themetallikid

I find it easier to have a processer per 'person' when I run my dual acoustic shows. I'm on processor 1 (a - guitar, b - vocals) and processor 2 is my partner (a - guitar, b - vocals). But to each his own. I just find it easier to remember that my 'rig' is on top, and his is below.

I dont do much for mine, Compressor (just to help with attack sound, low attack and release settings, minimal gain boost to achieve unity when on) Tube Preamp to warm up a bit Chorus Reverb I'll add a cleanish OD after the the compressor to help with leads, and a delay before the reverb. This was all pre-3.15 and I havent revisited with the blocks that were just released to see if I can combine and make it simpler yet though.

Ok, I've been working on this preset, yes I am a synth noob. No, this isnt perfect. Yes its getting better the more time I spend with it. However, Im hearing something in my lead snapshot that I cannot figure out where it is coming from or how to adjust it, and I have a lack of synth experience to know if its natural or something I'm doing 'wrong'. So in this preset, snapshot 4 is a Lead sound. Expression pedal 1 switches between the paths 2A and 2B to alter between talkbox and lead synth lines. The talkbox is fine, but its the synth version that I'm struggling with. What I hear is that when I first switch from talkbox to synth lead, There is an initial pick attack, but as I make my way through the passage, the attack and volume seem to disspate a bit. Almost like a compressor is squashing the dynamics of the pick attack. I've tried turning on/off blocks (including compressor) and I'm not fining the culprit. Any help on this? Are my ears just not hearing things right or is there something going in the synth world I just dont understand yet? Appreciate any help. Hella Good.hlx

Ok, This is FAR from perfect, and it needs some finishing touches which I have not gotten to. However, I am struggling to get a good sound for that middle synth between the talkbox lines. I attached the preset and it works as follows (again, its not polished yet) snapshot 1 - Intro bassy synth (galloping sorta sound) - I play this on the 8th Fret - A string to help with attack staying clean snapshot 2 - Verse xylophone sorta synth - this is only used during verses. I play this on the 8th fret B string, not where I saw it tabbed up on 20th fret, hence the octave effect added to it. snapshot 3 - chorus synth - this mimics the bass/guitar lines so it doesnt need to be perfect, just dirty and synthy, its not there yet, but its workable for now. snapshot 4 - Lead - this affects everything after the split block on Path 2. Expression pedal 1 will swap between A/B paths at the split block with path B having the amp/cab routed to my talkbox on Send 1, Expression Pedal 2 will act as an auto engage for 5 blocks I currently have for the synth lead part. My navigation of this section of the song will be to pull Exp 1 to heel down to activate the talkbox path, while hanging on a note, I'll pull the expression pedal 2 to heel down which will activate those lines, when talkbox section is over, i go toe down on EXP 1 and the synth blocks are engaged already, then back to talkbox and both pedals end up toe down to go back to chorus type sound. I may be able to clean up that navigation a bit and drop a preset, but for now, this is how its working. What I'm looking for is help getting the solo synth sound between the talkbox parts. Any help on that? Hella Good.hlx

Yeah I get your 2nd point. But I do hope t hat #1 is an easy fix. They want me to send them a 'good' preset and also a 'misbehaving' snapshot so they can compare the coding of the snapshots to see why one isnt applying to all snapshot screens.

Ok, so what I was experiencing was due to the 'stackable' snapshots feature. I was not viewing the command center's screen on a 'per snapshot' basis and was assuming it was more of a global setting. Minor change, but confusing none the less if not looking at that dropdown thats previously been useless. I was able to find the trouble presets and then fix the 'mis-assigned' snapshots and all is well there. 1) While I admire the ability of the stackable snapshots, I wish there was a way to turn that feature off or something to make my snapshot assignments global (in the preset). Otherwise I have to scroll through each 'screen' of my stomp layout to make sure every snapshots version has the same assignments. Seems like more work for not using that function in a way. 2) I have no idea why some presets are suffering from this, and some are not. I had about 4 or 5 out of 17 presets that behaved this way, the other 12 or so seemed to function on the 'preset/global' assignment level. I have other presets (of course) in other setlist that I'll now have to scroll through and fix ones that are unassigned. More annoying than anything else.

I know Ben Vesco has his DPS usage estimations chart, but it isnt updated to 3.15. I'm going to update again tonight, and wanted to see if there were any blocks/amp(s) I could swap out to save some DSP in a few tight presets. Anyone know if anything has been put out with the new 3.15 blocks? Specifically looking at replacing my delay/reverb blocks with the Heliosphere. Wondering if that saves a bit. Also the new amp to see where it lands usage wise and could save me from having to route things weird in a few presets.

Does this give a different result than if you edit the 'mix' in the merge of paths A/B if you are running a cab per each path? I have a 'brite' cab and a 'dark' cab. each on its own line running parallel. To manipulate my tone for certain songs I am changing the merge points mixer levels. Would this Stereo Width be a 'better' option or would it be the same result?

I guess thats what I'm asking, is there a good 'Synth for idiots' tutorial somewhere that I can learn about them? I understand what they are visually (well, sorta) but audibly I dont know what they relate to. So while I hear something, I dont have the attachment to knowledge to hear what your hearing and match it to something. And thats all I'm trying to do with this is produce songs that are close enough that people will forget we dont have a keyboard/synth player, other musicians may look and be like, wow thats impressive to cover that much material in this song with no keys.

Appreciate that, I'll consider defeat on this endeavor....lol. I like the challenge to see what I come up with. If its interesting I'll post it here.

So my group is wanting to do 'Hella Good' by No Doubt. We have 2 guitars in this band, the other guy will be taking the parts I used to do (20 years ago) when this came out. So I'd like to try and get some ear candy stuff. Welcome to synth world I'm thinking. Also, I'm an synth-idiot. Are there any good resources to help me find what I'm looking for? I've played with synth stuff a bit, but usually frustrated in about 0.5 seconds and generally dont find it useful for most of my needs. Listening to the song, here are the sounds I hear. I dont know much of anything about the synth blocks, how much DSP they use, parameters or anything. I'm fine with playing around with them for sure, I'm not asking for a free handout....Here are the sounds I hear that I'd need: Intro synth verse synth verse synth 2 - higher octave? chorus synth - bit crusher? Talkbox synth keys lead whammy dive The talkbox is easy enough, I think the chorus synth/bitcrusher could be easy to find. Whammy dive...no problem....more than likely. Any other tips or resources on youtube to learn more about these blocks?

That box at the top is interesting, I understand how the stackable thing works, I'm not sure if that is what is happening with my presets. I'm referring to something being set weird in that drop down at the top of command center. That box was always just left alone when I program my stuff and its worked fine. Maybe with the stackable feature, 'leaving it alone' now is causing the issues I'm seeing. I dont have time this week to upgrade again as I'm still creating presets for practices later this week. I'd prefer to create them correctly in 3.11, and then update/troubleshoot if I have to...rather than create and troubleshoot at the same time.

THe issue that I'm having problems with is that Snapshot 1 assigned to footswitch 8 Snapshot 2 assigned to footswitch 9 Snapshot 3 assigned to footswitch 10 I design the presets/snapshots. Then go into command center to 'design' my Stomp Mode layout. I assign the footswitches as noted above. What happens for me, is that when I go to perform the song, and lets say I start on FS8, I press 9 for the chorus... it changes my layout to a previously saved layout. It could be showing only 2 footswitches available...or just 'blank' all of them. I've seen both scenarios. By "blank" I mean it removes any snapshot reference and just shows the abbreviation of "Snapshot ^" in the scribble strip. If I push that footswitch, it does 1 of 2 things that I've noticed (before I rolled back to 3.11), it either just advances through the 8 snapshots available until it hits snapshot 1 again (then it displays the same as when I started the song....with the same results upon further switching) or it changes the layout again, to reflect the proper layout.... I couldnt deal with it. It was random 3 or 4 presets out of 15 I designed. 1 of which I was able to 'fix' the problem, but the same fix would not work for the additional presets. This happened on 'restored from backup' presets" and also on freshly created 3.15 presets. So I dont think the backup was corrupted in anyway.

Totally agree.... for the amount of country I do. Its not worth the purchase for me. We will do maybe 10-12 country-ish tunes. Mostly newer country, so more twangy southern rock style. Plus we are doing 80's/90's/00's rock so I'd tend to lean more towards that sounding style of country tones anyway. But if you got the tools, totally use them. lol

SO working on presets for a new group, I need some country sounds and I tried Coda's suggestion and it works, but didnt get me there. Probably more to do with my pickups rather than his solution being flawed. Funny enough, I went back and tried those guitar IR's that I suggested. Of course I tried the Tele/Strat single coil 1st position IR's....They were ok, but seemed to be missing that sorta hollow sounding snap that single coils have. I tried the LP Single Coil IR...and what do you know...combined with a Gain block -6.5db, low cut EQ, compressor (for the snap) and its decently close enough that my tone doesnt sound like 'me' anymore and sounds more like I strapped some boots and a hat on and am looking for some cowgirl action. lol

Only starting this thread in case anyone else is noticing this issue. I did the update fine, no issues, factory reset etc, all that jazz. Building presets for a new project....up to about 15 and this problem has shown up in about 4 of them. 1 of them I've been able to resolve myself. I'm attaching the presets to this for others to try and see if its just my unit, or if the presets observe the same behavior. I have opened a support ticket as well. The preset is for the song Bad Romance. I have the original Bad Romance Preset, Bad Romance 2 and Bad Romance 3. Bad Romance - is the fixed version Bad Romance 2 - is the preset showing the bug issue Bad Romance 3 - is the preset with the issue, but showing how it should look prior to any button pushing in case #2 doesnt show that. The issue is that I set up the snapshots/layout in Stomp Mode in the command center. I have buttons 1/2 for Previous/Next Presets. For this song I HAD 4 snapshots and 1 stomp switch. Snapshots were on buttons 8,9,10,11 and the stomp was button 7. What happens is that when I set up the layout, then go through testing the changes and functionality of the snapshots....the layout/behavior changes of the buttons. Some will change the layout, some will change it back, sometimes there is no hope of getting back to my design until the snapshots cycle through to 8 and then back to one. These behaviors are not all on this preset, those are what happens on the 3 or 4 presets this is happening to. Its a lot to retype and remember from memory, but I'll attach the presets, I'm happy to answer any questions to help clarify. Bad Romance 3.hlx Bad Romance 2.hlx Bad Romance.hlx

Yeah I'm very snapshot reliant being that I do a preset per song, and use snapshots to get through them. Most presets have 3-5 snapshots to change everything, but not every preset is having this issue. I'll submit a ticket if its still lingering tonight.

I see what your saying there.... but I'm only seeing the 'error' on the 'new' snapshot location for this preset. The original 2 footswitches 9/10 stay lit as snapshot choices, button 9 changes from snapshot 2 to snapshot 1. I'll have to try this when I get home tonight with that preset. I'll start on button 8 (snap 1), click button 9 (snap 2), click button 10 (snap 3). If button 10 is the only one that is changing my layout essentially...I'll go into command center and make sure that my button 8 reads as snap 1, button 9 as snap 2, exit, save. Reboot Helix (in case it needs to rebuild something) and then load the preset and try again.

Yes im aware... im not using that feature at all. However iitseems that when i change snapshots and rhe error occurs it is reverting to an older saved layout or a potentially new feature (coming in 3 2?) Where your layout can change per snapshot? Idk,

I think this behavior is similar to what I've been experiencing...and I'm not using the 'none' feature. This isnt happening to every preset I have, one time I was able to resolve it.....this last preset/song I cannot. I am updating a batch of presets (songs per preset) for a new group.... I have a preset that I deleted the old blocks (most of them) and dropped/updated with my new favorited blocks. In this preset I HAD 2 snapshots (rhythm/lead), laid out in Stomp mode. I had updated the preset to now have 3 snapshots (rhythm/chorus/lead). However, after going through my usual "save more times than I need to after every change' routine.... When I went to perform the song during at home practice tonight, when I clicked into my Lead preset...the layout resorted back to the previous 2 snapshot view with just rhythm/lead on footswitches 10/11, instead of rhythm being on stomp 9 and chorus being on stomp 10. As soon as I stomp on footswitch 10....which should be Chorus (new version), but is now labeled Rhythm (old version) the layout reverts back to the saved version of the 3 snapshots properly labeled. I've tried resaving several times....same result. I've tried saving, choosing another preset, going back to the problem one. Everything looks good, but same behavior. I've tried saving on the Helix itself (not HX Edit) and doing both above and same results. I had one other preset that was showing this behavior, and it was resolved somehow with saving....I have also gone through about 7 other songs being updated and did not see this behavior. So, I'm not sure I can send them anything that will reproduce this behavior...I can try posting the preset when I get back to my helix if it is showing the same behavior tomorrow.

Could try the 3Sigma Guitar IR's. They are decent, not great but decent. Other option would be to find some sort of EQ curve of a LP and try and emulate that. You could probably find that using some time of analyzer and solo'ing the recording you cant use to help find the prominent frequencies and then adjusting those in a parametric EQ (or two)

Ok, after a proper reinstall, backup etc.....I'm left with the same issue, but not as erratic as before. I think I had snapshot behavior opposite of what I prefer so it was discarding my changes unless I saved the preset. However, I'm still having troubles with the Footswitch 1 button (attached to a comp and input pad). I'm assuming that this, even though it can be assigned as global/on/off, is not something that CAN be assigned to a footswitch? This could be related to one of the 'known issues' possibly....as it happens with the comp which is also a favorite block. I tried just added a new one and got the same behavior. I suppose I could just do the 'pad' with a gain block first in the chain....but I was liking the idea of one less block to add to my presets. Here is the preset again.... Can someone verify or find my error (if its mine)? Footswitches 1/2/3/5 are to engage the blocks as stomps (snapshot bypass) and the bottom row are snapshots. Public service announcement...this preset isnt finished or properly leveled, but its close. I just can't get past this issue before putting time into tweaking it further. On seperate side note, I also have 3 favorites at the top of my list that have icons, but no names. When I tried to add one of them, it told me there wasnt enough DSP....Is this new behavior that the favorites would be blacked out (no name) if there isnt dsp? Kitchen.hlx

I dont know, I noticed that the update procedure seemed 'different' to me. and thats because I did not create a backup or factory reset AS THE NOTES SUGGESTED (insert face/palm high five here). So I rolled back to 3.11, backed up last night. This morning I reinstalled 3.15, but ran out of time before work to restore from backup and then check. I'll resume that tonight....I'm sure its more user error. I'll also reread those notes and see if it applies in anyway

Ok, So I have this preset.....'Kitchen' that i've been working on as an all around, all-in-one sorta thing based around the SLO100 Clean/OD/Lead amps. For whatever reason, either a bug or something I'm doing in the preset that I just cannot see.... Preset should be set up like this Snapshot 1 - clean - Amp (1A path), dual cabs, reverb only Snapshot 1 - grit - Amp (1A path), dual cabs, reverb only Snapshot 1 - classic - EQ, Horizon Gate, Amp (1B path), dual cabs, reverb only Snapshot 1 - crunch - EQ, Horizon Gate, Amp (1B path), dual cabs, reverb only Snapshot 1 - rock - EQ, Horizon Gate, Amp (2B path), dual cabs, reverb only Stomp 1 - country - Input Pad on, compressor on Stomp 2 - chorus - Dimension chorus Stomp 3 - boost - Minotaur Stomp 5 - lead - TS808, Delay Exp Pedal 1 - Wah - auto engage toe down (off position) However, I am getting erratic behavior from the assignments on the Stomp switches. Things are turned on/off backwards from their light, different blocks on the same stomp (1) are opposite each other. I make corrections, resave the preset/snapshot and go to the next one and its the same but opposite behavior. I correct it again, go back to the 1st snapshot and Im right back to what was there before saving. I tried selecting a different preset, and then choosing this one again....same issue. Either this is a bug with 3.15 or....there is something in the assigns that I"m missing. Its feasible, this is the first time i'm combining the stomps/snapshots thing on a preset and using the snapshot bypass option.... so maybe its a known thing and i'm just discovering it? Kitchen.hlx

Yeah, right now I use the Stomp Mode screen and custom layout my presets on a per song basis. Very rarely do I have 5 or more snapshots, and very few use a stomp/bypass block as well in addition to it. I could see it on some songs it'd be cool to have a single button to push for all changes....eliminate the need to look down and read the scribble strips, but thats also why I color code the LED rings... I'm guessing that this doesnt change the idea of jumping from preset to preset and only being able to jump to the pre-saved snapshot the preset was on? Meaning if I build a handful of presets, but maybe a clean/push/OD/Lead version of each preset using 4 snapshots each....that I could build a performance pedal board that would let me assign choose which preset per button, but additionally which snapshot of that preset is on the button. So you could have 2 preset buttons referencing the same preset, but each referring to a different snapshot of that. I know the easy work around would be just to copy/paste the preset elsewhere and save on the other snapshot....but it would eliminate the extra work/storage/maintenance