amsdenj

A similar approach might be to use the global EQ to tailor the EQ for your patch, then copy the results into the patch with a combination of cab/IR high/low cut and parametric or other EQ. Also try boosting the high frequencies to see which ones stand out as bing particularly bad, and then cut a bit at that frequency. Sometimes its easier to hear what’s bad by boosting and cut than to hear what’s good by cutting directly.

All speakers, and in particular guitar speakers have limited frequency range and response characteristics. These are measured using particular approaches and configurations of cabinets, mics, mic placement and room acoustics that are often not known, or follow any particular standard. Plus individual speakers can vary quite a bit and change over time. So the frequency response curve you see published for a speaker is a combination of a specific measurement technique, an aggregate for the speaker model, and marketing. An Impulse Response does capture the variable frequency response of a speaker over the audible frequency range. An IR should faithfully reproduce the response of the particular speaker that was captured, in its cabinet, with the particular mic, at the stated position, and in some room. This could be quite different than the approach used to create the published speaker response graph simply because so many of the parameters are different. The kind of mic and its position can have a profound effect on the response captured and reproduced by the IR. When you put an SM57 1†away from the cap edge of a speaker, that mic is likely not any where near where the reference mic was in the room where the response curves were captured. So its likely to have a very different response, including picking up high frequencies that come off the voice coil, but dissipate and disperse so quickly that a different mic in a different position would never detect them. This is the art of mic choice and placement in recording electric guitars. Putting the mic close, and at the cap edge will often provide the most of that the speaker can produce. You get more low end from the proximity effect, and unusual high end because the mic is so close to the edge of the voice coil. This is good because it captures frequencies that you can then play with in the mix. Its a lot easier to cut things you don’t need that to synthesize something you don’t have. This means that EQ after cab or IR models will often be a must. Its always best to start with the right speaker for the desired tone, then pick the right microphone and the right position. But expect to have to use EQ to get the sound you actually want, and be glad you have the opportunity to do so. This will not sound exactly like an amp in the room, but it will sound like a recorded amp in the room. That’s the best modelers can do.

Not sure I understand the problem you were having. Are you saying the bridge rises up and moves off the two pivot points when you remove all the strings? Or are you saying this happens when the guitar is tuned to pitch? The JTV-69S bridge is intended to float parallel to the guitar body, about 1/8†up from the body. This limits friction since there are only two pivot points touching the bridge and gives tremolo bar movement up and down. I too have noticed that the bridge pops out of position when you take all the strings off, and on my JTV-69S it pulled the pivot bolt and bushing right out of the guitar. I had to glue it back in. I tried using various wood blocks to keep the bridge in position, but I think the technique of keeping the two E strings on is a better solution. This keeps the bridge in position, keeps some tension on the neck, but still makes it easy to clean the fretboard.

I use a pair of JBL EON610’s for my stage FRFR when gigging. These work reasonably well, are light enough, don’t look too bad and aren’t that expensive. They aren’t the greatest sounding speakers, but seem to be a good compromise. Reliability is important too.

I wasn't that happy with the magnetic pickups on my JTV-69S. They sounded thing and lacked character. The mags on my JTV Standard actually sound quite a bit better. So I installed Amalfitano SVL Daytona pickups on my JTV-69S this week: http://www.amalfitanopickups.com/SVL_Daytona_strat_pickups.php. They sound fantastic and completely change the way the guitar sounds and feels. I struggled choosing new pickups for this guitar, which is my main gigging instrument. There were so may good choices, and no really good way of evaluating them. After much study and listening, I decided to trust in the experience of professionals whose tone and style I really like. Matt Schofield has become one of my favorite guitarists to just listen to. His tone is really fantastic. There's a Rig Rundown that very good, and That Pedal Show has a full interview where he covers his whole rig in detail. His guitar tech, Simon Law, designed these pickups to reproduce the tone of Matt's 61 Strat. The biggest difference was in the bridge pickup. I found myself avoiding the stock JTV-69S bridge pickup because it just didn't sing to me. The Daytonas completely changed that. The bridge pickup has that great Strat spank, a really rich tone without the typical ice pick of a bridge single coil. I'm really happy with these pickups and highly recommend them. Installation was also quite simple, took about an hour.

The interaction between a power amp and speaker is actually quite complicated. A guitar speaker has a nominal impedance usually specified as 4, 8 or 16 Ohms. However, the actual impedance of the speaker depends on how it is mounted in a cabinet, the design of the cabinet (open back, closed back, ported, etc.), the loudness of the sound, and the input frequency. As the speaker voice coil moves in its magnet field, the inductance changes based on the excursion and elasticity of the cone. The impedance variance can be quite dramatic, and is reflected back to the output of the poweramp. How much it effects the power amp depends on the amplifier's damping factor. Larger output transformers with more iron in their cores, power supplies with more filtering, etc. help improve the damping factor - the ability of the amplifier to control the movement of the speaker in the face of its changing impedance and inertia. Amplifier designers attempt to address this issue with negative feedback. This is another complex parameter. Adding negative feedback will allow the amplifier to have a higher damping factor, smoother frequency response, less noise and less distortion. These are generally good things in an amplifier, but not necessarily for a guitar amplifier. The issue is that when an amp with lots of negative feedback and a high damping factor reaches saturation, the transition from clean to distorted can be quite abrupt, not smooth and warm. For this reason, some guitar amps don't use any negative feedback. To make things even more complicated, the presence control in most amplifiers removes negative feedback for high frequencies. This changes the damping factor at higher frequencies and tends to make the amp sound brighter when its not distorted, but looses the high boost when the amp is distorted (negative feedback is eliminated when an amp distorts since it has no remaining headroom). This also works nicely for guitar amplification since the clean guitar is brighter, but when the power amp distorts, the high boost is lost and so you don't get the fizz. If you're getting fizz from Helix, try playing with the presence control along with a high cut. Increasing the presence while also adding more high cut could keep the overall clean tone bright, but not introduce fizz when the amp is distorted since the presence high boost is lost when the amp distorts. Note also that none of this applies to using preamp distortion into a clean power amp. In this case the distortion has to be controlled by the EQ voicing before clipping (often low cut, high boost) and after clipping (often low boost, high cut). This is the art form of modern overdrive and distortion pedals. What these distortion pedals often loose is that high boost/high cut that happens when a power amp with a presence control goes from clean to dirty. S-Gear has a Hi-Cut control in the power amp section that nicely captures this amplifier dynamic. You can set the gain and amp drive up pretty high, and set the high cut high. Then when the volume control is turned down on your guitar, you get a nice bright clean tone since the hi-cut only comes into play when the amp distorts. Turn the guitar volume up and you get a nice warm, fizz-free distortion from the power amp as the hi-cut takes effect. Hopefully future Line6 amps will include this dynamic hi-cut in the poweramp section to help tame fizz.

This needs updating, but its the basis of what I use: https://jimamsden.wordpress.com/2015/12/29/creating-a-helix-electric-guitar-patch/ The basic changes would be: Litigator, Timah!, OCD, different delays, snapshots for open tunings, acoustic (Variax) and parallel Leslie path.

Agreed. I use a Strat Deluxe, Les Paul and JTV-69S at most gigs, and I use them all into the same patch. Its the differences in these guitars I'm looking for to provide a different tonal texture to the songs for the audience. I don't want the Helix patches to make them sound closer to the same, that would defeat the purpose of using different guitars. My issue is finding time between songs to be able to switch guitars. We like to keep the dancers on the floor. As a result, that JTV-69S is getting a lot of playing time.

Yes, the mag pickups do sound better than the similar models. But sounding the same or similar isn't the only point. On a gig, I could use those magnetic pickups all night and I'd be getting the best tone the guitar can produce. But it would be a small range of tones. If I were a professional with my own signature tone, then that's exactly what I'd want to do. Matt Schofield comes to mind for example. He has a signature tone, its fantastic, and he uses it well. People will pay lots of money to hear that tone and what he does with it. That's not me. I'm a professional software developer who plays weekend club gigs as a hobby. I don't have a tone of my own. The band does mostly covers. So my JTV-69S and Helix make a perfect combination to create a lot of different tones that help the band connect to the songs for our audience. I put my own stamp on it, but the audience is there to hear the familiar tunes and have fun, not to listen to me. I'm fine with that, its a lot of fun. If I were a professional like Matt Schofield, I probably wouldn't use a Variax or digital amp models. But I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to use them for my limited purposes. The tones I can get from those guitar and amp models are a lot better than tone's I can't get from guitars and amps a don't own and will never get to use.

IR and cabinet choice should start with what you're trying to accomplish. We all have our favorite pro guitarist within the context of the styles of music we like. You can start there by exploring what these musicians use to get their tone and use that as a starting point for speaker and cabinet selection. From there its a question of whether you like warm and full, or bright and thin. This is highly influenced by the mic choice followed by mic position. Once you select a good starting point, then next question is to ask what's missing? If there's no problem, then you're done. If you can't identify what's missing, then searching for it through all the available IRs is not going to be a fun or efficient process.

A Vox AC30, Fender Super Reverb and Marshall all sound different too. So do all the different boost, overdrive and distortion pedals on the market. And how these amps take pedals is also entirely different. Differences are good, they give us choice, variety and different sounds that inspire creativity in performers and interest for listeners. Helix meets my needs, and that's great. But I also celebrate the AX8, Kemper, AmpliFire, and S-Gear options. Its wonder that we have so many great options to choose from and use to make music.

Just remember there are no rules. Yes, typical acoustic instruments, horns, etc., will sound better without a cab or IR model. However, I have found that sometimes things work out differently than you would expect. For example, I sometimes use a cab/IR to warm up my mandolin. It thickens the tone and removes that overly bright penetrating tone (that my wife says covers the whole house). I also found that Timah! works really well with mandolin to give sweet sustain, especially when playing slide (yes, I do play some slide mandolin). So, just like a guitar speaker turns a magnetic pickup into something we really like, maybe the same could be true for other situations. Might be worth a try with that bassoon.

I did an interesting test today, compairing my Variax Standard vs. my JTV-69S against my Strat Deluxe with Tom Anderson stacked humbuckers (in single coil mode). What I found was a bit surprising. The Tom Anderson pickups certainly sound better than either Variax mag pickups. The tone is richer, thicker in the midrange, and generally a bit warmer while still having a lot of high end. I had expected that as I have some experience playing live with all these guitars. But it was nice to be able to compare them more closely. What was surprising is that the Variax Standard pickups sounded much closer to the Tom Andersons than the JTV-69S pickups. The bridge and neck pickup were pretty close while the bridge pickup was just a bit thinner and didn't have the warmth and richness. The JTV-69S pickups were somewhat of a disappointment by comparison. They sounded thin in the mids, and didn't have the warmth or sustain. However the models were just the opposite. The Variax Standard Spank model exhibits some high-end artifacts on the models, I suspect a bit of clang tone. This is especially noticeable on the single pickup positions. That guitar also seemed to pickup more of the pick noise and doesn't seem to like a V-pick Tradition - my preferred pick. The JTV-69S models actually sounded quite good. There was no sign of any artifacts or clang tone. It took the V-pick just fine, no noticeable or odd pick noise. The Spank model stood up well against the Tom Andersons and provided a nice, different and usable Strat tone. I suspect that the piezo pickups fit into JTV-69S bridge pieces better and this transfers more energy from the string into the pickup and reduces any artifacts from pickup not making good contact in the bridge piece. I think my Variax Standard has actually improved over time. The bridge pieces may be settling in and making better contact as the guitar is played. But overall, the models sound much better in the JTV-69S. I'm changing the magnetic pickups in my JTV-69S to http://www.amalfitanopickups.com/SVL_Daytona_strat_pickups.php (I'm a big Matt Schofield fan). I think this will be a significant improvement in the guitar and a good investment since it is becoming my main gigging guitar.

I was trying to reproduce Matt Schofield's tone with my Helix and JTV-69S. I got close with the magnetic pickups, but could never quite get there. I switched to the Spank model and bingo - much closer. I'm guessing the modeled Strat just happened to be closer to the Strat he uses. So I ordered a set of Amalfitano SVL Daytonas to put on my JTV-69S.

I have been using a JTV-69S as my main gigging guitar for almost a year. I did make some changes in the models - mostly string balancing and some different body models. The models don't sound as good as the real thing. But I have no problem getting them close enough for club gigging. I doubt anyone can tell the difference or would care. Your Variax may be stuffing from clang tone issues. If that's the case, you can try some of the documented, but unverified remedies.

This is also a great video to see why you need to use hi-cuts on IRs and speaker models. Notice the big difference in how much brightern and harsh the close mic'd speaker sounds compared to the distant mic that gets the amp in the room sound. This is caused by listening off axis to a very directional, low-fidelity speaker. Now when you listen to your FRFR cabinet (not through headphones), you're also listening to an amp in the room and likely off axis from that too. But most FRFRs have horns that provide much wider dispersion of the high frequencies than a guitar speaker. So you're still going to hear those bright harsh tones. So its not uncommon to have to use mic selection and placement, and put EQ and compression at the end of your Helix signal chain to warm up the tone of cab models and IRs.

Digital audio interfaces have limited dynamic range and there is no such thing as "good" digital clipping. So you need to make sure your guitar is not overdriving the inputs of your audio interface - whether its a Pod HD500, Helix, or your typical computer audio interface. Many interfaces provide input level meters or clip indicator lights and a gain control so that you can adjust the gain to provide a good signal level while avoiding any clipping. The Pod HD500 doesn't provide level meters or clip indicators, so you have to use your ears. The input level switch plays the role of a simplified, two-state input gain control. When in doubt, use the lower gain setting and makeup the gain in the amp drive setting. That will ensure you're getting the proper kind of clipping.

An easier option is to mix your own IRs using samples from vendors that provide different mic choices and positions on the same cabinet. Redwirez BigBox provides a lot of options. Redwirez also provides a mixing tool you can use to create your own IR mixes. Once you create the IR mix, load it into Helix and you're ready to go.

Excellent analysis, and a great story. I love the detail. Really like your approach to analyzing what your tone is, why and how to reproduce it with different configurations.

You might have to lower your action. Gypsy guitar tone is often acoustics with quite a bit of fret buzz.

I've recently been trying to reproduce Matt Schofield's tone with my Helix and JTV-69S. See The Pedal Show interview with Matt Schofield for great information on how Matt approaches amp and pedal tones. I got close with the JTV-69S mag pickups, but not really there. When I switched to the Spank model it was actually closer. That was unexpected. Guess the modeled Strat is just a bit closer to his Strat. This is another example of the value of a JTV. Anything close to Matt Schofield's tone is good tone.

You know I tend to agree. The Pro 40 sounds dull to me too. I have an Apogee GiO which I think sounds better (but my ears aren't so good). Again I suspect its because the GiO's input is specifically designed for guitar, and its Apogee... I wonder if mic pres are one thing, and Hi-Z inputs another. Maybe the Focusrite optimizes for the mic input and has some compromise for the instrument input. Hard to know. I don't use my Helix for an input because its usually packed for gigs.

Its not clear exactly how to use the Helix Native input level control. The signal path from you guitar to the first block in Helix Native is: 1. The physical gain control on your interface 2. Possibly a software gain control provided by the device driver - this usually is a software version of the physical gain control and interfaces won't have both 3. Gain into Helix Native. You want to set the gain into your interface to be sure there's never any digital clipping, but keep the level high enough to minimize noise and make sure you're pushing the Helix Native blocks with their expected input. This is where I think the Helix Native input control comes in. All audio plugins have a sweet spot where their input is being driven at some optimal point for that plugin. This will be somewhere between off or low signal too close to noise, to clipping. I'm guessing Helix Native will probably like its maximum input to be somewhere near 0 dB. This minimizes the noise, provides the typical level into the blocks, and gives some headroom to avoid digital clipping. On the other hand, if the Helix Native input is in the digital floating point domain, then you don't need to worry about digital clipping and can use the input gain control as a gain boost for weaker pickups, or to provide more drive from your guitar into the following blocks. Anyone know where the Helix Native input gain is in the signal chain? Now to your question, if the input gain stays constant, then the output meter should be able to be used to level balance different patches.

How the knobs and switchs are mapped to MIDI depends on the DAW. For Logic Pro X, you switch the Helix Native plugin to the Controls view and you'll see the configured knobs and switches with sliders and check boxes. You can use this view to create controller assignments, or use the controller assignments learn mode and click on these knobs and switches in the plugin Controls view to learn the parameter. Other DAWs have similar capabilities for creating MIDI mappings to track parameters.

I have a Saffire Pro 40 that I'm using with Helix Native and S-Gear. I think the major difference is that Helix guitar input was specifically designed for electric guitar. It has the right impedance and sufficient dynamic range. Saffire Pro 40 has an "Instrument" input that as greater than 1M Ohm input impedance, but its dynamic range is 109 dB compared to the 120 dB of Helix.