vstrattomusic

Sorry I wasn't trying to be mean, but you can see this going on with the POD series at least, I never owned any of the PODs so maybe I'm wrong, you can see amp packs for sale on the website, sold by Line 6, if they release official amp packs they yeah that's pretty believable, but otherwise I don't think it's going to happen, I mean someone could reverse engineer the Helix and release their own firmware with their own amps but I think that would be illegal?

It's not a scam, just a bit misleading in the sense that they're not really amp packs, but preset packs, I guess that someone with 0 knowledge about the Helix might think there's actual new amps, these are useful in the sense that a professional audio guy with professional audio equipment has A/B'd the preset and the target amp so close that it's hard to distinguish the preset from the real thing, so if you want that sound you can get it. I haven't bought them because I have my own presets but I'll probably buy one of the packs for fun when I have some spare money.

I'll try what you said, the cleans in my friend's album are dirty cleans because I'm also using the Kinky Boost in front of the JC120, but I do use really clean sound for my songs and there's no problem with artifacts or scratchiness. Usually my cleans are never fully clean when I record, if I do that the clean part will sound very underwhelming, out of place and lacking brightness after a heavy riff, if I add just the right amount of gain it's a lot better.

No, I have no idea what that is, but I'm using the Helix's Roland 120 model with some pedals for recording cleans on a friend's album and it's fine, he's using EMGs. I had the pad on for a while a couple of months ago and did a couple of my own songs like that, later on I was angry about it because I quickly did an A/B test and the guitars sounded a bit weaker with the pad on. I don't know I only do high gain tones, cleans and different effects, never use any mid-gain amps or cranked vintage combos, there's a lot of stuff like that in the Helix that I never use.

Off, even with hot pickups, like 8 string active Blackouts and JBs very very close to the strings for 6ers, better tone, hopefully with this next update they will include signal meters so I can finally accomplish my goal of recording with a Scarlett 2i4 and then reamping with the Helix, although I'm not sure I'll need to do that because I'm getting really comfy with the Helix and rarely have to reamp, only sometimes if I want to nail the brightness of an impulse so it fits the mix just right or something like that.

Whyyyy? I do the exact opposite, I leave the high and low cuts disabled ESPECIALLY if I'm recording, tone shaping EQ is fine, it's pretty simple, if you record with all the eq stuff done, and then that doesn't really match with the rest of the mix, you're lollipoped, you either have to reamp or record the tracks again, which takes way more work than just placing a simple high and low cut with an EQ after recording it. And then getting a cab in the room sound is a bit meh too, just high cut while you listen together with the rest of the instruments in the mix until you feel that it's sounds good, then cut and boost whatever freqs you want, maybe you need to try another cab/impulse, because that's the biggest factor in modelled guitar tone I think aside from the amp, boost, etc, etc

No, they're the same, AFAIK the only difference is, Axe is 200ms 48kHz 24 bit, Helix is 200ms 48kHz 16 bit, regular .wav is 500ms whatever sample rate

I have no Axe FX, I just have Fractal's IR loader (which..has not really worked very well for me) so I can load their exclusive Cab Packs, that ended when I bough the Helix, but the sound quality of those IRs is undeniably good, it makes mixing a ton easier. To say something good about the stock cabs..well at least the ones I've used for high gain they have a very cool midrange growl, so at least they do not sound dead, which is very good. Now you've made me insecure about my mixing skills and I'm going to be trying to get a big mix with the stock cabs for weeks >:(

Not saying you can't, but it takes work, especially with the stock cabs, I make a patch with stock cabs, then copy/paste it and make the new one have an IR to make an A/B comparision, and 90% of the time the IR just sounds more open, cleaner, bigger. I'm sure if you made the right EQ moves you can get it to sound like that too, but that's MANY parametric EQ blocks, and I like to keep that simple, you know, low cut, high cut (or not), mid cut (a little), maybe raise it a bit at the hi mids. With the stock cabs from what I remember there were many many noisy freqs.

I think the real deal on this is using a smaller tube amp that you really like into a TwoNotes Torpedo and playing & recording through that, doubt you'll need anything else having Helix for effects or some VST effects if you're into that, now I'm with the Helix but yeah as soon as I can that's what I'm going to do. The Helix needs a ton of work to get a huge sound from it, with the stock cabs specially, I tried one or two times by reamping together while listening to the mix and it's just wasn't happening, you can show me any clip or video of someone getting a good tone with them, but it's still not as good as I want it to be. It's a lot of personal preference I guess, there's a difference between a good YouTube metal tone and a guitar tone that will make you lose your mind while listening to a song.

It makes no sense for very big name artists to use the Helix if they have enough budget to buy an Axe FX, and even then they probably use it as effects only with a tube amp, not all of them of course, but I did watch an interview of Mark Tremonti a long time ago, he had an Axe FX II in his rig for effects only, using a Triple Rec and a Bogner Uberschall for his tones, said that indoors the modellers do ok but outside in festivals and all you could still hear the difference, or was it the other way around? I don't remember. For small bands a ton of them use the Helix and the Axe live I'm sure, I think for me I'll stick to the Helix at home for recording and buy a small tube amp with a good cab to play live, because I'm not sure if the Helix would sound good when turning up the volume really loud, I don't want to worry about not sounding warm or cutting out high freqs and all. The dudes in Periphery use their Axe FX live using a Peavy as a poweramp and I remember hearing someone saying that they cut their highs at like 6kHz or something, very crazy.

Nice! I just bought it and it sounds awesome, the 57 mikes especially, will try in a mix later today. Not a fan of YouTube IRs demos since usually they sound different when you actually use them but I trust you from having used these Axe Cab Packs, it was a pain not being able to use them properly since Cab Lab does not work that well for me and they are impossible to use in the Helix. I can finally use your IRs freely, they definetly have a special growl to them for high gain and I remember the Zilla pack was insanely good for compressed cleans/ambient tones!

Yeah sorry, I have the LT, didn't know the regular one had that option. Yes you do! For me for example it's especially useful to have that feature, my bass has weaker output than my guitars, so on my Focusrite interface when I used it I would use different input gain settings when recording bass compared to electric guitar, and with this it was fine. However when I got the Helix I didn't have this option and my bass sounded very weak when using an amp on it, so eventually I figured out that I could use a Gain block as a workaround, however I still have no reference about how hot the original signal is on a meter, but right now I just thought of something and I'm going to try it next time I'm recording. I've been thinking of something for a while, you are quite knowledgeable with this right? So, if I recorded my DI's with the Scarlett 2i4 for easiness and then reamped with the Helix, how messed up would the result be considering there's inevitably going to be some volume difference between a DI take recorded with the Helix and one recorded with 2i4?

Not for DI takes from Out 7, it doesn't. No hardware input gain control knob, every audio interface has one. Guitars, bass, microphones all output different volumes, you have 0 control of that in the helix, then there is no meter in the Helix to tell you when you're clipping if you decide to use a gain block, and by the way how the hell are you going to plug in a regular condenser mic into this if the mic requires 48V phantom power? Even my 150€ Scarlett 2i4 can do that. This is a very good guitar amp/effects processor, but it's no subsitute for a real audio interface unless you like lots of workarounds. If you're gonna record more than just guitars and bass, then get a real audio interface.

No it can't, it has no input gain control ffs

Yeah, in Studio One 4 you don't need to touch anything either but still it would have been nice to have some official clarification, I was having pops/crackles issues, which seemed to be related to sample rate so I wanted to sync the Helix > Helix Driver > DAW sample rates. Then again the Helix itself outputs 16 bit audio but then works as a 24 bit interface too doesn't it? Anyway I don't care that much about the drivers bugging out and giving me pops and crackles, what bothers me is that I don't want those pops and crackles to be recorded in my DI guitar takes that I will use for reamping later. It can be very hard to get everything in perfect timing and tuning, it makes me mad having to record the same song like 5 times.

It can't be changed by control panel. This is Focusrite Control Panel, which I can access from the Win start menu: This is Helix Control Panel, which I can only access from the DAW: It doesn't specify any sample rate in the manual, that's wrong, there should be more info on that. It just sticks to the sample rate of the project, it's a bit confusing.

Anyway I'm going to try again today, switched all projects to 48kHz, disabled & disconnected all other audio interfaces. Usually I switch between Helix & the Focusrite, using the Focusrite for direct monitoring with XLR & mixing when I'm done with the Helix, today I'll be direct monitoring through the headphones output.

It can't be!! Then why do all audio interfaces have an option to change sample rates in the driver options but not this one? Why do I get pops and crackles that are related to sample rate?

But the LT, through USB...only 48kHz right?

Nope, nevermind turns out Helix only outputs 48000Hz audio, the setting has no effect on USB signal, turns out I'm doing all my songs in 48000Hz now? Or maybe I should record with my Focusrite 2i4 and then Reamp through the Helix? But then the signal will be different since the Focusrite guitar signal will be a lot stronger than the Helix guitar signal.

Ugh nevermind I'll record 4 songs again tomorrow with everything set at 44.100Hz, this album is cursed I tell you, it's the 4th time I'm going to have to do it, first it was tuning problems, then lollipop cable that made DI signal weird, now it's the sample rate. lollipop me.

Hello, I've been recording some songs, and the Helix's sample rate is default at 48000Hz, however my projects are in 41000Hz, I've run into problems after hearing ticks in my tracks, thinking I'm going to have to record it all again, but then I switched the project sample rate to 48000Hz, and they went away however, the audio files now come up as modified, I'm using Studio One 4. What should I do? Re-record 4 songs again just to be safe or is there some workaround to this?

I hope that's the case and nothing's up, just a bit worried about losing sound fidelity or damaging the insides of the Helix with the lollipop electronic installation here.