themetallikid

Also, there is a global setting in the 'Preferences' tab that gives the option of EXP 2/EXT Amp and it can change from EXP 2 or EXT Amp Out....its set to EXP 2, which I'm assuming would be correct...not sure why it would need to be different...but not sure what this controls.

I get what both of you are saying, and I'll see if my drummer can bring a multimeter saturday and see if we can determine that... On another side note....maybe this should be lumped into symptoms of the same issues I'm fighting or not....but when I save the presets, I always save the presets with any block that is autoengaged in the 'off' position. This comes from my experience with Boss/Fractal where if it was saved with the effect 'on', it would always be on when you call up that preset. With the Helix, I've got 3 banks of 8 presets (dance,80's, hard rock banks - 4 presets, 4 lead versions of those) all have a wah/gain block auto engaged, but the preset is saved in the off position. At this last practice, I went through half a dozen songs in the Dance/80's banks all is fine, when I turned on the Hard Rock-Rhythm preset, it had the wah engaged and that is where I noticed that it was set to 95%. This makes me question 2 things...there is a setting that I'm never really sure how I should have it set...I get the meaning of the parameter, but not sure what the effect is if I change it...i know that sounds stupid as well...Global Settings>EXP Pedals >EXP1/EXP 2 Pedal position> Global/Per Preset/Per Snapshot. I have both set to Global... Could that be causing an issue when it boots up, if I dont use the pedal right away and change presets without 'moving' the pedal? Maybe its not calibrating right away for some reason? Would this be better set to per preset being the presets are always saved 'off'? side note #2 - just fired it up at home since it freaked out a practice again so I could check that setting I just mentioned...and checked what the External/Onboard pedals were reading and they are both reading 0-100% again at home.

Hmm, that sounds kinda similar....maybe we are on to something. I havent gotten a response yet...but I'll mention my thoughts here to them and see what they say. To be clear on the power I'm plugging into... 1) my house - is over 100 years old...I do not know when the power was last run, but I'm in our laundry room, and have no power issues with anything else plugged in. TV, laptop, xbox. No lights dimming when things like the washer/dryer kick in or anything... 2) my drummer (practice space) is a master electrician....which makes me chuckle a bit that I get a bit more buzz at his place, no matter what outlet I plug into, lol...but he has used that room for various bands over a long period of time and no one has had power issues.....although.....now that I think about it....my other guitar player does have a rack power unit that reserves power and will go into a battery mode if the power does dip a bit where it isnt seeing what it would like to see.....it does beep a few times during practice which may mean that there is a lack of power being supplied to the outlet he is using as well. He also runs direct with a rack preamp, so no real 'power hogs' like we were using full amp heads.... 3) the gig where the whammy/pitch issue happened is a venue that only opens Friday/Saturday for live music...they open at 7, both nights. and host bands pretty much every night they are open...I have not heard of others having power issues, and they usually provide a backline to any regional/national type acts that perform there...but maybe the Helix is just more sensitive to that and again, internal wiring may add to that if my thought process is correct. I know ME makes a special L6 pedal....I'm curious to know what makes that pot different than the regular one...I dont know if I'd be able to get the specs to see if that has a different power draw or something like that.

well, the issues, are unpredictable....they work all the time at home (mostly, I've rarely had the issue at home). But when I program a wah to turn on at 97%, and when I get to the gig and have 30 presets with wahs, and now its reading 95% max....that means I have to go edit the bypass trigger point of the auto engage on 30 presets... if it was just consistently going to 95% I'd just adapt and set my auto engage to match that....but its 97%, then the next time its 95% or 98%. One time while playing Crazy Train, my other guitar player and I were looking at each other like WTF is going on....something was out of tune....after both checked our tuning and we couldnt figure out what was out of tune....I stopped the song....we checked again, and pinpointed it was my guitar....I checked my preset and I had a pitch block set to whammy....again, auto engage at 97% (thats what was working great all week) that was now reading 91% with the toe all the way down. So my guitar was being pitch shifted to whatever 91% of standard tuning was. Sounded great, lol. Delete the block, everything was fine, but I had no whammy effect. I would consider the pedal the problem, but it does the same with the 2nd pedal of hte same model....tried different cables....even used the onboard pedal and got the same issue. worked great for the week at home, took it to the gig and that was when the whammy issue above happened. Which makes me think its something internal... Only thing that would contradict my thought is that the onboard is an optical pedal, which I could possibly handle power or reading the pedal travel differently than the regular expression pedal...again, above my head of knowledge.

I already opened a ticket with the L6 powers that be...as I just can handle the inconsistency I get from the expression pedal travel...which I've created threads about....I wont reiterate those details again....but it got me thinking while I was making dinner... This is possibly a dumb question, so I'm asking those that know/understand more than I do about this....dont banish me to the bowels of the forum for asking, lol.... when you hook an external expression pedal up to the Helix, is there any sort of power that is needed for the Helix to read the pedal correctly? I know that sounds like a dumb question on its own, but hear me out... I only seem to have the problems with the on board/external pedal not reading the full 100% outside of my home...basically gigs and my drummers basement (where I get a decent buzz that I dont get at home). I'm wondering if there is a hierarchy of how the power is distributed internally with obviously the processors getting the most priority...but maybe expression pedal response on the lower end of the priority....(again, I get how rediculous this line of thinking may be) ...the trickle down effect would be that when I bring my Helix elsewhere where power may be questionable...it doesnt read the on board/external pedals with 0-100%... feel free to comment on whether this is plausable or not....or just my crazy line of thinking...its all fair game. Thanks as always.

Yeah Im a fan of his videos as well and I've applied that on a few presets I just can't seem to EQ correctly...Right now I'm settling on the Engle Meteor amp for my 'Modern' (mid switch on, medium on the gain knob), Hard Rock - Mid switch off, Hard Rock Scooped - Mid Switch Off, EQ'd little more aggressively....but it just doesn't scratch that itch...I feel like its missing some dynamics/punchiness on the low end...The split/gain trick works to help bring out some upper mids bite and such...but I seem to be struggling to keep some low end punch. I believe on my Hard Rock presets I am using the Minotaur to boost it as well, gain rolled back to about 3-4.

So after watching some videos, I've decided to revisit the stock cabs with some new approaches to mic's and such. I've been much happier with most of the sounds....but I still cannot dial in that good hard rock rectifier sound. Its not stock cab related I don't think.... I've tried different amps to get the sound, but they just seem to be missing something. The sound I'm after would be similar to Nickelback's song Animals. The opening guitar sound, is just punchy, ballsy and very percussive for that type of gain.... I've tried straight amp, I've tried boosting the amp...I just seem to be missing something. I've tried the Recitifer, Mark IV Lead, Fatality (Mark V moded I think), some of the higher Marshalls...etc..... Can someone post some amp/pedal/cab ideas for me to try? This should be one of the easier sounds I would have thought to dial up...just straight rectifier with an 808 in front or the Stupor OD.

I hear where he is coming from, I do the same thing, I have a bank or three of stock sounds, and like to run a preset a song for my gigs.....so being able to copy a preset named "Modern Heavy Rhythm" into preset 46 - Enter Sandman....it would be a nice feature if you could choose to not overwrite the name. Not a huge issue, but more cumbersome when using the onboard editing as opposed to the PC version with a keyboard/mouse.

Couple questions.... 1) you can only have 1 parallel routing chain per signal path A and B right? I don't think I missed anything here, but just asking. 2) When I had my Fractal a nice thing was putting effects in Parallel or Series. I really liked putting my delays/verbs in separate lines out. 2a) If I add an effect say a chorus on a parallel line, with Fractal I would adjust the mix to 100% and adjust the level to +/- the effected sound as opposed to Series - adjusting the Mix % to get the effect I wanted. Does this hold true yet with Helix? 2b) If I do separate my Delay/Verbs into a parallel chain...because I cannot just run the outputs to the output block (it has to connect right before at its latest point) does that defeat the purpose of running them parallel or would there not be much difference? It's slower at work and my mind sometimes wanders and needs to know these things.

You'll want to save it to that location first...then edit>resave. I usually right click on the preset name, choose 'copy', then choose where I want it to be saved....right click/paste. You have to make sure that you are 'choosing' the preset that you want to edit...I've copy/pasted began tweaking only to find out I was changing my original (copy) preset, not the new (paste) one.

Well the ME one I have is just the standard regular one...nothing specific to any unit or anything else. Is the L6 one on the L6 website compatible with the Helix LT, it didn't list it on the website that I saw. I see that ME has a L6 version, but for $130...I'd hope there were other options available..but I'll go there if I have to. The On board pedal doesn't have a 'mechanical' issue like others have offered. Here is what happened...I decided since I only use one expression pedal per preset (mostly) I could just use the on board one and utilize the switch if I needed a 2nd one. I went through my presets updated to using the onboard pedal. Got all of the auto-engages set I believe to 98% to engage the effect. That gave me a little extra room at the top. My first gig was an abbreviated setlist night, first preset that needed something to be controlled was Crazy Train...pulled up the preset (which worked flawlessly on the 15-20 presets I changed that week) and we got 30 seconds into the song...something didn't sound right. I check my tuning, I'm all good....other guitar checks his tuning....all good. I stop the song so we can identify the problem...this is 6 songs into the night, so not something that was there previously....we each play an open E string and I can hear its my guitar that's out of tune...quickly check my preset in the Helix, and my Whammy/Pitch Effect is engaged...I move the pedal to let it reset itself and disengage the effect when passing 98%, but I notice that its only reading 0-91%. So from that point on in the show, any preset that had a expression controlled effect needed to have the bypass adjusted (why would I trust the number I'm adjusting it to at this point) or have the effect removed and resave the preset. ^^^ this is unacceptable...I've experienced the same with the ME-EP1 pedal, but its not been as drastic only dipping down to the 96%+ ranges...but as soon as I set it it changes how it reads it....if it was 96% consistently then that's an easy adjustment...but if it reads 96% at full...and I adjust the auto-engage to turn on at 95%...and the next time its reading at 100% or 99% when fully toe down, I've now lost that bit of travel in the pedal... So...I'm all for swapping pedals if I need to...just want to make sure when I go through the process of selling gear and purchasing new stuff, it will resolve this problem....as the onboard one has the same issue.

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?