jdumoit

That's good to know. I guess I'll just keep playing with it.

Even lead tones? Since the Helix was built by reverse engineering the actual circuits, the settings should react the same way in the model as on the amp, right? With a strat, I can't get real-world configurations/settings to sound good to me. One reason might be that the response of the amp circuits is probably frequency dependent, and I'm guessing the Helix is not. If I roll down my tone, it won't react the same way the real amp/load would. I should have said the high gain patches were made for humbuckers, since I was able to easily get some nice clean sounds.

So after spending some more time playing with the Helix, I've come to the conclusion that most of the presets and models were made for/using humbucking pickups. I came to the same conclusion with the Pod and Guitarport models. Regardless, the models sound excellent when using my Les Paul or Variax. I'm definitely going to keep the Helix, but am thinking of getting an external clean boost - maybe like the Solodallas - to run on an effects loop in front of my single coil presets. Thanks for all the suggestions, guys!

Well holy crap. I switched to my JTV-59 in straight pickup mode and the Plexi model sounds F^@king Awesome. I mean Eddie Van Halen to the 'T'. So I figured out two things: my Gadow has some problem with the electronics and this model doesn't like single coils - even hot ones like the EJ bridge p/u. Any suggestions about the single coil issue? Can I stick some sort of preamp in front to boost the signal without coloring the tone? What would you guys suggest?

Unfortunately, I've been plugged into the Guitar In and not the Aux. Shoot. Just spent a couple more hours playing with my plexi preset and I think I can be more specific about what doesn't sound good to me. The model sounds better with the Transistor Tape delay turned off. I spent over an hour tweaking the few parameters on this delay model, and can't get it to sound good with the Plexi. No problem there; I'll start exploring the other delay models. Also, I'm disappointed with how to Helix responds to rolling down the bridge pickup tone on my EJ strat. I don't own a real Plexi, so I can't make a fair comparison, but when I roll down the tone through my Mesa Nomad or Lonestar amps that EJ tone comes right out. Another thing that sounds strange to me is the sustain or decay of notes. It's almost like a noise gate is engaged even though it isn't. I can get a decent rhythm tone by turning the model gain up to 8 and both volumes to 10, but single note playing doesn't seem to have a natural sustain or decay to me. This could be my crappy playing, but again, my Mesa amps don't do that. Finally, I switched out my guitar cable, and turned the guitar impedance to Auto, as suggested. I think this made a difference because I can get the Plexi model to break up better. Of course, this could be the fact that I removed the delay - not sure. Anyway, thanks again for all the suggestions. I'm going to keep playing with it to try and find sounds I like. Worst case scenario; I'll use a reactive load with real amps and have the Helix perform impulse response duty.

Thanks for the suggestions, guys! I'm traveling for my day job now and haven't had a chance to work on it in a few days. I'm hoping I'm plugged into the aux input as Dave described. That would be an easy fix!

I tried it with both the line6 impulse response and a few ownhammer ones. Well, no. I've been adjusting the gain on the Scarlett until the levels are green/yellow but no red. I assume red means it's clipping? That sounds much better than mine. Maybe I'll try it directly to the monitors I've tried tweaking the gain, the channel volume, the master volume, the tone controls, the presence, bias, bias x, etc. I haven't touched the hum or sag because I'm not sure what they're supposed to do. On my guitars, I've tried single coils, humbuckers, volume full, half, tone full, rolled down - just about everything. Thanks for the suggestions, guys!

Hoping someone here can point out something stupid I'm doing. Like the title says, I have my new helix running in stereo via XLRs to channels 3 and 4 of my Scarlett audio interface. I'm using my Yamaha monitors to listen as I play. I changed the XLR outs to the MIC setting via Global Parameters. The phantom power is not engaged on the Scarlett. A reasonably good clean Twin Reverb type tone wasn't too hard to achieve, but all the rhythm/lead tones sounds like complete crap to me. After several hours of tweaking parameters on the Marshall Plexi model, I think there must be something I'm doing wrong. Even with the gain and both volumes on 10 the model isn't breaking up much. I've tried with my EJ strat, Les Paul, Gadow, Variax - all the same - so I don't think it's a signal strength issue. I've tried the built in impulse responses and several Ownhammer ones. I've tried with the Echoplex model -> Tube Driver model -> Plexi model ala EJ and it sounds like complete lollipop regardless of settings (within 5 hours of twiddling). Also, the models seem to react weird to the tone control being adjusted on the guitar. So questions: 1. Is it not a good idea to run the helix through my recording setup and out my monitors for some reason? 2. Am I doing something stupid? 3. If not 1&2, is this normal, and I'm just a jackass who has to have real amps? Thanks for any help guys.