tappistrt

Spaceman Effects just released a new modulated filter pedal that sounds really cool.

Can any of the filter effects in Helix get close to the ramping and randomized modulated filter modes on this pedal? Would it require snapshots of multiple different filter effects?

https://youtu.be/yixD-5ioTxw

17 hours ago, TLF2007 said:

There is an amp in it but the signal path for the Feedbacker circuit is separate. Split A/B before the amp on the expression pedal-Logarithmic Volume also on the exp pedal--Simple Pitch +12-Vtron (start U, End A)- EQ with a mid bump-Red Comp (Max Sustain)-Chamber reverb. The Split B path back to the A path is also before the amp...I'm thinking on tweaking it now that the Helix has more effects available than when I first put it together. It does the job tho. The rest of the band likes it. Its good for a taste.

If you could post an alternate version without an amp that would be excellent. I plan on picking up an HX Effects soon. :)

On 8/18/2020 at 1:38 PM, Lone_Poor_Boy said:

 

There's a LOT more to it than 'motivation', such as those pesky lawyers, for example.  And figuring out how to do it.  I'm just commenting based on past feedback here on this topic.

 

I mean, look what they have built and included.  You think they saw the FreqOut and just said "Naw"?

I realize the Helix ecosystem has grown substantially. Maybe the Line 6 folks assume this effect is more of a niche thing? Don't know.

13 hours ago, TLF2007 said:

I recreated the Freqout good enough to get me through a couple songs I needed that edge/into feedback kind of sound without having to bring it to a gig. Its on CustomTone.  https://line6.com/customtone/tone/4237762/ . Operates a little bit differently by using the expression pedal but the instructions are in the patch notes and is the "Natural High" setting on the FreqOut. You may have to change outputs. Its set up as a gig patch using Input 2 for a bass path irrelevant to the Guitar Patch on input 1 so ignore that. I tried to use Autoswell on a momentary to bring in the path but that effect is overall frustrating and was better on the Exp pedal. Even with the FreqOut,  I like the Exp pedal over a momentary anyway. If there was available LFO assignments like on the Digitech GNX ( maybe even RP) stuff, the path could be automated for a momentary better. 

That's awesome! Is there an amp in the signal path? Curious if I could use this with an HX Effects.

6 hours ago, Lone_Poor_Boy said:

 

I'm assuming Tap thought that Pier meant by the comment "Also not even sure it's doable just with DSPs..." that the Helix couldn't do an analog pedal.  What Pier MEANT, I'm pretty sure, is would it have the DSP capacity to do the 'FreqOut' without eating up too much?  Like the Looper addition issue.

 

Could be wrong on one or all of my assumptions.

I'm not a DSP designer so I'm not going to make any assumptions either.

20 hours ago, PierM said:

Maybe they also approach tasks by priority, doing pedals that most people wants and/or that have some "heritage". Freqout is cool, but it's something you use couple of times, in a song o two.... and that's it.

 

Also not even sure it's doable just with DSPs...

I have a FreqOut pedal and I'm quite sure it's digital.

On 8/16/2020 at 1:04 PM, Vic20-Ian said:

@datacommando Many thanks. I am still overwhelmed by all that it does and don't have a deep understanding of all the pedals.

 

Perhaps this great Freqout effect will be added one day as so many people would love that feedback at low volumes.

On 8/16/2020 at 2:57 PM, jester700 said:

There are a few pedals that DigiTech has made that just seem to do what they do better than other options I've tried. Most are related to intelligent and/or polyphonic pitch shifting. The Whammy & Drop algorithms, the FreqOut, the Mosaic pseudo 12 string effect, the Harmony Man pitch shifter. I have a few of these.

 

The cool part is, after Digitech let them go, Line6 picked up a few of their pitch geniuses. Some of the fruits of that are supposed to show up in the next big firmware revision (3.0). I'm kind of excited.

 

Now if they can just snag a couple of fuzz guys from Boss and implement their adaptive distortion... ;-)

Polyphonic pitch shifting has been a LONG time coming for sure. Glad to hear that it's highly likely going to be hitting the 3.0 update.

As far as the Freqout/Feedbacker effect goes, there's a well-upvoted post on IdeaScale that's reached the "In Review" status. Unfortunately it's about 3+ years old at this point, which tells me Line6 doesn't seem to be all that motivated to add the effect in at all. It's a shame considering there's no way (to my knwledge) to make a digital/virtual amp feed back like playing a physical amp and cab. The FreqOut pedal is awesome and totally worth adding to a Helix rig if you have the room for it.

Origin released the RevivalTREM pedal this past year. It faithfully recreates bias tremolo and overdrive sounds of a Fender Brownface amp.

Does the 60s Bias Tremolo effect in the Helix respond similarly to the way this pedal does? Notice how it backs off when you dig hard into notes, and then comes back in as notes decay. It effectively gets out of the way when you're playing and really lends itself to being a tasteful, more subtle effect when you want it to be.

7 minutes ago, rd2rk said:

 

Go HXFX. Never run out of FX Blocks, No need for the MC6, all the MIDI you need from the HXFX, virtually NO MIDI from HX Stomp.

What's more important to you, amps (you've got a 4 channel amp!) or MIDI? Your 4 channel amp doesn't use MIDI switching? How quaint!

If you really can't decide, get an LT or a Floor or, heck, get a Rack and Controller, they're givin' em away!

My thought for an advantage of the HX Effects is that having the second loop would allow me to place either of the pedals inside the Helix chain vs. sticking them in the FX loop output on the way to amp’s effect loop.

Are the rack units really coming down in price that much on the used market?

2 minutes ago, Kilrahi said:

That's kind of an impossible question (i.e. is six blocks enough). 

 

It really depends on who you are. For me, yeah .... most of the time.

 

Personally, I think the Stomp is a better deal than the Effects unless the following two are true for you:

 

1. IF you are certain you'll NEVER want amp emulations, then get the HX Effects.

 

2. If a midi controller is important, and you don't need amp emulations, go effects.

I guess having the option of amp modeling would be nice, in case I ever get tired of the amp's 4 channels. :)

I'm debating an effects-only setup for a conventional guitar amp, and I 'd want use either one with 4CM with the amp. Either would also be paired with a Mission SP1-L6H expression pedal to take advantage of the "dual pedal" design with the switch.

I have a couple of delay pedals that I want to use in addition to either setup, and I want either Helix (or MC6) to be able to change presets and control functions via MIDI on the external pedals, as well as do ramping for ambient/wash effects on the pedals (Sky 5000, for instance).

I want either of the Helix units to do most of the heavy lifting with effects: eq, pitch shifting, noise gate, compression, modulation, reverb, etc. when I'm not using the external pedals for their particular flavors of delays. Which would you recommend? Would 5 effective blocks with the HX stomp (after utilizing a block for 4CM) be enough in your opinion?

Thoughts?

+1 for the Kraken/Super Kraken sound. If someone can figure out to emulate this on a Helix, that would be amazing. I think Bea and Victory designed some of the most amazing voicings & gain structures.

Yeah, I'm necrobumping this.

I'm also going to add a suggestion in Ideascale for a Victory Super Kraken head. One of the neat features besides the nice clean channel that was added over the regular Kraken, along with the 100 watt power section, is the Preamp Focus. It's basically a modified Tube Screamer circuit built into the amp that can be switched onto any channel of the amp. Some folks have said they got rid of their Precision Drive pedals because it works so well as a modern metal overdrive.

I'll eventually make an IdeaScale post or see if it's already been requested, but here goes anyways:

I'd love to see an emulation of the Digitech FreqOut pedal. I think it's a rather underrated pedal, and goes way beyond your basic feedback squeals for 90s-style soloing. Here's Pete Thorn showing some of the more interesting things you can do with it:

Being able to control this effect with a footswitch hold/release as well as the option of the expression pedal would be fantastic, since that's not something that can be done with the real pedal. Incorporating this into the Helix's signal routing flexibility would be A M A Z I N G.

Too bad on the FreqOut. It would be great to incorporate something like that and control it with the expression pedal.

I realize some folks still run a small handful of pedals to cover the effects that Helix doesn't do (or nearly as well.) I'm curious if there are comparable effects in the Helix landscape:

Digitech FreqOut: Multi-mode feedback generator. Very cool pedal. Gets written off by some folks as gimmicky, but I find it quite useful for more than just trying to sound like an 80s lead guitarist.

Greer Lightspeed Organic Drive: IMO one of the best-sounding light to medium overdrives around.

Walrus Audio Jupiter Fuzz: Just a good-sounding, versatile fuzz that can also simulate some sputtering, battery dying sounds. The new version can also do the glitchy clipping thing.

4 hours ago, Cody_smith said:

For outputs you could go 1/4 outs to amp and xlr out to PA. You might also be able to do some panning stuff, but then you'll have to run parts of the chain through the same signal path, if you pan everything right it wouldn't bleed together but it might be confusing. I always confuse myself when I'm doing much simpler things with panning in helix.

Not sure if I want to do any panning, I'd rather keep the signals separated.

As long as I can select which splits/chains go to which audio outputs, I'm set.

2 hours ago, Cody_smith said:

Maybe getting an HX stomp (2 loops and amp models)  and an HX fx ( 4 loops no amp models) would work out better if you can rout everything right. And use midi from the HX fx to control the stomp. It might be a bit more convoluted but might actually be cheaper and you might not have to use a midi looper like the disaster area. 

Yeah I was considering something like this too. And I think you have your descriptions a bit mixed up: Both the HX Effects and the Stomp have 2 loops, and the HX stomp does have amp simulations. Considering the price difference of used Helix LTs, picking up a used one for a couple hundred more seems like a better value to be a standalone unit for one instrument vs. a Stomp.

Convoluted setups don't bother me, as long as I can personally figure out how to hook it all together. A divided setup would actually be more simple in some ways, since I'm likely only going to use certain outboard effects (like the Enzo) with Stick and not with guitar. The challenge will come in setting up the MIDI master/slave thing.

The other potential challenge with my idea in the first post is figuring out how to route the outputs so the guitar chain goes to my amp and my Stick chains go to my PA speakers.

Hi all. First post here.

I did a quick search but couldn't find a similar question, so here goes:

I'm considering a Helix Floor to play a couple of roles:

1. Full stereo effect chain for a Chapman Stick, direct into powered monitors.

2. Effects for guitar using the 4 cable method into a tube amp and 2x12 cab.

Additionally, I'd like to add 4-5 outboard pedals into the send/return loops. I'd prefer if they were in their own loops so I can add each one into effects chains with the full Helix control. One of the pedals is a Meris Enzo, and I want to use it in stereo, so that would occupy two loops. (The reason for this would be to give me the option of using it with the Stick bass or the melody side.)

Would this be possible if I added something like a Disaster Area DPC-8EZ? YouTube link below with how it's set up to add two different sets of loops so things can be assigned to pre/post drives.

Is this necessary for this setup? Or is there a better way?

I also have a reversed A/B switcher (2 inputs, 1 output) which would allow the Stick melody and guitar signals to share the guitar input on the Helix.

At the end of it all, I'm also not sure how I'd go about hooking everything to have these pedals in loops, while using the 4 cable method for the other amp?

Any advice/clarification is appreciated. Thanks!