antonio1961

IR's weren't something that interested me at all initially, but the further i got into editing, the more they started to become an important part of the overall sound , to the point where i don't use eq blocks at all, as i find they have less of an impact on overall tone than IR's. I've always felt there's enough eq'ing on the amp itself anyway ,but if you're getting close to that sound, but still feel there's something missing then stick an IR in, or flick through some and you may just find that vital missing ingredient there. I've got the same problem as you with having so many, but you'll soon whittle those down to ones that really work for you, then just rename them to suit your needs, for easier access later on.

As someone that uses it for live work most of the time ,this makes complete sense to me too. Would definitely make life a lot easier on stage .

As with any demo ,the product will only sound as good as the person demoing it. The skill to demo a new product is an art in itself these days ,and guys like Paul Hindmarsh have that art perfected to a tee. Apart from being an excellent guitarist with a wide range of styles ,he always knows the product inside out ,and presents as such. Point being , that i'm sure DSP Neural will get some better demo's out there at some point, though maybe they've just been a bit naive ,what with being new to hardware and all that. If i didn't already own a Helix , and was in the market for something new, from what i've seen and heard so far tbh ,my money would go on the Pod GO ,and i view it , and not the Helix , as it's current competitor. Although the Cortex has other selling points, one of the main ones is the touchscreen, . i view a control pedal as being more important, and that makes the Pod GO a proper grab and go solution .

Regardless if you like it or not, it's certainly stolen some of the Cortex's thunder.

I think aesthetically the only thing that looks a bit naff is the control pedal, which looks plastic, but i could be proved wrong.

The Pod name is a bit confusing tbh , and there's nothing new from a Helix owners perspective, but we are probably not their target market anyway. If there's less tinkering involved, then the stock presets will need to be top notch.

Thought that was another photoshop job there when i first saw it :-) Looks interesting though.

Yes, they do seem like they have a long way to go, to get to some sort of finished article, and i envisage them having to fly by the seat of their pants for a good while yet , probably right up till the first units are shipped out. There's no question they got the inspiration for the design from the Helix , replicating the whole network of people ,and the level of support behind the Helix is going to take some doing though. There was a demo that appeared to have been done straight after the live feed, but it didn't sound at all like anything unique to me. Out of curiosity ,and to try and compare product launches,I had a look at some of the first posts on here ,and it seems there are some similarities with the Cortex, in that some people did pre order the Helix without knowing exactly what they were buying, the only difference (And it's a major one ) being, ..that L6 were already well established. I'd genuinely never heard of Neural til this week ,though i'm probably not a huge plug-in user anyway, so i presume i'm in a minority there, .. it's not a negative ,it's just an observation. Seems some were asking back then why there was no touchscreen on the Helix? , wi-fi, bluetooth ?, and more,.. all probably ended up serving as groundwork for the Cortex.:-) Our own personal choices from a design perspective can vary hugely, but four and a half years later and this quote from Digital Igloo still rings true for me. '"One of the first Helix UI/UX designs had a touchscreen. We tested it, and touch footswitches ended up being way faster and more elegant in practice".

Thanks, did that , seems there are both intelligent pitch shifting ,and an intelligent harmoniser ,as as well as a synth block, which i presume is similar to the Helix drone, but sounds like it could be a bit more musical. Whatever next ?...the ability to store loops .

Just watched yesterday's live stream ,l find it a bit lazy that they couldn't hook it up to let people hear it, especially when there were guitars hanging on the wall behind them. Also ,would've been easy to set a camera on to the screen to see it actually working too. Although i appreciate the need for them to set the unit up properly prior to any sort of demo ,I'm still not totally convinced that the two that were on the desktop were actually fully operational ones. If i had created what they describe as 'The most powerful floor modeler on the planet' , then i would be screaming it from the rooftops at every opportunity, and i didn't get that at all from yesterdays live stream. What i did get, was the impression that the NAMM show is where they will be properly demoed, because it seemed to me that they are still actually working on the finished product. A few sketchy answers to certain questions too, and i was quite surprised that CEO Doug didn't seem to be at all familiar with term 'intelligent pitch shifter', though tbf ,the effects side of things is not necessarily his forte..

There are only two certainties in life.

I think you're being kind describing it as 'Hideous' :-)

Tbf, that could be any modeller/fx processor that you are listening to , there's absolutely nothing in that vid that would make me even moderately interested in parting with $1500. Seems like the touchscreen and the tech specs are enough for a few though.

From the offset, no, or poor monitoring ,denotes a recipe for disaster imo. A monitor is your lifeline on stage, and the value of a good monitor should never be underestimated , as i've done gigs with poor, or completely useless ones before, and not enjoyed those gigs at all. No sound engineer worth his salt would put a performer ,or band, up on stage without good monitoring. Putting myself in your shoes, i'd want something familiar sounding, and would tend to concentrate more on what the Helix can offer. It can sound immense through a pa ,and mine is set up so that it's at it's best sounding with all the foh mixer controls set flat, that way there is less time spent tweaking the sound at a gig. Simplest set up for me would be 4cm on the Marshall with no fx loop block added in the Helix , so bypassing the Marshall's preamp ,and don't get hung up about switching off speaker sim either, if it sounds good,..then use it , i use mine in that way with a Mesa amp ,and find that it sounds great even with the speaker sims left in. Use the vol knob to control just 1/4 outs ,as you definitely don't want to touch the foh sound . You will then effectively disable the Marshall's volume controls, and instead make the Helix vol control ,your amp volume control, and if you've balanced all your tones properly ,then you should have no issues... ...Unfortunately if you start turning the amp up too much ,this will undoubtably have a knock on effect with the other musicians, and you may end up with a volume war on stage ,which is never a good idea,..so yes,...good monitoring.

The term "Analysis paralysis" springs to mind here, .. i think that the options are pretty wide and varied for two guitarists .