zooey

Just for the recoprd, I'm not really going to take my own advice much when my Helix comes. No way I can get two, and I haven't been enjoying my real amp lately anywhere near as much as Amplitube and Scuffham ITB, which I dn't really want to play out with. That's what got me looking at Helix in the first place.So what's my backup? Dunno.

I saw lots of requests for the 2c on ideascale, some for Mark V, but exactly zero for the Mark III, though I might have missed them, search there isn't awesome. I like the other AT Mesas too (except the TA, which I expected to love and really don't), but the Mark III is my fave. Just to be clear, I'm NOT after super high gain. What's special to me about the AT Mark III is how it behaves when it's overdriven a little but not a lot. Specifically, as I said, I like running the master hot and channel gain low. Looking for some fatness and sort-of-compression-but-not-really, might be sag, and I love how it digs in when I pick harder. I often have several different overdrive stomps set up in a patch like that, so as saved it's clean but fat, then I can kick in one of the higher gain stomps for a solo if I want, but it's still nowhere near metal territory. Oddly enough, one common overdrive I use is just the 7-band graphic with some gain and tailored EQ. On the Mesas especially, that can sound just awesome to me. I've also found uses for most of the overdrives and some of the fuzzes, I just don't jack em up that far usually. One thing that makes the AT Mesas work so well for me is that built-in EQ post the preamp. (Not that big a fan of the rack EQs in AT, though the parametric is useful.) I often kill low end before the amp to prevent flatulence, then fatten and brighten it up after w the Mesa EQ. Clearly, adding EQ blocks anywhere I want isn't a problem w Helix, so I expect to be quite happy on that level.

Then you need a backup, as inconvenient and potentially expensive as that is. Might not be the same device for monetary reasons, at least initially, but *something*.

Thinking about this more, I think another thing involed here is the pan law in the split, exactly how the left and right levels change a you change balance control. There's no one right answer, and some fancy consoles let you change it to your liking, but clearly it's important here. If the amount each channel is attenuated when the blaance control is centered.doesn't line up with the same thing on the merge, you could get behavior like this. Try this: Pan the signal all the way to one side, and do the same test. It wouldn't suprise me if the level drop went away. Maybe not, but it'd be an interesting test. L6 kind of does need to chime in at this level.

For years, lots of devices that don't know anything about beat divisions have let you set delay time by tapping, just sets it to the average time between your taps. The MIDI-related beat/tempo stuff is certainly useful, IF you're synched to a DAW or something, but it shouldn't have replaced basic common sense tap-tempo functionality if you're not.

^^^ this.

It's not the general tone quality I'm questioning, it's the kind of fat-but-not-too-dirty thing the Mark III in AT does so well. I'm thinking a number of not-metal Helix amps might get there, maybe by turning up some sag, just have ot wait and try it myself I guess. Was just wondering if anyone had any sense that there are *some* amps in there with that kind of thing going on.

Thanks folks, good points all. Good to know things are improving. I'm a software dev myself (not audio though, so far), and yup, *everything* has bugs. Question is a) does it lose or destroy data, b) does it seriously interfere with most people's use of the tool? I'm not hearing about data corruption issues (unlike the Amplitube preset overwriting bug I reported, which they confirmed a month ago and promised an urgent fix for that hasn't appeared...), and most people seem to be enjoying Helix. So overall, I guess I should just chill, stop second-guessing myself, wait until I get mine (I postponed it a couple weeks due to insane life ATM), and see how it goes.

Forgive my probable ignorance here, don't have a Helix yet, but bear with me for a second. If you split a signal into two separate unity gain paths, then sum them together, it'd end up louder, because you're adding two copies of the signal together, an increase of 3db. You'd have to reduce the level at the summer by 3db to get the same level you started with. If instead of splitting the signal, you had an A/B switcher, where only one side of the split is live at a time, that doesn't happen. It's unity gain into the split, unity gain back at the summer, so it's unity gain through the whole chain. From the name 'Split A/B' (which is all I know about it), maybe that block is designed to be used as either an A/B switcher (one side live at a time), or a true split (both sides always live). If that's the case, either it or the summer needs to have its gain adjusted differently for those two cases. It's not exactly a bug or a feature, it's physics, or maths, really. Make sense?

Don't have a Helix yet, it's coming, but besides excited, I'm a little scared. There are so many apparently real bug reports here. It's seriously great that they're getting reported and talked about, but it kind of makes it seem like it's still early going in firmware-land, not quite soup yet. In people's experience, are bugs getting fixed? When they are, do new ones often get introduced? In other words, is it getting better?

Hi folks, new here, have a Helix coming in a couple weeks (too much going on at my house to take delivery right now), hoping I'm doing the right thing, for instance... One of my favorite amp sim sounds is Amplitube's Mesa MkIII. I often run the master dimed and input gain very low, gets this really great not-very-distorted-but-fat tone. Is there anything in Helix like that? Like what amp models? Have to say, while I'm super excited about everything Helix can do, I'm worried about the small number of Mesa and Orange models in particular, since I really lean on those in Amplitube. Any other Amplitube fans here? Are you happy in Helix-land? I know that's a stupid question, since there are tons of really different amps in Amplitube, but hey, I'm anxious, trying to get a handle on what to check out first, wondering if I'm going to like Helix's sounds as much as think I do its features and form factor.