MonkeyXT

Midipants!

Seconded - just reading through the release notes, I'm stoked. Very interested in the new models in general, especially Litigator. Excellent!

I'm away from my gear at the moment, but reading through the release notes... SO MUCH WIN! No 'spoilers' here... but well-played, Line 6. It's an excellent way of demonstrating the effectiveness of systems like IdeaScale and this forum. I can't wait to do my backups and apply the update to my Rack later.

While I agree that calling upon a similar audio chain can make sense, I'm of the mindset with modellers in general that it's advisable to avoid listening with the eyes; rather, dial through things and listen with your ear to get the results required. With some fun routing work in the patch you can always use the Whowatt for cleaner parts of the sound (in fact, I've found that to be an /excellent/ amp for building clean patches around). And, as above; very important to note, as I'd been discussing, that the sound character is informed a LOT by the narrow magnetic field of the Tele pickups being used - noiseless options can accomplish this as well (that's my approach with Teles, in particular, Barden pickups).

... actually, using the Vermin (RAT) instead of the cleaner drive gets things right into the neighbourhood fast, by using a highly driven amp, and then the RAT with very little gain, and level to taste - the 'hchhhh' will arrive in short order. Filter control to taste, after you've got the amp tone stack how you like for that very mid-driven sound (I'm a fan). Using the gate will be your friend here; it'll become a wild elephant in this state, but it seems to get close.

I can say that you'll get some of that 'gak' from the gain (your RAT/Muff aspect) pretty readily by running your amp gain high - higher than you'd likely normally run it... then hit it with a cleaner boost like the Minotaur - and again, you'll have the opportunity to get a little more of that fascinating thick 'almost messiness' by playing with the level and gain. Master volume can also really sculpt this result, as will the bias. I'd start with either the Angl or ... the Elektrik actually might get you there even quicker, come to think. Note the pickup position selections - he was getting a fair bit of top end from the neck pickup; makes me wonder if it might be a Twisted Tele neck pickup. That would actually fit in this case, being as the Fender Twisted Tele neck pickup is meant to evoke a more 'Stratty' neck position tone, which sayd 'Gilmour' to me in a large way. And again, that guess is based on the fact that he went to the bridge pickup and didn't take everyone's head off - so, either he's doing something to EQ at the same time as pickup positions, or else it's a TT or similar neck pickup paired with something gutsy like a Broadcaster bridge pickup (that's my favorite pairing for stock Fender Tele pickups in fact). I'll dial something like this later to see if I'm right here; I'm going from memory here, but I know this characteristic (to be honest, because it was something I was specifically avoiding at the time, but took note for future reference... perhaps this post today is the reason for that).

Could be that your loop needs to be switched to Instrument level from Line level in the Global Settings panel.

'Ears had unplugged' - one of the most interesting and easily relatable comparisons I've seen. Well said.

... and worth adding that editing on the unit itself is marvellously quite effective and intuitive; they've done a LOT with a relatively small bank of controls on the face (enhanced by the capacitive touch feature of the footswitches themselves). I didn't delve into Firehawk FX, but that was ONLY because I was waiting to see what was going to come as the next quantum step in Line 6's modelling evolution. That said, I was quite impressed with the demonstrations I've seen/heard - I should sit down with one some time.

I appreciate these observations; they gel with my own experiences. As I've gone along through the POD family starting at 2.x (brief dalliance with original POD, but that didn't work out) and up through to the HD, I noted the same thing in a progressive degree; each new generation of modelling tech brought with it more of the audio modelling being able to 'get out of the way' of the instruments, thus allowing their individual characters to shine through more than before. Even pickup changes became increasingly more interestingly dynamic in their results. Within each generation of tech, I would seek out the models which had this responsiveness in spades - there always seem to be certain amp models at each tier which pass through these instrument characteristics more than the others. They'd all have their places, but those extra-responsive models would become all the more useful, as they're the ones which will also respond nicely to volume roll-backs and the like. I noted also that each generation of modelling yielded more models which fit this description as well. Enter Helix; the modelling tech, and the resultant amps, pretty much all fit that description - now for me it's more a matter of degrees of this excellent characteristic. It's even made it interesting for my experiments with the various guitars I have which are virtual clones of one-another - very much the same recipe of ingredients, with the hard-to-pinpoint differences between them showing through even still. That can be amazingly subtle, and perhaps only noticeable to me as I'm playing them - that push/pull of the whole chain of events happening from plucking a string to the sound reaching the ear... Interesting and amazing stuff.

Welcome to the forum. You can assign a free stomp switch to toggle back and forth between two values of the parameter you're looking to work. (In fact, you can further stack up a total of 8 functions that the single switch can do simultaneously - an immensely powerful customization tool).

As above - as long as the momentary delay in engaging isn't an issue. I guess that depends on what the OP is using this to accomplish - instant dead-stop, or like me; I use the tuner to mute so that I can flick off my wireless transmitter between sets without causing noise, plus using the tuner at the beginning of the next set is what I'd be doing regardless. Win-win.

Seconded - I use the supplied Ethernet cable at home, but my travel bag has my Line6 Ethercon cable in it; not only are the locking ends more robust, the cable itself seems like it's sleeved in a nicer, heavier fashion. It's a beefier cable for the job.

That's excellent. I almost went with a 4-space rack container for my Helix Rack so that I could do something similar - I pack mine up and take it along for my occasional sit-in gigging, and I'd prefer to have the plug-unplug wear and tear be shunted to something that's more serviceable (self-service I mean) than the unit jacks. Nice clean execution. Excellent.

When you decode that, it's mostly routing of devices into a loop-management switcher - makes it look worse/more complex than it really is. Helix has 4 such loops physically with send/return jacks, plus internally it works in its virtual world in similar fashion. I'd have to look deeper to see what's up with series/parallel routing and such, but it's not as crazy as it looks at a glance with all those cables represented graphically.

That's odd; mine takes just the briefest of moments to wake up in those situations.

Nice stuff - great to see a person dig in and get their head around the hardware, and producing excellent sounds and music as a result.

Nice - definitely touch-sensitive in all the right ways. (What we can do with phones nowadays...)

Another vote for both straight volume bumps and then the Minotaur for the gently furrier next step up. For me the Screamer comes in higher up in the gain requirements chain, and is another absolute favourite =]

Excellent and interesting explorations. REALLY interesting the way Ola's own IR levelled the playing field a lot to my ears. Great sounds all around - now, to figure out that elusive little 'something' from the Fractal which imparts that bit of 'in the room' sound & feel...

Nice - wonder if it was recorded and will be posted?

*knock on wood* I haven't seen that personally. I have the regular and the toe-switch Mission EXPs attached for EXP1 & 2

Did you happen to try dialing down/off the ripple value along with the high sag value?

Your grievance is completely valid.

I have to say, I'd sign up if it was handy to me... just for the experience of being at L6 HQ. I trust you'll report on the experience so that we can live vicariously through you =]