mikisb

Well - while searching for headphones wich would sound better with guitar on Helix, i found the Marshall Monitor wich should hae a descending frequency response starting at 8 KHz. Marshall delivers this Headphone with a Felt damping system, wich are in fact felt disks wich can be integrated  in the headphones.

So i took my AKG Hearo777 wireless headphones and experimented a bit with sheets  of 1,5 mm felt.

You know what? With two sheets per side, the tonal response of the Hearo 777 is pretty similar to my frfr monitors, this is really sounding great! Thanks to Marshall for this inspiration! Never touught that it could be so much better just with a simple trick. Maybe, i could work for other headphones to, depending on their preference for higher frequencies.

BTW, did you follow

http://line6.com/support/topic/18774-helix-through-headphones/?hl=headphones

this discussion?

 

Allow me to report some observations I have made:

I know a lot of  'HiFi guys' and they keep complaining frequently when they have to deal with linear monitoring or FRFR speakers.

By now I believe, that both needs indeed a different kind of hardware and listening (that can be trained like everything).

This is no 'esoteric superstition' or something - it has a lot to do with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoacoustics

Maybe you got to get used to it, too...

Helpful link, thank you!

I know that in the HiFi sector (worse - in the High End sector), there are different opinions about good sound. My aproach is simply a neutral (as far as possible) reproduction, in case of frfr monitors in the near field. I don't saeach a good sound as for a guitar amp, just a reproduction. Good sound should be made by guitar amps and acoustic engineers, not by speakers ;)

sorry i'm not abolutly sure what the helix display told my. But i'm sure that i have the information (5+6) from here: http://line6.com/support/topic/19444-helix-application-v110-now-includes-full-editor/ (6.)

well - i'll try out some other heaphones, even if the old ones where not often used as i had the same problem with pod XT, pod hd and other amps from other brands.

Joust tought it would be normal that headphones and guitaramps does'nt match verry good without a specific EQing.

Bad, that i still listen about 19 KHz - a bit less would heplfull for electric guitars  :rolleyes:

Additionally, i will measure the impedances of the old ones. But generally, i'm not so bad in listening as i construct and build (and measure and listen) loudspeakers (HiFi) for about 35 jears.

I've already tried at different levels from whisper to ear killing, but the harsh character does'nt change. With a brutal highcut from 6 to 8 KHz it's ok for overdriven/distorted guitar but harms the clean/acoustic tones.

By the way - i think there is a reason why we can vote for ideas (or not) and why i asked for your opinion: So that the mayority decides what's most important for the mayority. For some it's the 198th amp model  or 5 amps with 6 IRs in the same path, for others a headphone EQ.

As said, i never was happy with guitar over headphones, except with the AX2 wich i modded with passive elements as 1st order lowpass in the headphone jack ;)

does old means bad if we talk about speakers or headphones? Really? ;)

Do i hear a bit rivalism between different whishes? ;-)

What does'nt mean the the headphones i use and wich are quite ok for music in general are the perfect choice just for guitar.

Already asked, I think:

 

http://line6.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Global-EQ-presets/809976-23508

 

I also think that it's very necessary

thanks - just voted for :)

a verry old Beyer DT990, a AKG from about 2002 (don't know exactly what model - sounds ok on HiFi but cruel with guitar) wich are both half closed. Plus some different open  "walkman"-Headphones/inears, where a older Sony still is the best. Have to look this evening for the exact types.

Hi,

1. "my" udater told me to press switches 5+6 (not 4+5)  during reboot and did the reset without any problems.

2. Sorry, no idea

3. Depends on where you import the older bundles ;) In the Helix software, you can choose the setlist where you want to import to, so if you choose 1 or 2, the factory presets will be overwritten for shure.

Hi,

i'm happy what comes out of my frfr monitors or my DT25. But what comes out out my (different) headphones lets my ears cry - harsh, bright and noisy. So i wonder if i've just the wrong headphones or if it's a general effect. In the second case, i would wish a EQ like the global EQ but dedicatet to the headphones out. As i switch often between Amp, FRFR and Headphones, this would be more usefull than always using the global WQ for that.

What do you think?

I added the idea add http://line6.ideascale.com/a/dtd/EQ-dedicated-to-headphone-out/813724-23508

Yes - it absolutley would!

Works great on my asus Zenbook with Win 7 and FHD resolution.

Even if there still are perhaps a few points to work on, for my taste it's allready way easier to use than the HD500 edit witch already was'nt bad and i was lucky to have it. For a beta, it runs really stable and the functionality is still not perfect, but still great.

On some parameters, it's sometimes hard to read the words cause the text color is similar to the bars behind the text. Otherwise, the grapical display of the global EQ is something i wished for a long time as i'm used it from HiFi DSPs.

If i could have a wish: Even if it's outdated, i would like to run it under the old windows XP as my workstation runs stable here and there are some applications i need wich won't run under 7, 8 or 10.

If i could add a second wish ;): When connected by usb with the Helix application, i cannot manipulate on the helix itself, so i have to disconnect.

Not a big deal, but as far as i remember, it was different with the HD500 and hd500edit.

....Do you feel the Helix has enough power for its build and just as importantly, the future? 

Do i feel that a Porsche turbo S has enough power now and for the future?

As there are more muscled cars out there i feel "no".

On the road - i feel "yes" - at last for my own abilities.

In both cases: Use the power wise and you'll allways have more than you need or you can really handle ;)

With a car, you can burn more rubber with more horsepower wich does'nt mean that you get faster. I think for a modelling unit on this level it's about the same.

Has anybory an idea about the input capacity of the G10?

Just to know witch lenght of cable it simulates/corresponds concering the influnence on the guitars pickups and circuit.

Not so be misunderstood: I don't think that the Helix itself is confusing. I think the inverse, that the Helix offers a huge amount of possibilities with the best usability i can imagine. What tends to confuse me is just the endless amount of possibilities and how i get "my" sound with - perhaps for the reason of my age ;)

Could anybody please invent a kind of brian scanner wich is just modelling the sound i have in mind? ;)

I just wonder why a "true guitar speaker" and a corresponding frfr speaker with modelled cab characteristics should be so different on stage if they both have the same efficiency?

You can easily (ok, it's not soo easy but you can do it) build a frfr system with a guitar speaker (or a dedicated bass driver) plus a tweeter - just requires a bit more brain and work in the crossover.

In this way, the most important difference between both systems will be the angle dissipation, as regulary the tweeter has a far wider spread at higher frequencies than a 12" cone.

Seriously - i don't want to have a angle depending sound on stage, not as backline, monitor or for the guests, so i'm happy to minimize this effect with a good frfr.

Just for myself, i prefer since about two weeks (since i have the Helix) rather a frfr system as i don't have to tweak patches or globel EQ or whatever when i change between live and recording. So it's a matter of conveience (yes, i'm lazy) and gives me a bit more flexibility, as the live sound is'nt always colored by the characteristics of a certain (guitar) speaker wich is hard to eliminate when you don't have a lot of time.

Hi Mike,

do you know the output impedance of the G70?

Nearly every active device has a low output impedance compared to passive guitar/bass pickups, so it should be no difference it you choose 1 MOhm or auto.

Thanks folks - as i'm just in my pickup winding phase, it was'nt too difficult to me ;)

But i'm happy that you understood what i mean cause my english is'nt really good.

If you ask me next week, i've probably forgotten the half of what i learned in the last weeks.

A last word when guitars come to active: As zooey said, the input impedance and cable capacity becomes way less important in this case.

But the sound changes for the same reasons, as the cable capacity is "lost" and therefore the pickups resonance frequency will rise. This can cause a harsh and shrill sound not everybody likes and wich the first active guitars where known for.

To sound active as with the former cable, just add an  impedance in the input of the buffer/booster in the guitar with about the same value as the cable had. Just put it from the hot wire to the ground. With 90 pF per Meter cable it's  quite ok and the guitar will sound like with cable before but with less cable and impedance influence ;)

I think in the wireless systems of line6, they include a input capacitor just to simulate the cable - this works without modelling just with a part for a few cents.

...

Thanks for the explanation :-)
So if I understand correctly, 1MOhm is like overriding the true behavior of the first pedal in the chain

....if this pedal has'nt itself 1 MOhm, what's mostly the case, but not always.  But yes - that's the point.

not a suggestion for a buy but perhaps helpful:

As i wanted to have a frfr for guitar and bass in wedge design AND all controls in front, i created a combo with 15" Neo  + 1" with a neutral markbass amp integrated, 22 kg all together. So i have real 300 watts withj a lot of headroom for clean sounds and real 500 watts if i add a second speaker. Should be enough for the most things and is very flexible in usage.

Hi,

while most modern guitar amplifires have a 1 MOhm input impedance, this would be a good value as general default. Some effects originally have other (mostly lower) input impedances, what affects the sound if these effects are put in the first place directly after a guitar. So if you set the value to auto, this behaviour is reproduced. But as some may wonder why a effect (delay for exemple) can change the base sound of the instrument as much when its in the first place and not, when its in another place i suppose, line6 had set the default to 1 MOhm.

I can't imagine that in "auto", the Helix is adapting the impedance to your guitar as he don't now what guitar it is. It is just reproducing the original device witch is the first after the guitar.

What's the influence of the input impedance? Each magnetic pickup is  - in the electrical point of view - characterized by a resonance frequency (usually between 1500 and 6000 Hz) and the Q value wich describes how much more output the pickup delivers at the resonance frequency in relation to the average.

Resistive loads lower the q factor, so the overwight of the resonance frequency gets smaller. So if the amp hast a smaller value as input impedance, the described peak is more flat, as the load is bigger. The resistive load like input impedance and the combination of volume and tone pots does not or just a little bit affect the frequency itself but just the strength of the peak.

The capacitive load, specially from the guitar cable, lowers the frequency itself. With a longer cable, the capacity gets bigger and the resonance frequency lower as with a shorter cable. This can change the character of your guitars sound dramatically - often more then a new/other pickup.

My main guitar delivers a resonance requencs of about 2500 Hz with a 2 meter cable. with a 6 m cable it falls down to about 2000 hz wich make a pretty noticable difference in sound if the Q factor is not to small and there is a clear peak.

Some pickups in certain environments have a small Q factor and no really peak, so the resistive Load/input impedance is a bit less important. If you have no peak at 3 or no peak at 2 KHz is about the same ;) But cause after the resonance frequency the curve falls down with about 18 dB/oktave, there still is a difference to hear. So between dull and a bit more dull :)

Just to makevisible  the relation between resistance and capacity and pickup: This is a pickup i wound yesterday and measured. Nearly all pickups measuring in the same way, only the output power, resonance frequency and Q factor are different. The load values, the pickup was mesaured with are writen in the picture

I think - if i understood right, fukuri hits the point.

The possibility to do what zooey would like to have would'nt make footswitch assingning easier for more basic use. Just for my brain, the helix offers rather to much possibilities than to less. I have the same thinking about the number of different addditional amps some call for as i would prefer 20 pretty good amps than 100. With to much possibilities, i get rather lost. All the things in the Helix has so much parameters to tewak, that one should always find a way to do it with the existing toolset.

What i would do if i wanted the same setup with different distortions: Well, the Helix offers so much slots to store - I would duplicate that basic tone to a second, third...slot, modify each slot with the desired distortion is set to on by default and thats is. So i could switch easily between different distortion pedals with the advatage to tewak some other parameters to match this specific pedal better.

I think that a lot of the wishes to combine a lot of things on one footswitch (wich make it more difficult to use the system) comes out of a time where slots or presets... where rare and therefore precious. We are all used to this kind of thinking but times has changed - and possibilities to do things has increased a lot ;)

Thanks for this hint,

but 'cause i've read about this point before here in the forums, i already started with mastervolume from noon to full.

I don't even thinkt that changing the output makes a similar difference as with cab simulation on or not?

How much did you pay?

(Sorry, just a bad joke ;) )

Not really, i think, it was a pretty good joke :D

Hi Michael, I had a similar experience, but now I think it sounds amazing.

I was used to hearing some great sounds on YouTube, but when I first plugged in I found it very bright with some boominess in the low end and the distortions sounding rather harsh, nothing like I had heard or was expecting. This was with decent studio monitors and headphones. Into the return of an Orange OR15 head with Marshall cab it was pretty decent, more what I am used to. I purchased an FRFR monitor, Atomic CLR and found it much the same as the studio monitor. Over the following 2 weeks including latest firmware upgrade I became happier, partly ears adjusting to FRFR as opposed to usual amp cab. I tried global eq cuts, Low cut as far as 200Hz high cut down to 3kHz, got a bit clearer in the bass but taming the shrill highs enough got quite muffled. It really started to become what I had hoped for when I tried some Ownhammer IRs and applied the cuts there rather than global, which I now set Low 60Hz and Hi 6kHz on top of IR cuts. Not the recommended use, eq in the presets, Global eq flat and just used as a master tweak for differing monitors to your norm or different venues. but works for me atm, for live use, with 6 string electric only.

4 weeks in I was getting what I wanted, I suppose more of a traditional amp sound and less a Mic'd up cab through a monitor.

12 weeks in, I am much more adjusted to FRFR, eq has become less extreme, I have really learned a lot. Quite into the stock line 6 dual cabs now. It is it's own beast and does require some taming. There are so many options even on just one cab, in terms of Mic choice distance and eq.

I am not new to hi tech, 53 years old, 38 years of regular gigging, all manner of rack gear and Valve heads and cabs, and studio engineering experience (mostly spare bedroom!), no experience with modelling. It took a long while to get the best from my Helix and now I couldn't be happier, so stick with it.

Thanks for this detailed answer, it will help me to find my sound(s)

But belive it or not, i think that what i heard within the first few days based on a hardware problem or a software bug. Because this hissy noise over all distorted or overdriven sounds is gone without changing anything ion the helix.

It's just like after firmware update and factory reset, the unit needed some time to implement all the parameters, specially the speaker simulations. I have really no explanation for this but i'm pretty shure that it were'nt my ears misleading me.

In the first days, all distorted sounds where way brighter and more "fizzy" or farty than everiyhing i heard with se same speakers in the same distance in the same room just a few seconds before on the same reproduction chain. So it sounded a bit like one of the very first modelling units or a cheap transistor amp.

Yesterday, i tried again and - surprise - the noise and fizz was gone - not a bit but completly. The sounds from my helix come now pretty close to samples from the factory presets i know from others. Shure, there still are some differences, but in a range wich can be explained by different guitars, cables and playing techniques.

How can it be possible that a digital devices behaves a bit like a brand new speaker who changes its sound by some hours of use because mechanical components as spider and surround gets more soft by movement. (At the end, the difference was way bigger than between a new and a used speaker)

Perhaps, Line6 implemented this behaviour by software, so a brand new device needs some time to settle the sound? ;)

To compare, i changed for some presets the and+cab models in separate amp and cab with the same parameters. Sounds identical. Then i switched of the cab (it's so great to be able to do all this with the feets while playing) and there was it again, this noisy sound i was used the first days. Just to tell you how big the difference was between before and now. So i rellay think that the cab simulations did'nt grip in the first time.

Then i made a factory reset again. My modified presets were gone but the sound is still ok. So i can not reproduce the effect.

There are sometimes funny effects in a digital world wich should not happen when it comes to processing zeros and ones, but they appear (think on your computer). So perhaps a software bug, perhaps a hardware problem, who knows. But for now, im totally satisfied what comes out of the factory presets and now have a (hopefully stable) base to tweak at my own taste.

So thanks again to all of you trying to help!! I could take some good advices wich will help me to use my helix better in the future.

Best regards    Michael

Hi,

first, thanks for your advices!!

Well, i did a complete factory reset after the firmware update. And i know the effect that ears get tired and after a while i hear everything i want but not the reality. I know well this effect from developping loudspeakers, but for loudspeakers, i can continue by measuring what is a little bit more difficult when it comes to distorted guitar sound. So i can even measure pickups at different loads, but not really a complex signal.

I agree that the guitar makes a difference but wich becomes smaller as distortion gets more. So i used different guitars, with different pickups and i have the possibility to change the characteristics of the pickups using c-switches and variable parallel loads. As i build my guitars myself and even some pickups, i know my gear about good.

The biggest difference makes sureley the playing technique, as im really not the most talented player in the world. Lets say that i can better build guitars and pickups than i can play, and that's not difficult ;)  So i'll never sound a second like Bonamassa even if you'll put me his gear in my hands.

But what i hear (sometimes more and sometimes less) is this hissy, noisy distortion overlay from my helix where i don't hear it from foreign records. I chords, the different strings ar'nt to sepatate, even at low distortion (crunch), the tone gets muddy verry fast.

I can't belive that the paying technique, even if it's really bad, can produce this noise. Even regular pickups with resonance frequencies between 1000 and 4000 Hz  ar'nt able to produce this. Again - i think that i can eliminate this hiss by tweaking or EQing, but that's not my point.

I belive that the guys from Line6 tried to get (at last in the first 40 patches in setlist1) an authentic sound of the modelled amps when connected to a frfr system like PA or studio monitors. I bet that none of the originals sounds this harsh - even without mic. Not in a small room and not in a church and regardless of the used microphone.  Sounds like there would be no cab sim, but all amps in this banks are Amp+Cab+mic models.

When i try to modify single parameters on these cabs, the sound changes, so there are active.

OK, if the guys recorded these files tweaked their patces before, there is nothing to compare and my question would be answered.

But they say "without modification - recorded via usb". So for my understanding, a digital signal is recorded digital in a digital computer file and the result on my speakers should be about the same as the signal from the same patch, the same computer and the same speakers i use to hear the recordings. Even if they have their global EQ active - on USB-recordings it should not influence the record.

I think about buying some good ir's (ownhammer?) and perhaps some good patches (Glenn Delaune?), but if the difference between the demo recordings in the net and what comes out of my helix is this big, it would be more useful to tweak my own sounds.

Soundfiles would be a good idea to compare. Problem: If you would hear my playing you would immediately start crying, and i don't want to make you sad ;)

Hi,

i own my Helix just a few days and i'm really happy with a lot of features. But i'm still to silly when it comes to a "good sound".

When i hear samples of factory presets in the net, they sound pretty good to me if i use headphones or frfr speakers to listen to.

Most sources of those samples tell to have recorded via usb without any tweaking or patching, so these sounds should be easy to reproduce. I use the actual firmware and did'nt tweak anything.

When i play the same factory presets on the same chain, they sound extremely different and these differences grow with overdrive or distortion. No matter if i use different headphones or different speakers, there is a huge difference between samples other people recorded and what comes out of my helix. So if there is any distortion, the sound gets relly muddy, harsh and seens to have some kind of noise overlaying the tone. Sounds somewhat artificial like plastic.

I tried even different guitars from Strat style to neckthru humbucker, does'nt affect the noise on distorted sounds

If i use line out, headphone out or usb does'nt make a difference in sound. The global EQ is neutral and switched off.

On the second day, this effect was in general existant but far smaller without having changed anything (as far as i remember). The presets still sounded a lot better but still not great. So did my ears change overnight or what could be happened? As the samples from other people sound the same to me, i think my ears are still OK?

In POD HD500, there was the option to chose the output mode between line-combo-poweramp... with big effects on the sound. Ist there something comparable in the Helix i did'nt see and changed without noticing?

I know that getting my prefered sound will make it necessary to tweak and to try - no question. But im talking just about preset sounds and with a digital device, they sould be exactly the same out of every unit.

I'm pretty shure that the helix has the sounds i want inside, but how i get them? The presets frome line6 can't be so cruel as i hear them.

Thanks for your advice

Michael