craiganderton

You can do both - place a Stereo Vol block after the dual cab, and choose the Stereo Width option. Varying Width changes the cabs from centered when fully to the left, to full stereo when set to the right. In between those extremes gives partial panning. Hope this helps!

In the comments section to my demo video of the Craig Anderton's Amazing Multiband Helix Presets pack, R. L. Lynch asked about the possibility of converting existing presets to multiband operation. The issue will always be CPU, because multiple amps and cabs - the heart of the multiband process - consume more CPU than effects. The presets in my pack are carefully "tuned" to try and preserve as much CPU as possible to allow for effects, but that tuning process may not be possible for presets created by someone else. However...! I wanted to see what was possible, and was able to figure out how to convert several of the factory presets to dual-band operation. The top image shows the SC Small Lead preset, which unfortunately uses one of the most CPU-hungry amps (Solo Lead OD), so it wasn't possible to convert it to even dual-band operation. However, substituting a different amp opened up several possibilities. The top image shows the original preset. The middle image shows it converted to dual-band operation, with Simple EQ preceding a split to each amp. The EQs separate the guitar into high and low bands. You could also use the Split's Crossover function, but there may be times when you want the Low and High Cut frequencies to overlap so that they emphasize a specific set of midrange frequencies. To save CPU, the two amps feed a common cab. Note that you'll probably need to raise the level on the EQs to +6 dB. This is because the filtering takes out quite a bit of the signal, so you need to boost it going into the amps. If you have the available CPU, a somewhat better approach is to use two amps and two cabs (lower image), or two Amp+Cab blocks. This improves the sound quality compared to using a single cab, and allows tweaking the individual cabs. Remember, miking makes a big difference with frequency splits like this. While dual-band operation won't give the same kind of definition (or options) as 3- or 4-band operation, the result is still more defined and articulated than single-band distortion. By the way...the response to the preset pack has been so positive, I'm going ahead with plans to do a follow-up that concentrates on multiband lead presets. They're a whole other animal!

Roll off as many highs as you can going into the amp. The distortion will restore a lot of the highs, but it will be harder to set up a feedback path. Also rolling off highs after the amp can help. Many models have resonances that peak considerably higher than the rest of the audio, and these can promote feedback. A parametric notch can sometimes solve this. Good luck! Just remember that high gain is HIGH GAIN. There are limits as to how much you avoid feedback with that much gain.

Glad it worked for you! More tips to come.

You'd be surprised at what I DON'T know!! All I know about "json" is it looks like a typo for someone who was trying to spell "Jason." :)

I'm sorry, I wasn't at all clear and sorta changed topics without prior notice, LOL. I meant something like an XML dump of all the parameters.

If anyone knows how to get a dump from the Helix Floor screen, please post the answer here.

You'll be happy to hear that Sweetwater has asked for more modeling articles. They've already accepted one on how to bi-amp the Helix, and I'm submitting another one with more general Helix tips next week. It usually takes 2-4 weeks before they're published on the site, depending on the editorial cycle. They tell me the Helix is doing very well for them. :)

Thanks for the additional tip! Yes, amp volume works well too. The main reason I use buttons is for diagnostic purposes when creating presets, so it's helpful to have them all available on in one view.

Thanks, seems like a good group of folks here! Helix was love at first sight for me, so I've been working with it a lot.

In the process of creating my preset pack of 128 multiband presets for Helix, several of the presets used four bands, so it became a problem to tweak one band in isolation. I couldn't figure out a way to have a "solo" button for a path/band, so the next best thing was to be able to mute the other bands. Referring to the screen shot of a 4-band preset, I added a Volume block in each path (outlined in orange), and set the gain parameter to -120. Enabling the Volume block would then mute the sound; bypassing it removed the mute. The Volume block has a very low CPU hit, so after developing the presets I often left the mute button in anyway. This allowed creating Snapshots that had only some bands, which were musically useful as well as the main preset. I thought the mute button concept was a helpful diagnostic tool, and worth sharing in the forum. If you find this kind of thing useful, I'd be happy to post some more tips.

I looked into parallel processing extensively when doing my multiband processing preset pack. So to add to your tips, here are some more. Some amps draw a lot more CPU power than others. So how many amps you can add depends on the amps+cabs you choose. In my 4-band presets using the Brit Trem Jump, Brit Plexi Jump, Solo Lead OD, and German Mahadeva, it wasn't possible to have four Amp+Cabs without running out of CPU. However, a workaround that works well is to use two separate Amps, and feed them into one Cab. You lose the ability to tweak each cab individually, but many times, it's the amps that benefit the most from tweaking anyway. Although this doesn't apply to your situation where you're feeding into the Guitar and Aux In to get stereo, for a given amount of blocks, a parallel path within a single chain will run out of CPU faster than a single path within two chains, set to the same input (e.g., Host in Helix Native). One of my favorite aspects of Helix is how you can get really great stereo imaging out of it. This isn't always relevant to live use, but for the Native version, it's incredible to get stereo imaging without having to use delays or other workarounds :)