yossarian1156

I've had my Helix for years, but it was only this week when sticking it in it's bag that I realized the smaller top pocket in the bag is exactly the right size for 3 beers. What a delightful piece of design!

I'm laid up post surgery and my band seems to be defunct (not de-funk, unfortunately). I want to mess around with some looping, so I'm trying to think through how to do my routing and can't actually get to my gear to try it out just yet. Goal: - 3 inputs: guitar, synth, mic - looper set up so I can loop all of these - different paths for effects for each instrument prior to the looper I kind of want to use the looper on the Helix, but I also have a Boss RC-30 which I can use instead of / as well as. I'm thinking Guitar on 1a and 1b, mic 2a, synth 2b and then merging 2a + 2b before the looper. I'm not 100% on how to get the guitar to the looper. Can I send to an out, use a jumper cable to an in and insert in 2a before the looper? Any issue jumping an out/in to insert creatively in to a path? If I want to use the RC30, do I just send all my outs to one place and then run through the RC30 prior to my monitor? It would be super cool to use both loopers and be able to get two different parts going that I can take in/out, but I'm guessing I'll never be able to sync the loops exactly and they'll drift. Any solution to that issue?

Did you put the vibe and reverb in the second path and then forget to route the first path to the second? The number of times I've done that when creating a new preset is too embarrassing to think about.

Go to Global Settings Select Ins / Outs Select Volume Knob Controls Change it to meet your needs. p50 of the user's manual.

Yeah, I realized that after I posted. Many ways to skin a cat with this thing!

What if you: 1. After your last block, have a/b split 2. Put the looper on the b split. 3. Have each split go to a different output 4. Assign the expression pedal to control the mix of the split from 100% path A to 100% path B You can then control, while in the looper, whether your signal is going through the looper (to record loops) or through the other non-loop path.

All instrument cables are the same, but one of those is a speaker cable and the other is an instrument cable. The speaker cable didn't work. Speaker cable is meant to carry an amplified signal to a speaker (from power amp to speaker) where as the instrument cable is meant to carry a low level signal to a pre-amp (guitar, line, or mic). While you can sometimes use them interchangeably, it's generally a bad idea and can be fire hazard if you use an instrument cable for a speaker. See tons more details here: http://www2.fender.com/experience/tech-talk/instrument-cables-speaker-cables-arent-interchangeable/

I don't think that's possible. You can have presets on the top and snapshots on the bottom or you can have snapshots on the top and stomps on the bottom, but there's not a setting to mix presets and stomps. I'm wrong. Missed some info before the page break.

There was a sitar preset on the Nova System that might do the trick for you. You can hear it at 5:50 in this video: https://youtu.be/FjzApfu6DWE?t=5m50s And you can see how it was set up on page 38 in this pdf. It's set to Serial routing, which is Mod->Pitch->Delay->Reverb->EQ

I don't think there's a hard and fast rule for the input pad. A lot of people like in on for all their guitars. I found with my strat that everything sounded dull and lifeless with it on; none of the fabled bloom of a tube amp. My bassist even commented about my tone sounding dead (but didn't read me the riot act about using a modeler). When I turned the pad off, everything was suddenly fixed. The tone came alive and I couldn't be happier. So experiment and make your own decision. I do not have the same issues with my volume knob. If you continue having that issue and it's not a noise gate, then troubleshoot by going dead simple. New patch with just an amp and cab. See if the input pad is the culprit. If not, keep adding things to the patch one at a time to see if something starts to cause your issue.

Yes. You can put effects before your amp model and then more between your amp model and speaker cab, which is essentially the same as putting it in the effects loop of a real amp. You can then put some after the speaker cab as well, which would be like effects on your mixing board. That's all super easy to do. You can also get crazy and have thing split of to new signal chains so that your reverb goes to a different cab than your delay, you have two amps running dirty and clean at the same time and merging together at the end for an EQ, that you use a crossover to route anything below 110hz (low A) to a different effects chain that uses an octave down to give you some bass register while still playing the guitar through the main signal chain. You've got more control than you'll ever need if you're used to pedals, preamp, pedals, poweramp.

1) I find the reverbs to be fine, particularly compared to a HOF (although Mash is super cool). If you've made a Big Sky a major part of your sound, you might be disappointed. Either way though, you can definitely put the HOF in an effects loop and use it instead of the stock presets if you just can't get the sound you want. So no issue either way. 2) Yes, you can do that. And much more. If you've been using a standard Amp and Pedal Board set up, then you can do everything and more with a Helix. You'd have to have a pretty bonkers set up to have something the helix couldn't handle from a routing standpoint. (With DI's response, I'm assuming you just mean run a parallel path) 3) Yes. It responds well to pick dynamics and your guitars volume knob. I've been pretty happy with the "feel" of the unit. I'm a relatively recent Helix user, so i have some additional thoughts: First, the Helix is crazy easy to use while still being ridiculously powerful. I looked at a Fractal AX8 and the thought of having to use a computer or that terrible green screen for editing was what finally drove me to Helix. It's so easy to use without sacrificing the power. That's a huge benefit for the unit. Second, it's not an amp in a room; it's a model of a mic'ed amp in another room. Getting comfortable with that idea will make getting used to Helix or any modeler much easier. It's something that a lot of guitarists aren't used to. And if you get it and aren't happy with the sounds, check all your global settings. Mine sounded like lacking until I took the guitar input pad off.

Yes, you can do this. You need to create a separate path for your unaffected vocals and set the send to whatever output you want to use. I haven't played around with the send / return, so you might be able to put a send at the beginning of the affected path rather than it's own path, but I'm not sure what happens if you don't get the return. It might kill the signal path completely?

Why? What are you trying to do? Is there a specific reason you want to use Native? You could run both of them through the floor unit if you wanted to, based on what your needs are. You certainly could do this, but whether it's the best way to do it depends on what you're trying to achieve. I've disliked using a computer in any live scenarios due to instability, but plenty of people do it.

The cover band I play in is adding some crowd-pleaser pop songs. I'd like to add some ambient / pad / synth sounds to my repertoire to help fill in the songs. I do not want to use the note generators to create pads and use the snapshots to change keys. I want to use effects / routing to give the guitar a bigger presence and sound a bit less like "just a guitar". Yesterday at practice, I dialed in a good tape delay with plenty of repeats and mix and threw a volume pedal in front of it to get some big ambient swells. That worked pretty well. Adding some reverb and maybe putting it on a separate path to retain some articulation in the guitar would help. What other techniques or effects should I be looking at to build out some sounds? Trying to do something like this using anything more than a delay with control over the feedback and volume is totally new to me.