WickedFinger

Beats me how obviously some thought these were so good they had to upload them. I hear the pro ones you buy are really good but I also hear that about a lot of the custom tone area. I know I've been playing a long time and have developed a sense of tweaking and adjustments to things, but what are these cats hearing? No wonder they want more cheesy effects in the Helix, maybe there are some decent presets in there but everyone I try is just god awful. Sometimes I feel like it's a joke or something. Mysterious Ways indeed. I know be positive, OK you only suck half as much as your tones indicate.

I find I also after resending your saved bundle file to restore your presets (you hopefully saved before the update) I have to re save the bundle file again back to the PC or my unit would do this "rebuilding presets" mode thing taking 4-5mins every time I turned it on. Resaving the bundle back to the PC stopped it. And Yep that final reset Global thing is often overlooked. There are other reset functions you can do on the Helix w the switches and turning the power on. Might be in certain weird things you might have to run through these to start the unit from a fresh clean state. I found these for future ref: What are the secret bootup shortcuts? (DO note the last one, might be just what you need.) Hold FS5 and FS12 while powering Helix: Clears EVERYTHING Hold FS5 and FS6 while powering Helix: Restores backdoor and user-selectable Global parameters to factory Hold FS7 and FS8 while powering Helix: Restores presets and setlists to factory Hold FS8 and FS9 while powering Helix: Restores presets, setlists, and IRs to factory Hold FS9 and FS10 while powering Helix: Restores presets, setlists, IRs, and both backdoor and user-selectable Global parameters to factory Hold FS10 and FS11 while powering Helix: Upgrades existing presets to latest format Hold FS11 and FS12 while powering Helix: In the unlikely situation where Helix may freeze, clears only the current preset without affecting other setlists and presets Hold FS6 and FS12 while powering Helix: In the unlikely situation where Helix may not boot, enters "Safe Mode," allowing for installing the newest firmware

I do know on the floor unit you need to reset Globals or you get problems. Probably a similar thing in resetting the rack.

Thanks for the info. I have been busy finding everything I can on the subject as when I have a need to know I get obsessed it gathering the information. I've been able to pin down a little more what might work best for me and why. I realize now why I like that Coles 4038 so much in the Helix. The 57 is always a little to harsh for me especially on cone and probably why I did not like a lot of previous IR's. I realize it is a common go to. But alas I am not a common player nor a generic one. My views of guitar and sound have been gradually fermenting and developing an aged liquor of taste over the centuries. I like that jaw drop effect when someone hears my rig, the tones even among non musicians register. That is why I have never bought into "the audience doesn't care about tone thing". Even the most untrained ear knows a pleasing sound over a crap one. Anyway, I am so much digging this IR package and it has allowed me to understand and be more knowledgeable which can never be a bad thing. In the spirit of passing on relative good information, I found these three websites to be most informative in grasping various issues. http://rogermontejano.com/en/articles/item/recording-e-guitars-where-to-shoot-at-the-cone http://rogermontejano.com/en/articles/item/recording-electric-guitars-where-to-shoot-at-the-cone-part-ii http://www.premierguitar.com/articles/20356-the-recording-guitarist-mic-makes-right Thanks Dr. Jim, very cool indeed. One of the best things I have found on this site. PowerUser's summary of compressor use was another if anyone has not seen that jewel.

Overall chemistry I'd say, it's the sum of the whole thing which gets the magic going. I am a live sound guy and I work my rig to that end, not doing the recording thing so massive great sounding live tones are my forte. Jim Roseberry is offering a beta test trial of his IRs on this forum some of us are trying out. I have tried hundreds pf various free IR's and was not really happy with any. His are so good it's hard to find a bad one. Anyway having the best IR to be found means nothing if you have no idea how to EQ or tone tweak an amp. One sort of has to just go by the tone and stop worrying, oh I want to use this Marshall or whatnot. The Helix allows you think outside of traditional gear line do's and don't's, by letting you do things that would be impossible with traditional gear.

Regretfully I am not a recording maven at this time and have no means to record things.That is a very large alligator to feed and my wife would probably kill me with a Les Paul in my sleep. More a live sound player. I realize recording motivated players seek unique EQ and mixing ideals on guitar sounds. I am merely trying to make Helix I use now sound as good as possible live. It must range excellent clean tones and work well with pedals. I tend to get my high gains from the better amp like pedals I have as high gain is a really difficult thing for me and most generic amp things do not ring the cow bell for me. Just from what I have run through I am finding all of these IRs to be significantly better than anything I have tried. Since I am new to the whole IR thing and understand little I am trying to educate myself on the EQ tonal variants of mic position and whatnot. Can you explain what is meant by some of the fig 8 and other "card" such descriptors? Also can anyone more accurately describe the resulting EQ tonal range effected by Edge, Cone and Center. I understand many prefer Edge. Also tilting off axis, like "reduces low edge, less harsh mids", things like that. Would be helpful to dial the best IR for the tone. A fav thing for me is arrange different IR's to switch in and out sort of like using the Neve EQ things but rigging the Helix assigns to shut one off and another one on. Pretty cool. I cannot decide which I like better they certainly all have their uses but for me it is essential to understand what is happening on the EQ spectrum when you move the mics. I would love to hear some Ribbon mic IRs you might do. Fond of that Coles 4038 in the Helix which may be a little dark for some but I like the full body and punch it has, seems to capture the thump of the cab really well. Best example of great Ribbon mic recording I can think of is Robin Trower's Bridge of Sighs, pretty iconic tones. I understand the Ribbon can take massive sonic levels and likes to be a few inches off the speaker distance. Anyway, marvelous stuff here. As a live sound player has really added that enhanced tweak to my already great tones.

At first run through using my fav amp model rather uncanny they all sound really good, so many options to run through clean and gain and the 3 mic positions, it's hard to pin down favs. Have to say I have tried about 150 various free IRs and never really cared for any of them. There are so many great ones in this package it may take weeks to sort out some more favs. I flipped back and forth to my std preset and really the new IRs were just better, fuller, richer sounding. Messed a little w the Neve EQ tone IRs and they have some interesting and subtle enhancements, have to work on mastering these better to fit them into my chain. Rearranging my main template to fit the Neve switch in. I use the MIC Studio Preamps set clean with my amp models for a more tubish less digital sound and I think working the Neve IR in with my post preamp will do well adding a little EQ to it which is much different than using an EQ block. Anyway at first run through, an amazing set of IR's here, certainly heads above any I have tried. I do wish there was a Ribbon mic I'm pretty fond of that Coles. I think I am liking the CV4 the best right now but still early on. Many thanks to Jim for letting us try these out.

3 mos ago mine did not have it. NO big deal to upgrade, did that right out of the box. I am sure on new shipments L6 is loading that in. We may be up for another upgrade very soon, so everything will have to be updated anyway. Important to reload the global s after a firmware update like the instruction indicates. I am not sure if others experienced this but after I loaded my files back, when turning the unit on it goes into this rebuilding preset mode thing which takes about 4-5 mins to boot up. It stopped and went back to normal turn-on fast boot again after I exported a new Bundle file.

Wickedly cool, a hard exit ramp off my usual listening highway. I really have no idea what I am hearing or the effects, etc being used. Is that all priv or can you tell us some of the things you were doing?

What an amazing array of optioned IRs and some cool EQ tone shapping ones. The Marshall preset for testing is really nice. I have a very late night planned with all this. I have a feeling these are finally going to be some IRs I like. For one thing love the 4x12 that is my go cab forever. This is treasure trove of IRs we are going to have to pony up some donations if even a fraction of them are good. Thanks for all this, You may have saved my Helix.

If helpful is agreeing all the time or supporting things I find out of my paradigm, do excuse me, freedom of speech and allowed to present my opinion which carries at least as much weight as yours. Patronizing things which seem pointless or absurd to me is not really anything I am capable. Cutting through the mix in a church, just offering a bunch of people singing makes that rather impossible.

All tracking in the Helix is monophonic and glitches. which is a shame for such an expensive unit. One can buy numerous modern pedals with polyphonic tracking on std 1/4 cable these days which are not really expensive. After hearing how bad an old version of the Whammy sounds and glitches I can see why many hate them. Why would you not copy/mimic a Whammy V if you were going to clone one?? The new Whammy V and DT model are polyphonic and true bypass now. The harmonizer modes on that are to die for. I just got a T-Rex Quint for my octave pedal, +/-1 8va and a 5th up with flawless chord tracking, polyphonic glitch free, no latency coolness. I would like to have Helix amp models and IR stuff in a box without all the effects, does any of their products do this? That desk top unit maybe?? Not interested in POD models just the Helix HX.

To much human voice occupies the same range as guitar. Rather impossible to accurately pink noise a big church like area as all the people would completely change the sonic characteristics. I've never seen or heard a guitar in a church but haven't been near one since I was like 9. I do not look for such environments to produce good sounding anything. But to each his own.

ONLY with their music card. No card or approval on zzounds,com. I've bought a ton of stuff off them. Been denied a card from Sweetwater's card dealer at least 6 times in the last years. I live on a golf course and drive a Mercedes but they cannot see fit to give me a music card. I get offers for credit cards once a week. Don't want them, wanted Sweetwater's for same as cash deal. But yeah, it's with the card, I know this without a doubt.

Most intelligent thing I have seen on this board, let me tell you.

zzounds.com often offer 12 payments on the Helix for min no qual, no credit check, no music card application. Just FYI. Pretty sweet deal. Sweetwater, love 'em but they only offer 3 no qual payment plan. I think they only give out their music card to lottery winners.

(Power User*****) Single best write up on compressor use and function I have ever seen. Extremely well done!! This is a must have reference paper for guitar compressor use!

If there was one in the same galaxy, easier just to make one from scratch than fix everything as that's what it ends being anyway. Clearly I am not hearing whatever it is these chaps are hearing.

Sounds pretty wicked!

Like those guys as well. I had POG and others. I do think the POG does a rather wicked organ tone the Quint does not really get. The shear power and fidelity of the low octave is unmatched. The upper has that same sort of POD octave tone but the POG modulates it into more of an organ reverberation hence it does a better organ mimic. The 5th is rather cool and unique for an octave pedal. The tracking and overall tone quality is unmatched for my 2 cents. I have been learning to use the mix control and dial down the octaves and 5th for a more subtle enhancement on my main tone. My only complaint with the unit is I much more prefer a lowered 5th like I was getting on my Whammy V. Upper 5th is OK and novel at times but I do prefer the lowered 5th, sounds more Jeff Beck like to me. Anyway, killer pedal, beats the tracking and tone of anything currently in the Helix. A fine example of std cable polyphonic tracking technology. Oh by the way, Cello, the Mel9, amazing pedal. I was doing a rendering of the Game of Thrones theme and my wife actually came into the studio room as it sounded so dead on Cello. You do not want to run the Mel9 in your std chain but on a separate feed. You do not want to try running that into any gained amp or OD pedals. Sounds marvelous by itself, a lot of things you can do, strings are pretty awesome as well. I'm not a huge fan or user of EHX stuff but that series of keyboard pedals is pretty unmatched stuff.

I often hate the sound out of the cans and I use high end Byerdynamics. You can easily clip them especially cleaner stuff or if you have powerful pickups. I get the best sound from a secondary source for my headphone feed. Sort of buffers it down instead of right out of the unit. I use a small Mackie mixer on my rigs which serves to convert my other chains from unbalanced to balanced for my FRFR rig. Running my cans off that helps a lot plus I use BBE units and that allows me to hear the BBE processor in line. I use multiple chains on my guitar not just the one XLR stereo on the Helix. Anyway, have the same thing with headphones, I have had many units and never really like the sound in cans on anything save maybe my GR-55 guitar synth.

Classic is often another term for nostalgic crap. personally I have no interest in reusing old stuff I had when I was teenager. Glitch out octave pedals and whatnot. Noisy bad quality pedal circuits. No thank you. The best thing about the Ross and Dyna comp circuit was what others did with it modifying it and improving it, like the tubescreamer OD circuit, better versions of it abound everywhere. Compressors are an acquired taste. Country players like overt squeeze. I prefer more transparent. I always used Wampler or Keeley, just has to have a blend control for me. I do use the LA Comp from time to time but probably not in the way most would. The more gain and tube dist thing you get on guitar the less compression you want as that is already a part of that sound. Too much compression is dreadful. It's a useful tool and accomplished studio engineers know how to apply it. Most guitarists go over board. It can just flat out ruin the natural dynamics of the guitar, less is more in that case, if there is another case of that being true. Just enough to bring up the response of the lower volume string picks without getting too much unnatural sound is where I am at. Compression offers an illusion of loudness and a spike reduction but too much might be novel for some "chicken pickers" but in general it ain't a good thing.

IS that a vacuum cleaner??

Yeah, LOL, it is a mystery sometimes as to what some are hearing and what they seem not to hear. I am a many decade player and have been there and done that with a whole lot of gear and guitars. I suppose it's ironic paradox now that I have the best gear in my life I am retired from the live thing and band thing where I have to play things I do not like. I thought about messing around with recording but not having any delusions of grandeur that is an awful hungry alligator to start feeding with no return on net assets. I try to just have fun playing and creating amazing tones. Quite freeing actually not having to deal with all the pressure and set list thing. Too old to be a rock star or to suffer the egoism it requires. __________ I prefer well tweaked and great sounding cleaner amps, ones that work well with pedals and effects. I have external gains and drives I like over a cranked amp gain. Sometimes novel to mess with but in general I like the most tube like clean I can get without being too high ended or shrill. The most difficult thing for amp modeling is that edge of breakup tone and the response as you push it over the edge. That to me is the true test of a model. Rather easy it seems to get high gain and super clean, the trick is not sounding too sterile and digital. That is one reason I use two MIC Studio Tube preamp models (ftswitched) one pre and post to wrap the amp model in a more tube-like shroud, sounds less digital to me. I have been narrowing down my choices to just a few and the cab and mic that sounds the best for me. I use Les Paul's and prefer lower to mid gain drives. I am mainly into the Helix for the amp model tones and everything else I can farm out. I use the delays and reverbs right now but whenever I can get my hands on a Styrmon or Eventide I will farm those out as well. Delays are HX and pretty decent the Reverbs are hand me down from POD, which are usable but for my view the farther you advance and modify from the POD thing the better. Been there done that and over my POD phase. I was done with L6 completely but the Helix deserved another shot and it is the best modeler at that money level I have used. If I had to do it over again I would have gone in a different direction entirely but no one on the Helix forum cares about that. My fav amps so far: Mesa CLN channel SLO CLN channel Hi Watt Shiva set CLN If anyone knows another amp that does well clean, do tell. The Fender stuff has not really impressed me that much on the Helix, maybe I just have not tweaked on them enough. Tend to prefer the 4x12 cabs and I like the Coles Ribbon 4038 I think, can't remember. I like it's darker quality and tone over the usual 57 and whatnot. Just sounds warmer and less digital to me. Most IRs do not do it for me either which I am frankly scared to buy them as of the hundreds of free ones I have tried, just did not care for them much. Maybe its the mics they use or the fact you cannot change them on the Helix. Also moving the mic across the speaker is a dire tone changer. Not sure where the Helix is supposed to be, but seems to me more to the edge like 3/4 is a better sound. All in all I am getting what I like out the Helix and hope they continue to improve it with better amp models. Effects wise outside of well done delay and reverbs, I prefer pedals.

Without a doubt the best octave pedal ever. Polyphonic tracking, no latency, no glitch tracking. 8va up, 8va dwn, 5th up, and dry mix. Added this to my externals with the new Whammy Ricochet so all Whammy and Octave things covered and then some. This Quint is a wickedly wonderful pedal, so much fun to play. Sure spending money, did anyone think playing guitar ever reached a no pay for play zone?