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Kilrahi

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Everything posted by Kilrahi

  1. Q2. Just how "improved" the Helix sounds are to the Spider is open for debate. I've seen blind tests where people thought they knew and got it wrong. In my personal opinion, as a Helix owner, the Helix models are CLOSER to the amps they modeled, and it behaves MORE like a real amp. However, do I actually think the Helix sounds are objectively superior to the Spider? Uhhh . . . no. Does a Strat sound superior to a Les Paul? That's personal preference, both are sound. I think in this case, it's personal preference as well. To me the Helix's edge is its routing power eclipses the Spider, and as I said earlier, it has models and tonal options that make it behave far more like an old school amp that you might already love. That's why I own a Helix, and it's my favorite piece of gear. What's the perfect amp? That depends on where you fall. If you are an FRFR player, which is still the minority, the perfect amp might be the Powercab. The Spider V will work as a decent FRFR machine if you turn off all of the internal amps, cabs, and effects. There are a lot of great options out there though depending on budget. If you are a traditional tube amp player and you just don't think anything compares, then the perfect amp/cab depends on your real world favorite since you'll largely be using the Helix only for effects. Also, if that's your plan, I'd strongly advise you look at an HX Effects before getting a full Helix. Q3. I don't give a lollipop about tube amps. Tons of people would die for theirs. Ultimately it doesn't matter what I or them think . . . you need to test out a setup and see which tugs at your heart strings.
  2. I prefer the full range choice for a lot of the reasons given above. If done right, you have a much wider palette of sounds. Without a doubt, for acoustic guitar you want the full range sound. However, for a lot of posters it screwed with their heads. Classic cabs weren't full range, and we've gotten used to hearing that. Plus, players never gave them much thought. They chose the cab they loved, and plugged in. I saw many players grab the original Spider V, assume that there was no sculpting needed with the sound, and then be perplexed and confused by all the high sonic frequencies that came through it. They'd call the amp crap and move on. The classic mode is designed for those people who just want to plug and play. There's no shame in either approach. In my opinion, the classic mode is easier to dial in, but the full range takes it to another level in the right hands. Try it out and see which you prefer. It's always great to have options.
  3. Check out the preset given in this post:
  4. Line 6 clearly knew some people would worry it's a problem because right in their instructions they point out that the little MOFO WILL get hot. Don't worry about it though.
  5. There's a lot of opinion that has to be sorted through. What very few people know and understand is that the Firehawk's cabs are also impulse responses. So this belief going around that impulse responses are some sort of secret sauce that Line 6 stubbornly refuses to use themselves is not at all accurate. Nevertheless, even with real cabs, preferences abound. What that means is preferences for impulse responses abound too. What one person might adore (Line 6's cabs) another might prefer someone else's. So it's always been possible that if you don't prefer Line 6's you might enjoy another companies cab models. Further, the Firehawk is an older budget device, and impulse responses have improved since then. The Strymon Iridium arguably has far higher quality cab models than the Firehawk FX, but also costs a decent chunk of change. At that price, you're nearing the cost of an HX Stomp, which, in my opinion, is better than the Firehawk or the Iridium combined or separate. Does the Firehawk FX play well with 3rd party impulse response loaders? Yes. Can it improve the sound if you pick the right one? Absolutely. Is it worth it? That's something only you can decide.
  6. In my opinion, a lot of people obsess over the impedance circuit far more than it really warrants. Most of the time I leave it to auto. My tone is crafted elsewhere. I think it works great. Some people raise it to the ceiling and love it, some people lower it and love it. Some people do a little of everything. Ultimately it's just another parameter and as you noticed with the Arbitrator fuzz, it does seem to sound best at 10k in some situations . Is there any harm in setting it at that lower level? Not really . . . as long as you like it. Generally speaking (and I'm riffing straight from the manual here) lower numbers reduce some of the higher frequencies, gain, and lead to a softer feel. Higher values give more frequency range, higher gain, tighter feel. All of those generalizations are irrelevant though if one you manually increase the impedance, or set it to auto, and there is a loud popping rendering the whole thing unusable. I personally think there are enough other options within the Stomp to impact gain, tightness, etc., and so if I have to mess with the impedance to make a pedal I love work then I will. That's why the parameter is there for me, and there's no need to lose sleep over it. Bottom line is - as long as you LOVE the tone that comes from using that pedal with the Stomp, if you have to lower the impedance to make it work every single time - DO IT - no biggie. The first law of sound design still applies - if it sounds great it is great.
  7. This is just my take on it, but in my opinion, when practicing through a Stomp on headphones, it was better to create headphones presets that closely, but not identically, matched the Just to weigh in, I found it was way more useful with the Stomp to separate performance/live presets from headphone practicing presets. I would try to make my headphone presets mimic the more complex live one as close as possible so that the practicing was useful for the real performance, but it was just easier and more enjoyable to keep them separate as rd2rk suggested. In that case, I'd personally switch to the amp/cab block (you preserve a block - granted if you are an IR fan you have to split them out) and then use an FX block to stick your delay and reverb pedals in. In fact, you can even split up the loops and put one on path A and one on path B which can sound pretty glorious at times and is worth playing around with.
  8. You found a creative solution to mitigate what was happening. Nice job on that. However, you do somewhat answer your own question. Whatever you do to fix the problem, if you decide to keep the pedals there is no magic default setting that will work short of deciding to create ALL your presets with that manually adjusted the Z setting like you did. From your own experience, the pedals react uniquely to all sorts of amps and gear, and since the Stomp is a very complex little pedal designed to mimic a huge variety of types of gear, some settings will work well with your pedals, and some won't. Only you can know what those are and ensure your settings are always setup for it.
  9. Early this year I was curious about the same thing, and reached out to the guy who created those estimates. If I remember right, he said that in his opinion it was no more than 4%.
  10. While I agree with everyone here that an HX Effects or an LT is a better choice for most people, to answer your original question, two Stomps play together just fine.
  11. Yes. You should start with the FX loop set to instrument. Then only worry about it if it sounds weird. If it does, you can manually adjust the volume levels of the FX loop. If that still doesn't work switch to line level and try that, but I'll be very surprised if you need to.
  12. There are several, including models of the Boss CS-1. Check under "Dynamic Models."
  13. Kilrahi

    Helix Sustaine

    I always start with the classic ingredient . . . a solid compressor. The Red Comp is an obvious classic (MXR Dyna Comp) that I never get tired of.
  14. I've owned both, finally sold the Stomp and upgraded for the Helix. I loved the Stomp, and I'll be honest, there's times I miss the small form factor of the Stomp. The kicker with the Stomp is the six blocks. As long as whatever you're trying to do has only six blocks, I think its' a pretty amazing device. I do believe that most of the time if you're planning on performing with it you really need to consider the choice as a Stomp + a foot switch (preferably a midi one) in order to bring out its full potential.
  15. Obviously you could pair it with the Stomp easily in some type of 4 cable approach so that the Stomp provided pre and post effects with the Iridium providing the amp modeling. In fact, there's a video on youtube comparing the two device's amp modelling that at least sets the groundwork for that setup, which I've linked below. Now, in my opinion, that's a complete waste of money. The Iridium is massively expensive and unless you believe it brings some sort of premium amp sounds that the Stomp doesn't (which I don't) I can't imagine choosing to go that route. I'd rather have the Stomp be the core of everything, with some unique pedals apart from amp modelling to take some of the burden off of its DSP usage. If you already owned an HX Effects, I suppose the Iridium could be an excellent way to bring amp modelling into the mix. With all that said, at least in the way he has them setup in the video below, I did feel like the Iridium regularly sounded better. Yet, every time I tried to create the sounds I wanted to match his Iridium sounds I didn't feel like I had a problem doing so, so I'm not sure what stopped him. You of course might see it differently.
  16. Kilrahi

    Helix Stomp

    No, you can't add more presets to the device itself. The only solution is what you did, back them up on a external device.
  17. That's not entirely true. In every post I ever read from Digital Igloo he said they'd been upgraded to be Helix level. I have no idea what the hell that means, but he did indicate SOMETHING magical was added to them.
  18. What I'm about to suggest may be a complete duh to you, but it's always hard to know someone's experience with a modeler off of one post. Just to be sure though, direct presets need to be substantially different from amp presets.
  19. DId you go through this list first? See the link below:
  20. What? Are you sure you're talking about the right Firehawk? The 1500 is a huge amp. Why would you use that with a Spider?
  21. This comment makes no sense. Sounds better how? What are you using to amplify it?
  22. I always found it didn't change it MUCH, but it did change it. I couldn't lightly rest my finger on it and get it to change, but I definitely didn't have to push it down very far at all when it was on press.
  23. Nevermind. I'm dumb. Turns out it does have a mic input. Try doing a clean signal first. JUST mic .... don't add any other effects. How does that sound? When I messed around with my mic input it was very easy to muck up the sound, and I never ran it through an amp block.
  24. That's a pretty complex bit for the Stomp to do. You could certainly send the crossover frequency sounds to the front of house no problem, but the problem becomes sending something comparable to the on stage monitor. You're going to have to sacrifice somewhere. If you REALLY think the split crossover is that essential, how essential is it to you that your stage sound have that? That's where I'd let go. You might also try experimenting a bit with the Tilt EQ on a Path A for FOH and a path B for your stage sound. It's not a 1 to 1 comparison with the split crossover approach, but it does have a lot of comparable qualities and you may be able to get something just as useful. Hell, maybe even better.
  25. Kilrahi

    Variax power.

    For what it's worth, I think this is a problem with a lot of home appliances. The other day I wanted to power my refrigerator with some double sided scotch tape, but after being on hold for 45 minutes, and then going round in round with fruitless negotiations for another thirty, the manufacturer's rep yelled at me that I HAD to use the included power cord, and then rudely hung up on me.
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