SymphonicDischord

Crotch Island, I think I watched that on Red Tube.

Makes sense, it does have the distinct reverb decay that you only get from a room with an Italian marble vanity and covered floor to ceiling in tiny 1"X1" tiles in alternating colors of the blue, green and grey.

Considering that Andy Summers was most likely using the exact same signal chain for both the chorus and the verse (I can't hear any real tone deviation that could be attributed to an amp or pedal) I would say Aex that your so called mediocrity of the verse comes down to the fact that your playing style differs from Andy's. I think you've done it. Well done sir! Carry on and back to bacon and Phillip K. lollipop.

Sometimes it's the simplest things that get us.

One of my students had a weekend warriors showcase that I went and checked out earlier tonight. Really solid stuff and I gotta say it always impresses me at the talent and skill these kids seem to posess nowadays. Anyway, one of the groups did a cover of Message in a Bottle and the kid absolutely nailed the tone. Do you want to know what the secret was? An Ibanez RG plugged straight into a Peavey Bandit 112, one of the newer Chinese made ones not a classic American made. So there you go, your holy grail tone has finally been dissected and in the process I'm pretty sure I've saved you a boatload of money. Your welcome!

Which, bacon or sausage? Either way dems fightin' words.

I'm just curious here, I retubed my DT25 head about a year ago and did quite a bit of extensive research at the time and do not recall there being any specific tube type recommendations. As this was the case, I went ahead and ordered from The Tube Store a matched set of Preferred Series 7189 (http://www.thetubestore.com/Tubes/EL84-6BQ5-Tube-Types/Preferred-Series-7189-Premium-EL84) and a Sovtek 12AX7-LPS (http://www.thetubestore.com/Tubes/12AX7-ECC83-Tube-Types/Sovtek-12AX7-LPS) for the pre. I installed and biased everything correctly and have been using the head with these tubes in on a fairly regular basis since then. I guess my question is, is there any warning signs that I should be looking for that they didn't take as well as I initially thought? Should I put the old tubes back in as they are still good? Thanks in advance for the help.

Can you give us some more details of your setup, both your signal path in the Helix and how you are connecting it to your Element.

We call it back bacon.

Yep I'm not a bourbon fan at all but I don't see how this could be bad.

Amen brother. Bacon is love. Bacon is life.

You mean you don't keep a secret stash in the closet that you can binge on when she's not home?

After carefully listening to the track multiple times through headphones I think I've pinpointed what's missing. Bacon. Until Helix comes up with a bacon model it's not going to be possible. Maybe you could start an ideascale so you can finally nail that tone.

And how about a tuner for the editor.

Personally I've never found a need to adjust the cab IRs default levels, but I've primarily used this method for recording and not in a line setting yet.

Have you tried using the XLR out from the Fryette to the mic in on the Helix instead? I've done this also with my DT25 (as Darrell described) and with my Tubemeister 36 into a Mesa Cab Clone with great results but I've always done it with the XLR. Might be worth a try.

Mmm... Cheetos.

I like carrots. They're crunchy and orange.

An idea could be to take a more "controlled" approach for this ala what Propellerhead did with Reason and introducing Rack Extensions. After years of everything being internalized with a "you get what you get with this program and that's it", all the while people clammering for VST support, they created the RE protocol. This opened things up for third party developers and ports of existing products but didn't sacrifice any of the program's rock solid stability. An approach like this could be a good starting place/remedy and keep the overall system stable as well.

Here is what I would do (and have done) with your setup. I would start with path 1 input set to guitar run through your amp and various FX and then set the output to 1/4". I would then feed this into input 1 on your Scarlett. Now on path 2 set the input to guitar but do not add any amps or FX to this path. For output to the Scarlett you have a couple of options now. If you want mono dry guitar tracks, set the output to XLR and run that into input 2 on your Scarlett. If you prefer to work with stereo, I would set the output to digital for this path and then use the Helix's SPDIF out to your Scarlett's SPDIF in (just make sure you've set the sample rates to match in both devices to make sure they don't lose sync). Now in Reaper you can arm both tracks set to whatever Scarlett inputs your using and voila, your able to record a processed track and dry track simultaneously.

Yep, I finally updated to 2.12 a couple days ago and the Litigator along with the 2 Archons are phenomenal right out of the box, no tweaking required. The Archons have become my goto amps for my clean and high gain band patches. The amount of gain on tap for the lead and the "head room" on the clean is fantastic. The Litigator's responsiveness to the guitar's volume knob is quite exceptional also. You can definitely cover a lot of ground with it. Is it just me or does Line 6 seem to be getting better/more refined with modeling on each subsequent firmware release? I'm getting pretty pumped for 2.20 for all the 4 string goodness coming our way.

Here is what I would try but disclaimer, I have no experience with the Helix as an audio interface or USB routings. Path 1: Guitar input > pre amp FX (drives, etc.) > FX loop 1 (Helix send 1 to amp input, amp FX send to Helix return 1) > post amp FX (delays, etc.) > Path 1 output set as Helix send 2 (which will be fed to your amp's FX return. Path 2: Input set to return 3 (being fed by your amp's load box) > Cab IRs > post cab FX (reverbs, etc.) > Path 2 output set to XLR. I believe with this signal chain you should be able to record your amp with IRs and monitor the full sound as opposed to a mix of both. Hopefully this works out for you.

Honestly roscoe, my personal favorite results have been with either my DT25 (L6 Link) dummied into my Mesa Cab Clone (which has a great sounding cab emulation in it's own right) or 4CM into my Hughes & Kettner Tubemeister 36 (with a great built in dummy load and Red Box DI). As great as the Helix sounds on it's own I'm still a sucker for the warmth imparted by the tubes and with my lunchbox amps, why not.

That does sound pretty interesting and I'm kinda curious to try it with my H&K TM36 now. I think to set it up properly though you would have to run 2 separate paths, one with the Helix and the other with the FX loop block for your Mesa pre both feeding to the same output. That way it should avoid you feeding one preamp into the other before it's fed to the Mesa's poweramp and cab.

Have a look and make sure your loops are set to instrument level and not line level.