themetallikid

It's just the standard ME Pedal https://missionengineering.com/shop-2/products/expression/multi-use-exp/ep-1/?v=7516fd43adaa I've had it for years and no issues with it working with my previous units. Is there something special that L6 products should react differently? If thats the case then why does the on board one not work consistently either? i will look into the L6 ones, but confused on why the ME ones wouldnt be working? I'm using a standard patch cable like I always have...I know the Ernie Ball ones require a specific tip/ring/sleeve thingy (technical I know, lol)....but these never seem to have, and they dont behave like the ones do that do get the wrong type of cable.

I'll look into those...I like the build quality of the ME's, and the standard Crybaby type enclosure. Usually I've found other pedals to have too short of travel. I really liked the Ernie Ball Exp pedals, but who in the hell uses a string to move a pot in 2018? I had it 6 months and string broke....

So...what you using and more specifically....what issues have you had with them? Any short comings you have to compensate for? Strange questions I know.....but I do not like to tolerate the issues I've had so far with my Mission Engineering pedals (no issues when used with my GT100 or Fractal units previously) or the onboard expression pedal. I'd be willing to sell my ME Pedals to fund one that will be consistent.... What you got?....Or what have you used that you stopped using, lol.

I have recently started putting an EQ block last in my chain (before stereo reverb/delays) and setting the low/high cuts at 100hz/11.5hz. This seems to be a safe start (pending the amp block of choice) to eliminate any flubby bass and also remove any unwanted high/fizz content. Any lower than 11.5 (again depending on the amp block) I seem to lose the 'air' or 'attack' of the note/chord dynamics. There was one amp, not sure which one that I brought down to 8kish....

Thanks for the replies guys....couple things 1) Specracer - that does not sound like the same issue that I am having. 2) I agree that it is FOH related...getting my sound guy to believe that is harder than you'd think. If I recall correctly, he did turn the gate and such off that he did have on there, and it didn't make a difference, but I'd have to confirm that. 3) I have a DI, I will have to try the 1/4 outs and see if I get the same thing, unfortunately it will be about a month before we have another gig. 4) I'll mention the phantom power thing, never would have thought of that. 5) I don't think this would be an issue, but I'll ask......I run headphones at home to get some stereo delays going....running L/R XLR's out shouldn't require any different settings correct? As long as the locks are stereo that should be all I need? I only run 2 XLR's at the shows... 6) just to piggy back on this again....does anyone have any sort of permanent solution for the Helix not reading the Expression Pedal Max Value correctly. I have been using my Mission Engineering pedal and its been great for the most part...however, occasionally it will only read (toe down) 97%, 98%, 93% etc...its never consistent. and as soon as it is consistent, it will then start reading something else. I switched to the onboard one as I thought that would be more consistent...and the first show I used it at (after multiple good practice runs at home) it started reading 91% with toe down. Tried different methods to get it to read, but nothing worked. So back to the Mission pedal this past weekend, sure enough....first preset with a Wah on, it was reading 97% max...I had all my auto engages set to 98% because that was what I was getting at home consistently. What gives with this?

So, I'll apologize if this is all over the place, or if I miss some details...but I'll try to be thorough as I'm out of ideas on what could be causing this to happen. Problem: At my gigs, I'm having issues (especially clean sounds) where signal seems to be getting choked/gated/compressed (badly) where it is killing the sustain. Example: Last night I went with the approach of using banks of presets designed around genre's of music. Classic Rock, 80's, 90's & Modern banks. Each with 8 presets representing (usually) a clean/gritty/crunch/boosted type tone and then lead versions of most of those. Problem: For the sake of keeping the conversation about one specific preset, lets talk about my 80's bank...specifically the clean preset. I have it set with the JC-120, nothing extreme in the amp block setting wise. I'm using an IR I got from Fremen...nothing crazy going on setting wise there. The rest of the preset consists of this for a chain: Gain Block (bypassed/External 2), Wah Block (bypassed/External 2), Compressor (Deluxe Comp, stock settings, except Mix at 80%, 2 EQ's placed after the IR, Plateau Reverb (minimal decay/mix settings), Input Gate is off Pretty straight clean sound....for the last couple months, I've noticed but not been able to pinpoint what is causing my signal to be essentially lost. I'll strum a chord and it will literally audibly sustain for about 1.5 seconds and then die off pretty quick. This has made me think the usual culprits for that type of reaction of compressor pumping/choking, gate set too high, etc. Something that is killing the signal before its getting to the Amp Block and passing through to the output. A few weeks ago, I did find that some settings in my wireless system were a little out of whack...I corrected those and went back through my presets to adjust the gain structure in them. Everything should be fine...wrong, had the same issues afterwards. That partially eliminates the wireless...what fully eliminates the wireless is that while troubleshooting last night I removed it from my 'signal chain'...more on this in a moment. Troubleshooting: So last night here is what happened. I go to check my latest tweakings knowing that I'll need to make some adjustments at the show...pull up the clean sound to get a level set and I get a ringing D chord for maybe 2 seconds at most. I start troubleshooting, I turn off compressor, check the gate settings...gate is off, compressor bypassed. Strum chord....same result...no sustain or even signal...sometimes I'd strum and get hardly any signal at all. Ok...lets try a different preset...maybe something is jacked with that one...I try the Classic Rock Clean (different Amp/IR/EQ's, but generally same preset design)....Same issue. Ok...back to the 80's Clean to keep things simple. I check the wireless display and after hitting a chord to ring out...I can see that the input meters are clearly showing a fair amount of signal after the sound of the chord has faded...Makes me think its not wireless related then...but lets remove the wireless from the chain (I tweak at home most times with a cable plugged in)...guitar>Helix....same result. My sound guy was seeing a hotter signal than with the wireless....but it was not changing how the preset sounded...still getting choked out. Ok, lets try changing guitars...there is a little static when moving the pickup selector or at the very top end of the Volume knobs range...but usually not enough that there is this type of signal issue. Put on the other guitar.....same issue...So at this point I ask the sound guy if he has anything on my guitar. Gate...compressor....anything that would be killing the signal as I'm hearing through the wedge (same wedge I tweak through at home, active Mackie). He has nothing on it, he says he has a gate on it, but its set so low that I could breathe into my pickups and it would open up (whats the point then right, lol) So at this point I've ruled out: Guitar Wireless Single preset (seems to be on which ever one) Is there anything else I should be looking at? I spent 2 hours tweaking Friday night and didnt have any issues when monitoring via my headphones...or Saturday afternoon when I checked it via the powered wedge. This makes me think that there has to be something post helix that is killing my signal....but in all my years of using processors (6 of which is with this sound guy) I've never encountered something like this. I cannot upload the preset as I'm on a laptop that still runs XP and there is not an editor compatible with this OS...I'm at a loss.... I should also mention that I do not have these issues at practice, which is through a different digital board and we use IEM's there. I questioned if for some reason the headphones out and XLR's had something different happening between the 2, but I use the XLR outs at practice and I generally do not tweak the output settings from the 'ALL' setting.

So, I'm in a 'basic sound' kinda mood lately (normally I run a preset per song), I have a template setup that I think allows for all the blocks I'd need in there. I'm anticipating some EQ blocks to help keep things even between snapshots or sounds....but I was struggling to find that Amp that would give me that base sound then add some distortion pedals to help boost the amp if I needed it. I started with the Placater amp....but had a hard time getting a cleanish sound out of it. Even with Gain on 0.5, it was a little too gritty for what I'd like. out of my 8 snapshots, I'd need 3 lead Snaps, so I'd have room for 5 rhythm sounds, thinking I'd like a Clean, Gritty, Crunch, Boosted and Modern. What amps have you used in this manor? I was thinking the Trainwreck got a lot of posts in that fashion as well.

So I've had no issues with my Helix other than some weird Expression pedal reading issues. Meaning with my Mission Engineering one it will sometimes only read 0-98/99%, making the auto-engage needing to be set at 97%. Its pretty much full travel so I've lived with it. Because I really only use one pedal at a time in most of my presets I decided to ditch my ME pedal and use the onboard expression pedal. Its worked great the last 2 weeks while I tweak and make sure everything works right. Spent a good deal yesterday redoing some EQ things to make sure they are even, tweaking some wah settings, and its been working perfect 0-100%, so I've been setting my auto-engage to 98% give that extra bit of space. Of course last night at the show, I get through 3/4 of our set, and we rip into Crazy Train (we have a 2nd guitar player, which made this even worse). We start playing the main F# riff and something doesnt sound right....we chug along into the first verse and something is clearly not in tune. I quick check my guitar, everything in tune....I look at our other player, and he checks his by ear when I stop playing and it sounds fine. I start playing again and something is off....come to find out, I have a Whammy/Pitch block, at the beginning of the chain....the on-board pedal was only reading 0-91%. So it was pitch shifting down whatever 9% of the -18 setting I had it for. I stopped the song in order to find that out, I deleted the block and we fired it up again.... Next song Enter Sandman (wah pedal used of course for the leads)....I step on my rhythm snapshot to check if I have the same issue there and sure enough, Wah was stuck on at 91%. Had to quickly edit the auto engage to 90% to overcome it. What an annoying let down. I remember someone saying they had a pet hair that got in there and was causing issues with the sensor. I'll be bringing my ME pedal tonight as I do not like dealing with gear issues like that, especially right in the middle of the performance. Anything else I should look at so this doesnt happen again?

So Saturday during the day I was stuck at my mother in laws house before the gig.....I pulled my Helix out and thought, I know the components I want in this preset, lets get the bones installed and I can tweak to my ear later at the gig. So I did.... added the Brit 2204, added a stereo cab with V30/T75 combo (both with a 57 close mic'd, low cut at 80hz) Bass 6ish, gain 6ish, mids 8ish added the Stupor OD, gain 0, level 10, tone 7 in front of the amp added a 10 band EQ after for some post tweakage (I like adding a bump at 125hz) added pitch block in stereo L -6 R+5 (these are just rough numbers not sure what I actually put in) added a stereo reverb 2nd to the end added a stereo delay last added the Dimension chorus (switch 1) mix about 30% (before the reverb) I then created Snapshots for Clean/Gritty/Crunch/Boosted with the above settings as my Crunch. Snapshots only adjusted the gain and Amp EQ to keep the feel, and turn on the chorus (Clean) and the Pitch Shift (Crunch/Boosted snaps) Now mind you, I did not have a guitar with me when I set this patch up, it was from experience and my eyes only. After I made sure the preset volume wasn't drastically different than rest of my patches, I tried it out before soundcheck. I'll be damned if I wasn't not only in the ballpark, but there were only some minimal tweaks that I needed which I expected to get the snapshots to flow correctly gain stage from Crunch > Boost. Although, setting up this patch from scratch like this, made an issue with my wireless very apparent....ugh...I now need to figure that out before I can do further tweaks.

Sweet, I'll have to check that out and do my own homework. I figured its a pretty straightforward sound and should be pretty simple to get in the ballpark. Another reason this forum rocks.

I have EMG's, so that part I've got....Your information matches what I remember from those articles as well. JCM800, I was missing the DS1, but that was a popular pedal back then so now with the Legacy update, maybe I can match that better. Anything stock or IR specific for the cab sim? I'm sure I can just cycle through them til I find one that works....

That's a fair response, lol.....I did open up to that with #3. I guess I was looking more for decent amp/cab information to get that crunch/grind/clarity that he has. He definitely has a double tracked guitar or pitch shifted effect to give him that sound. I can use the double take, or a chorus/pitch effect to get that part...easy enough, but his gain staging with the amp is what I'm after. I don't recall reading that he 'boosted' the amp, but I wouldn't be surprised. I have not had a chance to make use of my friend google yet on his sound with that album, but will. Just didn't know if anyone had any suggestions. Sometimes on his sound you almost can't hear the chorusy effect until the chord is almost rung out you hear a bit of phasey effect, which maybe makes me think its double tracked as opposed to just pitched +/- with an effect. I'm not very versed in the 80's style thick guitar sound settings using a chorus/pitch effect. But I'm gonna start playing with it.

I have something similar regarding snapshots. I do a preset per song, and some songs only need 1 or 2 snapshots, but I have my up/down buttons change the preset, and my screen shows 8 snapshots (I have some songs that use 5 snaps). for those songs that only use 2 snaps, I use snaps #1 Rhythm and #4 Lead. I copy snap #1 to snap #2, and when I rename it, I enter a <space> to clear the name and allow it to display as blank. That way on my screen I only see snaps #1 Rhythm and #4 Lead, the others are just blank black boxes. If I ever step on the wrong snap, it wont change my sound as 7/8ths of my snaps are my rhythm sound. For the single snap presets, I apply the same principle.

So, you can spare the usual responses: 1) Your not Zakk Wylde so you wont sound like him anyway 2) Unless your using a Les Paul with his pickups, picks, technique, hands, etc....it's not going to matter anyway 3) Insert other usual responses here I think I remember hearing as a kid that his tone was really just a Les Paul into a Marshall Stack with a chorus pedal. Of course I'm sure there are some effects done in processing as I can hear delays/reverbs. But the core of the sound (IIRC) was just guitar > pedal > amp. So when I listened to this album again, I noticed his guitar has a double tracked or slight delayed sound. I'm not sure if this is the chorus that is creating that pitch shifted sound. if it really is double tracked, or if there is something else. Can someone recommend some settings to get this sort of raw (but effected) sound?

I've been having issues trying to view the whole Helix forum for the last few days. I can get to the forum lists of different categories, and I can view the firehawk one....but Helix will not display at all.

I'll have to try the 'minimizing' the amount I'm trying to backup at a time. What I've done so far is the File - Backup (this gets about 7% through the last step and then gets the error), and Export a single setlist (setlist 2), also copy Setlist 2 > past to Setlist 3. I can copy/paste individual presets and no issues on the presets I do use...so, I may just have to play around and see where I run into the block.... I am using an LT, not the HX Effects only version. The update went fine without any hitches and no issues with sound at all. One other thing I noticed...based off someone elses suggestion (dont remember who sorry) I inverted the polarity of my EXP 2 (Mission Engineering pedal used for Wah) so that toe down is auto-engaged on/off at 97%. This also required the min/max settings to be backwards. There was some special sauce that intended the auto engage to work with the heel down, so by inverting the polarity, it applied that 'sauce' to the toe down method. After the update, I had to revert those settings of polarity/min/max settings back to their regular settings...that was the only quirk I noticed from the update for me.

So I updated to the new firmware fine, havent had a chance much to play, just updating my presets a bit......but During the installation process, and when trying to create a new Setlist for gig tomorrow/today (damn its late already)....I get Error Code 8606. Can't find what that is referring to. I get it when I try to do a total backup....also when I try to just copy/paste presets from one setlist to another.

I understand the answers provided, lol....I guess it was just a random question...in my head....I would tend to think the HI/LO cuts get processed first, and then any shaping of the frequencies happens, it would make less sense in my head to shape frequencies, and then put the LO/HI Filters on after and affect the previous changes.

Well....thanks, I guess......but that's not what I was asking. I was asking that within the EQ block only (not related to signal chain placement), there are frequency parameters (Parametric block is what I'm picturing in my head) for Low/Mid/High Frequencies, and then also LOW/HI Cut. I assume the LOW/Hi Cut is happening first, and then the LOW/MID/HIGH boost/cuts are happening?? As opposed to me boosting the 125hz I mentioned originally, and then it going through a 150hz Low Cut and defeating the boost at 125hz.

When you have an EQ that is paired High/Lo cuts....which of those is processed first...I'd assume the cuts are, then the frequency boost/cuts. Its a trivial question, but my mind needs to know how it works. This stems from me liking a sharp spike at 125hz for palm mutes, but adding a low cut up to 150hz. If the cut is processed afterwards, is it defeating the boost at 125hz?

I'm stoked about the colored dim/bright option for active/non-active snapshots....I like to roam offstage during songs and I can color code my lead/rhythm as Green/Red for my bass/guitar player to switch to and back. Before I'd have to be picky about what songs I could do that on.... ****OH!! And the other updates are awesome too. hehe

I actually was questioning this concept in my mind, as I'd like to go back to a preset per song approach. I have some presets I've bought from Fremen, that use IR's, usually a dual configuration.....but if I want to use another amp sound in that preset, that would be 2 amps, and 4 IR's, which I think will be too much DSP. Any ideas...? Or am I forced to use the same amp, and use a volume block before the amp to reduce the amp gain or use a snapshot to save the amp gain lower to get a cleanish type sound.

Ok, so I'll check out the PF presets.....but I'm not missing the individual Trainwreck/Cartographer presets then yet....thats what I was looking forward to. I've been playing with them, but his IR's are what really make the difference, and I just can't seem to match them up well yet, lol

Right, I remember the Pink Floyd Presets, I may need to look at those presets further, Was looking for presets similar to the ones that came with the packs originally, not PF ones. I apologize if I overlooked them in there.

Am I missing something? Are the new presets with the 2.3 amps built in? I redownloaded the 2 packs I purchased and I didn't see them in there. I'm at work and not sure I have the names right but I think I got the 'big' pack, and the 'add-on' pack. Did they not have the 2.3 presets added?