SymphonicDischord

You could take that $100 and split it between OH and 3 Sigma.

I would say that doing direct comparisons between the Mesa and the Orange, the edge definitely went to 3 Sigma, but that's now saying that I think the Helix cabs are crap or unusable. I just found it was a little quicker to dial in their IRs. Now that being said, one thing I've become a fan of was running a 3 Sigma IR in parallel with the same HX cab. Running dual IRs can be DSP intensive so I found this to be a great processor "hack" plus, the tonal variations of choosing different mics and distances could blend really well and give you a bit more of a unique tone.

This is what I ended up doing. I listened to the clips on 3 Sigma's website but realized ultimately it's all pretty subjective. So I i picked a couple cabs to compare to the Helix cabs (Mesa and Orange) and then filled out the rest with cabs that weren't in the Helix (Soldano 212, Bad Cat 212, Friedman 412, etc.). Even though it was some what a "leap of faith" I am quite happy with my purchase and definitely found great value in my purchase and choices. With their Black Friday discount and the the fact that they'll still give 20% off a bundle of 7, I'm going to be picking up some of their Acoustic IRs and some bass cabs today.

I must say your logic does seem sound.

Spikey, I totally get where your coming from. I too was chasing that elusive dream with my DT25 and was considering a Torpedo but ultimately couldn't justify the cost. What I did end up doing though was purchasing a Mesa Cabclone. Significantly cheaper and then I've been feed the cab out from the head (with no cab sim) back into my Helix and using the IRs through it. Not quite as simple as the Torpedo or as gesture ladened but for the cost difference, has been a total win for me. Also as a bonus, the three cab sims in the Mesa sound really good and are extremely useful.

I've been quite happy with mine also and that was one of the reasons I purchased some of theirs and took the leap into IRs. They kept it nice and simple to 10 per cab, definitely kept you from feeling overwhelmed with choice. And although they haven't announced any Black Friday sales, they do offer a 20% discount when you by 6.

If your still looking for people to test these out, I'd love to take a crack at it now that I have my studio back together.

I guess it kinda depends on your budget and style of music Spikey. Myself I have an Epi TBird and a Warwick Rockbass Streamer and I definitely like the subtle difference in tone and feel between them.

Ok now I understand what your looking for. What you'll want to do is if you are running a signal from one of the line outs on the Clarrett is setup your reamp preset on the Helix so that the input is one of the FX returns, not the guitar in or aux in. This is a quote from Digitsl Igloo that he had posted when I raised this query before: Assuming your interface's outputs are line level, yes. The trick is that neither the Guitar or Aux input is true -10 or +4 dBu line level, so ideally, you'd want to go into one of the effects returns. Unfortunately, none of the stock presets have an effects return set as the Input block. You can do this really easily by selecting the Input block and turning the joystick until it says "Input Return 1". You can find the full thread here: http://line6.com/support/topic/20130-reamping-with-helix/

Are you talking about doing this all at once or just a general setup, cause to me it sounds like you want to re-amp your DI while you are still recording it. Overall I believe it will work but for your Helix preset you would have to setup 3 different input/output paths to manage (that is, if I'm understanding correctly what your trying to do). I've tried similar things myself with my Focusrite LS56 but I didn't try re-amping the DI as I was recording it. If this isn't what your after, maybe with a little more explanation we can get you pointed in the right direction.

Yep I would say radatats hit the proverbial nail on the head. If you could make that wish list come true you'd probably see a nice bump in DT sales to compliment people's Helix's. The beginnings of the Dream Rig 2.0!

Spikey, the factory reset doesn't blank the pre amps it just sets them up to the factory defaults, you will at the very least need to set that up via Midi. As far as your Helix presets, you don't want to be running any HX cabs or IRs, as you are correct in that it will muddy the sound. But if you do read through the thread I linked, I do outline a method that I use to utilize both the Helix cabs/IRs plus my guitar cab at the same time for a live or recording setting.

Spikey, i feel your pain brother, as being someone who came from the HD500/DT to a Helix/DT, DT integration is definitely at the top of my Christmas list this year. I'll do my best to answer the questions I can for you and as far as the ones on development, maybe someone from L6 (*cough* Digital Igloo *cough*) can throw us a bone as to what's going on with it. 2. DT Edit is one way of changing parameters in the amp but it is not necessary, all the your changes can be done via the Helix and instant messages in the Command Center. Really it all comes down to how comfortable you are with doing basic Midi programming. The nice thing about using DT Edit is that it reduces all those lovely numbered commands to pull down menus, toggles and an Apply Changes button. And yes, once you send a change to the amp it stays that way until you send a new command re-configuring the setup from there. As far as using DT Edit, I used a Midi interface (Roland UM-ONE) but you maybe able to use the Helix as your interface for the program as well. Hopefully someone with a little more knowledge can chime in on that point with some clarification. 3. Really the Midi cable is only necessary if you wish to be constantly sending commands to the DT, ie. adjusting the power amp parameters as you switch through each different pre amp model in the Helix. But if you looking for a more streamlined approach, some people have have just setup their DT with a generalized power amp section that works well with all of their presets and carried on from there. If the latter is more to your speed, once you have made the initial changes in the DT, you would not need to have a Midi cable hooked up anymore unless you wished to change something again. And yes you are correct, it would be Helix Midi out to DT Midi in. As far as L6 Link, right now it is just a glorified amp input that is no different than running a 1/4" line out to the FX Return with one key difference. If you use the L6 Link you still have use of the amp's master volume control, if you use the FX Return you will bypass the master volume. Now if you do decide to use the L6 Link then you will need to make sure that you Midi program the amp to bypass all of the internal preamps otherwise you will end up running the Helix pres into the Dt's pres. But if you decide to just use the FX Return, then you really don't need to worry about doing any programming as this bypasses the amp's pres and goes straight to the power amp already (as it would with any regular amp). 4. As far going through this process yourself, there's lots of great info in this thread on these various setups: http://line6.com/support/topic/18843-helix-dt25-worthy-of-more-exploration/ If you have any more questions or need anything further elaborated, don't hesitate to ask myself and a few others would be more than happy to help you through it.

I've have no experience with the JTV but I will say my Godin LGXT sounds great with the Taylor Earthworks IR. I'm hoping in the near future to pick up the 3 Sigma IRs as the demos online sound amazing but unfortunately I just moved and still have to put my studio back together. Honestly either way you go, your should be able to put together a solid "acoustic" patch.

Yep, you should be able to set that up pretty easily. You could set path one for your electric (choose your amp, fxs, etc) and set your output as either digital (if your using L6 Link) or 1/4" (if your using the amp's fx return). Then setup path 2 for your acoustic sim and feed that to your XLR outputs into the Atomic Wedge.

DT amp integration.

I haven't bothered playing with LVM mode on my DT25, but I generally run full amp models as opposed to just the pres with it. I just prefer the tone I guess. Also, I have a Mesa Cab Clone, so if I want to manage my volume I usually just dummy load the head into it and feed a signal back into my Helix for IRs/Cabs and into my monitors or Alto TS110. Just curious Roscoe, do you ever get take a break from all your Helix tonal "mad scientisting" and play for yourself. Not that I don't (and I'm sure the community) appreciate all your experimentation but I'm sure we'd understand if you just wanted to kick back and enjoy the fruits of your labour.

I slapped mine on a Pedaltrain Pro. Lots of real estate for the board plus the handful of pedals I have in the loops.

If you have a cab already and are considering an SS amp for your Helix, you may want to look into a Crate Powerblock. 150w stereo and small enough to fit in the front pocket of a gig bag. Criminally underrated amp for modellers or as a backup.

Sorry I should have been clear on my post and suggested a full amp model as opposed to a preamp. Even running into the FX return of a proper amp I still find them to sound better. Do you run DSP intensive patches? If not the Torpedo would be massive overkill in my opinion. As an alternative you could look at a Mesa Cab Clone. I use that with my Tubemeister 36 sometimes. I plug the speaker out to the Cab Clone, then into my cab plus it's also got a 1/4" dry line out that I can feed back into the Helix to use the HX cabs and IRs if I want and as a bonus, I was pleasantly surprised at how well the 3 speaker emulations on the Cab Clone sounded. I think with my method I outlined above though you should be fine and still be able to use your Strymon in one of the loops. If your having a hard time visualizing it, I could try and setup a patch when I get home tonight and post it for you.

What type of amp will you be using with it? I'm not 100% sure this would work, but what you could try is setting up path 1A with your preamp, fx, etc and then set the output of that path to Send 1 (as an example). You would then run a 1/4" from Send 1 to your amp's return. Now after all your preamp, fx, etc on path 1A add a split to path 1B and set that path's output to feed into Path 2. Now on path 2 setup your helix cab(s) or IRs (whichever your using) and set the output to your XLRs or 1/4" (whichever you wish to run to FOH). As I said, I'm not positive this will work but in my head the logic seems sound.

I'd be curious about your patch settings as well, that's probably one of the better fuzz patches I've heard on Helix.

I'm a little surprised that no one has replied to you yet with all the bedroom engineers that seem to frequent the forum. But I guess that's why we have a Helix, so we don't have to mix things anymore. As far as mics the Blue Baby Bottle is right around your budget and I've heard good things about it even on a guitar cab. It's got a high spl and apparently it's sound is supposed to be fairly neutral which you may or may not like. I don't have any experience with it personally but I do own a Blueberry, Spark and Ball and I've found all three to be quite usable for various applications and the build quality seems to be there.

I wouldn't say the Helix is overkill for a beginner but ultimately only you can make that decision. It is a great piece of kit and if you've been following posts on this forum, there's lots of people he feel more inspired to play because of it, myself included. You cannot open XT patches in the Helix what I would suggest is to download the XT editor (I believe its Gearbox) and open the patch in their. That way you can use it as a general guide to rebuild it in Helix.

Well in my case, my bassist was sending me dry bass tracks as wave files that he had recorded at home, which I was dropping in my DAW and then routing as laid out above to reamp his signal. Now as far as getting a dry signal and a processed signal at the same time, what you could do is create a patch with whatever amp, FX, etc you would like and direct its output to the Helix's XLR which you would then plug into one of the Quartet's inputs. In that same patch you would create a second path utilizing the same input but routing it to a different output of the Helix (I usually like to use the S/PDIF, so set it to digital). On this path you would have no processing just the guitar's dry signal and fed into another input on your Quartet. You would arm 2 separate tracks in Logic with each input and voila, a processed signal and a dry signal for you to reamp with later if you like.