rvroberts

While what people say about HiFi systems is correct, they are being audio snobs in my opinion. If you start by treating a HiFi as FRFR - with High and low cuts typical of FRFR - i.e. cut below 100Hz at 24dB - in other words a drastic cut, and the same above 5.5KHz - use the Global EQ - (yes, there are 100 arguments why you should do it per patch - and they just confuse the inexperienced) then it will start to sound better. If your HiFi has a typical hi and low boost, you might end up at 120Hz and 4.5KHz - but you will be in the ballpark. You probably need a mid boost too - just a few DB over a gentle curve - you will need to experiment - but maybe at 1K - and you should be able to get a reasonable serviceable sound out of your Helix. Anyone who says just plug it into your guitar amp is so far off course it's not funny - all the presets have amp sims - and are not designed to be plugged into a guitar amp. The HX Effects is designed to work with a guitar amp and that is why it does not have amp sims. Yes, you can use a Helix like HX Effects, but you'd be crazy now the HX effects exists. The Helix simulates guitar amps and speakers - which needs FRFR - full range flat response sound system. Yor HiFi is probably not true FRFR, but it's closer to FRFR than a guitar amp! What this person is complaining about I'd say is the same thing - call it Fizz or harsh - that people who don't set up correct EQ always complain about. I use FRFR for live, but I plug into my stereo at home and can get quiet a decent low volume sound - studio monitors will be better sure, but a good quality HiFi is pretty close to studio monitors - all things considered - you just got to realise the emphasis on extra thump and top.

Seem to read something like this every second post! The answer above is correct, but unreasonably brief! I guess we all get sick of answering this same question. Also, the way you play the Helix back needs to be known. So you have people going FRFR or straight into a desk/monitors. Then you have people using a power amp into a guitar speaker box, and you also have people using a guitar amp and speakers. They all need to be handled differently. I'm going to try to do this simply - what comes out of the Helix will need to be adjusted for these options. So generally, you are trying to get the experience of a guitar amp while using a modeller into something like FRFR. FRFR is full range flat response - a guitar amp and speaker is not. The normal thing to do is set a low cut at around 100Hz and a high cut at 5 or 5.5kHz. This clamps the range to a typical guitar speaker, and then all of a sudden things sound like you expect. You can do that globally (global EQ) or per preset so you can maybe leave some clean sounds a bit more HiFi. I just do it globally, and I've never found that the slightest limitation. Some will argue with that. Obviously, you would use much different numbers if you were going into a guitar speaker and power amp - you would also probably avoid using speaker simulation all together. So the correct answer is it depends on your circumstances - but expect to need to use the high and low cut either per patch or globally. Think about this as a studio in a box, not an effects pedal or a guitar amp. Also you need to be aware of the Fletcher Munsen effect. your tone will vary with volume - it happens to everything - got nothing to do with he Helix - but becomes way more obvious because people build sounds at very low levels and then go to a gig and wonder why it sounds wrong. Try all your patches you intend to use live at realistic volume to tweak - bass in particular. Oh, and you will therefore need to rebuild all your presets with that low/high cut - but it is totally worth it - even the most pristine clean sounds better built with a cut something like that. And they suddenly feel good to play - all the touchy feely thing is suddenly there. And be very careful with downloaded presets - look to see if they have this built into the speaker or IR - you don't want to do it twice. IRs are another place where anything might be the case - so when you get that a huge cut in the lows and highs is not only OK but needed, feel free to use your ears! Who knows how that IR was made. you might be getting some cut in the IR. you might be hearing a mic an inch from the cone and that always is harsh without some taming. So it's not just plug and play - the 100Hx and 5.5KHz thing is a 90% fix though!

Just looking at this....am I correct in believing that you need to use midi if you want to change speaker models from the Helix?

I just don't understand why you would want to use the Helix in such a way. If you use 8 stomp boxes in any one song I'd be surprised. Why wouldn't you want to use a number of patches containing a pile of stomps each? Then you can vary the gain a little on the overdrive, use a slightly different EQ, a different delay time etc while still being able to jump on a large number of stomps any time you want to. And you could use as many as your heart desired. Also, one of the Helix's strengths over a normal pedal board is that one switch can turn on or off a batch of pedals all at once on one switch - again, why wouldn't you want that? I know people who don't play regularly in a band so setting up songs doesn't interest them - and just want a wide range of stomps for jamming - still, you could just set up 3 or 4 patches with all the likely suspects for each style. And you wouldn't need another pedal ever.

I have a highcut at about 5 - 5.5K and my sound is described as bright. What you should be thinking about is not the guitar, but the total system - we are used to hearing a guitar through an amp and speaker. Typically, if you look on the Celestion web site you will see your favorite speakers frequency response - that has significant low cut and serious roll off in the high end. 100Hz to 5.5KHz is the main frequency range for most of the systems we regard as classic guitar sound. The Helix lets you set that how you want, so you might actually go for a more extreme toppy clean if you so desire - as you point out, 8K would be extreme given there isn't much up there. Amps - real amps without speakers do output a fizzy sound - it's the combination that works together. Also typically, we hear recorded guitar sound through a mic and the EQ on the desk, and it is very normal to EQ a guitar post the mic as it also adds colour to the sound. So why do you need a horn? Well you don't - but most flat response systems use one to work with the natural range of the bass speaker to fill in the top end to get a flat sound. What matters in FRFR is that you have a relatively flat frequency response to allow the accurate simulation of the effects, amp, speakers and mic to be reproduced. Then you can change the speaker and mic and get a realistic simulation of using a different box and mic - if the speaker system you use isn't reasonably flat, you end up colouring the sound so that you don't get that difference coming through. So it's about feeding all the lovely mid boost and frequency curves of real stuff into something that can reproduce that, not colour it. Finally, if a high cut at 12.5K is killing the top in your sound, I'd start by setting up a typical high and low cut and then EQing you sound using amp and speakers, as I can only imagine you have some wild compensation going on - as you say, it's way outside the range of a guitar, let alone a typical guitar sound. If you start with the cuts in place, you can always experiment with them later, but I think you'll find your tone starts to be way more warm and full and satisfying. If you need to lift the top end save it till last - above 6.5K most distortion gets harsh and then fizzy. This all applies to FRFR - if you go into a guitar speaker, you already got a lot of sound shaping going on and using any speaker simulation like an IR is likely to make your sound muffled.

Why don't you just go to youtube and watch the videos? I put this into youtube search - How to use snapshots for line 6 Helix I got this and a whole lot of others -

I think you have a faulty unit. I don’t get any noise at all.

You have way to many variables in this discussion. There is A - going into the input of the amp, B- going into the effects return and C - 4 cable method. You don't even say what model of Blackstar you use. There are fully traditional tube Blackstar amps and full simulation models (basically a stripped down helix into an FRFR system). So anything anyone says here could be way off course. What comes out of the Helix needs to be channeled into a frequency and sound environment that (in most cases) simulates a real amp and effects in a traditional setup. So people address the frequency response and characteristics of a real speaker box by using an IR and EQ - you can do the EQ in lots of places in the Helix. Using EQ in the effects chain, in the IR or cab model or in global EQ - and you can get the same result either way, as long as it is after the amp/cab combo. However feeding into a traditional Tube amp, you don't normally do that at all - the amp is doing that part for you. Into a modelling amp, all bets are off - you need to know how it's doing what it is doing. The return on your amp might be very similar to an FRFR system, or it might be adding a tube power stage and a speaker that interact to produce a different (traditional) effect. Normally, you would only feed classic effects pedals (I mean the Helix simulations of) into the guitar input - no amps or speaker simulations. If you amp has models of its own, then that is how you would use the Helix. You might be able to use the Return, but you then need to know what it is doing to the sound - normally that is where you would put stuff you don't want coloured like reverb and delay. You would normally not use amp models with a guitar amp at all, although it is possible and can work (depending!!).

Snapshots are not for changing whole patches. They are intended more for say setting up a rig of one (or maybe at most 2) amps and speaker combination and then changing pedals to adjust for different parts of the song. you can turn on multiple pedals with one snapshot, and you can change a number of parameters all with one snapshot, so you might turn on chorus, increase the amp gain, and turn off the echo all at once. To totally change your rig, you would normally go to a new preset (patch) where you would have a few snapshots that turned on and off a batch of stuff running with a totally different amp speaker combo. Now, depending on your DSP and your skill of programming your Helix, you might actually be able to have 2 full patches combined in one patch and change them with a snapshot, but that would not be normally the case, and the amount of effects you could have in that patch if it contained 2 totally different amps and speakers would be limited. I think you are trying to use snapshots where you should be changing patches. Most of us have a number of patches with full rigs that suit either just one particular song each patch or at least say one for high gain stuff, one for lower gain and one for say super clean stuff. Not that you can't build a patch that does super clean and high gain in the one patch - there are lots of those also. But if you wanted to go from a metal sound to vintage Hendrix, you should really be changing just about everything in the patch, so a new patch is the better solution. The factory presets are as you might notice, each in their own patch. (or preset).

Agree!

yes, anything to reduce the noise regarding updating errors. It is far to easy for a new user to get this wrong. The other common new user problem for Helix users (probably irrelevant to HX Effects users) is a simple discussion of what comes out of the Helix by default as apposed to what comes out of a guitar amp speaker cab, so all the "fizzy" stuff that again wastes so much time could be minimised. This might even help people find their way to FRFR solutions without pain and frustration.

I have to say that I love my Helix, but I don't love the looper - yes, it's a sitting duck for an update to be a truly cool thing! Don't use it but would sell my ditto if it was improved. Would get very interesting if you had say 2 loops that you could save and select, drop in and out of record etc.

This may not be the issue, but you are running a very old version of OSX - came out in 2012 (10.8.5 maybe 2013)................I'm assuming there is some software that is keeping you to that old OS? I would think you need to update for all kinds of reasons? Even internet/web stuff must be giving you trouble?

Great links! Very useful - thanks

I think someone's just having some fun with us!

You should not get a shock!!! Check the power you are plugging into to be sure the earth is good. Make sure your power lead to the Helix is good. Disconnect everything else from the helix except your guitar. If you are still getting a shock take it back immediately. If disconnecting everything else solves the problem, then the earth problem is somewhere else.

I don't own an LT - I've got the full floor unit - but I seriously doubt you have correctly sorted the problem. It's a batch of electronics in a metal box - so it should be totally shielded. Just because you unplug some cables and remove hum does not mean the thing you unplugged was faulty or extremely noisy, just that the other devices don't have a ground relationship until you introduce that piece of kit. Somewhere recently someone discussed noise and how to deal with it - they actually suggested disconnecting the earth wire on some leads. Which can work, but you really need to know what you are doing if you go down that road. If the eathing were to not ground everything somewhere in the path, you could zap yourself. Why don't you try to borrow some isolation units and see if that also solves your problem? (try it on your amp or other gear - not just the Helix) Or better still, take your stuff to an audio expert - preferably one with musical equipment experience? You must know that plenty of people are running rigs with some similarity to yours without problem? Some examples - or in the studio - in the studio.Now it's not the LT, but it is the same electronics inside that box.........so very unlikely to be different. You might find a ground lift for your amp solves everything? Unless your particular unit is faulty.........it's not the Helix. I assume you have tried the ground lift on the Helix itself?

Did you look at the attached image - he shows that he is in global settings and he is adjusting the footswitch setting...........

The Genelec speakers are professional monitors. But they aren't designed to give you a good experience playing guitar. They might be very accurate in the mids and vocal range, and tend to be popular with editors and video professionals cutting voice, but they got very little bottom end, and you are unlikely to find that you get a satisfying guitar sound - I'd go for less quality and broader frequency range if you are firstly a guitar player. While the idea "you get what you pay for" has truth, these speakers are designed for a different job - which they do well.

I think most of the people above seem to be not hearing you say that the sound is "mega super-bright". Assuming your mega super is anything like what the rest of us call mega super - something's wrong! I don't find the Marshall models bright at all and I use a Strat. (so did Richie Blackmore and that other unknown Jimi Hendrix) I suspect either your low and high cuts are not set correctly, or the chain after the Helix is weird. You don't say what you play through - and amp, FRFR etc. I'd turn on and off your EQ cuts to make sure that's working first (do you do it in the preset or with globals?). And please tell us what your total signal chain is.

Well if you weren't using high cut and low cut filters before, then by running the sound through a speaker like the one you have, you effectively are now doing that. Although that's not all there is to it, it can very possibly sound better than it did into FRFR. What you will find is less variation from IR to IR in this setup. I'd be expecting a bit too much bottom end with that speaker just looking at it, so you might get a tighter bottom that cuts better in a band situation if you add some low cut, but if it sounds good, it is good!

Well it sounds OK.........not bad. Not great. What I hear though is a sound that does not match your screen shot! There is lots of Flanging - but no flanger in your chain?? Let me suggest that you go into global EQ and set the low cut at 100hz then high cut somewhere around 5-6KHz. Take any classic amp with a matching cab with nothing else and see how that sounds. If you have no sustain still, check your input impedance. Auto normally is fine. And try to hear it through speakers (totally flat stereo should be OK) Not into a guitar amp. Yes, I suspect your headphones too like others - some headphones seem to work badly with the Helix. And talking about that, are the headphones plugged into the Helix or your DAW? Unless there is something faulty with your Helix (not likely given your sound sample), you have to accept that the patch you were shown sounds good - just not in your setup. So there is something at your end causing your problem.

Well yes and no! Removing the IRs will be a first step. As you are using a different speaker and your amp will also be colouring the sound, you will need to tweak somewhat till you get close to the expected result. Depending on the sound that was intended and the IR, that might be very little or a lot! You can't get the sound of a Vox AC30 through blue backs and a Fender Twin with say JBLs all that accurately out of your 1x12 Blackstar cab. You might get close with some well chosen EQ though. The other thing that might be a bit different will be where delay and modulation is used - if it's post the IR (for a more studio sound) you obviously will get a slightly different effect there too. The IR is essentially the speaker and the Mic combined - so it's a bit different to a speaker on it's own. Which leads to my last thought, make sure you have no Stereo effects!

You need to run Logic in 64bit mode - To switch, close logic. Then right click on the Logic icon in your applications folder and select "get info." There will be a check box that says "Run Logic in 32-bit mode." Uncheck that box and Logic will automatically open in 64-bit. Logic pro 9 does not run under Mac OS high Sierra - so don't upgrade!

I generally find that when I hear negative things about drive pedals in general on the Helix (obviously depending on the type of sounds you like, you will like some and not others!!), it is due not to the pedals, but to the overall system EQ. Drive is all about midrange push - even possibly more than actual gain/distortion - when I hear things like harsh or too hi fi, I'm almost sure the top end is set too high (high cut). As a modelling tool, the Helix needs to sound like a drive into the front of an amp coming out into a speaker box in a room. The speaker box/mic simulation always needs some care. You would not expect to hear much above 6KHz coming out of a guitar cab. Also, the other thing that makes certain amp and speaker combinations loved is some midrange accentuation - where that happens is different for each famous combo - so a Vox AC30 through Celestion Blues, has a certain brightness and cut that a Marshall through 4x Greenbacks doesn't. The Marshall rig will have a much more prominent low end though. People might call that punch. So it's an organic thing. Those who know those 2 amps for example also know that different drive pedals work better with each amp. Again, it's about the combination - some drive pedals sound very harsh with a Vox. I'd be looking at my total signal chain - I swear that if you do a good match to the speaker you expect to hear, the rest of the simulation is so close that you need to be in studio conditions to pick the difference - and even then it will be subtle - not good or bad, just very slightly different. On a stage through FRFR, I've never heard myself so well and consistent night to night - sounds great every night! So if a drive pedal you know should sound good doesn't, I'd be looking at either my speaker sim/IR and low and high cuts, or global EQ. And when you tweak that and get a better distortion, there's every chance your clean is actually improved too.