WickedFinger

Supposedly on release day?? is there any advance copy available for those of use already on the wait list? I would love to study on the unit's features before unboxing.

That's OK, I just sold it. I dig like the Helix once I got the right IRs it started really happening for me. It's just I am not 30 anymore and spending so much time tweaking and headphone work is something I need to start getting away from. The Helix has an infinite param adjust variability and I am getting where I cannot keep wrapping my head around so many options. I need to be able to just shut up and play my guitar, so I get to leave this website in peace. I do not want to say where my next gear acquisition will lead but I am deciding between two really amazing options. (Not Fractal or Kemper BTW) Anyway, so long to you Helix mavens, I enjoyed the forum and using the Helix. I hope the next upgrade rings the cow bell. Helix has a lot of potential but L6 has to take a hard turn away from the whole POD mentality and cheese effects thing. Not sure they can but they will sink or float on how they update the Helix. So long campers.

up on Reverb.com for $1200, includes my IR package and my presets, pro bound double side sheet protected manual for Helix and PC/Mac editor. Still making payments on it so nothing lower. Never gigged, never out of the studio/sound room, always dust covered. Why? It's not that I do not dig the unit and get some great tones, just that I have an insatiable desire to keep changing my rig. If no takers I will just keep using it but I have some ideas I want to try. If I let it go I do not have to deal with two payment things and having a gear conflict of too much stuff to use.

.... return of GAME OF THRONES! Can I just have an Avengers movie with just Scarlet? She is so fine.

I dislike the whole 57 vocal mic thing many so seem to love, Jim's are by far the best sounding but for me its the larger condensers CV4 I like, to me the 57 IRs, I have tried so many, while very popular apparently, to me sound so thin and mid rangy, the guitar is already midrange. I prefer Ribbon mics. Like to see JIm get some Ribbon mics. He does not have a bad IR in the bunch, even his 57 stuff is good which is not an easy thing for me. Really do not care for that sound. I also have some Ownhammer Ribbon mics I like a lot as well. I think its more like the recording guys like that sound and frequency restricted response and the 57 thing, to me I like I more rich and full range sound. Roseberry's IRs get a big thumbs up from me. Seems like he has something in there no matter your preferred tone ideal. Dig the Neve stuff as well, love to have a Mesa Cali V EQ curve on one of those notching about -3db at 750hz and a slight V on the low and high end. Dig the Thump 1 a lot myself.

I gave up using traditional guitar amps a long time ago. The Helix is my latest working of a non guitar amp rig. If you are using the Helix to run into an amp and not using the modeling, you wasted a whole lot of money. I do like a few cabs using the Coles 4038 what I was hating as that 57 and similar mics even on various IRs that sound is so thin and midrangy. I finally got some Ribbon mic IRs I like and stopped using the internal cabs. Some of the 4x12s with the 4038 sounded pretty good to me providing one does not choke off the frequency response like many seem to do. I am not interested in a thin midrange guitar sound and that seems to be a raving fav among many. What I was trying to get at in the former post was how much mics alter the sound and why can't there be some sort of DI like thing which gets the amp sound without coloring it so much with speaker and mic IRs. A bad speaker sim or IR can ruin an amp tone real quick or make it exceedingly difficult to get the tone one is after as is it the amp or the IR? Can a great IR make a crappy amp model sound good, maybe. Impulse Response seems to be the name of the game. I guess the point is you cannot use an amp without an IR whereas on your normal rig using your speakers natural sound you do not need a coloring IR and mic thing. I use a blend combination of a high end guitar speaker loaded 4x12 and a FRFR rig.

I think my fav is the weeper, at least it is more versatile to my various external pedals. I've messed with them all and seem to keep coming back to the weeper, chromes and thoaty but sometimes the sweep range is not all that great and for sure I turn mine down -3db seems to do well. The Teardrop is very mild if one wants a very light wah.

I thought I was getting a pretty good tone using the stock hybrid cabs in particular some of the 4x12s with the 4028 Coles Ribbon which I like for its more warmer less harsh rendering. Everything was going along, I tried about a hundred free IRs and just did not care for them. After trying some of Jim Roseberry's IRs (here on site) and buying some Ownhammer IRs for the Ribbon mics, the difference was pretty amazing. Of the 128 I now have loaded from Roseberry and Ownhammer none are bad, they are all good just a matter of minute changes in tone. Getting some better IRs made me keep the Helix, matters now where they go with the next update. Regarding IRs while I know many tend to love the 57 stuff, I really do not like that mic, for one thing it is a vocal engineered mic with a mid range bump right where I find the sound to be thin and high ended mid rangy. I much prefer the larger condenser mics like the CV4 and the Ownhammer Ribbon mics. Nice to be able to move the mic across the speaker surface and distance away using the series of IRs. Makes all the difference in the world for me. Ownhammer was only $15 and Roseberry gave a bunch of his out for free to beta them. Great stuff. I can get a decent sound using the internal cabs but the wrong mic and they sound terrible.

I look to the Mel9 as merely a background generator, but all in all the real Mellotron was a moody breakdown beast, they must have cut a hundred takes capturing it. Mine goes out on feed into my Trio line and then on to the FRFR rig. I see no other way to use these type of pedals than isolate them. I find a few settings pretty novel and others not so much but, yeah it is very much like a real oddball Mellotron in all its glory. I was using the Cello mode with my guitar feeds off, playing the Game of Thrones theme and my wife actually came up into the sound room very impressed by the accuracy of the tone and feel. The Quint is doing well for me, other than its novel +5th there are others comparable, tracking is notable to be sure. You have a wide range of adjustments. Since I always loved the lower -5th harmonizer mode on my Whammy V I may at some point return to it. I got a Ricochet Whammy and wish I had just gotten another Whammy V maybe even the DT downtune model and been ahead of the game. The Quint and a few others have the advantage of running multiple octaves and the 5th on the Quint but that has limited usage aspect. I find some interesting enhancements keeping the blend down and more subtle levels on my std tone. I would have much rather have a lower -5th than up. My advice in the pedal acquisition for better effects is the Whammy V, does it all but no multiple 8vas. I hate old version Gitchout whammys so which one did they bother to model, an old one of course. The Whammy V is true bypass, polyphonic and just wicked.

99.9% of everything I sample off the custom tone thing failed my 2 sec test, just a short sound test and yep that was a waste of time. Mysterious Ways, that one I remember was as if someone had not heard the song much less knew what that filter was.

I use mainly the Thump and mud ones but I would really like to know what is going on in each of them to help me make use of them better. I tend to like a sharp Q notch at 750hz like Mesa uses on their V EQ thing. I do not like my low end chopped off, just sub sonics. Many of my pedals have bass contour and EQ at 80Hz so if you cut at 100hz that kills that. I tend to just like the speakers natural roll off. Not crazy about chpooing a cabinets response off, I can see the recording need and use of that but I am more a live sound guy. I tend to use the Cali Mesa EQ a lot using moderate levels of boost and about a -3db notch at 750hz. Be nice to hear what a Neve quality IR would sound like replacing that. By the way Jim, I want to thank you for opening up the world of IRs to me, so many I tried I just did not like and yours seems to not have a bad one. I began to realize what I had not liked about the many other ones I tried. I like those large diaphragm like the CV4 and just crazy over Ribbon mics. I got some Ownhammer ribbon mic ones and several of yours are my go to IR list.

I think making use of an upfront mastering EQ block for different guitars is probably a must, also to control their individual levels or perhaps a volume pedal. My presets are always so busy I am constantly looking for ways to combine things. Like rig an expression pedal to the level on said EQ instead of having to use an EQ and volume pedal block. Another fav is using just one good sounding reverb and a exp pedal rigged to control the decay. You can add more expression pedals as well to the Helix, quite useful things indeed. The Helix especially allowing for impedance, input gate or input pad will sound different for each guitar and is a more an issue of higher fidelity. Using FRFR or even higher end guitar speakers is perhaps a better way to go, as using real tubes with the Helix is not necessarily helping or assisting the amp model structure. I have seen L6 tech recommend not using a tube power amp as the model is designed incorporating the response and effect of the power amp in the various amp models they render. Another trick I am fond of using is putting the MIC Studio Tube Preamp (gain 4, level 10.0, impedance line) in front of all my amp models and often I use a 2nd one post as a boost. They add a little tube essence to the preset and mesh internally really well. Makes all my amp models sound better, And oh yeah, took me a while to really understand the whole IR thing, many free ones I tried I just did not like, when I finally discovered I liked RIbbon mics and more a 4x12 thing better IRs were vastly better than what I have gotten on the internal L6 hybrid cab things and I had some of those sounding pretty good.

Yep, BadFinger. I remember first hearing that, such a cool tune.