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Good tip, thanks. It makes sense. Already, just by strumming differently it's getting manageable and more pleasing. I think when those amps are blasting you in the face in real life, it would intuively makes sense to strum differently? That's no fault of the Helix or other high-end modellers but there is some intuitive stuff that come from the loud volume that you have to carry over even when you play at low volume.

Thanks for your help rd2rk. Initially I too was under the impression that it was a gain staging issue since Helix Native is known to be tricky in that area. I was really getting bummed about this whole thing. After lowering the pickup today and playing for half an hour, I think that it was mostly my ignorance of the sound these amps make at full volume and the default height of the pickups not being suited to my ears for these Tweed/JTM/Divided Duo style amps. I don't like when the sound gets massively out of control. To my ears, I'm getting much better tones in part due to the fact that I adapted my style to the inherent flubbiness of these amps. One thing I tried to change is how I play chords. Since these amps don't have good string separations when pushed hard, is it the case that players tend to hit the notes individually as opposed to loudly strumming chords? I had played this strat with tube amps before and it didn't create any problems but I think Helix is really sensitive to input in a way that's probably realistic so these small differences make a huge difference to a cranked JTM 45 or Divided JRT 9/15. If I had those amps in my home and played at sensible volume, I'm sure that flubbiness would be absent since I wouldn't crank these amps.

I played quite a bit today and I think that maybe my problem is two-fold and I'll explain clearly as it might help some newcomer to Helix. First of all, I've had only two tube amps and they were small Fenders (a champ 600 and a 10 watt that I don't remember the name off). I've had solid state before that. The thing is I was never really able to play them cranked because I lived in an apartment with thin walls so in a sense even if I owned tube amps, I'm still quite new to the sound they have cranked. I certainly have never played a cranked JTM-45 or any legendary amps cranked. Might have plugged into them at a guitar store/friend's house at reasonable volume but that's it. I don't gig. So I think that I expected certain sounds that were not realistic especially for the type of amps that I have loved the most to hear on records/youtube over the years namely the JTM-45/Tweed Bassman/Tweed Deluxe. The thing is those amps are exactly the ones that sound "bad" to me in Helix with the drive high. I think a big part of it is that my inexperience in real life with them but now I also suspect that my pickups on the Strat I was lended are too high especially the neck pickup, hence the flubby sound I'm getting with cranked Tweeds... My experience is much better with Metal amps even though I don't have any interest in them but they do sound "right" to me unlike the tweed style amps. Anyway I need to sleep it's like 3 am in France right now and tomorrow I am going to continue messing with Helix and lower those pickups to see if that helps.

Thanks for putting up with my noobiness. It's just a basic jtm-45 preset that's pretty much like the preset from factory but with more drive. JTM.hlx

No phantom is not available on the guitar input of the Solo, it's a 1/4" input only and it's not flashing. The only thing that's flashing is the USB indicator on the device and the INST showing that I selected the instrument input. By flashing I mean turned on (sorry english is not my first language).

Interesting thanks... The Scarlett Solo should sound identical to the 2i2. May I ask which DAW you are using? Right now even if I put the input gain in Native at -20dB I still get that fuzzy sound with an OD pedal activated and that's with the input gain on the Solo set to 0. The clean sounds are fine though. I tried Amplitube and the sound had the same type of issue so I'm thinking it's either the DAW or my interface or my stupidity. Probably the latter but can't figure it out.

I'm using a Mexican Standard Strat and no pedal, straight into the Hi-Z input of the Scarlett Solo 3rd gen. This preset is basically the factory preset of the JTM-45 on the normal channel. I am actually not using any of the pedals in the chain. I just cranked the drive and past 6/10 it sounds horrible. I tried to mess around with hi/low cut, bias and bias X but nothing helps tremendously although bias/bias X seem to help a tiny bit but make the sound worse in other ways. Thanks for taking a look JTM-45-Cranked.hls

Did all that but results are bad as shown in sound clip. Or maybe there’s something I’m not seeing.

Hey man thanks for the answer, I think I will pick up an LT in a couple months but for now I’m only fiddling with Helix Native. I’ve played with the Helix at friends houses and thought it sounded amazing to be honest but I just plugged in mostly, didn’t mess around with the settings although for the last month I have watched a lot of YouTube videos on the top modelers to understand how they work so I’m decently familiar with Helix and stuff like mic distance, high cut, IRs and stuff like that.

Hey, I recently got a Scarlett Solo 3rd gen and installed Helix Native. It sounds horrible. I tried multiple headphones, guitar cabs etc, the sound clean is fine but with overdrive it starts to become a huge mess. I will attach a sound clip. It sounds very fuzzy and terrible overall, not realistic at all. Here's the thing though, I am a huge fan of Helix and I know it sounds amazing so I know there is something wrong with my setup whether it's my DAW or gain staging or the physical unit (Scarlett Solo)... Initially I focused on gain staging on basically felt that it sounded better with the input gain all the way down (on the inst input of the Scarlett) but the problem is that as soon as I would put an OD or crank the drive, the sound becomes terrible again. I tried low and high cuts. Tried different headphones and monitors. Used multiple guitars too to rule out a potential problem there too. The input gain on the Scarlett 3rd gen isn't like the 1st gen so it's not clipping at all. I play single-coils, not active pickups or anything crazy. I also monitor closely the peak input on the Native software and it never goes beyond -18dB so the problem isnt there either. I tried setting the input gain on the sotware to -20dB and it makes the problem go away somewhat but at that point the amps are no longer realistic since the input gain they see is so low. What's strange is that it sounds good until there is a significant amount of overdrive but for example, the KOT that was recently added in 2.80 does sound like an Analogman KOT so I know that the software works. Tried different DAWs (Cantabile Lite and GarageBand) with same results and made sure that I had no pluggins running on the track or the master. I think it's something faulty with the Focusrite Scarlett but I'm a bit suprised since it's a well-know decent unit. It may not be as good as the Helix DI but it can't imagine that it could be this bad. The input impedance on the unit is rated at 1.5M ohms which is clearly suited for guitar. Sorry for the terrible playing and sound and thanks for any help!