StruckingFuggle

Yes. On my high-gain tones where I have a hard gate, both with the Helix tuner and my external Polytune.

If I can swap snapshot or control buttons using capacitive touch, why can't I swap looper control buttons? I never use the 1/2 speed or reverse buttons, and I dislike having the play once button in the second row. Seems like I should be able to swap the location of those controls. Is that possible?

When I put an IR in my signal path, it always starts at -18db. Is there a reason for this? Where does the IR level fit in the gain stage? Is it just another volume control? Does it affect the sound of the IR? Or is it like the output volume? I find that I have to run my 3 Sigma IRs at about -6db to replace a stock cab.

I don't think there would ever be a reason to connect a speaker cable to Helix. Only use shielded instrument or mic cable.

I've purchased Redwirez and 3 Sigma. So far, the 3 Sigma have worked better for me an the patches I'm building. I stuck with cabs I know (Mesa V30s and Fender Twin), and I blend them to get the sound I like. The Redwirez packs are, for me, overwhelming. If you *know* that you want the sound of an Orange cab with Vintage 30s taken at 1" directly on the cone, then Redwirez might be for you. If you just want to try a few IRs, and you know what kind of cabinet you want, then go 3 Sigma. It's $7. You can't buy a cheeseburger at 5 Guys for that.

I upgraded from 2.12->2.20 today. It went without a hitch. I followed the instructions to the letter, used the spreadsheet to make a copy of the globals (whoever posted that, thanks!!). What I noticed is that the presets *seem* to be more consistent volume-wise from one to the next. I remember running through the original set of presets with pre-2.12 (2.01?, not sure), and thinking "do they even test these before shipping it?". Went back through every preset today after the upgrade. Some presets are still very quiet compared to others, but overall it does seem like the presets have been normalized. Completely subjective, because I'm not downgrading back to 2.12 to find out. I'm definitely enjoying 2.20 more than 2.12, but mainly because I'm finally starting to find my way home with some of the models. I now have two patches (with four snapshots) that could probably get me through an entire gig, and I'm really starting to dig the sounds. I really wanted the 3-band compressor. When I switch to my neck pickup I want to tame some low end. The release note clearly reference changes to the effects blocks (optimized for less intensive dsp, etc). All the presets use something from those blocks.

Holy crap. How can we get to the tone in that video around 7:45? Blues driver into a clean Lonestar. I NEED that tone. Like right now. :)

That's cabinet grade painted plywood. Spraypainted, btw. Nothing but the best. 🤘

I have two rack drawers full of really nice pedals that I used with a loop switch. I've A/B'd all my distortion/OD pedals with Helix, and found Helix just as good (for what I do). But I'm having a hard time letting go of that Mobius. And no disrespect to Helix's delays, but my Timeline may just end up on that board as well. With the loops and MIDI it's all just so flexible and powerful. I'm not doing fly gigs, so weight and space constraints don't matter. If I was traveling, it'd be just Helix and a polytune.

You could assign a footswitch to bypass the gate during the song. When I was using my pedals and loop switch I actually had the gate input/output on a loop. I would switch it out when I didn't want it mucking up my tone, and in when I needed it to squash noise. It's always a fine line, and sometimes not worth the effort. Just like using analog, I try to clean up the signal and gain structure as much as a I can before applying gate. They are always a compromise. If you have a single patch, with a single guitar, you may be able to fine tune it. But with guitar changes, venue changes, volume changes, patch editing on the fly, seems like I'm always fighting either stutter or tone suck due to the gate. With Helix I just won't use the input "noise gate". I am using the hard gate as a block on some of my high gain patches, just to shut up the hiss if I'm away from the pedal for a few seconds at the end of a song. It's something I notice a lot when I'm dialing in patches by myself, but in a live environment playing with a full band in a loud venue with a crowd, not so much.

Because I paid $450 for it. Lol. Actually, I love the Mobius. The effects are top notch. They're so good, and I'm so comfortable with them, that to recreate them using Helix effects would take time that I currently don't have. Helix mod effects are great. With enough time and effort I can probably take the Mobius off the board. But for now, why not both? I have an embarrassment of mod effect riches. :) Life is grand.

I haven't found the Helix high gain models to be any noisier than their counterparts. Have you had a 100 watt rectifier being fed by a ts808 at high volumes? I've just trained myself over years of performing live to step into a clean channel when the song ends. I've had a lot of gates, and some have worked great for certain applications. Decimator makes great stuff. If you've run out of DSP, then maybe I could see using an external gate, but with the options available in Helix, and the ability to step to a lower gain patch easily, I can't see using one. But I have a TC Electronic Sentry for sale, if you're interested. :)

That sounds great. Sounds like it's not a lot of gain, so the clarity is there. Will definitely try this out with my seven string with the release after 2.20. I'm not jumping in there yet. :)

Thanks for the replies. I didn't realize that Helix had both a noise gate and a hard gate. The hard gate behaves as I would expect. I can place that at the end of my chain, and it does what I need. I had been using the noise gate on the input block, whcixh does kind of work, but affects the time in ways I wasn't expecting.

It's got to be the room. I think I'm just kind of in overload with way too many variables. I've read that it's best to keep the L2t in pa mode, and up the patch. When no reasonable amount of eq would make it better then I should have known. Floor coupling, room resonance, and just inexperience chasing Helix/frfr issues. As a side note, I'm enjoying the 3 Sigma IRs. I'm blending the Fender 2x12 and the mesa 4x12. Either one by themselves is pretty icky. But together I get the fat fender and thumpy mesa. Sounding pretty good with the archon lead. I need to print out a Hitchhiker's Guide poster. "Don't Panic". Thanks for all the responses.

I don't hear it in the headphones directly from the Helix, or through headphones when I'm plugged into my DAW. I do hear it if I use my studio monitors or the L2t in PA Reference mode, which means it has to be the room, right? My studio is a bedroom, which isn't very big, but does have 10 foot ceilings. Over the weekend I was noticing this awful warbling sound on higher pitched notes, like a chorus set super fast. I started bypassing everything, got down to only just an amp block and could still clearly hear it. I was convinced it was some digital modeling thing that just sounded different. I asked my wife to listen to it, to see if she could hear it, and she definitely could. But while she was in there she says "aren't you cold, do you want me to turn off the ceiling fan?" And hey, the warbling slowed down and stopped. Omg. Ceiling fan Doppler effect.

I did some more experimenting last night, and I think it's a combination of guitar, l2t, and room. If I put the L2t in floor monitor mode it's not nearly as bad. If I change guitars so something with a single coil it's also better. The L2t seems to just be really boomy in ref mode in that room. Even just listening to the video I made, if I turn it up I hear it excite the room. With the L2t in floor mode I can put some bass back into it without getting too boomy. So many variables and places to tweak. Amp, cab, impulse, eq block, global, and L2 mode. I'll try building some patches in floor mode, but I'm concerned that's kind of like building patches with headphones. Is what I send FOH going to be completely different?

I downloaded some IRs from 3 Sigma, and I'm still trying very hard to like Helix, but some things are driving me bonkers. For example, there is this honky hum when I play a muted A note (open string or 5th fret). I've tried using a parametric EQ low sweep at -12db, a global EQ sweep, low cutting the IRs at 200hz, and turning the bass down on the Archetype lead model. If I roll the bass off enough to get rid of this honking, then the whole low end is gone. If I don't, every time I play an A chord the room vibrates. It's only one specific frequency. Am I hearing resonance in the room? Or is this an Lt2 issue? I've tried both PA reference mode connected by link cable, and floor monitor mode connected with XLR to channel 1. It gets a little better in floor monitor mode, but again the whole bottom drops out. Don't know if you can hear it on the video, but the hum with that one note is super loud in the room. I can't seem to EQ it out without killing the low end (parametric, graphic, or global). Any suggestions? I'm just starting to feel like Helix is just never going to work for me live. It sounds great direct to my DAW, but I just can't figure out how to get this Lt2 to sound good at stage volume. I seem to get either super bright, with no low end, or honk. No middle ground.

I've used a lot of noise gates, and I just don't understand how the noise gate in Helix works. Typically the a gate is either fully open, or fully closed. You can adjust the threshold at which it opens and closes, and how fast it closes. The noise gate on the multi input on Helix does not work like that. Changing the threshold definitely affects the amount of gain hitting the signal chain. Am I the only one that hears this? I know that gates will clip sustain, but the gate in Helix kills the tone like no gate I've ever used.

First live practice with Helix tomorrow. Patches are in the ballpark. Snapshots are set up. This should be interesting. Currently resisting the temptation to upgrade to 2.20. Hmm...... My 18 years as a firmware engineer are only making it harder. It's like Golumn having a conversation with Smeagol. You knows you wants it. But it might crashes. We are smart, we can fixes it. No, we promised we would go to bed. Cowardly toad, it has the new powers. Yes but if we breaks it we will be angry.

I went and played some hollow and semi-hollow bodies today. I just could not get into them. Must have played 15 guitars today. Came home and spent quite a bit of time tweaking my tone, and I think I'm getting something acceptable. Using Glen's Dumble OD patch, and coil tapping my PRS Mccarty bridge pickup. Every time I listen to this track I'm just amazed at how good this guitar player is. What a tasty track. The more I play it, the more I realize it's really mostly in his fingers. The chord voicing he uses puts his track in a different space than then rythm player. His timing and bends are just....cool. I know it's a pop track, but that dude can flat out play. Its so subtle, that if you weren't analyzing it you probably don't realize how great the guitar work is. I'm learning more about how to use snapshots and how my pickups are going to react with the amps in Helix. My Mobius tremelo sounds great on the opening, and I've got the fx loop assigned to the expression pedal, so I can mix the tremelo during the verse. It's cool that I can add a bit of output volume for the snapshots where I coil tap. I'm getting there. :)

Yea, I think you're right. I've never owned a semi-hollow. I wonder if I could get by with an Epiphone 335 or something similar? Have to be under $500. Maybe used. Thanks everybody for the suggestions!

I've been asked to learn the lead parts for "One Headlight" by The Wallflowers, and it's quite intimidating. That guy has amazing timing and tone. I can't figure out how he gets that spongy soft distortion. Check out the left channel of the song around 2:00. What a fantastic tone! I've tried single coils, tapped humbuckers, humbuckers, and I just can't even come close. It's either way to clean/plucky, or too dirty and shrill. Any suggestions? That tone just jumps out of the mix. When he digs in it gets gritty, but sounds awesome. When I play along with it using any of the tones I've tried to build, it's just buried. No pop.

Upvoted both. Thanks!

Bummer. Sometimes I'm coming from clean to lead, and it's a couple buttons away. It's easy to hover over the lead button, and get it on time. But it can be hard to get back to clean on time all while singing and playing (and looking fabulous). RJM Mastermind supports this feature. Would be nice.