Leaderboard

problem 1) There are some pretty wide range of what people like in their distortion settings and that's why there's a wide range of distortion effects available. One thing for sure, almost all distortions have some interdependency with the amp being used depending on the architecture/design of the amp. This is true whether it's a physical amp or a modeled amp because amps can add their own distortion based on the gain settings as well as the impedance. I can't speak to going through a traditional amp since I only used modeled amps and go direct to the mixing board. In a way using a physical amp limits the possibilities of what you can do with any selected distortion, whereas modeled amps are MUCH more flexible. problem 2) Using in-ears is easiest when your setup is more straightforward and simple. My setup is as simple as it gets. My overall tone is based solely on what's in my preset, so all I need to do for in ears in stereo is to send my XLR out Left and Right to two mixing board channels at Mic signal levels. Your guitar signal is now in stereo and will be represented in stereo through the front of house speakers. Getting it to your in ears is dependent upon how they have your in ears setup for monitoring. Typically you would send both of your channels along with a mix of any other instruments in 2 aux outputs configured for you specifically. but there are a ton of ways to do it depending on your in ear monitoring setup for the band. Bottom line, you just have to provide the stereo mix to the mixer, the rest is configured through the mixer for the results you want. problem 3) Managing your presets to be sent at a consistent signal strength is at the core of getting consistency in your output volumes. In my case I pre-measure the signal strength of all of my presets through a mixing board so that my signal strength on each preset is at roughly the same level. This is easier is you're using amp models because they provide many more options for how to adjust your signal level from the Helix. Chances are you hear a tone quality difference when you crank them up because you were listening to them at lower volumes when you dialed them in and therefore some of the tone characteristics were affected due to the Fletcher Munson effect and when the volume was increased the flaws became more apparent. I try to keep my volumes around 85 to 90 dbSPL when I dial in a preset as that will be a pretty honest representation of how it will sound at performance level volumes. problem 4) Amp sims, IRs and so forth is at the core of understanding how to exploit the Helix capabilities. I'd suggest to spend some time on Jason Sadites YouTube channel as he has a TON of great videos explaining and demonstrating all those things in depth.

some of these things can be addressed by having a more streamlined approach to building presets. If you use the Amp & Cab block, you'll get the amp paired with the proper matching cab/mic. You can edit the mic for sure, with the 3.5 update that is super powerful and not overly daunting, especially if you leave the speaker/cab aspect alone. With the amp settings, most of the defaults are set pretty well, but if they arent, dial in the amp how you like, and then save it as a user default. Next time you bring that amp up, it'll come up with that exact amp/cab/mic settings. problem solved there. On a side note, nothing will sound good 'out of the box'.....typically. Different player, guitar, monitoring system (studio monitors, wedge, powered cab, combo amp power section, headphones) are all different. So even if I sound like EVH on my systems and settings, that same preset in your environment could sound like a leprechaun farting on a mushroom. You can design only a few presets and work off of that. If you go with one of the smaller HX units, then you may need more presets to address your sound needs, but the LT and Floor are super powerful and you can easily throw a few sounds into a preset at once, depending on how many effects you want. But there is nothing stopping you from doing a kitchen sink preset built around a genre's typical tones in a single preset, with a few stomps or snapshots to change amps/effects. I did this with the soldano SLO amps as a good kitchen sink for those random songs my band gets asked to play that I dont program a preset for the song specifically. I have 5 ranges in gain structure, I have a lead boost button (OD, delay, volume boost), chorus, pre-amp compressor effect. works great.

You may not be thrilled to hear this, but… I am always slightly puzzled by posts like this. You have stated “well then the Helix just isn't for you”, but you did buy it, and I guess you researched what it was, and what it did before parting with your money. You also say that you are “a noob and absolutely not good at dialing in sound”, and it also appears that you are overwhelmed by “option paralysis”. This rather begs the question, what was your reason for wanting a Helix? Plus, no matter how many options are available, you don’t have to use them all. Some folks have done gigs using only a couple of presets! At the time you bought your Helix, if you could have only bought a regular amp combo, or amp and cab, what would it have been? Your decision would most likely have been based on what type of music you were wanting to play. Possibly a Fender for Country and clean tones, or an EVH 5150 for full on rock and metal? ITRW, whatever amp (tube or transistor) you got, you would still have been a “noob” and would have to learn how to get the best out of it. Everybody has to start somewhere, therefore your best bet is to learn how to create the tone you want your Helix to provide. Lots of UChoob video with walkthrough examples from people in the know, Jason Sadites is a prime example. Your comment about “fiddling around with cabs, mics and mic placements”, is truly astonishing! It’s all that fiddling around that makes the sound work, moving a mic just one inch in any direction can transform the tone. Furthermore, “What would you guys think about a slim, trimmed down user interface? Just select your amp and choose between a few effects in predefined slots”. That’s something we probably don’t have to think about, because those nice folks at Line 6 released the POD Go three years ago. All the Helix tone, at half the price and simplified interface. Oh, yeah - “I've never really got a factory preset that sounded good”. For reasons given in these forums many, many times over - you never will, unless you are the person who created it. They are all starting points for your own stuff. After your 2-3 year break, it maybe time to put your learning head on. Hope this helps/makes sense.

I agree. My buddy picked up a Helix because of my use and he just can't seem to find the time to sit down and program a preset per song like I do for our setlist. However, once you have your favorite blocks or user defaults set, I can program a fully function 4 or 5 snapshot preset (using HX Edit mind you, not that I couldnt do it on the unit, but HX Edit is just so much faster) in about 10 minutes, and that is being generous on the time, i doubt it even takes a full 5 minutes. Any carpenter will tell you that its impossible to build a house when your tools and materials are scattered all over the yard, garage, house. However, Line 6 has done a great job organizing the tools in the garage and tool box, and they continue to drop off materials in neat piles on the driveway and yard. So it takes minimal time to build your new practice space in the backyard. Do the work up front, set yourself up for success and the payoff lasts down the road. If you just expect to plug and play and the EVH patch to be gig-able....then i'd suggest moving on to something else as even if me and DunedinDragon swap presets that are 'perfect'....we would probably almost be better off creating our own presets that accomplish the same tone rather than tweaking someone else's settings and blocks.

I think your problem is more about recording/engineering that it is about the helix. Any instrument can be placed forward or backward in a mix... up front and immediate or distant/ambient & everything in between. The only time you cannot get something up front is if the tone captured is already far too wet... if you are only playing with stock presets, that is a possibility. That's not a helix problem, it's a preset problem. You need to roll your own tones, just as you would with a pedal board and amp.

If the Helix overwhelms you, I would recommend working your way up to the Helix... Pod Go is that slimmed-down simplified Helix, that you are asking about. I actually got it as a backup, as a slimmed down solution. It has literally everything. Heck, if Pod Go was around back in 2019, I would have gotten it for myself instead of the Helix. It has all the things that most people would need to play gigs, all the stuff is already laid out, and it actually forces you to use certain things in your signal chain, such as an EQ, Amp, Cab, volume, wah. I have a little side-project and we have a gig in a few weeks, so I made it a point to build all my presets on the Pod GO. As far as working your way up, I'm a pretty technical guy -- I'm a software developer by day. I started gradually incorporating the digital technology into my rig. First, I got a small Zoom digital box that gave me certain sounds. Then 4 years later I got Boss MS-3 effects processor (slightly more complicated, with more buttons). And finally 2.5 years later I went and switched over to the Helix as an all-in-one solution. It's just way too complicated, and difficult to wrap your brain around this thing right away. Or especially if people have never used real analog gear, those people really don't know what they are looking for. My friend got himself an HX Stomp and he created a preset that sounded really bad. Well, turned out he didn't realize he had to use an amp/cab block! When I was transitioning my sounds into the Helix, I took my rig and replaced one piece at a time. First the distortion, then my delays/EQ... and finally the amp. It is really helpful to do A/B comparison to see how your new gear sounds as compared to the old stuff. So I would run my sound like this: guitar->pedalboard->Helix->combo amp. I took each component and tried to find the best-sounding replacement, you get my point? Then when my sounds were all there, as I was reading the manual and watching videos, I realized there are lots of cool little tricks I can do on the Helix, which were not possible for me at any point in time in the past... well unless I got the Bradshaw rig. Cool things like spillover delay, harmonization, stereo sounds, pre-determined tempo for effects in my numerous presets. So that's my advice: start simple. Figure out what you need. Nobody uses every single bell and whistle in any piece of gear...

C# is the same as Db... etc... so just figure out what the flat equivalent is of what you want to tune.

My gut reaction is 'turn the reverb down/off' on the guitar. Record the guitar either without reverb or with a subtle room reverb - just enough that you can hardly hear it in the preset. As far as using reverb in the track goes, that comes under 'learning to be a sound engineer'.

I agree with @themetallikid. Over the years the Helix has had numerous improvements in making things simple in terms of creating presets, the most prominent of which are the favorites. By selectively using favorites along with a standard preset template I've cut my preset development time to 1/3 of what it used to be. It's all a matter of thinking about your particular workflow and process and using the tools that are already there rather than starting off with a blank slate every time.

You can never get the “amp in the room” sound without having a physical amp in a real room, cranked enough to flap you trousers when you stand in front of it. Stick a mic in front and record that and it will sound different on playback. You’re dealing with a fully produced audio signal in Cubase, or any other DAW. It’s more to do with how you balance and mix the various audio tracks in your composition. As for Mr. Boston - he has his own Helix group on Facebook - find it here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/428105950706417/search/?q=chad boston The only freebie I could find from him on there was a preset and IR claiming no mic or speaker colouration, as per Tom Sholtz Boston tone. In another post Chad says, why waste your life trawling through thousands of IRs, when It is a lot easier and quicker to learn how to use the cabinets in your Helix. You would be better off learning recording and mixing techniques, rather that seeking the Holy Grail IR, that doesn’t exist (the unicorns stole it!). Hope this helps/makes sense.

They all sound garbage to me lol.

can someone from Line 6 please give us frustrated early-adopters some indication of when we're going to see a firmware update to fix the known issues on the DL4mkII? in particular, not being able to save note subdivisions to presets is an absolute show-stopper. not sure how such an integral feature could be so broken and yet make it through testing to release. i purchased my DL4mkII six weeks ago and it's collecting dust. it would be nice to know that Line 6 is working on a fix.

how on earth can i use my helix to tune to sharp # .it will show flat b on the screen but not sharp.