amsdenj

You can also use the level control of last block in the signal path, often a reverb, or any effect that’s always on, to adjust the volume of the overall patch. This will ensure that you’re not raising the volume somewhere in the signal path that might impact tone or cause digital distortion.

Its great to see professional, seasoned musicians using Helix. But that's not a big metric for me. Gigging in a local club band 2 to 3 times a month with JTV-69S and Helix is just so flexible, and sounds so great. I'm happy enough with that.

I'm getting a HX Effects tomorrow that I'm going to put in front of my 50 year old Fender Showman amp. And I'll be playing my 51 year old Les Paul, mostly in the garage with my son on drums. I bought both of these freshman and sophomore year in collage and still use them. The Les Paul was the first thing I ever bought on credit. $364 if I remember right. Bought in Portland Maine. The Showman I got in 1968 at Viner Music Co. in Bangor Maine (I went to University of Maine in Orono). I sold a Super Reverb to get it - big mistake I've regretted for years. That Showman has been heavily modified though and something I'm happy to still have. I haven't gigged with the Showman or Les Paul for years, but with HX Effects, I'm committed to doing at least one outdoor gig with them this year. JTV69S and Helix are just way too convenient.

Play more music!

I think they're the same.

I rarely stack distortion pedals as this can result in a muddy mess. I prefer to gain stage with at least two distortion pedals set at different drive levels, using the amp drive for the third. Amp drive is the first gain stage, taking the amp from almost clean to almost distorted. What I mean by this is that the drive off isn't quite clean, there's a little bit of hair there. And the drive on isn't quite distorted, its just louder and with a bit more hair. A lot of my tones fit in this range. The drive on setting isn't so distorted that I can't also use it as a lead boost stacked with the distortion pedals. Then I use Teemah! for overdrive. I tried them all, this one really does it right for me. It can almost be left on all the time, and use the guitar volume control to set the drive/distortion level. I tend not to do this mostly because its just easier to preset the drive and/or overdrive footswitches. What I like about Teemah! is the ability to cut lows before distortion and highs after. This does what you need most of the time and is a lot simpler than using EQ blocks around distortion blocks. I use Minotaur for extended distortion tones, keeping the drive up pretty high. I find its slight mid boost helps its distortion cut through the mix without adding a lot of low-end mud or high-end fizz.

Its not just the neck wood that can effect tone, its how it seats in the body pocket. Try this: with the neck bolted on, strings on and up to pitch, slightly loosen the neck bolds until you hear the neck settle into the body pocket. Then tighten the screws back up. This will optimize the connection between the neck and body to give fuller tone and more sustain. I the neck isn't seated the same way every time, the guitar is likely to sound different. This technique might also help get more consistent tone.

No, I'm saying the looper wasn't necessarily intended to be a performance level looper because of the need to mode switch to share the foot switches between looper, effect and snapshot control. So perhaps having long loops, which would likely require more tone switching, might not have been a priority. But I too wish the loop was longer as it would make practicing easier. But I'd probably never use it for live looping in any case.

We needed horns and a clavinet on Superstition, so I decided to see if I could come up with a reasonable MIDI guitar setup that I could use live. This way I can play the horn parts and they keyboard player can handle the clavinet. I've been tempted to do this for a while, but haven't had enough need to motivate the work to set it up, and I thought it might be too complicated for practical live use. I have a Fishman Triple Play on my Variax Standard, but I don't generally use that guitar on gigs, and don't want to have to deal with keeping it charged and connected. So I use JamOrigin MIDI Guitar 2 instead. This is an amazing piece of software that can convert analog guitar to MIDI right off your pickups - no hardware required, use it on any guitar. There's a little latency, but not bad, and the tracking is actually quite good, even for full, complex chords. So that simplifies things. Our band uses an X32-Core, so we already have an older 2011 MacBook Pro 13" that we use to run the PA, so the computer's already there. I already own Logic and MainStage, so that gives me all the instruments I needed. The only change from my typical live rig (JTV-69S, Helix, 2xEON610s for 1/4 out, and XLR direct to two channels in the PA) is the addition of a USB cable from Helix to the computer and starting up MainStage along with X32 Edit. This is a couple more things to deal with in setup and teardown, but not difficult at all. The Helix patch is my normal guitar patch with two simple changes. First I add an Instant command to Command Center to send a PC message to MainStage to select the desired song patch. I turn off global PC send so that the patches in Helix don't have to line up with the patches in MainStage, each can have its own specific PC message. The other thing is I use FootSwitch 1 to toggle between guitar and MIDI. I do this by having the foot switch control the MainStage master volume and the Helix Amp channel volume. But setting the min/max and max/min values for each one, I can configure a blend of MIDI instrument and/or guitar as needed. One thing that you'll probably want to do is edit the MIDI settings at the Concert level to send all unmapped MIDI messages to all software tracks, this will ensure the pitch bends created by MIDI Guitar 2 will be sent to the instrument tracks. Then each track can filter these out if they're not appropriate for the instrument. This makes using MIDI guitar at a gig really no different than just using Helix. I select a patch on Helix, and then use a foot switch to turn the MIDI instrument on/off just like any other effect. Different patches can have different instruments blended with the guitar if needed. That's pretty flexible and functional for just adding one app on the computer and a USB cable. I haven't tried it at a gig yet, but I'm thinking this might be pretty useful.

Not sure Helix looper feature is lollipoped, it may have been designed intentionally to be short. The reason is its very difficult to use a looper and switch effects/snapshots using the same set of footswitches and the Mode/Looper switch. Any real looping would benefit from a separate dedicated looper in the Helix effects loop.

I have not found a way to control the model on/off using snapshots. It works with patches - Variax returns to the state it was in when the patch was saved. But there done't seem to be a snapshot visible parameter for turning the model on/off, or change the mag/model balance. Wish the model parameter had a None option that switched the model switch off.

Discard is probably a reasonable default. When changing snapshots during performance, you want the snapshot to set a predictable, consistent tone, that’s their primary purpose. During edit, you’d need to save every time you change a snapshot (just like you have to save every time you change a preset). And you have to do one more extra save at the end for the patch to be in the right snapshot when you select it. But that's not too bad. Just don't forget to do the save before switching the snapshot.

Some other differences between a JTV-69S and A Variax Standard: To my ear, the Standard single coil pickups sounded better then the stock pickups on my JTV-69S. I suspect there’s veriability here, so this may not be the same for other instruments The pickup selector switch is too soft and too close to the pickups on the Standard, so its easy to hit the switch by accident and unintentionally change pickups. JTV-69S switch is closer to where it is on a Strat, and has a much better, tighter feel. Its also easier to put the switch in the right pickup without overshooting. The Standard’s volume control is also too close to the bridge pickup and too high - it gets in the way of picking for me. JTV doesn’t have this problem The Standard’s tremolo bar has a lot of play in it and there’s no way to install a tremolo bar spring - the hole goes all the way through. You can wrap plumber’s tap around the threads to solve this, but it has to be redone every time you change the strings. JTV tremolo bar is excellent. The Standard doesn’t stay in tune as well - I tend to tune my JTV once a night and it rarely changes. The Standard neck is certainly thinner and this can be a plus if you have small hands. But that thin neck seems to be much less stable than the thicker, heavier JTV neck. I find the action on the Standard changes a lot with temperature and humidity, while the JTV is rock solid. I’ve come to like the JTV neck even though I have smallish hands. The Standard is a good utility instrument. But the JTV feels more like a quality instrument you’d keep for a while.

Helix and S-Gear are very different things, even if you focus on only amp and cab models. Helix mostly attempts to emulate existing amplifiers. S-Gear is certainly inspired by the knowledge gained over many years of amp development and tube characteristics, but is more focused on building modern amplifiers in the digital domain. However, if you compare some of the newer Helix models like Litigator and Carteographer, and use similar IRs, you’ll get tones that are more similar between the two. The other difference is who’s listening to and evaluating the models. Mike Scuffham does indeed seem to have unique ears. Ben Adrien is also starting to show his capabilities, and his models in Helix seem to show a lot of promise. I hope to see more of these in the future. Its wonderful to see that these two designers can do, and we are indeed fortunate to be able to enjoy their products.

Of course, thank you!

My global footswitch settings are: Touch Select: On, Preset Mode Switches: Preset/Snap, Stomp Mode Switches: 10 Switches, Snapshot Mode Switches: Auto Return, Up/Down Switches: Banks. The Helix manual says: "When set to "Auto Return," Helix returns to the previous footswitch mode after selecting a snapshot." I footswitch mode, I press F6 MODE, select a snapshot, shouldn't Helix return automatically back to footswitch mode? I have to press F6 to exit preset/snap mode to get back to footswitch mode, regardless of how Snapshot Mode Switches is set: Auto Return or Manual. Am I missing something?

I think the best way to get good tone is to focus first on the things that touch the air, in the direction of the signal chain. That means starting with the guitar - getting the strings that sound and feel right, using the right pick (heavier and rounder ends will be warmer), choosing the right pickup and making use of guitar volume and tone controls. The next most important thing is the speaker. Choose the speaker model or IR that is closest to the tone you are looking for. Then fine tune with the mic choice followed by adjusting the mic position. IRs can provide different positions relative to the center of the speaker: cap, cap-edge, cone and cone-edge. The further you get from the center of the speaker, the warmer the tone. Close micing will enhance low end due to proximity effect as well as high end. Putting some distance between the mic and the speaker will be a bit more mid focused and warmer. Then keep your FRFR pretty flat so that your different patches are the primary source of your different tones. FRFR tone control settings that sound good on one patch may not sound good at all on another patch. Its better to get the tone from the models, not the FRFR. Adjusting for different room situations can be done either with global EQ or the FRFR, whichever is most convenient. But I rarely do this as I suspect it might do more harm than good in many situations. Bottom line its hard to use EQ to address tone issues that originate at the guitar, speaker and/or mic. Get the source and destination right, and you will usually find less need to EQ.

Just save the patch in whatever state you want the Variax to be in and it will recall that way. My typical Gigging setup is a JTV-69S and either a Strat Deluxe, Les Paul, or (a really nice) Epiphone Sheraton II Pro. I use snapshots to control a couple of open tunings and an acoustic tone within the same patch. But I save the patch with the Variax Mags. In any case, the other guitar into the guitar input always works. I just have to remember to turn its volume down when I put it on the stand, a good habit anyway.

Suplication, now there’s a word you don’t hear to often. But it has a nice ring. Another thing is the clang tone can change over time. Playing seems to seat the piezos in the bridge better over time and this seems to impact the clang tone. It really does seem to improve with use. Heavier strings could accelerate this due to the higher pressure and wider vibrations.

I’d like to be able to load guitar models from Helix. But even more importantly, I’d like to see Line6 do a next generation of the Variax models. There was clearly a big difference between the 1.x and 2.x models - and not necessarily for the better in all cases. So it would seem there’s room for improvement in the modeling process. If these could be loaded as separate model packs, I’d even be more than willing to pay for them. I have 4 Variax guitars, so clearly I’ve bought into the technology. My JTV-69S is my main gigging instrument. Its light, plays well , is stable, stays in tune, and provides the flexibility I need.

This is very good advice, thanks.

Asking the sound engineers to set your channel flat is a must for getting consistent FOH tones on different systems. It turns out an electric guitar through a modeling amp isn’t that big a challenge for any decent PA system, it doesn’t require the lows of a bass rig, or the highs of cymbals. Electric guitar is pretty mid-focused, so any decent PA system should work reasonable well flat. Another option is to build your tones using a similar FRFR set flat. I use a pair of JBL EON610’s. If I can get a good tone out of these, then I suspect most any PA with better speakers will do just fine as long as its set flat. I also use the 610’s as my backline to provide some stage volume, and something for the guitar to hear (I use IEMs for my monitoring needs). So even if the FOH is challenged, you can provide some consistency with your backline.

I think what is happening is that after a firmware update, and the patches are rebuilt, the saved state of a footswitch that controls multiple block bypasses gets confused. I think it gets reset to the first block that it controls. But I’m not sure. The solution is to load your patches, touch the footswitch until the block is selected who’s state you want to reflect the footswitch status, then resave the patch. I thought this was fixed, but I see its till happing in the latest firmware updated.

I wish Logic would support the same approach to control surface mapping as MainStage. Its silly that all control surface settings are global and associated with the logged in user preferences. See https://jimamsden.wordpress.com/2017/12/28/creating-logic-pro-x-controller-assignments/ for more information on configuring control surface assignments in Logic.

Maybe a way to put this to rest is to assume 5 is a good starting point on a parameter that goes from 1 to 10. Then eperiment to see what the control does. One effective way to do this is to start with the control (any control) all the way down and then play, running the control up to various points and back down again quickly until you can find the point at which the control just starts to “do its thing”. If you can’t hear any difference on the control playing at various levels, speeds and dynamic ranges, move on - its not worth worrying about. If you can fined the point where a control just starts to make a difference, you might often find that going beyond that doesn’t change things that much. The point at which the control just starts to make a difference is often the point at which the amp response is the most dynamic. You might find that useful.