PeterHamm

...The bulk of my sounds come from two basic starting points.

• Heavy Crunch (Bogner Ubershall model)
• Piezo Acoustic (using an IR of Taylor acoustic for body resonance - sounds good with piezo equipped electrics)

Our regular sound guy is a good guitar player (and was an Axe user).

After hearing my live sound, he recently picked up a Helix.

:D My sounds are all both electric and acoustic like this. For the money, you can NOT beat Helix. Axe FX II can do it, but at SO much more money.

No. But I think their intention is to make every function available, so I bet it's coming. Until it's all there, they'll call it "beta".

I think a mono spring verb makes total sense! Most any guitar amp that has spring reverb is not stereo. And it would save bandwidth. Yes, you can collapse a stereo spring verb to mono... but let's save that CPU space!

...It's like a pandora box you start changing a mic, then the distance, then the eq of the mic, then a IR, then a mix of two cabs, but you are unsatisfied so you come back changing mic and distance and the mix of the two cabs, so on and on.

At the end, drained, you come back to use Amp+cab block a overdrive and a reverb.

I agree. BUT... do NOT use an amp+cab block. Separate them if you can, and you can. It only adds a moment to what you're doing.. Delays and verbs (spring verb especially) sound way better between amp and cab.

Yes, agreed. Line 6 focus has been on guitar, but the vocal processing potential of the Helix is untapped. It could easily surpass the FX found on the TC Helicon vocal processors. 

But...

I hope that if there's any chance that development of the guitar stuff for Helix gets stifled that they don't make this a priority. Helix, to me, is for guitar and bass. To make it so that it does too many other things... then people will complain that they can't do 8 FX on their guitar while they do 6 on their vox because there is so much stuff in that chain that hogs CPU bandwidth.

a separate dedicated vocal processor is, to me, a wiser choice for performing anyways.

I really do need to take the time and go check those out, it's been crazy busy here since I've received my Helix. Any specific suggestions on what current Helix amp models work well, and with what free IRs for acoustic guitar?

 

Thx Peter..

For me, the Matchless, Channel 1 or Jump -> either the Dr. Z 2 x 12 or a dual cab with the Dr. Z on one side and the 4 x 10 on the other... is my go to... for every guitar and purpose... I will also use the /13, Shiva (gain WAY down), and Dr. Z amps mostly... but that Matchless is silly amazing.

free acoustic IRs here.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1XgNa5vH3j1ZkVoTFJLQ241WTg/view

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/f2qdh9jtcl6s5cv/AACRlEt-UVeLAhuvV4YwMY7Wa?dl=0

All derived, I think, from Aura, but work tremendously well. There may be others out there now. I'm so delighted with these ones I stopped looking.

I bought a bunch of OwnHammer IRs

I'm trying to import them into my Helix

 

do i need the beta helix editor to do this? because i keep trying to use it. it shows it connected, and on the preset but then when i try to import an IR it says Helix not connected. it's a vicious cycle.

 

is there a way to import IRs without the laptop based editor application?

There is no way to put IRs in there without using a computer, but you don't need the latest beta editor. You can use v1.04 of the Editor.

But...

Update to 10.11.4. It has solved problems for a LOT of people. 10.11 was a real problem with external USB devices until this update. Shame on you, Apple!

It is there because if your Cat 5 line is too long, the power can't flow through it. I have the 25' VDI cable powering it and there's no problem, but if it were 50' or longer, you'd need to power it. (Useful if you want to keep the rack at front of house but the controller on stage.

It uses the same adaptor as HD 500, but most everyone will not need it. I don't.

There's also a unused (at this time, for the user at least) USB port on Control. You do NOT use this to update firmware. It's handled by the Helix Rack unit.

...also seeing slow response using the editor sliders, on a MacBook running OSX 10.11.3, with no other apps or weird processes running.

There are gobs of external device problems with OSX 10.11.3. But 10.11.4 is out, you should update. A LOT of people are saying that totally solved the problems.

...I can literally go from preset 9A to 14C in one click...

Maybe I'm the only person who only edits one patch at a time.

- naming anything. An actual keyboard is nice...

 SO much this... I admit it.

I love that they gave us both possibilities. Easier to make everybody happy.

I can go from 0 - finished patch on the unit in under 5 minutes now.

Way longer for me on the editor.

Ideally... both at once, like I used to do with HD 500.

To be quite honest after using the editor for an hour I realise how good the editing on the Helix actually is, far better than the editor!

 

The editor is slow and cumbersome on my 12 core MacPro which isn't a slow machine! 

 

I predicted this before I even had the editor. Mousing from one parameter to another on-screen, vs. twisting the 6 knobs on the actual physical helix. No contest. working on the actual Helix is much faster for most things. I do find that setting up a few things (assigning controllers for instance so that I can have two different states for my amp using an EXP) might be faster on the software, but overall, if you know the unit, it's way faster to create on Helix. In fact, it takes me (I measured) roughly half the time or less to do it on the actual unit.

That said, the Helix editor is very very nice, and for those who have the floor unit, it'll be a back saver.

I thought I had seen somewhere a few months ago in the forum that the Amp+Cab combinations had been optimized to use less DSP than a separate amp and cab. Is this not the case?

Don't know, but I haven't been unable to make patches work separating them. If there's a difference, I'll bet it's very small.

agree, a few nicely done warm acoustic IRs would be appreciated by a large percent of working musicians..

the free IRs are really amazingly useful, and there's a crap-ton of them.

Can you copy the Amp+Cab's settings onto just an Amp block?  Obviously ignoring the Cab portion of the settings

No. Simply. You can not.

And, fwiw, this is one reason to never every create a patch with an Amp+Cab in it at all. There's no benefit to using it, since you'll never fill every slot. I figured that out a day or so in.

Hello Everybody,

 

I have just purchased an Helix ans I would like to know how to setup a simple configuration that suits my need :

1. Every day I practice at home on computer with backing tracks (for now I used Line6 UX2 audio card).
2. Every week I go to the rehearsal music studio with my band. I use an existing amp + cab. It is not always the same (Fender, Blackstar, ...) so I should rely too much on learning the settings of a specific one.
3. Every month I go to a concert where I usually plug directly into the PA.
4. Rarely, I would like to use my Fender Blues Junior which has only an input and no effect loop.

 

Well, I think I am quite new to this despite the fact I am really a geek for a living and I play the guitar for almost 20 years now.

If you have any advice, please don't hesitate to write ! :)

 

Thanks very much guys,

Poukill

It is possible that you can set up ANY patch to work in all those configurations. Use an amp plus a cab for 1 and 3, set up a footswitch (or a duplicate patch) that disables them for 2 and 4. That said, I'd use the same amp every time when I practiced myself.

My understanding (don't have one yet) is the you have less adjustability with IRs than the built in cabs. Is that true? If so, do I gather that's not a problem for you?

It is true. Can't speak for the OP, but for me, the built-in cabs (which, btw, ARE IRs) allow you to change mic, distance, add early reflection... imho, more useful than third party IRs. I've tried a few of the well-regarded free ones, but have found a couple built-in cabinets that work just peachy for me on everything. Dr. Z 2x12 and Bassman 4 x 10 cabs (especially the former) are the GOODS, to me...

Best effect of helix : univibe...Timmy is very good...Best amp: Matchless.

The rest is ok

Although I disagree with the last one of those statements I think... it sounds like we are kindred spirits. U-vibe... the my go to modulation most of the time, Matchless, just lately, the main and almost the ONLY amp I go to.

I'll wait for the movie....

or the mini-series or comic book perhaps...

Maybe not more amps, but more control over the ones that there are already in the Helix. I love s-gear because you can do a lot with a single model only with the switches it has, and don't understand why there's no more "deep" parameters like bright switches or that (at least on amps which have them in the real world like the Twin Reverb) and there some like "ripple" that it's totally unnecesary IMHO.

Well, for a lot of those amps, there are two versions of the amp that account for that for my use, normal and vibrato input (which is, in my experience, very much like having the bright switch on). I use that vib input for humbucker guitars and the normal for singles and I'm good to go.

"Most headphones doe'snt sound pretty good on helix and really different from frfr speakers. Motly they sound to harsh, bright and noisy"

(quoted from ideascale).

 

My headphones by Sennheiser, AKG and even my 'nonames' (let's say they are all newer and maybe better ;) )

sound pretty good, not harsh, not too bright or noisy.

I guess it is easy to persist in saying something (like 'most headphones')

and furthermore to call for new features.

Check out better headphones, please.

My AKG K240s and my Sennheiser HD 380s both sound good, as do my IEMs (Shure SE215).

Well I just got over my little freak out about the size of my DIY IR's.  It seems that all IR's may be equal in the eyes of Helix.  It looks like Helix process them on import, making them 16 bit & 44kHz.  Exporting IR's from Helix app showed that the are about 9kb in file size, despite the file size of the original IR.

 

http://line6.com/support/topic/19475-does-helix-process-irs-on-import/?do=findComment&comment=146475

They are truncated. It's explained on p. 28 of the manual

Old Headphones start to sound brittle. You might not notice it on a Hi Fi, but on Helix, you'll hear the flaws. Also, if the headphones aren't high impedance, they can be a problem with Helix. Some of yours probably fit that description.

They don't last forever if you use them a lot.

Your screen can only display 1024 x 600 pixels, quite low by today's standards i doubt you can overcome this without some screen overscan scrolling which is horid.. Check the bay for an old thinkpad or something dead cheap and a decent screen size...

 

*** EDIT*** Just had a quick look and the edit window is scalable... my bad.. should be fine if a little cramped in there.. check your font/icon size settings..

Oh, yeah, that's not enough. Wow, they still make something with that low res? It won't do it.

I am able to do either a totally separate acoustic and electric signal chain (complete with dual cabs, 2 delays on each chain, 2 reverbs, 2 modulations, and compression and preamps on each chain plus an acoustic guitar IR on the acoustic chain)...

...so, yeah.

I've also been able to create a patch with two amps, gain pedals, 4 delays, 2 verbs, dual cabs on each amp, 2 modulation FX, and 2 compressors...

so, yeah.

If you need to do much more than that, buy a second one.

Your videos were fundamental in me getting a great sound out of my HD, can't thank you enough!!

That is AWESOME! Glad they helped!

When we all work together, things are great.

More videos, guys!