gunpointmetal

1 minute ago, codamedia said:

 

FWIW... When I use a Stomp Comp I always put it after my drives. I don't like to put a comp between my guitar and my overdrives.. that's the most dynamic/soulful point of interaction. Placing it after the drives smooths the tone, but leaves the interaction in place - huge tonal palette. Placing it before the drives make the interaction less dynamic, almost "monotone" for lack of a better term :) 

 

That's just my approach, it's not meant to be a "right vs wrong" way of doing it :)  

Are you playing at band volumes with that chain? I too like a good comp after my drives sometimes when I'm recording, but every time I've tried to do it live it's either feedback city or I have to adjust the comp so low its pointless in the signal chain. 

6 minutes ago, chancecasey said:

So, is it really worth paying money for presets then, in your opinion?

No, I don't think so personally. The information you can glean from someone else's patches is freely available on YouTube or this forum, or the Helix FB group.

8 minutes ago, chancecasey said:

I understand IRs can make a difference also - but should I even bother with them before I've explored all the options in the preset? Are there any universal sort of "this one makes almost everything sound better than the "X" amp/cab combo it replaces"?  I think I know the answer, but have to ask...   :-)

I think at this stage, you're going to be best served by learning the ins and outs of setting up patches before you jump into IRs. IMO my third-party impulse responses do sound better than the stock cabs, but they're an entire rabbit hole of speaker/cabinet/mic placement options that going in blind would not be helpful, and probably be more discouraging than anything until you're more comfortable navigating the device. It helps a lot to know what sounds you like as far as cabs/mics on recordings, as well. 

18 hours ago, trolley said:

I've only just read this post - I know, slow!

But I noticed after the last upgrade that there was no volume on some of my patches. Not all, just some.

And then I realised that, for some reason, Helix had decided to put a volume block at the beginning, set for a pedal at 0%! Remove it, and bingo, all there.

What it appears is that original Line 6 patches seem to have grown this extra block, but not mine or other third party presets.

Weird, but there you go.

And I'm sure someone's already pointed this out; if so, sorry

After the last update the EXP parameters reset to per preset and all of the pedal settings defaulted to 0% for some reason. I have several patches where I use the pitch shift to bring the guitar down two octaves (like a DJ tape stop sort of effect) and the pitch shift would turn on with the toe switch. After the last update when I would activate the pitch shift it was already set to "heel down" position so I would have to pull the pedal down, push it back up, deactivate the effect with the toe switch, then resave the patch to get the desired effect. Kind of a pain in the lollipop, but I'm sure with those presets if you rocked the pedal back forth the volume would come back without needing to completely delete the preset.

You could always try sticking a tilt EQ at the front of the chain to thin out/brighten up the darker sound of your guitar. Or if those pickups can be split, throw a push/pull pot on when you switch out the electronics to get a genuine single coil tone. Any modeler is going to need to be tweaked/set for your guitar, playing style, listening environment, including the almighty Fractal gear. The only way to avoid it would be to have input and playback sensing technology that automatically adjusts your input and output to match the above variables.

1 minute ago, BBD_123 said:

If you lack the experience and ears to set up a workable Helix tone by ear you have wasted money on kit you don't need.

 

The marginal advantage afforded by metering is not going to help much at this point.

I imagine there are more than a few people out there that would be happy with a mediocre tone as long as they knew that was 100% properly gain-staged. Sort of like some OCD people would organize a box of crayons by their relative length from use instead of by color grade, which would actually be more useful.

If you're using them to treat the incoming sound I would totally use the IR output level to adjust the level going into any other modeling. Seems like the most transparent way to even out what is more or less your input volume at that point.

11 minutes ago, cruisinon2 said:

the unit is somehow impossible to use effectively, absent a feature that it's never had.

Yep, we've all been playing with incredibly awful guitar tones since the Helix came out because we don't have meters. It's not a usable device right now, and it's also not reliable enough for gigging because one patch had a bug that had several easy workarounds.

Click on 2048 - more options pop up to the right, use the top slider to select an IR

If you need more DSP, select 1024 and it gives you a truncated IR that uses slightly less DSP.

If you pick one of those, you can then use the slider at the top of the edit box to pick an IR from the list.

1 minute ago, kylotan said:

 

 

Demonstrably false. There's plenty of room for subtle compression to be useful even when you can't hear it. In fact thousands of records are compressed with exactly this intent in mind - to change the overall signal level with almost imperceptible changes to tonality, attack, etc.

And you can bet the people setting those fine point compressors can hear it, otherwise they wouldn't use it, lol. 

1 minute ago, kylotan said:

 

Nobody suggested not reducing the amp gain significantly. I also wasn't suggesting using the Rat at 5 - but it's a pretty weird setup to set those levels at 50% and to see the signal level drop by a factor of 10.

Not really, IME most disto pedals don't really increase the output level till 3/4 of the way up or higher. I only had a real ratt for little bit because those pedals sound like garbage anyways, but the output level ranged from silent to whisper to loud, so it depends on the taper of the pot of the Ratt they modeled.

5 minutes ago, kylotan said:

 

That's because it's inconvenient and/or expensive to add it to hardware.

 

On software - pretty much every compressor has a meter, and a visual indication of the threshold and knee, and if you're lucky it'll show the signal along that response curve in real-time too.

And the Helix is modeling guitar hardware, so no meters on most of the stuff. There probably should be one on the Studio Comp just because its studio comp, but the rest of them are designed to work like their analog counterparts.

Any distortion pedal with the distortion on 5 is gonna sound like assballs into a 5150 without reducing the amp gain significantly.

The thing with the patches is, they really only sound the same if you have the exact same guitar, tuning, string type, touch, etc. If those are Agile stock alnico pickups, they are a little muddy anyways compared to more expensive versions. Agile also uses the cheapest pots/wiring they can find for their instruments, otherwise you'd be paying a lot more (I rock two Agile guitars as my main performance instruments, and they're "pro" models and still needed rewiring to get the most from the EMGs they came with.)

12 minutes ago, kylotan said:

 

The problem is. in the real world this simply isn't true - for example, before an amp your signal will be at instrument level, then after the preamp you'll be at line level or above. You expect a 20dB increase in the signal which is going to have real implications for the behaviour of whatever effects are in the chain.

 

So we have 2 options:

1. The Helix doesn't need to actually amplify the signal by 20dB to achieve the same tonal results (as it's all digital), so you will broadly want unity gain on all blocks (as you suggest)... or...
2. The Helix attempts to model the physical units directly, so certain blocks will push the signal significantly up or down by design, so you will need to compensate for this accordingly.

Neither is necessarily wrong. However I don't know what the Helix developers intended, or whether they have a consistent philosophy for all the blocks, or whether it's just a case of having to learn each one. Metering is part of the solution here; the other part is making it clear what levels each block ideally expects.

And there's also the various OD/boost/compressor/pre-EQ options that in the real world be raising the guitar level significantly on the way into the amp to actually push the front end where having unity gain won't give you the tonal effect you're looking for. Meters are cool to make sure you aren't clipping, but maintaining unity gain throughout a guitar signal chain isn't always ideal, or even realistic depending on your uses. Pretty much all of my drive tones have either a compressor or an OD as a boost before an amp model. If I were to set the outputs of those drives/comps to be that same as the clean guitar through, it wouldn't do the same thing when it gets to the amp model. For me I think input, output, and post-amp/cab metering COULD be useful to avoid clipping, but isn't really necessary or even desired anywhere else in the chain. I do think it would be a cool feature to add, but hardly necessary to get the most out of the unit. I mean, when was the last time you saw a guitar compressor with meters? There's like two. 

8 minutes ago, Heavyville said:

what patches you make for your studio monitors, generally will not translate to IEM's, AT ALL.  unless you're an actual mixer using really expensive IEM's and you know them well.  

 

you seems to be very particular about your sound, yet your applying a one size fits all mentality.    Not sure that is ever going to work for critical listening.... 

 

I do studio mixing, i have to balance my plugins with gain staging ALL the time.   I see the Helix as the same amount of work, the final product is always worth it to me. 

 

if an essential variable changes, so do the settings, that's a cold hard fact. 

 

 

oh yeah, your audience gives no ducks about how you sound in reality. 

 

Exactly, and in the studio if you mixed using meters instead of listening, your mix would suck. 

The audience really does not care unless they're also guitarists, or something sounds really bad. Like ring-modulator and semi-tone pitch shifting at 50% mix bad.

1 minute ago, havkayak said:

The loudest speaking people in this forum gives me the impression that this is a "fan-club" more than an technical forum. In a fan-club you should expect to be ridiculed when having diverting thoughts. In a technical forum like this, divirting thoughts should be welcome. If those voices are silenced, then it will be a loss. But when I see Line 6 staff joining in on the spitting in this post, it gives me concerns. (That makes me think of my second part of my post, where I talk about Line 6' handeling of my report.)  But in this case, as I've said, it was actually a benefit. But in the long run, I think not. But obviously I overrated this platform. But I believe a lot of nice and interested people read my post. What they think and do about it doesn't concern me at all. I just gave voice to my experience.

This isn't a technical forum, its a user support forum, meaning users provide support to each other. Of course people who use this device literally weekly with no issues are going to find an issue with a statement that this supremely minor firmware bug would make the device unusable live because it can't be trusted (however, a tube amp that's just as likely to fail at any given time can be?). There has been no Line 6 staff responding in this thread. "Experts" are determined by how often they've been marked as providing accurate help to other people on the forum by the people asking for help and are not paid employees of the company. I hope you find the answers you're looking for, but for future reference, Line 6 barely monitors this forum, so the only way to really alert them to an issue is to start a suppor ticket. Maybe I missed the part in the OP where you were specifically looking for people to recreate your issue and then report it to Line 6, but it sure seemed like you found a bug, support couldn't immediately help you, so you were looking here for "support". Then you were provided multiple ways to circumvent the issue, as well as at least one user that built your patch and does not have the issue and has made a suggestion as to how to eliminate it that seemed to work for them. Good luck.

20 hours ago, codamedia said:

Your comment about amps and pedals misses reality. Most guitarists I know carry a spare amp... just in case. I always carried two amps... and nowadays with a modeling setup I carry a spare modeler. Nothing has changed in how I approach things, just the style of gear has changed. 

If you have a job that relies on technology (digital/analog/modeling/tube), you absolutely have to be prepared for a catastrophic failure. I feel like if a person can't be bothered to prepare for the possibility of equipment failure, the "job" probably isn't that important. 

Gotta select a file size in the edit menu, then the IRs show up.

Just now, kringle said:

Guitar is same, volume of guitar is the same. yet I get that varied gain structure changes that's my concern, I am not changing the gain structure, depending on the output, the helix has different gain structures.  .  

This is not normal behavior for the Helix and shouldn't be happening. 

Put aside whether or not metering would help, how did you approach your tones prior to Helix/MFX in a cover band situation? Handful of pedals into an amp, quick high/low and gain adjustment during sound check, and then go? 

3 minutes ago, kringle said:

I understand your thoughts on separate patches for bedroom & live - The challenge is I don't have standing access to venue sound so the best I can do seems to sound like crap live and while I'm live it's not like I can start adjusting the patch.  

If you're going to find it necessary to create patches to nail exact tones and reproduce them live, it would be very much worth your time to rent a rehearsal spot with a PA for a few hours once and awhile and do your final leveling/adjustments in that type of scenario to at least get your closer to what you're going to do live. Or if you're playing the same venue quite often, its not unusual to throw the house tech some cash/beer/smokey treats to hang out with you in the empty venue and run your pedal to the board to get things sorted out. It may not be ideal, but its the reality of wanting to utilize all that versatility at your feet. 

2 minutes ago, kringle said:

 

What's more concerning is major tone characteristic changes: 

Step 1 - Running Helix through a DAW it sounds like hot overdrive - I'm totally happy with tone.

Step 2 - unplug cable from interface, plug into mixer sitting 2 feet to the left and it sounds like a fender black face at the same VOLUME

Step 3 - unplug cable from mixer and plug into PowerCab 112+ and it sounds like a flabby clipped audio at the same same volume

Step 4 - unplug from PowerCab and run to headphone amp - sounds like I'm scratching through a tin can, same volume.

Step 5 - Listen via Helix headphone - WTF, sounds nothing like any of the other outputs!!

 

If I stick with a single output - HAPPY ALL DAY!!!  works perfect, no variation.

If you're gain structure is changing as you change the output device, that's a physical problem, or you're adjusting the guitar volume to make up for volume changes. If you have OD plugged into one device, and then  a straight clean on the same patch plugged into another device, that's something that meters aren't going to help you with. 

Also, as mentioned, do you really need 80+ patches to get through a gig? That seems excessive unless you're in a $10k a night program band, but at that point you could probably spend all day building patches and consider it paid labor, or afford to pay someone to take care of the tech work for you. 

I understand the desire to have things be easy, but managing 120/80/50 patches for a gig is not going to be easy, even with metering. You need to approach it from the perspective that most patches are going to be single use. Live or home. Patches that work for both are going to be an anomaly, not a constant. I have a bunch of live patches that all sound great at band volume, but they sound overly mid-heavy and a little thin at bedroom volume, and there's no way I would use them for recording.

Your pedalboard and amp are limited by your speaker cab and your position on stage as to what you're hearing. Even with an amp and cab setup, if I dialed in practice tones to jam in my house by myself, I'd be adjusting my gain and EQ as soon as I moved to the rehearsal space and cranking up to get over a drummer, or my amp/cab rig would be harsh and boomy and sound like assballs, too. 

There are lots of resources and help available right here as long as you present your issue as seeking a solution and not as shortcoming of the device. 

11 minutes ago, kringle said:

During that time consuming build process is where I feel levels and other tools may help speed it up and make it more friendly... my idea of a good time is not spending 2 hours F'in with patch settings and not playing, only to find out what I finally just thought was good - sounds like utter crap when I switch from helix Headphones out over to to a monitor, or DAW, or studio monitors or PA, or PowerCab, or house sound...  Something feels off if it changes so drastically - that to me is WRONG - something is WRONG here and I can't find it, and don't have any tools with the helix to help me figure it out and clearly I don't know enough about audio to figure it out on my own without extensive trial and error, regardless - The experience could be better, and I feel Helix leaves me hanging.

It's been said since day one with pretty much every iteration of modeler for the last 20 years. Building patches at bedroom/headphone volumes will not translate 1:1 to a FOH/band volume situation. Relative volume will change, perceived volume will change, perceived EQ will change all depending on volume and reproduction system. There is almost no possible way to create a patch or level patches at headphone/in-home levels and have that translate to full-power audio. Even with meters, perceived loudness is different than actual levels, and you'd need to do the final volume leveling at performance volume anyways.

36 minutes ago, kringle said:

Live I find that I might be spot on for a few songs, and then one is completely overblown and unbalanced.  I also find that what sounds really good running through my PowerCab or into my home interface, mixer or DAW sounds completely different going to house sound or our live sound board (using the exact same patches, output and master volume) and I find it's been an enormous amount of hours/effort spent trying to get 60ish usable patches.  Through all of that work, I don't feel I learned a valuable skill of modeling, I've just figured out how to endlessly tweak to reach "good enough".   I wish there were leveling tools to build quality usable patches that work no matter the input/output or require just simply adjusting the input/output (which helix is easy to do with master control, or easy adjustment)  what's missing is throughout the entire chain there is no way to ensure good levels.

First - I would love a movable meter block that you could call up after any effect to check the output level.

But it's hardly "necessary" to get good sounds of the Helix. 

To the first issue, build your patches at live volume with a similar monitoring situation you use live and you shouldn't have wildly different levels.  If you live sound is drastically different than your rehearsal tones, either your FOH guy is treating your channel like he would a mic'd cab, or your patches aren't all that and a bag of chips to begin with. The only "skill of modeling" required is knowing what sound you're after and choosing the cab modeling/output method that suits your desired sound.If you treat the rest of it like a pedalboard/amp setup there' isn't much of a curve to getting a good sound other than learning the menu layout. If you're using 60+ patches I'm assuming you're playing some sort of cover/tribute set, and would expect that there is money involved, so is it worth your time to actually use 60+ plus patches and stress out about leveling across all of them, or would it make more sense to build a "rig" that sounds good on one patch and copy it over to a few additional patches switching out FX you might need for specific songs? If it's not a big income contributor, how much time outside of rehearsal is it worth to nail down 60+ patches for a set? Could you imagine trying to use 60+ different rigs in a live setting IRL and how long it would take to dial all of that in? It would be insane, not to mention the amount time you'd need to to wire everything together, the full-size truck you'd need to transport it, and the hours of setup every time you wanted to use it. These devices have a tendency to give people either option paralysis, or too many tools to think about when there's usually a simpler solution. If it sounds good, it is good. If it sounds bad, metering probably isn't gonna fix that.

Been gigging with the Helix since the beginning of 2016 and have never had a hiccup, so i doubt this would be a performance stopper for anyone unless they really wanted to use this specific patch for some reason. If you want to trouble shoot the issue, just start removing one component at a time until it stops happening, 

This is gonna sound dumb I'm sure, but are you using the Helix ASIO drivers from Line 6 or ASIO4All? I've seen more than a few issues over the years with people assuming because ASIO4ALL can load a device, that its the correct driver. A4A will see the Helix, but its function will be quite erratic.