DunedinDragon

Back in the day PA cabinets weren't a whole lot better than guitar cabinets in terms of how efficient they were. Of course back in the day the PA systems were so bad it was just as well you probably didn't hear them. You probably heard the guitar, but you probably didn't hear much of the voices.

If I'm remembering correctly that's not a modal dialogue so you don't have to perform the backup in order to progress to the update of the firmware. It's more or less a reminder. I don't think I ever use it. Instead I use the HX edit for the current version of my firmware (which in your case would be HX Edit 2.30) to do my backup. Then I download and run the HX Edit install for 2.92 and ignore the backup reminder and continue with the install. The problem being that the versions of HX Edit and the Firmware HAVE TO MATCH for everything to work. After the fact I usually do my backup using the updated version of HX Edit that will match my firmware.

Again a lot depends on DSP usage and trying to not make people pay a DSP penalty if they're not using something, which I really appreciate. As far as effects, effects built into amps was always more of a marketing decision among amp makers who were trying to get some advantage by having them built in. This was done a lot more 40 years ago than it is today as onboard effects are rarely if ever as good as separate effects. That's why, even when many amps came with certain effects like reverbs, or chorus effects, or graphic EQs, separate standalone effects were almost always used in studio recording because they were so much better and more versatile. One of the things I noticed early on with the Helix, the studio paradigm is pretty much built into the basic design and DNA of the system. All of it makes MUCH more sense for those of us that spent our youths hanging around those kind of environments. If you come from the amp and pedalboard background it sometimes doesn't make as much sense because the Helix isn't really built around that paradigm.

I'm not sure what you mean by "for each DSP" but I'm assuming you mean DSP for each block. There are some documents squirreled away on here that give some rough estimates of DSP usage for each type of block, but that's all I've ever seen. You might want to look on IdeaScale and see if someone has put something like that in as a feature request and vote for it.

Other than Global EQ HX Edit doesn't provide any interface for setting global values. You just set them through your unit.

Better yet. Go to any concert and sit in the audience. You will NEVER hear the sound of a real amp....ever....because they're all mic'd.

In short, that's why you have those funny little things hanging off the side of your head so you can dial in the tones you want.

I don't think it's any secret that the Helix doesn't provide an "amp in the room" sound other than through a 4cm setup, bit that's why that configuration is available. The Powercab is an alternative to that which will allow you to take full advantage of the Helix facilities such as different cabinet and mic models. But in order to do that it must, by design, provide a full range response setup which traditional cabinets don't have. Having used traditional amps on stage since the early 70s I can't say that bothers me since the only time you hear the amp in the room sound is if you're on stage with the amp. Once that cabinet is captured with a mic whether for recording or for live performances, it's no longer the amp in the room sound. To me that's a big plus given the inherent problems of real world cabinets such as variations in the tone as you move off-axis from the cabinet or the inefficiency of traditional cabinets to project evenly across an entire room or the rapid loss of volume over long distances. Having battled those kind of problems in live performances for well over 4 decades, I'll gladly take on a new and more efficient paradigm.

In answer to your question, I'm not aware of anything in the Helix design that would limit the frequency response range other than the sample rate as phil_m mentioned previously. I have two Helix floor units, one of which is used daily as a sound card in my studio which replaced a fairly pricey audio interface and I can't say I've noticed any difference in performance with the Helix. To me that doesn't mean much as that's simply a subjective ear test, but I've never heard of anyone with any objective measurements that would indicate any limitations.

Also worth looking at whether or not you have something in the room that's causing sympathetic vibrations. I had this happen to me a while back. I could have sworn I had a blown speaker in my Yamaha HS7. Turned out I had something on the desk that was sympathetic to a certain frequency and sounded just like a blown speaker.

I suspect with the right very basic amps you might pull it off, but there wouldn't be much left for anything else. I'm not sure why in the world one would think it's necessary to do such a thing however. As flexible as some of the amps are such as the Archetype or Placater it's hard to imagine you couldn't achieve whatever tonal behavior you'd want with just the two versions of it (Clean and Lead). That would leave you with plenty of DSP room for a good selection of other useful blocks in your signal chain.

Not a X3 owner but came over from a POD HD500X. Chances are you'll get a benefit from understanding the whole signal chain and various block types paradigm as that's continued over into the Helix. Beyond that you'll probably want to start from scratch with your presets as there are enough differences to make it worth your while to reconsider how you'll want to do things. I'd strongly suggest you invest some time watching Jason Sadites Helix channel on YouTube for how to get great tones. That will make it a whole lot easier for you to understand best practices and such.

Make sure you read the release notes carefully when you do an upgrade. As noted in the release notes for 2.92, when you do an upgrade the normal process is to download the HX Edit install program and run it. That will install HX Edit, all the appropriate device drivers, as well as upgrade the firmware on your Helix...all in one process. That will ensure your HX Edit and Helix firmware versions are correct.

And that's why the original question you asked is pretty much irrelevant unless the person is using the same cabinet/ir/mic setup....not to mention the same type of guitar and general output system. But your process appears to be a decent one so the EQ aspects should be relatively, the same as I would expect your high gain EQ to be. I personally experience very little difference in my EQ between high gain songs and clean songs other than guitar specific differences between using a Les Paul, a Tele, a Strat, acoustic, banjo or a Gretsch Silver Eagle or Resonator. Technique can also have a certain amount of impact such as whether using a pick, finger picking, hybrid or using slide.

I also think that any discussion regarding EQ is pointless until you've settled your decisions regarding the type of cab/IR your using along with what combination of mics and mic placements you're using. THAT is really the source of what you and your audience are primarily hearing as it is on most stages and certainly in all studio settings. That is what you're trying to match when you're trying to capture the guitar tone of any recorded passage, and no matter how big a collection of amps and cabinets you see on a concert stage, you're hearing the sound that's being projected across the colosseum or arena through a line array of technically sophisticated speakers which was captured by very creative and clever use of stage mics. In my experience and in the experience of many others, you tend to find certain types of cabinets, mics and placement your ear will almost always favor regardless of the style of music you play. You likely would never use a Celestion Blue Bell for high gain tones, just as you'd not likely use a Greenback for jazz. Beyond that it's purely a matter of small corrective actions with EQ that gives you the fit and finish for the sound you're after. It's also a lot easier and faster to do it that way.

A quick anecdote about the Helix and MIDI that can help differentiate things for you. I recently began interfacing a Beat Buddy with my Helix floor due to some additional gigs I've been doing that involves a small group with no drummer. My goal was to be able to do my normal stuff with the Helix and just integrate control over the Beat Buddy via Helix MIDI messages. I have different songs in different presets so I used the Helix Instant commands from command center to automatically select the appropriate drum song that matches my preset and automatically make any changes to the volume mix with the drums for that song when I select a Helix preset. I then just added a few buttons along the bottom row of buttons to control the Beat Buddy. In essence, my workflow really doesn't change other than the additional buttons to control the Beat Buddy. The end result is I never have to touch the Beat Buddy through the course of the performance. I just hook it up and it just works seamlessly with the Helix. You might be able to achieve the individual button control via a midi controller, but what you wouldn't be able to do is have the seamless integration between the selection of a Helix preset and the synchronization with the Beat Buddy song and performance parameters via the MIDI instant commands. Just one example of something to consider.

Put a gain block and an EQ block into any empty preset and you effectively have an acoustic guitar amp.

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You may want to hold off as it's likely you'll find additional things you might want to do with the Helix, or different ways of doing them the longer you use it. That would be especially likely if you end up playing in different situations or bands at some point, or covering other genres. It would be a shame to go to the stomp and not have enough horsepower available to do other more sophisticated things. It's kind of like cutting a board too long or too short. Cut it too long, you can always use less of it. Cut it too short and it's a real challenge to stretch it....

Just be aware, a MIDI controller doesn't just plug in and work. You have to program it to send the codes expected by the Helix. It's not hard, but it is a technical skill you have to learn and be prepared to deal with.

What are you using for your output device? It sounds like there may be an automatically engaged limiter for protection that's kicking in depending on the volume level of the incoming signal. Worth checking I'd think.

I think we're talking about two different philosophies although both can come into play nowadays. My approach is a bit more "old school" in that I learned it in the '70 and '80s which was a time when authenticity of tone was preached in the studio. By the late 80's things had transitioned in some genres to bigger swings at shaping EQ. Much of that was due to better equipment and tools that could be easily used in the studio and on stage. Both are clearly valid, but each tends to dominate more in specific genres even today. Authenticity still tends to reign in country (although less so now in modern country), but is still revered in blues, bluegrass, jazz and funk. Modern Pop, Rock and Metal are more open to dramatic flourishes in EQ.

Here's my take on EQ which is pretty much similar to what Jason Sadites demonstrates in his Dialing In videos on his YouTube channel. The main thing is EQ is a finalizing tool for tone, not a maker of base tones. You use it after you've crafted your main tone using appropriate amps and cab/IR's that include the right combination and placement of microphones, followed by a low/high shelf (not high/low cut) to get the overall tone to have the right mix of lows and highs before any post-amp effects such as reverbs or delays. Then toward the very end of the signal chain you use a parametric EQ to do some basic "mastering" of the tone for specific problems such as high and low cuts and taking the edge off of very specific problematic frequencies. A high/low shelf is very different from the high and low cuts you would use in the parametric EQ. It's used to accentuate or decrease frequencies above or below a specific target frequency. Hi and low cuts are about chopping off the ends of the frequency range above a certain frequency in the case of high cut and below a certain frequency in the case of low cuts. NONE of these are set in stone because it all depends on the style and sound of the song as well as the type of guitar being used as well as what kind of speaker setup you're using for output. But, for example, you might use a low/high shelf set in lower mid range of guitar frequencies at around 580 Hz up to maybe 700 Hz to slightly accentuate by maybe 0.5db above that frequency and decrease frequencies by maybe 1.5 db below that frequency in order to have slightly more body in you guitar tone and less low end rumble to get a nice crisp, well articulated guitar tone. You might then use a high cut on the parametric EQ after the effects to take the edge off of the highs above 8.5 Khz and the low bass boominess or mud with a low cut 125 to 140 Hz. Those might be more representative of a Les Paul style guitar. With a single coil guitar you might also want to take some of the twangines out with a very narrow cut of 3 or 4 db in the 4.2 - 4.5 Khz range on the parametric EQ. Again these are just general ideas, not specific. You'll have to use your ears to listen to what you like or dislike in your tone to get what fits your sound and your setup. The most important thing is to let the modeling do the heavy lifting work by making smart decisions on the amp and particularly on the cabinet/IR mic combinations and placements before final SLIGHT tweaking of the tone with EQ. Otherwise, in my opinion, the result will sound more synthetic than authentic.

I had a similar problem to this one time when I tried to hook up the muffler on my car to the transmission and then welded a connection from my transmission to the carburetor. Never could that that darn thing to work!!!!

I've been using the Helix for over 4 years and have yet to need something like this, nor have I seen many people making this a priority...so that might explain why nothing's been done here. There are other, higher priority items being asked for.