msingh95

Thanks! that's what I was hoping for. Although I have my pedals all wired with the moogami cable I like, or the EVO solderless I like, most my signal with my real pedalboard is buffered (minus the fuzzes), and yea I've done that test too. As long as the helix fx loops are buffers, I should be okay. It's just 6 feet of a snake, and then probably some inches after that for the pedals to reach the patch bay, just about 6 inches max

So, I'm trying to set up a "side board" with about 4 effects so that I can have the Helix use them when I'd like. First I thought to connect the 4 pedals directly into the helix, but I had a 8 channel pedalbaord patch bay laying around I thought I could use to keep the wires clean and have an easier time switching out pedals if I'd like. link: https://www.loop-master.com/pedalboard-patch-p-364.html So, thinking of using the patch bay, I thought I'd need a snake. So I bought a 6ft, 8 channel 1/4 inch snake (8 instrument cables all bundled together in a nice neat large guage wrap), and I wanted to set up a side board with 8 pedals. link: https://www.amazon.com/Monoprice-8-Channel-Snake-26AWG-Cable/dp/B00IACBENW/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=1%2F4+inch+ts+snake&qid=1600800873&sr=8-4 Are the fx loops on the Helix Buffered? would I be getting signal loss / high frequency damping by using that much cable between my pedals? I was going to use an 8 channel in/out utility pedal thing I had lying around to streamline the ins/outs of my side board so I didn't have to make so many long cable runs. Would it be better to just make a bunch of 1 foot patch cables and go right into the helix? I figured having the ins/outs connected by a snake would give me better flexibility of changing out pedals and their positions since they'd only be wired to my loop-master 8-way ins/out thing. I guess the only way to find out is by trying, but I'm hoping someone with more experience regarding this could help out. Would I be losing a lot of quality using the snake and then patching my pedals using moogami wire I have laying around? I'll be making the cables and soldering myself, so I'd rather just do it right the first time rather than have to make the cables twice or something. I have to use specific right angle or straight angle plugs which I'd have to buy. I have the wire already.

Thanks for your insight! It forced me to put together my practice rig in my studio setup to actually practice at band volumes and it did make a difference in sorting out how everything is interacting with one another. I bought an LS-2 to put both my helix rig and my pedalboard rig against one another and that should help me fine tune the way I'd like to in order to finally be happy with my presets on helix. Thanks, I went ahead and set up my guitar rigs for comparison, and I think I'm going to maybe take out some sub frequencies and maybe just a little bit of the highs. So far, I think I've resolved my issues with getting the helix to work the way I'd want it. It just took some "re-learning" the effects and realizing that the helix was modeling specific vintage versions of some pedals I have, so it won't be the exact same of settings. Thanks everyone!

Gotcha...so it sounds like everything really is working as it should be. I'm just going to haver to play around with it come more I guess. Do you know if the global EQ is first in the helix chain or last in the helix chain?

So does that mean I should taper off the EQ above 16kHz in global settings? Or do I just have to do nothing? (and that's just how the guitar sounds going through a 10ft cable to helix, and then form helix to amp with a 10ft cable?)

I always have the buffer + at the max input impedance, i.e. not changing the input loading from what it would regularly be. How should I go about trying to match the EQ? I bought a LS-2 that's on the way to try and help, but should I just try sending both signals DI into my recording DAW and go from there?

@phil_m Thanks for your help and getting back to me so quickly! I had to spend more time with the unit, since I did just get about a night or two ago. I also did more research and scouring for tips. What I ended up doing was setting up the helix so that the master knob only controls the XLR, and setting the 1/4th input to instrument (just as I had before as well), and that took the master volume knob out of the equation for my guitar signal. I think the way I usually run my amp was throwing me off and I was having a hard time after being in my studio space for like 4 hours trying to learn the helix and evaluate my setup all at once. To answer your earlier question, I only had the guitar and helix in my chain, using the 1/4 inputs and outputs : Guitar > Helix > Ac30 top boost channel Typically I use my Ac30 on the 30w or 15w setting (depending on if I'm jamming with a drummer or just practicing), but I switched over to my AC15 to sort this out. I used the built in attenuator to Set my AC15 at 7.5w so that I can really hear what's going on. I always used the master volume bypassed on the amps, and I set my gain to right before or close to "edge of breakup". So I dropped the wattage and was able to get a baseline of how my guitar sounds dry, running through an empty patch in the helix that I set up with no pedals in the chain. Then I added pedals one by one and setting them to what I thought was unity, and you're right - it was somewhere around 6 or so. Then I cranked it to about 10 I was able to clearly hear my amp being properly pushed, and since it was NOT at a super loud volume, I could actually hear it start to compress and distort instead of get louder to validate that the amp was indeed being pushed. And I was starting to catch how the helix works now. The only thing was it didn't sound right at level "10" on the minotaur and I'm not sure if I was clipping the Analog/digital converters in the helix. But I wouldn't think that would be possible with just one pedal, so it could just be how the minotaur sounds pushing my amp with 0.2 gain and about 6.5 treble. What I notice is when I add a distortion/overdrive pedal in helix, I think it may default the volume to be almost "unity" or close to it...I'm running firmware 2.92 on my helix. Then I added the vintage digital delay at stock settings, and changed the tempo to dotted eighth notes and tried out my delay riffs that I use to get a feel of the sound of my pedals. Right off the bat, it sounded great! The tone was there, just what I expected. But then I started to notice some sort of clipping noise happening every so often when I was playing rhythmic delays that were dynamic where I was digging in to my strings with my pick at times. I started to feel lost again, but then noticed the bit depth was set at 12bit by default. I was going to just increase the headroom, but I thought this could be simulating the converters on whatever unit was modeled, and that unit may not have had the bit depth, so I changed it to 24 and didn't notice any of it again. This is all new to me, since I'm used to pedals like the echosystem and the DD-500, and I'm not used to having some of these settings I wouldn't think to change by default. So, that was the long-winded version of my experience. I'm left with some observations I wanted to confirm, and a few questions for how to achieve what I want. Observations: 1) do the stock settings when I add the distortion/overdrive blocks try to default to unity gain? I know it wouldn't be typical of every effects model in there, but it seems like that's what was happening with the minotaur, scream 808, and the rat and muff models. 2) Was the clipping noise I was experiencing a result of the minotaur (0.2 gain, 6ish treble, 9.5 level) clipping the vintage delay? (delay set to stock default settings for the vintage delay - 12-bit for bit depth) I couldn't replicate the clipping noise using the "simple delay" or the vintage delay with 24 bit-depth. I guess I'm hoping that everything is working the way it should and I just have to learn my way around the unit. 3) I still can't get my real life pedalboard "bypass" tone to match my helix "bypass" tone. (when I've got it all on, but everything is bypassed) My pedalboard signal path is: Guitar > Fuzz Pedals > Empress "Buffer+" in > Boss Es-8 > back to Empress "Buffer+" Out > AC30/15 What I notice is a difference in the very low end, and the very high end. The Helix bypass tone seems to have too much top end, or it's just too "forward"...and it may be lacking some body in the low end. I'll have to do another A/B tomorrow since I'm tired from today. I'm not sure I should use a hi/low shelf or cut type eq, because I typically don't apply an EQ in my signal chain when I'm using my pedalboard. Do you have any tips with for how to remedy this? Maybe some EQ ranges to adjust? I wouldn't want to take off too much top end or low end and be left with an anemic and dull clean/bypass tone. If I adjust my ac30/15 settings too much, it just makes the tone boxy or shrill, and I try to leave my amp at the sweet spot settings I've found to like for the best voicing (to my ears). Thank you again for your help, I really appreciate it. wrapping my head around all this is confusing, after having felt like I finally know my way around my pedals and my amp. I'm just hoping to emulate similar results to use my helix as my all in one pedalboard for live playing usage. Eventually when I've got my guitar tone process sorted out, I want to add an xlr input path for a mic, set up vocal effects, and then use the helix for all my guitar sounds and vocal effects. And have all that controlled by midi from the computer running the backing tracks. The dream would be only having to think about playing guitar and singing, and I know it possible. It's really just a matter of time before figuring out.

Hey there, I know this is probably a dead topic, but I'm having trouble trying to use my helix this way. And I know it can and I should be able to make it work this way. Can you provide some insight on how I should achieve this and still hve the helix overdrive and distortion pedal models work properly? I changed my global setting for 1/4 out to instrument level, but it seems that unity gain using the master volume knob on the helix unit is all the way maxed out. Then I'm trying to add the klon (minotaur) or the tubescreamer and then boost my amp (Vox Ac30HW2x), but with the level controls on the pedals in the helix maxed (10) I'm barely hitting unity gain. and sometimes my clean volume is louder. Am I doing something wrong?

So, I need some help with using the Helix with my real amps. Let me preface this with what I'm trying to do: Use my Helix with my real life amp to replace my pedalboard and have 1 touch complete sonic changes. The whole story: So I have my recording rig- a bunch of pedals on a big pedal board that I'm happy with. I run them all straight into my Vox Handwired AC30Hw2x with the alnico blue speakers. My problem with this setup, (if you haven't caught my influence yet) is that I have many pedals to turn on and off even with a boss ES-8 involved , in order to use my board to play the same songs live, I'd have to do a bunch of tap dancing because only my delay and reverb take midi and can switch patches. I still would have to change my other pedals knobs and positions and program the ES-8 patches so I don't have so much tap dancing to do. When I perform, I just want to play and not think about it. Just one button touch sonic changes for whatever section of the song I'm in, because I'm singing and playing at the same time. So in short, I want to replace all ,my pedals live with the Helix and use that to switch my sounds while still using my AC30. My problems: I'm having some trouble setting my clean (dry) signal through the helix. I run my guitar with a moogami 10ft cable into my pedal board with some fuzzes, and then a dedicated buffer right after that into the rest of my crazy board. I've tried listening to the "all bypassed" signal from the Helix setup and the Pedalboard Setup. My pedalboard setup sounds awesome, I love it. The Helix however has just a bit too much top end, and not enough bottom end warmth. I thought I could change the input impedance in my patch, but that just made it sound quieter, and not quite the effect i wanted in simulating just a bit of cable length into the helix. weather I use my generic 20ft cable or the 10ft moogami cable, the results are the same. How can I remedy this? What have you guys thought up? 2) I set my Helix 1/4 inputs to instrument level so that I could run it into my Vox amp. I'm having trouble finding unity gain, it just seems like I have to turn my volume knob all the way up for it to sound like at right about unity. 2.5) I believe my unity gain issue is causing some pedal models to not react the way I thought they would. For example, I have a tubescreamer and a muff in real life, I have them on my board to compare. I practically turn the volume knob anywhere between 25% and 50% of the way up depending on the other settings to find unity gain, and then I have so much more boost available. And sometimes, I do use the pedal to boost my amp. I'm having a hard time replicating this with my current unity gain setting on the master volume and the level control on the pedals, because at max level on the muff, I'm expecting there to be quite a bit of push into the amp, BUT it's sitting just barely at unity level. I know I have a lot of issues, but can anyone help me out or provide some insight? I just got the helix last night and I'm trying to figure out how it'll all work for me. Thanks

Honestly, I don't know what others are expecting, but I was just hoping that it would be able to tune quickly and easily like my current gen polytune tuner pedal. (I know, I realize it's a dedicated tuning pedal) I'm not even talking about the multiple strings tuning, I'd like like them to read out similarly. I do use the polytune in strobe mode, but It's always been accurate for me and the readout for it has been great. I'll try using the helix tuner again tonight (just updated to 2.20 and haven't used it to tune after my initial tests).

Just to pitch in...I'm not happy with the tuner either. When I'm tuning at home, I can hear how much the note is off, almost like a little microtone of range of give on either side of the note. I can tell the difference at home, haven't gigged with it yet. Edit: To clarify, I'm talking about the green zone, not implying the tuner isn't accurate. I'm sure it's reading the pitches fine, but I'd like the green space to be more accurate

Tonight I'm going to try that. I will say that when I initially got the helix, I ran my full pedalboard into an ABY box with my AC30 and the helix on the outputs. I was running an AC30 amp sim tailored to kind of match my own and switching from between the Helix and the Amp sounded nearly identical. The difference was almost like having a different amp made in a different era sitting next to a more modern reissue of the amp. Different flavor but same for the most part. Everything was reacting as I expected it too. The downside is the ABY was passive, so connecting the helix to the ac30 like that introduced a hum. I also noticed when plugin in some inputs and outputs in the helix and some of the pedals that I was hearing radio when I just slightly put in the plug and didn't click it in all the way. Must mean something is acting like an antenna? probably unrelated to my ts9 issue because it was sounding fine when i had my board output straight to helix. It could just be ear fatigue, but after messing around with the ts9 in all the different positions it was starting to sound like lollipop all throughout...I'm hoping it wasn't damaged in any way.

Phil, I do not have the input pad active, my impedence is auto, but I will try 1m or 500k as suggested by someone else below tonight. I have the 1/4 out set to instrument and have the knobs only active for xlr output so in theory, all the signal is being sent through to the 1/4 out with no volume knob tampering. this should also give me unity gain, right? I'll have more tinkering to do tonight. maybe i need more cable run? When my pedalboard is straight to the amp, I get the sounds I want. granted there's wires all over the place. With the helix, i'm sure there's buffers and such at play and the cable runs between pedals are shorter

I added the eq in front and out didn't change the result. To avoid any signal doubling, i have the 1a input to guitar only (no 1b) and then fx loop 1, 2, 3, and 4,then out the 1/4 inch only to the amp. I'm getting concerned because I can't turn the drive knob on the Ts9 any lower, and is just sounding bad, even when I play with the level and tone knobs. I recorded a comparison with my setup, so I'll upload soon.

I always keep it in True bypass, never had any problems until now with the helix