themetallikid

OOPS....MY BAD!!!

It's already in the Helix as the 'Weeper' option of the wahs. I do wish we could get some updates to the wahs though. Some of the signature Dunlop ones, or better options on the wahs. The rack wah has a built in EQ and so many have a boost function built in or the 535 has 5 different Q selections. I feel its one area that has been ignored. I do like the new Bass wah though, it has something close to what I like with the Q control.

I'm thinking this is not going to be the solution for me for a comparable home practice rig. Short of just getting another Helix.

I apologize, not HX Control. I assumed that HX Control could control things in Native. I have the full Helix floor unit. Which I know is an interface, and such, however I was hoping to have a comparable rig...... to keep at home....where I could work on things and then import/export to my live rig when needed. Setting up my pedalboard/case/cables etc is a bit cumbersome in my apartment space. Was thinking that native and controller would be an efficient way to get full Helix experience for home practice. Most of my presets wont really translate into one of the smaller units as I utilize the 2 dsp's.

I feel like I come up with this idea in my head every xmas, but never really look into it. If I wanted to get Helix Native to make practice at home that much easier (small space in an apartment and full pedalboard with Helix is cumbersome)... What would I all need to get? I assume i'd need some type of interface thingamajig to get my guitar into laptop?? suggestions? Are there advantages of one over another? I'd likely need an expression pedal (or two) to help match my presets that i use live with the full Helix. What are some cheaper ones that would work. Live on my board I use Mission Engineering as an EXP2. Is there anything lesser in price but still decent quality? HX Control would be my foot controller? and then the cost of Native. Are there laptop restrictions? I have a WIN10 laptop that isnt much for ram/processing power as its been mostly used for emails/bills/internet/spotify type stuff.

I have been using Chad Boston's IR that he offers. To me, it is the most AITR feeling IR that I have used. It does not have a mic baked into it, that I know of, which makes dialing in the high end a little bit easier for my ears. I have my Helix running through the Fender FR12. Sounds great for a 1x12 or a 4x12.

So I'm delving into the dedicated Looper realm (qualifier: I'm not really getting deep though), and just have a question about where to put it in my chain. So maybe I'll come to my own conclusion typing this out, or maybe I have it all wrong in my head. I'll be using this for my solo acoustic shows as a rhythm guitar player only, to provide background to play some solo's and extend some songs a bit. I'll have pre-recorded loops of the rhythms saved in the pedal (or card if I get one, seems like it should be a thing though), and just want to turn on a solo 'sound' for my live guitar. The typical options would be in front of the Helix or in the loop, no? In front - This seems to be the worse of the two as the looper output would then be fed into my lead sound and thus causing all sorts of audio shenanigans to come through. Loop - This seems more logical as I would put have it on its own path, and thus control it on the pedal itself?? I run my solo shows using a single preset. Path 1 is my guitar, Path 2 is my vocals. However, I'm thinking this is where I'm going to run into an issue.... I keep a separate monitor 'mix' if you will by splitting off paths 1a/2a to the 'b' sections right at the end of the chain, add a gain block (to hold the split only) and then adjust my monitor 'mix' via the output blocks on the B path. So 1a/2a are my signal paths, the outputs are for the FOH. 1b/2b are only for my 1/4" output to my monitor. Thus, If I put the Send/Return/FX Loop block(s) at the end of path 1A right before the split, I get that it would send audio to both monitor/FOH and as long as I'm not recording/overdubbing anything on to my loop, my lead would just play along with the JamMan's audio being fed through the FX Loop Block? Or is there a better way to do this?? Edit - Follow up question - I ran a pedal in the loop previously a few years ago and it had more noise than I cared for for that pedal at the time (think it was a Feedbacker).....would I need to worry about that in this presets context?

I use the EXP for this purpose or to change 'snapshots' in a way as well. Some presets for me (i'm also lead singer and guitar) are a simple rhythm sound and then a lead sound, but while singing it can be trouble some with the size of my pedal board to look down and hit the right button. I have incorporated into my 'stance' a way to rest my right foot on the expression pedal..... and use 15% as the auto engage between my rhythm/lead tones. Its easy enough to set the auto engage to the bypass function of a block and then you can vary between the 2. The main place where having an actual stomp button is a better solution is if you have a block that is already engaged in your rhythm and you are adjust a parameter to get into your lead sound, you need the on/off functionality of a button. Example, if you have an always on OD in front of your amp (take the standard screamer scenario 0 drive, tone 5, level 10), and now for lead purposes you want to increase the gain to 4 to add a little extra dirt to your signal hitting the amp. Using a footswitch you can set snapshots to do this, or assign the drive paramenter to the expression pedal.. however setting the drive to the expression pedal, creates a gradual increase as you go from 15% >100% to get your increase of 0 drive to 4 drive. Subtle in this example, but for some effects, it can be not the goal. A 2nd way to do this would be to assign all effects to a button on your Helix's layout, as a stomp. Thus assigning every paramenter change to a single stomp. You can then set the switch to be momentary thus step on (play lead), let off (back to rhythm). A 3rd way would be to set up a specific rhythm/lead snapshots scenario 1 & 2. I typically will assign button 11 as my rhythm (home) tone. Button 7 is my goto for a momentary lead sound switch. I will then assign button 7 to snapshot 2. In the Command Center, when setting up button 7, you set the step on snapshot to 2, and the step off snapshot to 1. So thus creating a momentary situation as well.

I remember the Boss GT series had an EZ Tone Creator. You would move a point on an X/Y axis chart and as you moved around it would, in the background, adjust parameters in amp selection/settings, as well as some potential effects like Delay. X axis was rhythm (far left) and lead (far right), the Y axis was Heavy Rock at the top and Clean at the bottom. So you could float around that chart and then it would adjust your amp/cab selections. The next chart you could choose would be an FX based one sorta thing. It was pretty cool to choose your genre, work through the 2 charts, and then save the preset and look at the nuts and bolts of what their engine drew up. You'd end up on some amps that normally you'd just not try out for whatever reason. Was a great way to get some really quick base tones....would love to see Helix do this as well.

Yeah we were playing a song with the whammy and toe down was auto off. We started the song and i could not figure out who was out of tune....then i saw my whammy block was on. I literally could not shut it off, once it was engaged (auto off was above 93%) except by change presets and going back to the current songs preset where it was saved as off.... That 93% mark had crept down from the 97% i started with. I even for fun set the auto off down to 80% and it didnt matter, my toe down would read as 100%, but then without the pedal moving drift down to a few points below whatever I had it set to. No win situation. Since I had the floor, no issues, except the last year with the 0% not staying at 0%, but I still feel that this is not the same issue. At least its not as prominent.

Is yours the Full or the LT? I had that same problem with the LT, didnt matter what i set my auto-off to, it would go to 100% and then when i released my foot, it would drop to random numbers, thus turning the effect back on. Horrible problem with it attached to a whammy and heel down is -12 tones. lol... Switched to the full helix and have never had the problem on the toe down side. I have a bit of drift on the heel down side, however i feel its related to the stopper and any rebound from it. as i can get it to sit at <3%, but it gets to 5% pretty often, thus having to set my auto off at 7%. I tried the heel down fully when power on, and it seems to be 'less', but still noticeable.

Interesting, I have usually always used Toe Down (100%) as my starting position....but i'll try it at 0% when I fire it up tonight and see if that seems to help at all.

I get some drift on heel down. I dont know how to fix mine...heel down at 0%, I step off (still in contact with the rubber stopper) and it drifts up anywhere 0-8%. I've debated filing down the rubber stopper a bit to go sub 0%, but not sure how that would effect it reading 0 or do something weird when beyond the 0 position.

I agree, but this goes against my normal work flow. Though I've gotten better at doing this. I typically will build a preset as I navigate through a song, so if an effect is not used til later and only on snapshot 3, i already have snapshots 1 and 2 designed, and then adding a block on snapshot 3, thus adds it as active on 1 and 2. I wish there was a setting we could choose if blocks added are active/disabled initially. The only other way I could see would be to save it as a new 'user' default....but offhand I'm not sure if that overrides the bypass state when added. Im pretty sure favorites do, but I dont want to save a favorite for every block i use, when user defaults are the same thing, and easier to access for some things.

DOES THE KNOB JUST PULL STRAIGHT 'UP/OFF'? SHOULD I PUT SOMETHING UNDERNEATH IT TO 'LIFT' IT UP, WOULD THAT BE BETTER?

The dial is not loose on the pot pole, its like the whole pot is loose in its slot. Not sure what happened, as it wasnt like that a few days ago. It looks to me like there is a nut that holds it in place to the chassis? Before I tear it apart to try and tighten it....can someone confirm that? it looks like I could get a flat wrench underneath and just tighten it to resecure it to the chassis.

No, its definately not loose enough to fall down if i leave it at 70%, but maybe a bit stiffer would keep it locked down where i step off. Yeah i had the same issue with the LT toe down side where i'd step off it at 100% and it would 'drift' down as far as 85%. so it made it stupidly tough to set the auto-engage thresholds. this isnt doing that, i can see the pedal return to 0, and then move due to the rubber stopper /foot. I used to do toe-down for the 'off' position and switched to heel-down...so I likely just didnt notice it right away (last 5ish years, lol)

So I tend to assign stomp like changes or auto-engage settings to my expression pedal for various effects. I tend to set my 'turn-on' setting at around 5-7%. However, while playing and I return my pedal to 0%, it will adjust, up a few % points to between 3-7% randomly. I'm assuming 2 things..... 1) the calibration isn't setting the 0% at the correct location (I dont believe this to be the issue as the 100% side of the range is spot on for sure). 2) that the rubber stopper maybe is too thick? would the best remedy be to maybe grind/shave that down a bit to get it to rest lower?

I havent had this problem before. Typically, same setup.....sans mixer connection....i'd have to run spotify volume around 80% or it overpowered my helix portion of what I was hearing. As far as I'm aware, unless a Spotify update changed something with settings, I have not noticed this issue otherwise. I really think the mixer is not an issue, was more looking for a way to adjust the Spotify/tracks volume as my Spotify/Windows volumes are maxed, without having to adjust my preset volumes cause they are hitting my mixer where I want them.....or needing to have a separate at home vs. practice/gig setlist of presets. I will say, which I have not added to this conversation....and this is more likely the 'problem'....is that I have redone my presets for this project. My output settings have always been set to 0.0 db previously, and then using a gain block to adjust a boost for leads. On my new presets I do have the rhythms -3db, and leads at 0.0 db. so nothing should be different then in a way that makes my guitar louder than it was. However I am using the SLO amps in my presets and have noticed that the channel volumes range between 4.5 and 7 depending on the version of the SLO and its gain setting. I'm wondering if that amp model is just that much 'louder' of an amp sim than the Placatar which I was using before. I'm using the same IR so no changes there. Is the SLO amp just that much louder compared to the Placatar? My Placatar settings (saturation switch was on, which seems to drop the output volume a bit) was constantly in the 9 range.

I dont usually use the mixer at home. I fail to see how the mixer being connected to the laptop via CAT5 cable, and only getting audio out of my Helix 1/4" output would cause me to get a different spotify level utilizing Helix's headphone jack. Windows is utilizing the Helix driver, volume level. There is nothing passing audio from the laptop to the mixer.

Yes i should have stated it better. I'm going guitar>Helix > Laptop/mixer. I am monitoring directly off the Helix via the Headphones jack. I have the windows/Helix output selected and its at 100, usually this is fine and then adjust my headphones output to where i want my guitar to be in my ears and then use the spotify volume setting to adjust the 'mix' of the song vs preset volumes. i dont know if something changed or what, but my spotify and windows volumes are maxed and my preset is overpowering the music. ok. i've never had to adjust this so i'm not sure what changed. I'll try this, thank you

So I have helix connected to laptop via usb. Laptop connected to Behringer Xair16 mixer to help me check levels or preset creation. I have the volume the loudest in spotify that i can. the Windows volume (helix driver) is at 100%. Is the only way to balance the volume of the spotify music vs my presets by adjusting my preset level? My presets are totally drowning out the Spotify music, but what i'm sending is right where i want it to be for the mixer for full band stuff. I didnt see anything in Global settings to adjust usb audio signal level boost/cut.

is the sound just when the preset is loaded as in digital clipping? or is it happening during the switch to the lead preset? While I agree with 'Elevators' use of snapshots instead, depending on when the sound is happening that could help determine why. Are the rhythm and lead presets exactly the same (as in copied rhythm to a new preset) and then you added something to the lead preset to make it stand out? If so, what was added.....??

I did this for awhile with the SLO100 amps. Depending on the song I could get by with either Clean/Crunch, or Crunch/OD or Clean/OD. The Clean amp when gain is topped off can get you some nice low/mid grittyish tones. Those amps really scall well from 1>2>3 as far as gain goes. I should revisit those amps....wish they werent so dsp heavy though. I think OP could literally do the Clean/Crunch, throw an OD808 in front and control the gain of the amps with snapshots and use the TS808 at various levels for leads.

I've done this with the Placatar Dirty model....the trick for me to get the cleans (unless you want the spanky clean sound, its still sorta a marshally clean) is to make sure the BE/HBE switch is to BE so its less gain from the start, also make sure the Fat/C/Saturation switches are all off. This makes it a bit sparklier in tone in the amp. There is a spot in the gain setting that you can get to a cleanish type setting....it will vary with pickups youre using. You can also make the input pad switchable on snapshots I believe, so that will help, but also, if you have room in your chain for a block, add a volume block first in the chain and play with the setting. Take the expression controller off of it and assign it to snapshots instead. I do this all the time when I dont have the DSP to add a 2nd amp...I will just reduce the volume to a % that is similar to rolling your guitar volume down to clean up an amp. (also essentially what the input pad is doing as well). For me, i usually have to dip below 10%. Too close to 1-2% and you might get some weird signal levels if you have the gate on, but that is also switchable via snapshots so on your clean snapshot turn the gate off.