variant of the Bluesbreaker. That may provide the answer to the problem.
    1 point
  14. MIDI control apps for an iPad might really make your day! Sorry, I don't know the details on them, but they are out there.
    1 point
  15. I got to meet Ty last year and talk about his rig, which was not much at all. He played a solid state Orange CR120H head into 2 4x12 cabs. There wasn't much on his pedal board. A mojo hand rook royal distortion, line 6 DL4 echo pedal, a sweet sound ultra vibe and a boss tuner. Guitar was a single fender strat with single coils pickups all night. So, no tricks to his tone, and he sounded just like Ty Tabor all night! I was blown away with the solid state Orange head that's $450 at guitar center, LOL. I mentioned it to him and he shrugged his shoulders and said "it works".
    1 point
  16. His pickups in those guitars were unique and heavily influenced his sound. That's something people knew about but for some reason never considered to be such a huge part of the overall tone. The Gibson Lab Series amps were a hidden secret for years. BB King famously used them as well. When it came out that the Lab Series was what Ty was using, people assumed that it was the key to his tone. IMO it has mostly to do with the pickups and Ty's fingers. He's using Mesa Boogies now as well as other guitars and it still sounds like him. Ty is also a master of FX and used stereo imaging, double tracking, etc to his advantage.
    1 point
  17. As stated above it was a Gibson Lab Series... frankly, those things were terrible solid state amps, lol. But Ty is a monster, and with a Fender Elite Strat (with the funky push-button pickup switches that were only made for a couple of years in the early 80's) he managed to get a very unique sound... its tough to replicate. I've been trying for 30 years, lol. I'm afraid you won't find a similar amp model in Helix. I've gotten reasonably close using the Soldano crunch (I think). I got King's X tickets in a couple weeks... I'm stoked!
    1 point
  18. I agree 100%, better search and filters would be nice. For example I would like to see tones with a 4 or 5 star rating with more than 20 votes.
    1 point
  19. Quite honestly I could care less what the major guys are using. It has little to do with me. I'm a working musician that plays every week and has to move, maintain, and setup my own rig. Personally I think all the hub bub about who's playing what is nothing more than hero worship and is simply a distraction from doing and using what makes sense for you to produce the best live or recorded music you can in the most efficient and effective way you can. As far as having "your" tone, I might remind you that some of the bigger acts you probably grew up listening to produced "their" sound various different ways in the studio. Although Joe Walsh sounds similar throughout his career, he's used a multitude of different setups on different songs with a mixture of amps, cabinets, and mic'ing techniques. Many times on different cuts on the same album. Same with Pete Townsend and Keith Richards. Granted most of these guys weren't that meticulous with their traveling rigs...but some have historically been such as Joe Perry with Aerosmith. Personally I feel you have nothing to lose by being that meticulous in your setups nowdays because of technology like the Helix. The way I look at it not all cleans, crunchy, or overdriven tones are the same. Otherwise we wouldn't have all the amps and cabinets we have on the market. For most of us working musicians we had "our" sound historically due to the single amp we had. That's really no longer the case.
    1 point
  20. Yeah. That's why I use a powered frfr speaker. I use IR's. Just not sure if the preamp with an IR would sound that good....
    1 point
  21. Shreadnoise I would be more than happy to help you out with this, as I DO "get it" and don't think the tone your looking to get is "awful". That being said what are some bands you are looking to model your tone based off of? More periphery or more like Chelsea grin or after the burial? alot of the djent tone is just a very gated tone. The people here who don't like it, are more into a very loose, heavy reverb tones. The bluesy type tones. The helix has a lot of GREAT features to help you get the tone your looking for.
    1 point
  22. Dude - Gate -> Scream 808 (Gain 0, Tone ~6, Level ~9)-> Gate -> ENGL Model (gain ~3-4, bass ~3-4, mids ~6, highs ~6 everything else to taste) -> XXL V30 w/421 2" off the grill then use the High Pass in the cab block to cut up to ~100Hz, Low Pass ~8k and you should be 90% of the way there. Your 81 should be just fine. Keep in mind that 50% of the djent guitar sound comes from the bass guitar playing in unison with a crunchy tone. The Helix is more than capable of being djenty as hell.
    1 point
  23. Hi, my name is Arek. Just bought AMPLIFi FX100 and it sounds great, there are a few excellent sounds, but I have a problem with updating it and use with my phone as remote control (LG Optimus) I read all I could find about this topic, but still nothing. The thing is, when I want to download update my device-phone it tells me "download unsuccessful there was an error" To be honest I have no clue what to do with that Andy advice would be appreciated. Thanks.
    1 point
This leaderboard is set to Indiana - Indianapolis/GMT-05:00
×
×
  • Create New...