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zolko60

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Posts posted by zolko60

  1. Helix max input instrument level is set at +11dBu=0dBFS

    IMHO this is good instrument level covering 99% of pickups in the world but may be considered low if the same level is counterclockwise gain position in eg. UA Apollo audio interface. 

  2. On 11/8/2022 at 4:49 PM, PaulTBaker said:

    Basic stuff like, move the mic out to get rid of the base, or what the 45axis is supposed to do.

    Moving mic out of the cap is basically LPF
    Moving mic off axis is basically HPF
    45deg is the same as moving off axis but a lot of people believe it does some magic.
    Current "stock cab" is GUI approach. In such solutions only a few IRs are actually used, they may be interpolated and filted to give a user a nicer experience.

    • Like 1
  3. It seems there is no info in the Hx FL manual how to make it work on external digital clock. I am owner of Hx LT. It has no digital input (except USB) so I can not use it anyway but as a master it works on any sample rate gobal settings allow.
    Have you tried to disconnect Hx USB while using SPDIF? I know SPDIF should work independent but lollipop happens.

  4. Possible but not likely.

    1. Make sure your Helix SPDIF is set to internal clock.

    2. Make sure your DAW (or session) is set to the desired sample rate.

    3. If 1 and 2 check other sample rates.

    4. If nothing works, change Focusrite to digital master and Hx to digital slave 

     

    BTW: If you are using Mac check which driver you are currently using. If not "downloaded multisample rate driver" you are using Helix Class Compliant. This may create some issues when aggregated.

    • Like 1
  5. Interesting observations. Helix paths are stereo and no panning law is implemented, no avialiable documentation about it either, so it is really a measurement work to check if USB input is treated different than ADC. 

    IIRC in Reaper, I had to deselect one of dual mono track routing to keep the Native level compatible with LT. If I didn't I would hit mono models with 6dB more gain.

    When I tested Helix hardware I don't remember any lack of unity gain.

     

     

    Helix instrument level is fixed at 11dBu at 0dBFS so if someone can set a different audio interface instrument input sensitivity to that value it should be fine (unless there is some issue you report) 

     

    1.9ms negative offset with USB reamping is IMO natural. This is Helix ADC/DAC latency and the Hx driver is not informed if ADC/DAC are in path or omitted. If they are in path once there is no offset, if two times 1.9ms positive offset is expected. 

  6. On 2/5/2021 at 9:25 PM, OmniFace said:

    Normalization is simply raising or lowering the amplitude of the entire track.  It doesn't alter the sample rate or bit depth of the signal.  It merely says that a audio data point sitting at say -6 dB is now -4.7dB.  But it does that for all data points, meaning that means that the S/N ratio stays constant.  Both get louder or quieter in equal amounts at the same time.

    Oh, really? If you have three intiger numbers: 1, 12, 65 and you want to rise them proportionally as so that 65 is 100, then you have to mutiply them by 100/65, right?
    1.538, 18.462, 100,

    then to round them to integer values 2, 18, 100 (becacuse the sample rate does not change, right?)
    What happens to those differences? Don't they form noise?


    S/N ratio is the proportion of the loudest signal to the noise floor level. If the A/D converter has eg 105dB S/N ratio and you keep 10dB of headroom so your recorded signal can only have 95dB of S/N ratio, right? Still if it has 50dB S/N ratio before it hits A/D converter, it makes a small difference.

    On 2/5/2021 at 9:25 PM, OmniFace said:

    That said, I'd wager that converters these days are such high quality you may have to run them through conversion hundreds or perhaps thousands of times to hear a difference. 

    You can actually make an experiment of putting the Helix fx loop before a high gain amp model.
     

  7. 42 minutes ago, Shivabhairava said:

    Is there a forum where you can only praise Helix?

    Yes. The facebook Original and Official Group. Tuff threads are removed, users not sharing appeciation are blocked sometimes.

    Sure Fractal DSP power is 4 times as big as Helix, IRs can be 4 times longer and you can have 20 times more, but AxeFxIII costs 4 times as much. Considering some of Hx DSP blocks are as good as Fractal ones, it it still a bargain.

    • Like 1
  8. I do not have Hx Stomp but I remember somebody on this forum constructed Expression Pedal and a switch for Hx Stomp. I suppose they are not mutualy excluding.
    There are some expresion/volume pedals on the market. Their idea is similar but due to a differences in construction they may not all work right out the box.
    Using MIDI swiches is nice idea, you can go beyond two avialiable.

    • Like 1
  9. 2 hours ago, DBCrocky said:

    A reverb hint that I really like is to turn the PreDelay up to about 130ms

     

    1 hour ago, DBCrocky said:

    I don't generally use large ambient reverbs


    The PreDelay adds to total reverb time. 130ms multiplied by the speed of sound (0,34m/ms) /2 for the return, equals 22m to the nearest wall.
    I know, I am a strange cookie. :D

  10. 3 hours ago, PierM said:

    Just do a test using high wetness levels on a old BlueSky (or even better, on a Flint), and then try to do the same with any of the Helix reverbs.....ewwww

    Somebody may say Strymon uses the whole Sharc DSP but as far as I remember Hx is 450MHz and Strymon 266 or 300Mhz, also Strymon is advertised as being 96kHz sampling rate, so probably Strymon reverb algorithms would use less than 50% of one Hx DSP path, not mentioning Strymon does not have to optimize them to lower DSP resources just because their target likes "hardware modular" approach to FX products and saving 3$ on a DSP clock would be weird. :)
    I think the reverb quality is all about its algorithms and the Helix platform is waiting for them.

    Edit: There is one more Sharc DSP platform - UAD, based on the same 450Mhz version:
    From DSP charts (one DSP usage):

    Lexicon 224 Classic Digital Reverb 15.3% 17.0%
    Lexicon 480L Digital Reverb and Effects  59.9%  60.3%

    EMT 140 Plate Reverb 14.6%15.0%

     

     

    • Upvote 1
  11. 48 minutes ago, TheRainEnsemble said:

    I never said Helix reverbs suck.

    Actually they suck!
    I have watched Jason Sadities video on reverb comparisions. He took Legacy Plate and compared it to Stymon, Fractal an IK Multimedia. The results were only IK plate was worse.
    The conclusion was - nobody is able to tell a difference. If one is - cork sniffer alert! ;)
     



    I do not posses neither of the plates he used for a blind test so I am not able to replicate his demonstration but I can compare Helix Legacy Plate to the plates I use nowdays.
    Being sound engineer for 20 years I had a chance to listen to some real plate reverbs and a lot of digital emulations, cheap and expensive ones, starting from Alesis Microverb, , Digitechs, Lexicons LPX, MPX, PCM and so on. I remember I sold my TC M5000 couple of years ago after I compared it to Bricasti M7. No, I do not have M7 now to compare either.
    Back to the test: UVI plate is CPU hog so it wouldn't be a fair comparision. What about quite cheap (50$) and DSP resources light Valhalla Plate?
    Please, make a comparision by yourself. For me it is a night and day difference. Valhalla demo is free.
    https://valhalladsp.com/shop/reverb/valhalla-plate/

    And for Line 6 fanboys: I know the Legacy Plate is taken from POD HD, I do not claim it is not playable - if you do not have any other plate reverb to compare you can even claim it is decent. Not for me - if I have to low pass filter at 1kHz to get rid of that awful claustrophobic, concrete feeling, grainy and messy mid/high range I just choose anything mercyful instead.
    Sometimes I ask you - what reverbs you think are worse than Helix reverb algorithms? They say Kemper ar Mooer. Maybe. Maybe just single Sharc DSP is not capable of producing anything attractive in the reverb department any longer due to its low DSP power? IDK but I do not think so. Sharc with good software can deliver even in 2025.

    To Line 6 whoever:
    I still hope there is somebody at Line 6 still developing reverb algorithms and some day they will be avialiable to me and I could call them decent.
    Yes, if the third party companies would release their software for the Helix platform I will pay for Valhalla.

    For the original poster: I have checked that plate mono and stereo. Nothing really bad is happening there. It sucks in both cases.

    • Like 1
  12. 7 hours ago, donkelley said:

    Either you happen to prefer bassier tone, or more midrange in your tone, or a brighter tone (... and as noted in the video, we tend to immediately adjust to brighter sounds as attractive, and get used to them fast, making less bright sounds seem dull by comparison very quickly).  But the levels saying they are identical volume?  They are correct.  The sum of all frequencies measured by that meter is the same between the two versions.

     

    Ola is the metal guitarist. He likes low frequency resonances.
    I don't really understand Igor's position: either Ola is cheating or his IRs just do his job of palm muting bass resonances correctly, but showing those resonances are present on the waveform and pops out proves nothing.
    If your position is correct - comparing two normalised IRs we should pick brighter as better which is not true.
     

     

    7 hours ago, donkelley said:

    Trust the meters, set levels identically, and THEN decide which sounds better.


    No. You can set a level identically only using one type of meter. In case of volume you have three types: Peak, VU (that corresponds to RMS) and Loudness (heavilly windowed and frequency weighted).
    In case of the Loudness Meter giving the best "perceived reference" you also may notice there are two readings: momentary and integrated, so this is possible you can not get consistent results when comparing eg. different gained amps with each reading. The results variation will be affected by a dynamic range of a given samples.
    I would trust integrated value if a given samples to compare are similar. In case of that video the goal is different. Ola likes LF thump, Igor likes balanced. In the mix each set of tracks could make different issues with the rest of the instruments and also can be mixed differentlly - thrashy or djenty ;)
    So your conclusion is almost right. ;)

  13. On 1/14/2021 at 8:37 PM, cruisinon2 said:

     

    If a meter tells me that two tones are both 'X' dB, yet perceptually one is clearly "louder" thanks to our faulty brains, then what good is the number to me? I'm still gonna hafta boost or cut one relative to the other if I want things to sound level.

    That is really interesting. Maybe you use the wrong meters? If you are comparing loudness you shoud use the loudness meter.
     

    On 1/14/2021 at 8:37 PM, cruisinon2 said:

    It's more of a rhetorical/philosophical musing than anything else.

    Yes. This is epistemological question. If the epistemology is "Whatever works is what works" and YMMV then Igor Stolarsky, showing a waveform to prove Ola is cheating, is wrong.
    So YMMV approach is basically "I do not care what is true".


    I proposed the experiment the other day of leveling three factory presets to equal loudness.
    If our ears are the best tool we shoud repetiedly be able to make it and our results should be the same, shouldn't they?
    Spoiler - they are not. Only loudness metering readings are consistent. 

    BTW: I asked Igor a question. If this is the case Helix stock cabs are quieter than any normalised IR, why?
    He did not answer.

  14. When returns are set to Line level the Impedance is 10kOhm and 1MOhm at instrument level.
    10kOhm input impedace massively reduces the resonance peak of the passive pickups circut and line level is 8dB higer.

    • Like 1
  15. To give some demonstration what I am writing about:
    This is Echoplex EP-1 sound sample:

     

     

     


    This is UAD version of Roland RE-201. To give Helix a justice with comparision one needs to consider how much DSP power it eats (for one 450Mhz Sharc) and the price.
     

     

    Of course there are some other RE-201 emulation plugins:
     


    And finally my favorite Memory Man model taken from old Avid Eleven Rack - so avialiable both as a hardware and a plug in.
     

     

  16. 4 hours ago, PierM said:

    The guy isnt trying to demostrate anything.

    He is. He has demonstrated differences in a frequency response caused by various loads. Then he has found the answer in The Helix Manual. That document is the only wisdom source of that video referenced a couple of times.
    I personally find it hilarious when youtubers ignore there are other you tube channels covering the subject (not mention googling) and a better literature than The Helix Manual.

     

    4 hours ago, PierM said:

    Breath dude, you always seem stuck with an hand up, first row of the classrom.

    Breathing. I was the second one. The first rd2k comment was brilliant. I do not understand crediting me for that. ;)

  17. 4 hours ago, brue58ski said:

    Whoa dude! Whaddya bringing Jesus into this for?

    I am so sorry. That was off top. I should be punished!

     

    4 hours ago, brue58ski said:

    The man has been through enough without connecting him to this drivel

    This is kind of idiom my english understanding is too poor to comprehend.

     

    4 hours ago, brue58ski said:

    Falsifiable means that. It doesn't mean it IS false, just that it has the ability to be represented falsely which is essentially what was going on with your Jesus statement

    You may be right! I am so sorry to use Jesus in my comment.

    BTW. What is your opinion on Helix Input Pad Wowness and Attenuation of a Guitar Signal Wowness?
    Is thinking about a demonstration obnoxious for you?

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