PaulTBaker

This sounds like you are experiencing the Flutcher Munson effect where the sound changes depending on loud it gets. There are tons of smart people on this site that have posted a lot of posts on the topic. Search for those and/or google it. The Fletcher-Munson curve, also known as equal loudness contours, is a set of graphs that illustrate how the human ear perceives sound differently at various loudness levels. At lower volumes, the ear is more sensitive to mid-range frequencies, while low and high frequencies are perceived as softer. As the volume increases, the ear becomes more sensitive to low and high frequencies, making them sound louder in comparison to mid-range frequencies. Key Points: Sensitivity to Frequency: The ear's sensitivity to frequencies changes with loudness. At lower volumes, mid-range frequencies dominate, while at higher volumes, low and high frequencies become more prominent. Psychoacoustics: The Fletcher-Munson curve is a result of studies on how the human ear processes sound, a field called psychoacoustics. Practical Applications: The curve is relevant in audio engineering, particularly in mixing and mastering, where it can help understand how listeners will perceive the final mix at different volumes. Equal Loudness: The curves show the amount of sound intensity (loudness) required for different frequencies to be perceived as equally loud. Hope that helps some.... so when playing soft, don't put as much bass or high end and you think you need. The bass and high end will become more prevelant the louder it gets. Remember the "Loudness" button on some stereos? That increased the base when engaged and was meant to be used when playing your music at lower volumes. Some people have created an eq block to "fix" the curve at lower volumes. They turn the eq block off when playing loud. I did this for awhile. Eventually I found that I could recognize (or get close) what it should sound like at lower volumes to still sound good when playing loud.

In my experience, the tones from Custom Tones or even that you can buy are very hit or miss (mostly miss). I know you said you don't have time, but make time and build your own. You really will be glad you did. Jason Sadites, John Nathon Cordy, and Steve Sterlacci are really good at explaining how to get a good tone. Jason was the first I looked at and is very good and VERY in depth. Maybe too much sometimes imo. However, he has a nice basic template that you could start from and then tweak to make it yours. Cordy is great mainly because I love the way he plays guitar, so very smooth. His patches are very smooth as well. Steve will show you some great tips and tweaks to use.... and they all keep posting new things as they learn and as new Helix stuff comes out. Good luck with your journey.... it really is worth the work!

others please correct me if I'm wrong, and keep in mind I don't use it the way you do.... however, it seems to me that since your helix is in front of the amp (which I'm taking to mean the front input and not the effects return which would bypass the preamp) then your max volume is going to be limited to your amp. When you send more gain, you are just hitting the preamp harder. This may make it a little louder, however, it will probably just make it more distorted. if just using the helix, the gain comes after the amp, which lets you add more volume without changing the tone. I believe this is what you are running into. Maybe try changing some of your amp setting to allow for more range of gain hitting it.

One of the reasons the Helix is so great is because of the enormous amount of option you can pick from and the multiple ways you can achieve the same results. That is also the downfall of the Helix and why some people don't like it. Once you learn the basics (which are really basic) then you are on your way. It looks like you are over thinking it. You have to put"stuff" (amps, cabs, effects, looper, etc.) in your chain. To assign the stuff to a footswitch (so you can turn it on or off with your foot, when you are in "Stomp" mode) on the helix, make sure you are on the block you want to assign (in this case, the looper that you added to your chain), then touch and hold the footswitch you want to assign the block to and you will get a message asking if you want to assign this... hit save. Then you have your blocks tied to footswitches. For your snapshots, turn on the blocks you want activated in that snapshot and then save that as a snapshot. Then, when you are in Snapshot Mode, you can select that snapshot and those blocks will be turned on. I usually run in Stomp mode and have a couple of snapshots assigned to a few footswitches. A poster above pointed to how to do that. My understanding is you want to use the looper to set/tweak block settings. To do this I suggest putting your looper first in your chain, that way, you will hear what changes you are making because the looper is sending the signal down the chain. You will not hear any changes to your sound if you put the looper at the end, because the looper recorded your original sounds. You may know this, however it is important to understand if not. So I would put the 6 button looper first in the chain.... then add your other blocks (amps, cabs, whatever).... then click on the looper and you will see the loopers buttons. hit record and play something. Then press the "exit" button and you will return to the stomp mode AND the looper will keep playing. Then you can tweak stuff. When you find something you like, save that as a snapshot.... then repeat for whatever else you want. Hope this helps.... It is easy to get frustrated, however once you get the basics, it really is worth your while... at least imo.

If using a meter ( I love the https://youlean.co/youlean-loudness-meter/ as posted above), make sure you are setting it to the correct level for the type of meter. I will get the names wrong, but the DBFS meter is at unity at -18db, not zero. There are a lot of posts about this. I try to have my patches average -18 db with lead bumps not going over -12 or -13 db. You also have to take into account which guitar you are using. I normally play Telecaster or the Revstar with p90's. The Revstar is much hotter. I use the Tele to level the presets with the output block at 0, with a lead bump that ups the output block to 2.5 to 3.5. I then take those same presets and copy them to a "Revstar" area on the setlist and just change the level of the output block to -4.2 and -2.0. just some other things to think about.

maybe try the new Xtra

one thing you can do is save your individual presets in a folder on your computer. You can drag and drop presets from HXEdit to the folder and vice versa. I wanted to do exactly what you were talking about. My work around was to copy the presets I wanted to a folder, some from the factory defaults and some were mine. I then copied an empty preset onto all of the spaces in the set list (I did this just to start with an empty set list... just to be cleaner). Then I copied the presets from the folder into the setlist in HX Edit. it works great. Drag and Drop is very easy. I also do this same sort of thing with my Helix Floor.

Yes, it is overwhelming and you will loose a lot of sleep! However, if you are tone nerd like me, then you will reap great rewards!!!! Depending on which amp I am using and how clean I want the clean sound, I will either use one or two amps. For the 2 amp setup, I have a Footswitch(FS) that will turn one amp on and one amp off. For my tones, I have found that stacking distortion pedals and having a FS to change the amp settings works best for me. I normally use the Monitoar first then the Teamah (sorry about the spelling). I have my gains set to 1.0 and 3.0 on the different dist stomps. I don't play Metal, but I can get all the drive I need from this setup. You can use snapshots and stomps and combine them using the Command Center window. Lots of different variations to get you what you need! Have fun!

I have the Helix Floor. Wow that would be huge problems when changing the tones!

I had sort of the opposite problem... the pedal would not stay at 100%, it would back off some to 89%. I tightened the pedal and it still didn't work. What has worked for me was to change the setting on the volume pedal expression 1 setting to Global. that means that when you change presets, whatever the volume pedal is set to, will be active when you start that preset. It's possible that it just took a while for the tightening to make a difference??? I really don't know, but you could try that. It's also good to know that the foot pedal calibrates when turning on the helix. I have the Floor, btw.

I like the note idea. I would also love to be able to see the Created/Modified Date of the preset. I copy presets all over the place to make changes. I would love to be able to see the latest preset. I would also love to be able to sort a setlist by name or date!

If all you are doing is changing the delay setting, you can use a snapshot or a footswitch assignment to do that... Sure I'm stating the obvious, but wanted to make sure.

This is more of a question than disputing your answer rd2rk. Using the snapshot would work great, however depending on how you have things setup, your other blocks may be affected by the change in the snapshot. You could instead assign a footswitch to the block and have it bypass one or the other based on if its on or off. This way would definitely not change the other blocks (unless you want it to). Just another option I believe.

if you gig, another consideration is ease of setup and use. depending on your use, you can get some very good FRFR's that are small, light, and easy to setup. For me, that is a big priority. For example, in one band I'm playing in, the other (very good) guitarist plays through a marshall jmp 60 and a 4 12 cab. sounds good, but is heavy and hard to transport. He recently changed to a tsakils mothership and an frfr. way easier to transport and more flexible in the practice space. I tried to sell him on the helix, but it just had too many options for him. he just wants to plug and play.

no, but you can do something different. you can setup snapshots and assign them to the footswitches and have it so clicking the footswitch would cycle between snaps. I know that is not what you are asking, but it might give you something else to think about. I agree, that the 3 way footswitch would be cool!

Thank you all for your great responses! You guys do a great service for this community. I use the XR18 as my interface because I have been using it. (I know, let's don't get to the discussion of "because I've always done it that way" HAHA). I have used the XR18 to record live band recordings and it can record up to 18 channels simultaneously. I have successfully used the helix into the XR18 to record. That uses the presets on the helix. I use the Relay 10S (?) and use the direct out to another XR18 channel. That is the "raw" channel that gets recorded in case I want to reamp with Native. It is the reamping (if I'm saying that correctly) with Native that was causing the crackling. Thank you for the settings info, I will see what I have and try those if they are different, and Data, yes I do have the correct Berhinger drivers loaded. Something to add to my question of could the amount of "stuff" in the preset pushing the limits of my computer.... I read in another thread where in Native, depending on the power of the computer, you could actually use more DSP than what is in Helix. That makes sense. So, to me, it would also make sense that if the power of the computer is limited, that could cause problems with Heavy DSP presets coming from Floor being used in Native. Again, thanks everyone for the advice!

I am a beginner in working with DAW's (Reaper 7) and just started using Helix Native. I have been using Line 6stuff since the early pod days, then the HD500X, and now Helix for almost as long as it has been out. So I feel confident using Helix, the DAW and Native, not so much. To complete my workflow, I am using the Berhinger XR18 as my interface and have Adam Audio TV5 (?) studio monitors coming out of the XR18. Also a Dell Precision 7520 32GB of RAM. In Native, I am using a preset that was created in the helix floor. It is pretty loaded because it is meant to be a "catch all" preset. When I use the preset, I will get crackling sounds (almost like clipping). Lowering the levels does not seem to help, however, deleting some of the block in the preset does or at least it seems that way. Am I correct in thinking that the preset may be too "full" and over reaching the capacity of my workspace? I am very interested in everyone's thoughts on this. Thanks.

wow. very nice. cool tones and very nice playing! Thanks for sharing.

off topic, but I agree, the book is well worth it!!!!

I first bought the lt in 2019.... started using gigging with it and the buttons and over all (at least imo) it was lightweight so I traded it in for a Floor in 2021. Gigged out 60+ times a year with it. The buttons started getting flakey, sent it back, they fixed it (2022). kept gigging, buttons started to go wonky again, so I traded it in for a new Floor and bought the 5 warranty from GC. I know that sounds stupid, however these were my main reasons, there is NO service center for helix anywhere close to me (Raleigh, NC), with the GC warranty, all I have to do when the buttons go wonky (and they will) is take it to GC and they will give me a new one. Also, got a free Helix backpack (my first one had already been to the tailer to fix)... So my point is, I love the helix and the flexibility, however, please be careful with buying it used. Hopefully I am wrong, but my guess is your buttons will go wonky. Best of luck with your purchase and I hope you love it as much as I (we) do!

sounds like a simple delay at 180 ms delay, no repeats ... also pretty compressed I believe.... it is very nice

wow, what a great topic and really cool posts!

try the new clarity amp... it has a great clean base with lots of headroom before breaking up. I've been using that with a combination of stacking three od pedal (minatour, teemah, horzin drive or teemal, compulus drive, and horiz drive or prize drive, teemah, and horiz).... that gives me a great range of crunch, drive, big drive to sit on top of the clean tone. then use l2 comp at the end, with it doing less the -3db comp. (that may be the wrong units, but the gist is to just barely have the compressor catching anything) This works well my Yamaha 300(?) again, sorry if that model is wrong, it is the hollow body with the P90's on it. Good luck and have fun!

Agreed, adjust your presets so the presets are all close to the same output level from the helix. Would suggest using something like Youlean Loudness Meter - Free VST, AU and AAX plugin. I have mine set so it averages -18 to -15 db for each preset. then no matter what the big knob is set too, the output of each preset will be relative. When I play with the band and use my PC, I have it connected to the helix using the l6 connection. I then have the big knob at digital. The FOH gets the signal from the xlr's. This way the FOH is getting the signal as if the big know was always maxed. This lets me use the big knob to control the onstage volume for the PC. When I play as a duo, we use the Bose L1 (i think)and I do not use the PC. I have my big knob set to multi, so the big knob WILL effect what is being sent to the FOH (which is the bose behind me in this case). This lets me give myself a boost if needed without changing the mixer.

that really sounds like you may have the LT outputs to Line or digital and your XL outputs set to mic.