amsdenj

As far as I remember, this has not changed. 2.6 seems to be functioning as described in the manual, which hasn't been updated yet. Correction: Variax Model is missing Don't Force on Helix, along with the Custom models. But both are available in HX Edit. Looks like a bug. I didn't notice this because I build and edit patches with HX Edit most of the time, and only fine tune with Helix. Variax Settings: Pre Preset, Global: determines if all other Variax controls are global or per preset. If global, changing the preset will have no effect on the Variax. If per preset, then Variax will be set to whatever was saved in the preset or snapshot when they are selected, including the model/mags switch. Lock Variax Controls: determines if the volume, tone, and/or pickup selector controls are locked or unlocked. If locked, they have no effect until the model is changed. Variax Tuning: Don't Force, Custom: If don't force is selected, Variax stays in whatever tuning it is in when the patch/snapshot is selected. If set to Custom, then the custom tuning is selected. Don't forget to set the strings you want to change in snapshots to the snapshot controller.

Perhaps the difference in sound is what's happening between the Helix XLR output and the JBL EON FRFR. If there's anything clipping in that signal path, you get harsh, bright ugly tone, while your IEMs might sound fine. You didn't say what's feeding them. Check your end-to-end signal path. Run all your blocks close to unity gain (little volume change when bypassed), and make sure the input into the PA is not even close to clipping - keep it down around -12dB or mid scale on the PA meters. You can also use the PA meters to check for unity gain in your blocks and channel volume. Also make sure any effects that were designed for guitar level signals in front of the amp, but used after the amp have the headroom turned up. You can tell these block types simply by the fact that they have a headroom parameter. That D130F is not known to be a warm speaker. Try using a ribbon mic off axis, maybe even middle of the cone, to tame the brightness. Then fine tune with the IR low and high cut to get the mid focus you're looking for.

I do own a '67 Les Paul (with Tom Holmes pickups) and a '92 Strat Deluxe (with SVL Daytona pickups). And both of those guitars have silky smooth stainless steel frets. But I prefer the JTV-69S for gigs because its lighter (I'm getting old) and has more flexible tones, including open tunings and acoustic. It doesn't play like either of those other guitars, but its just different, not necessarily bad. To some extent the JTV-69S neck is more like a combination of the Fender scale and the Gibson thickness. I put the SVL Daytonas on the JTV-69S too, and it no longer suffers any missing tone. I really love those pickups and they really made the guitar. The models are just icing.

But it would be simple to add it as a parameter for the block, and would be great if it could be saved at 1/2 speed as that's what I use most of the time.

Very good information, thanks Phil. I still think I hear some high end rolloff when backing off the volume control when using the magnetic pickups with the VDI cable. Since the signal from Variax to Helix is digital, why would there still be high end rolloff?

Helix Cab models include early reflections which might be perceived as dynamics, IRs by comparison might sound flat. But this is very true and insightful. Here's an idea: Helix has a lot of options. That's great for addressing many different needs, and for widening the market. But just because all those features are there doesn't mean each of us has to audition them all in order to find the best, most perfect tone for us. That would turn the joy of Helix into a real pain. Instead, why not just try something new every so often, stick with it for a while, play a few gigs, and if it sticks fine, if it doesn't, try something else. For example, I haven't been entirely happy with my Helix clean sound. It just doesn't quite do what my old Fender Showman does with the bright switch turned on. So when 2.6 came out, I tried the two new clean amps: Placater Clean and Cali Texas Ch 1. I like them both, but still like the Archetype Clean too. I can't tell which one I like better, they're all sort of just different. So I'm just going to pick one and play it a while and see if it sticks. If it does, I won't worry about whether another might be better. If it doesn't, I'll try another.

Cloud computing is about centralizing the administration and maintenance of hardware and software resources to provide efficient, effective computing services. Its about having a shared utility rather than a bunch of individual computation "generators". Harvesting and exploiting information is an unfortunate outcome of our connected world. Cloud computing doesn't really make that worse, just more efficient. Since we know this is happening, we need to take more responsibility for managing and securing our own information, and for assessing the quality and validity of the information sources we consume. This is part of what has motivated me to stop using Facebook. Its a way of controlling what information I give out, and an expression of concern about what Facebook has been doing with our information.

I tried setting the looper to 6 button, setting to 1/2 speed and then switching to 1 button looper, but the looper is still set to full speed. Is there a way to do this?

Save in Helix Native seems more confusing. You have the choice to save to disk or library, that's fine, but there are some issues. When you select Library, a dialog pops up with the list of patches in a set. That would be ok, but seems redundant with the library view that's already displayed on the left. But the odd thing is that the current patch isn't selected by default. You can press the save button, but its not clear where the patch is saved. You have to actually select the patch you want to save, regardless of what is currently loaded. It would seem easier to have a simple Library > Save which saves to the currently loaded patch, and Library > Save As... to store someplace else.

Helix in front of S-Gear - interesting option. I’ve used S-Gear for a long time and still prefer it for recording over Helix Native. But for a live setup, I just use Helix, and have an Apogee GiO into Logic Pro X or MainStage with Helix Native (mostly the same patches) as my backup. I also do a bit of MIDI guitar with Helix and Logic too. I do have a recording setup that uses Helix front of the amp effects into S-Gear, using the Apogee GiO as a MIDI foot controller, and an Arturia BeatStep for additional amp controls. That’s my home rehearsal and recording setup. There’s real magic in S-Gear and its delay, chorus and reverb effects. It really shows the potential of digital guitar amplifiers. Recent Helix amp models are approaching S-Gear in functionality, but there’s still a noticeable difference in the overall tone. Its nice to have both options.

The thing that pushes Helix over the top for me is the Variax. The models aren’t perfect. And there hasn’t been much new development for quite a while. But for a gigging musician that needs a lot of guitar tones, has to carry and setup their own gear, needs some open tunings and and occasional acoustic guitar - its really hard to beat a Variax with Helix.

There can be significant variability in the piezo pickups, and this can be exasperated by how the piezo pickup fits into the bridge piece and how the string goes over the pickup. I have found that this changes over time as the guitar gets used and the pickup seats differently in the bridge piece. You could start by using Workbench HD to adjust the pickup volumes. I use my DAW metering and the global string volumes to balance the string levels. The variation can be quite significant and this alone can really improve the sound of the Variax models. You may find this will correct your problem since sometimes something that's just louder is perceived to sound brighter, fuller, etc.

A 1/4" cable will go through extra D2A and A2D conversions and that will have some signal degradation, but likely not much with modern converters. But a more significant effect is the high frequency rolloff that results from high-impedance guitar pickups and the 1/4" cable capacitance. This can really warm up single coil pickups. Hendrix famously used a long, somewhat cheap coil chord because he like the way it warmed up his Strat tone. The amount of high cut increases as the volume control on the guitar is turned down. Some people use bypass caps on their guitar volume controls to eliminate this effect so they can keep a sparkly tone as the guitar is turned down. The cable capacitance also interacts with the guitar tone control and pickups to create a 2nd order tone control that can sound nice as the tone control is turned down, especially for slide. The VDI cable doesn't have these "compromises", so if you want to warm up your guitar tone, you'd need to do it what an EQ block early in the signal chain.

The same thing happens with footswitches. I use a Drive footswitch to change amp drive from min to max values. If I edit the controller and change the min and/or max value, the change doesn’t take effect until I press the footswitch.

If you’re going to be playing longer songs, a looper may not be the right tool. First it takes too long to lay down two or three tracks if the loops are long. This can be annoying to your listeners. Second if you make a mistake and have to undo, you’ve got to wait a while before trying again, making it take even longer to lay down the loops. I’d use backing tracks for longer, more complex arrangements. We have a couple of local guys here, one that specializes in looping, and another who uses backing tracks. Both are very good an great entertainers. When you focus on them, their vocals and both are good guitar players, you don’t really notice that much difference between the loops and backing tracks.

You can use the same footswitch to control more than one effect to change them at the same time. But if you want control of more effects, you can use two expression pedals get control of up to 8 effects. I use one for Wah and another for UniVibe. That leaves 6 footswitches for other things.

That’s not released, coming soon.

With some careful editing, you might be able to clone blocks from Helix to Helix HX directly editing the JSON source files. Ideally copy/paste block should work across the two editors.

I have found that for live performance, almost always less is more: less reverb, less distortion, less delay, less low end and most important of all: less notes. A simple signal path will sound good and is easy to control during performances. Things that sound great by themselves often don’t sound good in a dense mix or in a small club situation where the band is essentially saturating the room. Music needs space to help distinguish the notes, tone, harmony. Helix is a large part of that overall dynamics in how the patches are setup.

Here’s a simple way to get an idea how much compression you’re getting, and what it sounds like. Setup two paths in Helix that are identical, but except for one has a compressor at the beginning of the path. Hard pan them left and right, and run them into your DAW so you can see the DAW meters. With the compressor off, you should se exactly the same levels in the left and right channels. As you start lowering the threshold (or increasing the sustain), you start seeing the impact of the gain reduction in the channel that has the compressor. Vary the attack and release and see how fast the gain reduction happens, and how how fast it recovers. Listen to how that impacts the tone, especially the pick attack, and rapid notes in succession. Try using the makeup gain to get the same overall level from both channels. Then play and see how the two still sound different. You can see how they behave by looking at how the two meters respond differently.

Great video. I saw you mention on TPS you were going to do this and was looking forward to seeing the result. Very nice. Its cool that we took such different approaches to wet-dry-wet setup. That’s a great way to explore different options.

I got interested in Wet-Dry-Wet setups and captured some notes in Wet-Dry-Wet Setup with Helix.

What you need to do is save whole presets as "templates". These have not only the effects and parameters you commonly use, but also their positions in the signal chain and footswitch assignments, colors and labels. Copy the whole preset, then just edit the preset to add/remove what you want to change.

What a great thread! @DunedinDragon, @HonestOpinion, @cusionon2, @codamedia, thank your all for such thoughtful and helpful contribution. You guys a just great! I use a Helix and JTV-69S for gigging. I don't have large hands or long fingers, but I've become pretty fond of that fat JTV-69S neck. What I like is that it is stable, doesn't require truss rod adjustments for inside and outside gigs, stays in tune and fights me a little, making me play better. I had to put on a wider bone nut, and did change the pickups to SVL Daytonas. Now I can't stop playing that guitar even through I bring other much nicer guitars to gigs. Re the models: I changed the pickups because I knew I was going to be using this guitar a lot on gigs. I like to use a lot of different sounds, including open tunings, slide and acoustic tones as well as different electric tones. But I needed a fail safe base guitar tone I could rely on, and the JTV-69S stock pickups just didn't deliver. I also have a Variax Standard and I thought those pickups sounded better, although I don't like the guitar nearly as much. So I invested in the SVL Daytonas from Jerry Amalfitano. I liked these so much I put another set on my Strat Deluxe. If you're gigging mainly with an electric guitar, and need an occasional open tuning, single vs. double coil pickup tone, and/or some acoustic tones, Variax with Helix is unbeatable. I was using a Variax 700 Acoustic for acoustic gigs, but switched to using my Martin 00C with some acoustic body IRs in Helix for those situations where I'm playing mostly acoustic guitar and mandolin. This just fit the gigs better. I do have a Dobro, and if I want that sound on a recording, that's what I use. But I have used the Dobro models in an open tuning on that Variax 700 acoustic for an occasional live tune that needed it, but wasn't the focus of my role in the band. Its easy enough to get a tone that close enough for a live gig, but its much harder to get an instrument that plays and feels right to inspire you to play. A Variax can often provide the tone, but the feel is an entirely different issue.

Whether Helix is right for you or not depends a lot on what you're trying to do. If your a professional guitarist like Matt Schofield or Andy Timmons with your own signature tone, then probably Helix is for you (although I'd really like to connect with Matt and see if we could create something he would like in Helix). If you're looking for something for home use and don't mind using a computer and setting up some MIDI control, its hard to beat S-Gear for quality, tone, ease of use and price. I can't recommend it enough. I have Helix Native, and S-Gear is till used in most of my guitar recordings - but with Helix Native effects in front of it! But if you're like a lot of us and are semi-professional or a weekend club band doing a few gigs a month and playing a lot of covers, there's nothing that comes close to Helix and a JTV-69S in my opinion. I have lots of nice vintage gear (I'm pretty vintage myself). But Helix and a JTV-69S with SVL Daytona pickups are my goto gigging rig. I keep bringing other guitars, but rarely ever play them. And I love Helix for the flexibility, tones, ease of use, reliability, quite setup, and cool factor. Now if you're worried about getting the wrong modeler and missing out on some magic tone - stop worrying! Helix, Kemper, and Axs-FX are all different, have their advantages and disadvantages, probably will sound different but are all great gear. Any of them can really do the job if you spend the time connecting with them and building your sound.