DunedinDragon

The problem is there is nothing on the Sweetwater site that points a person to how to download an update, not even from the invoice or purchase record. It would be nice to know how we're supposed to update it.

To me it's a simple matter of over time becoming familiar with the different models and their behaviors or my personal experience with some of the real amps they're based on. Once I know those things I can pretty much tell which ones will be the most likely candidate for what I'm trying to do. The approach I use with an amp may vary based on the amp's behaviors. For example, I agree with what you say about the Archetype clean. It's probably the most beautiful crystal clean sound of any of the amp models in my opinion. I know it has it's limits and I don't particularly care for the over the top behaviors of the Archetype lead, so I approach using it in a manner similar to the way I use the WhoWatt which is renowned for how well it can incorporate boost or overdrive pedals and use those as a way to build a crunchier version of the Archetype clean when I'm doing a song that has a very clean section but breaks into a heavier, crunchy sound or a lead. I could simply use a WhoWatt, but the WhoWatt is really more of an older, classic Marshall based underlying tone whereas the Archetype is more of a modern high presence tone.

Nice work. The only thing missing are the Snapshot PC/CC controls.

For me these sort of things change over time since I've been using the Helix exclusively since it came out. Right now the amp models I tend to use most often are the WhoWatt, Matchstick, Placater, and Archetype. But from the looks of it I may end up using the new Ventoux in place of a couple of them as it seems to fill a broader range of sounds in a similar way that the WhoWatt does. My most commonly effects are the Teemah, Minotaur, LA Compressor, Dynamic Hall, Transistor Tape Delay and Retro Reel but I'm sure that's going to have some additions/replacements with the new stuff in 3.15. I agree with Waymda in that what I choose is based on the type of music I normally play which tends to be pretty varied in music style and genre and may not be applicable to what you play. I also use different presets for each song which is a big factor in my choice of amps and effects.

Ultimately this is why I have a Telecaster as well as a Gretsch hollowbody and presets that go with them. There's just no mistaking when you've got the proper country twang going on and that requires a Tele with string gauge no greater than 10's, and the older Chet Atkins fingerpicked style that needs a Gretsch with 11's or 12's. It's just physics....

I commonly use a Strat on many songs that are based on a Les Paul rather to minimize the number of guitar changes. In those cases I build a completely separate preset specifically for the Strat with a different amp, IR and other signal chain elements to give me a deeper, punchier Les Paul sound. It also helps that I'm using a Strat Elite which has the version 4 noiseless pickups with S1 switch which helps in giving me a believable Les Paul sound. Something to consider.

I'm confused then as to why, if Monitor path 1 is the FOH mix and the actual FOH mix is being sent from the main outs on the mixer, why you wouldn't just use the daisy chain output from one of the FOH speaker to the monitor used by the bassist and drummer, which would then provide two open monitor outputs for you and the keyboard? Clearly it would be nice to just have more monitor outputs, but if not you'd get the same effect and everyone would get what they want.

I don't understand why you should need to do any such gymnastics with your signal in order to hear yourself well through the DBR by just using it as a typical floor monitor with a customized mix from the mixing board. That's how these things are meant to be used. I looked up your Dynacord mixer and it appears to have two aux outputs for monitors which should be adequate for giving you a customized monitor mix through your DBR. In my band we have three monitors to cover 4 people using 2 aux channels. The other three people have a common mix setup on their 2 DXR12 speakers and I have a customized mix specifically for me on a QSC K10.2 speaker with a slightly boosted guitar signal and it all works great for everyone. We can all hear each other and I can hear my guitar quite clearly.

Just so you understand, DSP is an integrated specialized processor on the Helix board so that it can work at full buss speeds just like the CPU in your computer. It's not something that you can plug in and play since latency would be a HUGE issue with anything like that.

All models are created by duplicating the operations of the original amp's circuitry in the digital world whether it's a Line 6 amp or not, so it should be representative of the original amp's operations. When you apply a cab you also have to apply one or more mic's and mic placements to capture that sound. So it will sound close to that amp and that cab mic'd in the same way.

Well, I guess after 7 years it was finally my turn to have a problem upgrading...sigh... No big deal. The system just got hung up installing the firmware. When it became obvious it wasn't really going anywhere, I just killed the HX Edit program from the task manager, started HX Edit 3.15 again and went through the update of the firmware again and it all worked perfectly. Who knows what caused it, but it's nice to know the update process is robust enough that it doesn't get thrown into a tizzy if the update procedure gets interrupted. Nice solid piece of software.

As the music director at my church I'm in exactly the same situation each Sunday and here's how I do it. I have a preset for each song and the name of the preset is typically the name of the song or some variation of it. After I create and gain stage the preset I export it to my computer hard drive into a single directory specifically for that purpose. I load each song into the same 5 or 6 preset slots on the Helix in the order we'll be playing them each week and simply click through the presets for each song as we play them. If I have to make any last minute adjustments to my presets at the service I just make sure I export them back to my hard drive overwriting the old version when I get home on Sunday so they always remain current. Essentially my hard drive directory becomes my archive of song presets we've played. This has the benefit of being able to sort my library of presets in any order I want by name or date modified which can be quite handy. I can also see which songs we haven't played in a while and it helps in establishing a rotation. It also gives me an offline backup of songs so that if something were to happen to my Helix, I just use my spare Helix from my studio and I'm ready to go. Over time I've developed a few special practices. I often play the same song on different guitars so that I'm not switching guitars during the service. So when I save a preset I add a code to the end of the filename of the preset such as -lespaul, -gretsch, -acoust, -tele, etc. Because these codes are only added when I save a preset, they never actually show up in the actual name of the preset on the Helix which I prefer. I also have additional subdirectories in my song directory where I move songs we don't play anymore just in case we decide to revive them. The key advantage to doing it this way is all my presets are relatively small and simple and I'm never in a crunch for DSP power. I also benefit in that all of my presets have been gain staged in live use so I have some confidence they'll be at appropriate volumes each time they're used regardless of which variation I'm using for different guitars. I also reserve additional setlist for special purposes such as special events we might be playing where we're playing a larger assortment of songs. My use of stomps or snapshots is entirely based on what I need to do for each song depending on the needs of the song.

I think you're slowly but surely coming to the grand conclusions most of us that have been involved in this discussion with you have come to over the years. 1. Fletcher Munson is a very real human effect that can't be avoided short of having the sound at a reasonable level where human hearing works efficiently. If you spend the time to examine some of the examples of charts for the Fletcher Munson effect, you'll see that 90 to 95 dbSPL is generally where the effect begins to dissipate. What's important about this is that's typically a bit less than the level people play at on stage so you don't really need to blast your sound at "performance" levels...more like standing next to an idling truck level. 2. Different guitars are, in fact...well...different. Despite all the advances in guitar electronics, a Strat will never sound the same as a Les Paul. Although I sometimes tweak my presets so that I may have two of the same presets, but each tweaked a little bit and optimized for different guitars. But that doesn't mean the results will be the same, just that the preset will be presentable on either a Les Paul or a Strat. Many of the songs I do really will only work well with one type of guitar and so I limit myself to that guitar when performing it. This is especially true with certain music genre's like funk or country. 3. I play a lot with various backing tracks which I create in Ableton using with various instruments, and that's really taken my performances to the next level knowing how to best fit in with different instruments such as keyboards, horns, pads or even pedal steel and strings ensembles. It's as much about developing the right playing style as it is getting the right tone.

I think shopping around for a different producer and sound engineer might be the best thing you can do. There are literally thousands of well produced recordings out there using the same technology you're using. If they can't do it, it's more likely their incompetence than your equipment. However, to be sure you should probably ask them for more in-depth details about what was problematic for them in getting the tracks to sit well in the mix. What did they try? What failed? Have them show you examples and see if your ears agree. There's always the possibility you could correct the issue on the Stomp. But I would be very hesitant to accept their broad statement because it could just as likely be a "confirmation bias" on their part due to them having expectations set based of your equipment.

Yes Line 6 has. Oddly enough it's called the Cosmos Echo in the Delays section of your Helix effects list.

It's been there since Day 1 via the USB connection or 5 pin MIDI Out. Simple enough for most visionaries to master I would think....;)

So instead of being stuck in the 1900's you'd prefer to be stuck in the synth age of the 1980's and 90's. THIS is the way to do formants in 2022. All you need to do is send it the appropriate MIDI and mix it to taste. Get with the current age!!!! Vowels in today's age.

You're going to find out sooner or later, the Helix only provides a rather rudimentary MIDI capability for interacting with other devices. Anything more complicated than simple interactions really falls into the domain of a fully featured MIDI controller. In some cases, such as mine, it may be more advantageous to use an external MIDI controller to control and coordinate actions on everything including the Helix.

https://helixhelp.com/

In my experience there are two fairly distinctive "Nashville" styles. The older "smooth" style centers around the Gretsch style of pickup and the more modern style around the standard Telecaster style. I suspect the one you're going after is the more modern Tele style for which I use Gen4 Fender noiseless pickups. There are probably other pickups you can get it with, but the authentic sound is very much dependent on that style of pickup. Also, if you're using EQ don't take the normal thin slice out at 4.2 Mhz on your parametric EQ as you'll need that twang. Also the picking technique is a pretty important factor as well, but there are plenty of YouTube videos demonstrating it out there. EDIT: On YouTube or Google search for "chicken pickin"

I think it would be even more interesting if you were to express yourself more clearly using actual english what it is you're wanting to do via MIDI and any specific Chase Bliss effects.

I'm not really using plugins in the same way as you're talking about. I'm using Kontakt sample libraries (which interface in somewhat the same way as a plugin) for things OTHER than guitar such as strings, horns, flutes, pedal steel, harmonica, bluegrass fiddle, grand piano, B2 Hammond organ, Fender Rhodes piano, etc.. I rarely need anything more than what Helix provides as far as guitar tone, and I only really record guitar when I'm putting together a demo of a song the band is trying to learn. As I mentioned before, my tracks are really song specific session tracks for use with different songs we play live in order to add instruments to what the band is playing rather than having a session musician sitting in. And I would disagree that those type of articulation techniques are added after the note, they are actually part of the sample being used. The triggering note is simply a MIDI note which is sometimes triggered with a separate MIDI control note designating a special articulation or performance style, but the sample used for that note comes from a recording of a live person playing that note on that instrument in an acoustically professional recording environment using that specific articulation or performance characteristic. That's why those sample libraries can sometimes be upwards of 60 GB in size in order to manage all those variations of each note being played. In essence they're sampled in much the same way as what most of the more popular drum plugins are done, but on more complex musical instruments. These type of sample libraries are often what you're hearing on a large portion of modern cinematic soundtrack scores you've been hearing over the last 10 to 20 years rather than using a large orchestra or complex instrumentation setups like the following:

It's really interesting to me that a fair number of active members on this forum have such similar backgrounds. Mostly I think because many of us grew up in roughly the same generation. As much as I was a "Beatle Baby" being someone that really became aware of pop music with their invasion of the US when I was 10 years old but my first interest in guitar started prior to that with my Dad's love of Chet Atkins records. I wasn't living in a place where you could easily find a "qualified" teacher on guitar, especially in those days. So I was stuck just trying to learn things on my own in a time where the only place you could seek much information on the subject might be a library or possibly a music store whenever I visited a larger city. And of course effects other than reverb and tremolo were still a decade away. However, I was fortunate enough to come from a very musical family (Grandfather played fiddle, Grandmother and Father played piano) so I was exposed very early starting at 6 years old to instruments other than guitar such as piano, trombone and violin and formal techniques like dynamics and articulations were always a part of it. I just didn't know what they were on the guitar and how you accessed them until after I left home and went to college on a music scholarship. What a difference THAT made in my approach to guitar and how it should REALLY be played in the context of a band. To be honest I'm so out of touch with K-12 education nowadays I don't even know if any of that stuff is even still available. I do think YouTube plays a fairly big part in music education, but that's limited to what you want to know, and many people these days don't know what they don't know. Which is exactly what I discovered when I finally went to college. But I do agree that from all appearances the level of private instruction appears to be pretty accessible. I just don't know if they stress that much in the finer techniques associated with articulations and dynamics that enable you to blend well and contribute effectively with a larger set of instruments.

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one noticing this. I was particularly interested in some of the things PierM was saying about being more "old school|" in his approach which I think applies to many of us that started playing before the glut of pedals and tools came out and diverted people's attention. And Sascha Frank's experience most closely resembles mine as far as finding the basic setups I need and not veering far from it. I do think there are some other factors that feed into this, one of which is the makeup of bands nowadays. It's relatively rare to see bands with LOTS of different instruments simply because of the pay scale used for paying most bands simply doesn't allow it. One of the things that began bringing this aspect of technique more to my attention was that addition of using "session instrument tracks" with my band. These aren't exactly backing tracks but rather individual instrument tracks which play along with the band on different songs. Once I began using these I noticed how much I need to change my approach to my playing in many if not most of the songs simply because there wasn't room for me to fill as much and I would be competing with the other instruments if I overplayed, so it more or less forced me to fall back to the techniques I used back when bands consisted of more than three or four instruments in order to blend and fill within that context. I think there are a lot of players that started playing in this newer age of limited band size and probably depend on many of these effects and such to help fill the space in an otherwise sparse instrument environment. It makes me think of one of the internet groups I tend to pay a lot of attention to which is Scary Pockets. It's not a whole lot of instruments, but each instrument contributes only what's necessary for the song to sound complete and professional..but all done live in someone's living room, for example. In their case it's all technique and very little in the way of effects and flashy stuff. Interesting approach to say the least.

An interesting thought occurred to me the other day. I do a lot of recording work using sample libraries. One of the big differentiators in the quality of sample libraries tends to be the ability to apply various manual articulations to the notes. It really doesn't matter what type of instrument be it strings, horns, flute, pedal steel, bluegrass fiddle, harmonica, etc. They all provide various methods for controlling attack, vibrato, swell and so forth usually quite different for different instruments. It's fairly uncommon in modeling forums to hear much discussion about various articulation methods unique to the guitar, which leads me to question whether or not the Helix can sometimes become an impediment to newer guitar players developing these types of skills on the guitar such as palm muting, hybrid picking, neck versus bridge attack, pick technique and so fort. In other words there's so much emphasis and interest in the use of different amps or effects, there's not much left for learning how to enhance the mix of their guitar with the rest of the band or the tracks of a recording through the use of various articulation techniques. What's your take on this?