roscoe5

No worries. I didn't take it negatively at all. You made a great test suggestion and I was the one making the claim. I really didn't want to spread inaccuracies and have others going out of their way to test and scrutinize. Honestly, it has been a while since I had tried just a straight Helix amp and cab. I've been so obsessed and immersed in IR's this year (trying, buying, creating, etc.). Maybe there was an improvement in an older update or something I missed, but I'm not about to go witch hunting, rolling back to each one until I shake it out. It's probably just me. Maybe it's a good example of how your ear and tastes can change in a year going from being a live player with traditional tube rig to working with Helix and learning the engineering side of things. Seems like it's a common evolution though. Next thing you know, I'll be playing through an FRFR rig...or not ;)

Well @willjrock and all, I guess I will eat a little crow here. I rolled it back to V2.11 at lunch, recorded a dry track, re-amped it through the same Cali Recto amp and 412 and recorded that, then exported the preset. I then re-upgraded to v2.12, brought the preset back in and recorded another re-amped track of the original dry track. When I played back the two tracks and inverted the phase of one, there was no sound. The two tracks sound identical too when solo'd. Unless there was some kind of v2.12 optimization or improvement on the Helix guitar input or headphone out, I guess I'll be taking advantage of my company's mental health benefit. Silver lining...I learned a new trick with DAW phasing :)

Ha, I do work from home in my pajamas doing CFD and FEA modeling and simulations...and play more than I should ;) I really do appreciate the efforts, support and interaction from the Line 6 staff and partners. It makes me feel like part of the company trying to achieve the same goals. Other companies, even outside of the music tech industry, can learn a lot from you guys. I think a lot of the L6 culture permeates into even my own personal projects and efforts with my company and colleagues, whether directly or indirectly.

Live streams would be great, even if Q&A wasn't enabled for the virtual attendees. Although I may just have to schedule some project work or training in our California office around the time of the next class ;)

I came across this Guitar World article this morning about Line 6 Tone Made Pro seminars based around Helix. They look like physical, in-person classes right now. Maybe Line 6 could expand this to virtual classes as well. http://www.guitarworld.com/gear-news-amplifiers-effects/what-line-6s-20-years-innovation-means-guitarists/30509 http://line6.com/events/tonemadepro/#tmpro-classes

Strobe mode!!! Polyphonic strobes with 6-8 bands :)

Good tip on the OH MPT IRs and HX cab mixes. I'll have to try that.

I'll hit it tomorrow with some fresh ears, but I just cranked some high gain riffs through just the single HX amp and HX cab block through both my Tannoy 802 studio monitors and JBL 515xt's and it's really sounding great. It's really on par with the Ownhammer IRs now. Its not like a huge tonal difference, more like the difference between 1024 and 2048 samples in an IR. Maybe Line 6 sweetened things up for NAMM next week. I'm still not ruling out my sanity though...

Loving the three Soldanos lately.

I was playing in headphones today before and after the upgrade, Sennheiser HD280s. After the standard post update wipe and global reset, I cruised through the factory presets. I didn't rember the presets sounding that good. So i went for the single high gain Cali Recto head and single Cali 412 cab block which has always invoked the "ew" response and it had some thump and sparkle I don't think I have ever heard before. Ah well, whether it was firmware or some earwax shifting, I'm digging it :)

Yeah, amp-only Helix model with the IR as the mic+cab

I'm really digging the OH California Duo pack for $30. Covers a lot of ground between the Mesa 412 and the 3/4 back 212 with different speaker options. It's better than the Mesa 412 demo pack IMO. I also purchased the 412 Marshall Checkerboard cab pack with Greenbacks, plus the EVM and V30 expansions, $35 total, this week. I think I'm good for a while. I have about 10 or so 3Sigma $7 packs of similar cabs, and I personally prefer the OH ones with Helix.

Ok, I was on v2.11 this morning messing with the Helix HX 412 Cali V30 cab and the Redwirez Speaker Impedance Curve IR's and/or parametric eq blocks to get closer to the Ownhamer California Duo 412 cab, which seems to be my obsession these days. I updated to v2.12 and I swear the HX Cali 412 and other HX 412 cabs are livelier and more resonant on their own now. They are sounding and feeling closer to the Ownhammer free demo Mesa 412 V30 cab. http://www.ownhammer.com/free/v4-demo/ Is this a possible v2.12 improvement/optimization or am I imagining this?

I was reading through the support doc for the Ownhammer California Duo Mesa IR pack I just purchased, and found this info. I haven't tried it in Helix yet as the OH IR's sound good as is, but thought it may be useful. http://www.ownhammer.com/support/docs/duos/California-Duo.pdf THE POWER AMP This library’s captures were driven by a mostly neutral tube power amplifier. While the overall frequency response is largely even like that of a solid state reference amplifier, the common tube amp deviation traits are present that both liven and thicken up the sound ever so slightly. As such they are ideal as-is with accurate modeling platforms and tube amps sent to dummy load + line out devices. For platforms that need the little extra scoop of modestly configured guitar tube amp driven files, this is quickly and easily accomplished by implementing the following simple post processing adjustment: Page 4 SOUNDING LIKE GUITAR TUBE AMP DRIVEN IR’S As aforementioned, the IR’s in this library were driven with tonally neutral tube based power amplification. There is a very quick, simple step that can be applied to replicate the sound of IR’s that were instead driven by a guitar tube power amp with the Presence and Depth set to 0, which results in a mid scoop. To simulate this sound, following the cabinet IR loader add an EQ with a parametric bell curve set to -3 dB at 400 Hz. Adjust the Q/bandwidth to roughly where the edges of the curve start to make the initial cut around 100 Hz on the low side and 2 kHz on the high side. If necessary, adjust the Q/bandwidth to taste from here to best suit your sound source and tonal preference.

You might look into a neutral tube solution like the Fryette PS2. The Mesa 2:50 may color you sound too much. My Mesa Simul 2:90 does. I'm a huge Mesa fan too, and wish I would have loved it. I run Helix (full amp models) into my L6 Spider Valve HD100 MKii power amp in (pretty neutral IMO) into a V30 2x12 cab. My L6 DT50 just collects dust. I'm hoping Line 6 comes out with something similar, new and cool for NAMM 2017 this month.

I agree. My current preference is the same with the SV HD100 power section and Mesa 212 v30 cab. I haven't gotten better tones in any other Helix config. Integration of traditional tube heads with load boxes and IRs, seems to be mainly a studio approach, especially with the quality of the amp models.

I was thinking this as well.

I have to agree that through the monitors there is very little difference between Helix amps and my Mesa heads in a send return loop. I can often make the Helix amps sound better.

Awesome to hear about the PS2, Spikey! I wad just curious if anyone around here was integrating tube amp heads with load boxes into FRFR rigs.

So I just tried something pretty cool that may give us the best of both Helix HX Cab and IR worlds. Redwirez created Impedance Curve IR's to be used in series with standard solid-stamp-amp created IR's to give them more of a tube feel and response. They made ICIR's for different speaker types; Celestion Blue, Celestion G12-75, Celestion G12-M25 Greenback, and Celestion V30. Placing these between a Helix amp block and HX single or dual cab block really give another dimension of sound, feel and control to the HX Cabs and can liven things up more like full IR's. They seem to well after the cab too with a slightly different effect that you may prefer. Since Helix has a mix control on the IR block, I found that I can just use the Redwirez 100% IC IR's and adjust the Helix IR block and mix control and level as needed. https://www.redwirez.com/mixIR2UsersGuide.pdf Impedance Curves (Z-Curves) The Redwirez collection includes impedance curves of various speakers. These can be used to reproduce the effect that a tube amp can have on the frequency response of a speaker. Compared to solid-state power amps, tube amps have a higher output impedance. As a result the connected speaker's frequency response will change, causing its frequency plot to look more like its impedance curve than when driven by a solid-state power amp. You may appreciate the more scooped tone, or the added thump and sparkle. Some people perceive the low-end bump around the speaker’s resonance point as “warmthâ€. You should run these in a serial block, before or after the cab, the order is not important. The IR labeled "100perc" is the impedance curve as it was measured. This is a bit extreme if your goal is to simulate a real world tube-speaker effect. Files with 90perc, 80perc, etc. represent "toned down" versions of the impedance curve for less of an effect, where “90perc†is 90% wet, “80perc†is 80% wet, etc. 50-60% wet is equivalent to the real world effect we saw with many of the tube amps we tested. I wonder if Line 6 could integrate something like this into their HX Cab blocks.

Appreciate the reality check as always ;) There should be some opportunities to prewire for portability. Just using a single head with Helix shouldn't require much more than 4CM with a full traditional rig does. The only thing you would be swapping out is the traditional cab with an FRFR cab and a load box on the amp.

It seems like a lot of us choose either full modeling + FRFR or 4cm with tube amps, but I cant say that I have seen much discussion on using modeling AND tube heads through FRFR live. Inspired by Pete Thorn's Helix rack video on this forum, I spent a lot of time on and off the past few days with two Mesa heads, a 6L6 Triple Recto and EL34 Stiletto II, with their slave outs in loops in Helix (speaker outs loaded), an RJM Gizmo for channel switching, and a Radial HeadBone VT to switch between the heads. I know there has been a lot of talk about this application into a DAW, but dang it sounds good live through full range speakers (just JBL Eon 515xt's as my current reference). It was pretty freakin' awesome to have access to all the Helix models/effects/IRs, my favorite two Mesa heads, all the Helix routing/switching/eq/level-gain control, Variax control & acoustic sounds in a live setup (well just in my house so far). I can envision one or both heads sitting atop a Mission Gemini 2 and looking great on a backline. Wouldn't really even bother me to set the tube amps on the stage in front of me and let the audience see the glowing tubes if I was just going through monitors. It seems like something that is probably already done on large pro touring setups, but I was wondering if there is any experience or thoughts on implementing this on a small scale.

Great article, thanks! I skimmed through it last night and will dive into some parts of it later. But without getting into the fine details, I hear the common "thump" differences in the physical Mesa 212 & 412 cabs as well as just about any IR of the two from OH, 3Sigma or even the Amplitube 4 Mesa cabs. The AKG D112 mic did give a bit more of that 412 thump to that 212 cab. It pairs really well in the 212 SM57 + D112 IR mix. I'm pretty satisfied with that when I need more thump on a preset. I have found some very nice OH Cali Duo 412 cab mixes in the Quick Start folder as well. I think I am all set for a while. It was a good exercise overall. Running back through the IR process again with specific goals on my own cab helped me understand what I was trying to achieve and appreciate what was available in the OH Cali Duo pack. On another note, I also picked up the OH Marshall checker 412 cab with two greenaback speaker types, plus the EV-L and V30 speaker expansion packs. What a great cab as well! EV's in that cab are great for clean to metal!

Very cool! Thanks for sharing. Probably the only Christmas present you got with a ribbon on the inside ;) Definitely has that cool R121 rumble, but easily adjustable with the Helix IR block low cut if you want to tone it down.

I must say though, no matter how I slice and dice my Mesa 212, it's not a 412. The Ownhammer California Duo Mesa 412 Traditional cab is really nice.