PeterHamm

I updated my IR collection mentioned just above this post. There are now 3 zip files in there, using 3 different input profiles on Mama Bear. a group with an input profile for an under-saddle piezo for an acoustic. 1xx_Dtar_type of guitar_ir a group with an input profile for a Fishman PowerBridge. bxx_Dtar_type of guitar_ir a group with an input profile that is neutral. Note that the neutral IR is what appears to be a very very simple waveform. Is that good? I don't know. Also, these are 2048 sample IRs and I have a feeling they will work best that way. nxx_Dtar_type of guitar_ir Also, they are pretty quiet (I have a feeling some of the others we've seen are somewhat compressed, these are not. You'll probably want to increase your IR volume from -18 to perhaps -12 or even higher. I hope you like them. I don't even know if I like them yet, but I hope some of you do. So far I think these are less "natural sounding" but possibly much much better in a LIVE mix, as they seem to bite and cut through, even without a lot of added EQ. I suspect that whatever is going on in Mama Bear is not so much an IR as a sophisticated EQ curve. The "neutral" profiles are completely useless to me, but if you find a way to make them work, let us all know. https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5YMP7cdVF-LTWE5TkFrb0ZTUGc

UPDATED! There are now 3 zip files in there, using 3 different input profiles on Mama Bear. a group with an input profile for an under-saddle piezo for an acoustic. 1xx_Dtar_type of guitar_ir a group with an input profile for a Fishman PowerBridge. bxx_Dtar_type of guitar_ir a group with an input profile that is neutral. Note that the neutral IR is what appears to be a very very simple waveform. Is that good? I don't know. Also, these are 2048 sample IRs and I have a feeling they will work best that way. nxx_Dtar_type of guitar_ir Also, they are pretty quiet (I have a feeling some of the others we've seen are somewhat compressed, these are not. You'll probably want to increase your IR volume from -18 to perhaps -12 or even higher. I hope you like them. I don't even know if I like them yet, but I hope some of you do. So far I think these are less "natural sounding" but possibly much much better in a LIVE mix, as they seem to bite and cut through, even without a lot of added EQ. I suspect that whatever is going on in Mama Bear is not so much an IR as a sophisticated EQ curve. The "neutral" profiles are completely useless to me, but if you find a way to make them work, let us all know. https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5YMP7cdVF-LTWE5TkFrb0ZTUGc

Actually... I just got home, and looked at Mama Bear again. There IS an input setting based on a magnetic soundhole pickup. It might not be perfect, but it might be much much closer and maybe close enough to do what you want. I will try and make some for you when I can.

No such possibility with Mama Bear. There are several input profiles, but none of them are "none" or designed to do what you are asking. All the others are designed for some kind of acoustic guitar pickup of some sort. I AM going to make a set with the acoustic pickup profile most likely to work with acoustic guitars, but judging from what I heard today, I don't know how much better they will be. SOME people have had success with IRs like these ones with regular electric pickups, but if you are serious about this, you want a PowerBridge

All my patches have 2 amp-states for my amp model. clean and dirty, and the amp's bass, treble, and delay mix. I used to use an EXP and that works well, but now I use a footswitch.

Let me know any way I can help out.

If you boost a freq to make it "pop out of the mix", the sound engineer might turn that freq down to make it "sit in the mix better". imho, global EQ, or any kind of EQ on electric guitar, is to fix what's wrong with the room you're in. Boomy at 320hz? cut it. stuff like that. I trust a sound guy to do that. If you don't have a sound guy, THEN use the global EQ, perhaps, but make your adjustments with the band while you're playing, otherwise you're just guessing at the freqs that will work.

Done.

Attention all you two-voice-at-the-same-time-junkies. Here are some alternatives for you. They are derived from Mama Bear. I used Logic Pro's Impulse Response Utility, they are all 32-bit (recorded at 24 and converted) 48K (recorded that way NOT converted) 2048 (a couple are 2047 or 2046, they work the same, it's just really hard to crop exactly 2048 in that clunky program) IRs. All of them work in Helix. I tested them. Here's the thing. Mama Bear makes you not only choose the model, but the input device. I chose the setting that matched my PowerBridge, with EQ flat, captured all the IRs 100% wet (of course), and named them in a manner that should make total sense (ros means rosewood, mah means mahogany, etc. let me know if you can't figure the name of one of them or just download the Mama Bear manual). The number at the front is the number of the model in that manual. A few really cool and different ones are the Gypsy Jazz, Archtop Jazz and resonator models. Very surprising. What surprises me even more is that even though they were made with the "wrong" input selected for a "real" acoustic guitar, they seem to work great in that way! I tried some with my Crowdster and they worked really well. More subtle, I think, than the Fishman Aura ones floating around, and you may like those Fishman ones better (for certain things I think I still do). I will make a sample video when I can, and will probably capture another set with the under-saddle input circuitry selected to see if it works better with acoustic guitars. I attached a zip file if you want as well. same files as the link above. It's in my thread here. Let me know what you think and if they are useful.

Attention all you two-voice-at-the-same-time-junkies. Here are some alternatives for you. They are derived from Mama Bear. I used Logic Pro's Impulse Response Utility, they are all 32-bit (recorded at 24 and converted) 48K (recorded that way NOT converted) 2048 (a couple are 2047 or 2046, they work the same, it's just really hard to crop exactly 2048 in that clunky program) IRs. All of them work in Helix. I tested them. Here's the thing. Mama Bear makes you not only choose the model, but the input device. I chose the setting that matched my PowerBridge, with EQ flat, captured all the IRs 100% wet (of course), and named them in a manner that should make total sense (ros means rosewood, mah means mahogany, etc. let me know if you can't figure the name of one of them or just download the Mama Bear manual). The number at the front is the number of the model in that manual. A few really cool and different ones are the Gypsy Jazz, Archtop Jazz and resonator models. Very surprising. What surprises me even more is that even though they were made with the "wrong" input selected for a "real" acoustic guitar, they seem to work great in that way! I tried some with my Crowdster and they worked really well. More subtle, I think, than the Fishman Aura ones floating around, and you may like those Fishman ones better (for certain things I think I still do). I will make a sample video when I can, and will probably capture another set with the under-saddle input circuitry selected to see if it works better with acoustic guitars. I attached a zip file if you want as well. same files as the link above. 2 things. 1. Let me know what you think and if they are useful and 2. post a ridiculously overstated compliment right here if you download them. Something like "Peter Hamm is the most amazing human that has ever lived and I want to be like him when I grow up", you know... something like that to make me feel good about myself. Here's the link again. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B5YMP7cdVF-LTWE5TkFrb0ZTUGc?resourcekey=0-aHwTzPqpm6djoyONpGhDNw&usp=sharing

It's glorious. I've been doing 2-voice guitar for about a decade and a half, and for the past 8 or 10 years I never play a guitar that doesn't have a piezo ready to go. Yes, DO use a return input for your faux acoustic sound and use one of the free acoustic IRs out there. It works best imho, whether your piezo has a preamp or not (my electrics have no preamp, my Crowdster Plus 2 has one - both sound great this way). There are a bunch of examples in this article of mine, including video samples. Here's a video tease (this video is in the above article). The patch I use is linked in the article above, as are links to IRs. I just made more IRs from Mama Bear. Look for a topic on this board called "New Acoustic Guitar IRs from Mama Bear" soon.

Thanks loads for sharing that!

Mess with the built-in cabs (especially dual cabs) first. They are really great imho.

If you need a pretty sophisticated looper, getting an outboard looper is always gonna be better than relying on what's in a box like Helix. When they asked pros, a fully functional looper was WAY DOWN on the list of things they wanted, and things like 3rd party IRs and multiple signal chains and lots of FX loops was probably really really high. I think, overall, that they went the right way with this.

You know... I think you are making Helix do SO much here. offload some of that stuff so you can do more with Helix and your guitar. Seriously... I know you CAN process 2 or 3 different players' instruments/mics through Helix. Doesn't mean you SHOULD necessarily.

Nope. You can do this. It's easy. All you need is one open block hopefully RIGHT before the output. Just add a return and change the parameters so it mixes with the built-in sound. Simple. Probably uses almost zero DSP. And no reason you can't make this happen with almost any patch in just a few seconds any time you want.

You are misunderstanding. I'm not telling you what to think. I'm not saying that all or most pros use Helix. I'm saying that Helix was designed with a more professional user in mind, and Line 6 certainly learned that features like an aux in for an mp3 player were not on the list of things that people really want in this product segment.

I can imagine that by design, few want this, just like few want the looper to be active in every patch (hence that decision). Yes, as in, most pros I know of.

Joy always makes you better at whatever you're doing.

I don't want to take away from anyone who makes and gives away or sells patches at all... (for some I'm sure they are great, and for others the very best solution and for others the only solution) but... Yes, you found second gear. If you want to find 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and maybe even 6th gear and 7th heaven... Go to a blank patch. Make your own. It'll be hard the first time, and you'll do it wrong, but that's okay. Wait a week, make a new one from scratch, changing your workflow based on what you've learned. Then... after a week or a month, do that again... Thank me later. Seriously. Since I'm a beta tester (and take this seriously) whenever there is a new firmware update I build a couple patches from scratch, and come up with totally new ways to do things that are seriously amazing and change my workflow. Also, you can get so much flexibility out of one patch that whereas I used to go between 3 or 4 for every guitar, it's down to one or two. There are ways of doing things in here that I wouldn't have ever discovered without this, along with some AMAZING tips I've gotten from folks on here. Roll your own. Seriously.

But... whereas previous $500 and under modelers were really designed to bridge the gap between amateur and pro, Helix is simply designed for pro musicians, and in a pro environment, we generally don't want that kind of feature getting in the way. The fact that you CAN do this in a patch if you want to is awesome, though.

I'd be willing to bet money that the difference between recording USB direct and going XLR out analog to an interface is absolutely and totally nothing. However, it's perhaps possible that running analog will actually sound BETTER to your ears if the converters color the sound pleasingly... Seriously, in the mix, anybody who thinks they can tell the difference is... well... kidding themselves. Yes, I've tested, but not lately.

They are a very short audio sample, basically, that stores information about what a cabinet is doing to the sound. An amp model is way way more sophisticated. In HX modeling on the Helix, it involves modeling every single component individually to put it all together. Fractal doesn't offer third party amp models either, and Kemper, which is a profiler, uses a completely different approach. If you are looking for unlimited downloadable amp models or to make your own, Kemper is worth looking into. For me, I do NOT have time for that, and the amp models in the current modelers are more than good enough for me.

It's not even a year since they released it. I promise you, you will be getting some blissful FW updates. I'd even bet you'll get more than one that will have something cool in it you'll like before the end of the year.

Unlike unbalanced cables, spending more on XLR doesn't usually get you better sound, just better ruggedness. Get something midrange in just the length you need (not too long, it's super annoying) and you'll be great.