zooey

Andy Timmons I'm pretty sure uses the clean channel of a Lone Star for everything. With his signature drive and compressor pedals though...

Re the wahs, personally, I think a simple resonance control for each of them would add a lot more than the subtle differences between modeling generations.

Wow, very cool. So how much do you charge for these ;)

Hmmm, a number of my patches have two cabs in parallel like yours, don't have that problem. I do mix them back to mono though, with a unity gain volume block. FX after that are stereo, for spacial-ness, but I want the cabs themselves on both sides, otherwise the mix of them changes when I move around. Which doesn't actually answer your question, because I don't know :) Works For Me , which is about as unhelpful as it gets...

Your 2 amps may be able to use the same 2 IR blocks. If both amps are on at the same time, could you run them both through the same cab pair? Can't do that easily or safely in the real world, but here it's fine. If it's one amp or the other on at a time, snapshots or footswitches can change which IRs are used, like any other parameter. Big advantage over built in cabs, where each cab is a different block type. And if none of that works for you, try just doing the 2 amps and 4 IRs you want. Split everything as evenly as possible between paths (DSP chips), Depending on how much other stuff you absolutely have to have, it may all fit. You won't break anything by trying ;)

If you're auditioning IRs, pedal edit is the way to go. You can step through the loaded IRs with the increment/decrement footswitches.

Agree that it has way too much gain. I use a static volume block instead of a pedal, same idea. You can also switch in one or more EQ blocks when you turn it on -- before the fuzz, between it and the amp, between the amp and the cab/IR, after everything, etc, they'll all sound different.

Phase isn't binary in the real world, unless the two sources are extremely well correlated. You're still absolutely right that flipping it is worth a try if you don't like what you're hearing though. Some IR makers offer Minimum Phase versions, which are reputed to be subtly less natural on their own, but combine better with ones from other makers. I'm not sure exactly what processing is involved, how effective it is in particular specific cases, or even what companies offer it, but it is a thing.

If a high gain channel has too much gain for what you want to do, put a volume block before it and turn it down.

Back in my early days of hardware synths, many of them had a simple Compare button -- press it once to hear the original patch before you modified it, navigate through its settings to see what they were -- press it again to go back to your edited version. I'd love that feature for Helix. Nothing fancy to understand, very little memory required, no complex recording of every micro-action so it can be undone, it's just simply useful. Today I tend to save multiple versions of a patch, which is super flexible since they're all there, but then you have to deal with all of them. I kind of like the idea that instead, you'd just have to decide, is this version better than the original or not? You can always save multiple versions if you want anyway.

4 patches and 4 snapshots is how I do it too, hit Mode to get to the rest of the stomps. I don't usually create more than 4 snapshots per patch, just because there's no great way to navigate between full sets of patches, snapshots, and stomp switches. You could use an external midi footswitch for one of those layers, but I really like that Helix is self-contained. More snapshots close to hand instead of some stomps is totally reasonable if you prefer.

Just to say it, I've never heard him sound anything other than stellar -- any music, any guitar, any rig. He's just gifted, and I'm sure he works really hard too.

About comparing settings, other than saving as a separate preset, if you have available DSP, you could copy the amp block into another location in that preset, and fiddle with the copy. You can then set up a footswitch to turn on off and they either on, for quick comparison. Of course you'd need to know you want to do that before you start editing yourself away from option 1, so you save the "original" first. I very often end up with a bunch of copies of a preset next to each other, hopefully but not always positive evolution over time.

Shred, which 3Sigma IR is that one you use?

Hmmm, don't know what's wrong w me, but though I've objected to gates in the past, I typically have the input block gate on for all but my clean snapshots, and it's not bothering me. No explanation, just the facts. Ma'am.

Not your main point, but you can turn the input block gate on and off per snapshot, or with a gain-inducing block footswitch.

They're aren't any additional blocks in either native or hardware versions, they've got the same ones. Neither one includes any IRs, just the built-in cabs. Big software feature difference is that snapshots aren't supported in native yet, but I'm sure they will be eventually. I'm not clear on what happens to existing snapshots brought over from hardware if you edit them in native (not a native user yet). I'd suggest research and caution in that regard.

Personally, I thought the 3Sigma IRs were very scooped, so much so that I hardly ever use the few I have. Maybe try some others, or even the stock cabs, which IMO are NOT as useless as you'll hear said sometimes. I'm not a high gain guy much, so this may not apply, but I like most other IR brands more -- Ownhammer, CabIR, Celestion, Dr Bonkers... And stock cabs.

You're leaving out dual cabs :)

Interesting. Timmy and Klon in series I assume? What order? Approximate settings?

Care to post clips and ideally presets of those ferocious tones from the other amps? Not generally my thing exactly, but I'd probably learn Some Stuff.

Don't know if it matters to you, but Helix Native is also way cheaper if you own a full Helix vs an LT.

Or, stick a parametric or Mesa EQ (or both) as roughly the first thing in your chain, and adjust until you've filled out what you feel is missing. It's not like humbuckers are the Holy Grail, seems like you're just looking for a more full tone.

My assumption is that factory presets are designed for generic "flat" FRFRs unless labeled otherwise. I've never seen a note like that, but I've barely used any of them. What else could they have in mind?

Don't know what you're after really, but to me the Arbiter has way way way too much gain, baggy fuzzy mess you could never even hear live. I've messed with an EQ block before it, gain really low, maybe some kind of nicening curve on it. Kinda cool maybe, never got super happy though. Not at all the same thing, but check out the Clawthorn, may be some interesting options in there.