vstrattomusic

No, Tune the guitar exactly as you will play it, pay attention to string tension so the notes are tuned as you hit them, not after the string settles, when using Drop tuning, or tuning low like B standard or F#, tune the lowest string by harmonics and using your ear, not the tuner.

I have nothing interesting to add but you're not alone, I think maybe it went away on it's own, or maybe it's still there, I stopped paying attention.

I was going to disagree, but you said "too much" high frequencies, and that's right, but that's the trick I think, raising them just enough so that the guitars sound big and open, without making them too noisy, if you do it just right, it's like you took a blanket off the guitar cabinet. But that's where you need good cabinet emulation & impulses, if I use stuff that's "ready for the mix" that's where the problems begin.

In my experience, and I've only been mixing for...4 years now with limited gear (DIY), is that to get the good tones and the good mixes, your ears must mature a bit, there's no way around the hours and the tons of frustration. Once your ears mature a bit, you'll start to know what sounds you want and which ones you don't want, instead of just trying stuff to see if it works or not. This has been my experience. But progress is REALLY slow and it's easy to start looking for magic solutions especially when they are offered to you so conveniently through the Internet. The Helix, the Axe, the Kemper, the VST stuff, even a lollipop old modeler, that all depends on how you mix it, the newer stuff is probably easier to work with, and the older stuff will probably be more work and less options that sound good. I've never had an Axe but the advantage it has over the Helix from what I've heard is that you don't have to tweak as much to get a very beliavable sound. But I'm happy with the Helix and I don't mind tweaking. You can hear unimpressive guitar tones from both the Axe and the Helix, it depends on the user, what I think can be a bit of a lollipop is that to get a more impressive & present tone in the mix you have to raise the high frequencies, doing that with modelled high gain amps can be very tricky because as you raise the high frequencies the sound becomes noisier, it's easier to deal with this with very good amp modelling and this might be where the Axe has some advantage over the Helix, but it's not very difficult to fix in the Helix either.

I do it with the IR block with HX Edit, while using the Helix to reamp raw DI signal from the DAW, just scrolling through the IRs with the mouse wheel, before the update I think the audio was uninterrupted when changing IRs and now it cuts out. I've never used snapshots because I don't play live.

Comparing very similar IRs for a mix, before this update there was no fade out when changing IR and it was easier to hear the tiny difference between 2 similar impulses because you could switch between the 2 and hear the audio uninterrupted. Now there's a fade out when changing IRs and it's not as easy..

Whyyyyyy would you do that L6? :'(

LT 2.80 here, why would I switch to 2.81 or 2.81.1? Jeez what is going on first there was an update for HX Stomp only, then all of them, then another just for the LT? Weren't they all supposed to be in the same ecosystem running the same firmware??

I don't know if this is legal here or not, but I've seen a lot of discussion regarding stock cabs and factory presets being useless, in the new 2.80 update the presets have been updated with high and low cuts, which made me try them again since I'm getting sick (in a bad way) of the high gain guitar sound and I want to try new things, a smoother sound. I decided to use the Placater Dirty patch because it was inoffensive to my ears, but could still rock. I used this patch without tweaking anything at all, just disabled some effects and the EQ block, thought I would reamp later, but felt too lazy for that. I'm pleasantly surprised, I had been using IRs for so long, from almost every brand out there, and I have to say the stock cabs have their own charm to them, actually comparing them to some IR's I've used in my previous mixed, they seem to sound less big but have more meat to them, I did have to apply some EQ though, but that's always the case when mixing a song. Anyway my mixing game is not at it's best since I haven't done it in some time and also decided I would not put in too much effort since I'm only making music for myself, but maybe you'll like it! Feel free to share any of the stuff you've made with factory patches!

Detailed GUI in HX Edit for all amps and effects, like VST amp sims, being able to load more than 2 IRs, up to 8 at the same time ideally, multiple mics on a cab without loading another cab block, input gain control, basic reverbs like Room and Plate, which seem to have been left out as legacy FX, with no mono or stereo options.. I prefer Helix tones to plugin tones for recording, but I really miss being able to change amp & IR parameters on the go without having to reamp every track, it made things a lot easier.

Ewww no, the most important thing when getting your first guitar as a little kid is that it looks cool, obviously a pretty lollipoping cheap guitar too, popular brand, 100-200€ range, a beginner barely knows how to tune a guitar, playability is something that (IMO) takes years to figure out, as you also become more experienced with guitar set-up and string gauges. What made me stick to the guitar as a little kid was just the motivation of playing along to my favourite songs and that it made me feel great, or spending time with effects seing what cool sounds I could come up with. Serious practice and all that other boring lollipop I didn't even consider until way later, when I decided to get serious about making music. So IMO the most important thing for a young beginner is to have fun playing and to have access to GP tabs, you either click with it or you don't, no product will make a difference. I think my first guitar was a Squier Bullet Strat and a Stagg combo amp, later used that with a Digitech RP90 or a Boss MT-2, combined with a Behringer DSP1000P from 1999 I think, it probably sounded terrible but I had a ton of fun playing hahah.

Same, happened once to me;

Hmm, I did that last time while going to work to a different country by myself for half a year, must've been funny to see, I walked around with so much stuff, computer case on one hand, huge luggage case on the other, guitar on the back. I put my Helix LT in the luggage case and wrapped it in it's factory plastic bag, then towels, then clothes, right in the middle of the case so everything would lessen the impacts when it would be handled by the airport people. The guitar, first time around I brought it in a hard case, checked it in as special equipment, but surprise surprise, they lollipoped up the case, they didn't crack it or render it useless, but it was scratched really hard, there were chunks of cloth ripped off exposing the wood. So next time I just bought an extra plane ticket for the guitar and brought it on the plane with me in a soft gigbag, it was a cheap airline so the extra plane ticket turned out cheaper than checking it in as spec. equiment. I guess it depends, how lollipoped are you if they won't let you on the plane with the Helix? How important is the flight, etc.

I'm not in the US, I'm in Spain, bought the Helix when I was in the UK. No, there's no external pedal, by EXP2 I meant the default built in pedal in the LT. It's the one that's lit up all the time and the one you assign to in the editor to use the expression pedal on the LT. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's because on the Helix Floor the default pedal might be EXP1 and then you're able to add 2 external pedals; EXP2 & EXP3. On the LT you're only able to have 1 external pedal so you start off with EXP2 and EXP3 would be the one you add, EXP1 doesn't exist but still comes up on the software.

Hmm the thing is the regular warranty was 1 year long right? I've had mine for longer than a year so I guess I will have to pay for the repair.

Well, it's been around 1 year and a half without trouble, yesterday the default EXP2 in the Helix LT died at random, dead as in DEAD, not a patch mistake, re-installing the firmware didn't work, or restoring globals, and hardware test mode wasn't reading any signal from the pedal at all. It's not physically broken. I turned off the Helix for a while, wrote a support ticket, turned it back on, and boom it's working again, just like that for no reason. We've agreed that if it happens again I'd have to bring it to a repair center, I have one kind of near me, luckly. This problem doesn't make a lot of sense, but I wonder if we can dechipher this, have you had this happen to you? Any factors you might remember? Me, for example, I had the Helix turned on all night as I was playing guitar, so it was turned on for many hours, shutting it on and off while troubleshooting didn't make a difference, but once I shut it off for a longer time, the pedal went back on.

Well, I wasn't saying it in that way, I can't afford the Axe FX III and it's expensive, but I don't consider that they're asking way too much for what they're offering, so if I had the money, I would buy it. With Apple on the other hand, I do consider that they're asking way too much for what they're offering, so I even if I had the money, I wouldn't buy it. But yeah, lollipop it, I agree, guitar stuff is subjective, what I said was my opinion, not a fact. If someone can work better with the Helix than with the Axe, then better for their wallet.

But that's not always the case is it? It's like PC vs Mac, Macs are more expensive products, yet you can build a way more powerful Windows machine on your own for a lot less money, a lot of people dislike Apple for that and plenty of people say that their products are overpriced for what they are offering. Why is that not happening with Fractal?

Yeah, so if the Helix is just as good (or better) as the Axe FX, considering that Line 6 is a bigger company and has more resources to do better marketing, then why hasn't the Helix replaced all of the Axes in the famous dudes' rigs? Why doesn't it have as many endorsements? Why aren't Axe users switching over to the Helix since it's way cheaper and can provide tones as good as the Axe?

I say that because; -My Helix LT is around £700 brand new, the Axe FX III is like $2250 from their website, 2800€ from a EU distributor. -I have seen a ton of bands that I like that use the Axe FX, even when using tube amp rigs, they just have the Axe laying around for effects, I have never seen a band that I like use the Helix. -I've heard a lot of praise about the Axe FX since forever, when the Helix was launched, I remember reading a lot of criticism about the sound, how it was fizzy, or had that "Line 6 sound", or that it wasn't in the same league as the Axe FX and Kemper. -You can read a lot of comments saying that it's easy to get a really good sound with the Axe Fx without barely touching anything, while it takes some tweaking with the Helix. You could say that it's all subjective, but there's a reason why the Helix is $1400 or $900 and the Axe is 2800€, there's a reason why most big name artists are using the Axe and not the Helix, and I don't think it's marketing, since Line 6 is way more popular than Fractal Audio. I bought the Helix LT because I couldn't afford the Axe FX III, for me, it was definetly a step up from my solid state amps and VST plugins that I used to record, when I first used it, I was impressed, but when I put it in a mix I got angry because it wasn't easy to get the tone that I wanted out of it, I had to try many things to get where I wanted to be. I kept with it because of the 0 latency, as opposed to using plugins + interface, also because I had all of the effects I'll ever need in one place instead of messing with a 1000 plugins from different brands, and because it's my best option at this time and if I put some work in, I can make it sound like I want it to. But I don't think it's the best option if you have the money.

Hmm well I think everything's pretty easy on the Helix, it's a like a videogame, you try all of the controls and different combinations when you're starting out, the only thing I haven't gone into yet is snapshots, never used them.

Hahahahahah what's your beef with the tuner? Mine can be too sensitive sometimes and picks up stuff from the electricity which makes me paranoid, but other than than no problem, the only one that I use is the Fine option though, seems to be the best option.

I know what you mean by thin sounding and cold, but it's more of a question about your own skills at getting guitar tones and mixing, the EQ, and the IR's you use, it takes time, practice and good ears. The Helix isn't lacking mids, you can get them so high it's disgusting, in a mix, you will want to cut (some of) the mids. Also the amp modeling itself maybe isn't up to par with the Axe FX 2 and 3, that's common knowledge, but it's not that bad either and the AXE FX is way more expensive, you can get the Helix to sound REALLY good, like the real deal in a recording, for example if you compare the Helix with a VST plugin like the X50 with the same IR, the Helix will sound nicer and warmer. And the graph you posted is not..real at all? I took some pictures of some of my recordings to show you what it should look like, I'm using high gain all the time too.

What? Changing inputs and IR's or tweaking? I don't wanna use the Helix to play live because reasons, but I imagine changing parameters is pretty easy, just assign everything to a stomp and when you need to change it you just touch the stomp without pressing it, the block you want gets selected and you can tweak anything you want, it's not as fast as a tube amp but way faster than a rack modeller I imagine.

I mean they have already made tweaking stuff pretty natural with the 6 knobs under the screen and being able to go back to the default setting by clicking on the knob if you're getting too messed up, I wish I used the hardware more, but since I'm always using IRs and changing inputs for reamp and such HX Edit is so much faster..