johnnyvlee

I need all 3 sounds (I use snapshots). I used to play through some gear that had patches made by Steve Stevens and they all 3 sounded right. One was that 80s chorusey clean sound, one was the overdriven sound and one was a good sound to use for the lead. TBH I always owned Mesa Boogie amps, never Marshalls. Not that familiar with Plexi. I tried starting with someone's "Rebel Yell" patch, but the clean isn't really spot on for this song, and so far I haven't dialed it in.

Anyone have a good patch for "White Wedding" by Billy Idol?

That does look like a fun guitar to play. I have a Schecter guitar with a Sustaniac that I could be using. I got it pretty inexpensively and I admit I do love how that guitar looks and feels. But my current rig is Variax into Helix using DVI and I would like to avoid switching guitars if at all possible. That was one of the selling points of going with this rig. Guitar modeling. Sound like whatever axe I want to sound like. Down side is it doesn't have the Sustaniac.

Thanks for posting that. I enjoy the hell out of these kinds of videos. For my live rig I typically run direct from Helix to FOH, and I have a monitor in front of me or lately it's usually in-ears. The in-ear rig allows me to dial up my own monitor mix, which I love. But I used to play through Mesa Boogie amps, and I confess I miss them. Clark can play feedback off his speaker cab as guitarists have done for many years, but I can't do that with my rig. I did purchase a Powercab Plus which I use when I play in a bigger band and cannot trust that the sound guy can give me a good monitor mix. So I use the Powercab only for monitoring my own guitar playing. But I'm not in love with the Powercab. To be fair I just use it in pass through mode and have not yet begun to experiment with its IR capabilities. Maybe if I did that I'd like it better. Dunno. But it doesn't stand up to the boogies. But I don't want to stop using the amp and cab simulations in the Helix for cover band playing. The flexibility is just too much to give up. So I don't foresee switching back to my boogies unless I end up in a band doing original music. Which would be awesome, but there's nothing cooking on that front right now, and where I live there's not a huge market for that.

I actually do use one of those to get the feedback. I have a guitar with a Sustainiac which I bought so I could play things like "With or Without You". And that does a decent job with this particular song. But my question is not "How do I sound like Possum Kingdom", folks. Just in general, it is quite common to use a compressor to add sustain when you have a signal chain that gives you a sound you like for a song, but does not sustain as much as you need it to. I would like to set up a compressor in the Helix Favorites with particular settings that I can use when all I want to do is add sustain to a patch that's already working in all other respects.

That's a good approach a lot of the time, but in many cases I want to add sustain without increasing the volume (or increasing it very little).

I have an external pedal in a loop for the feedback. Works great. But my question wasn't really specific to that song. I meant it as a general question since it comes up repeatedly in various tunes.

Hey gang. When you just want to add sustain to an already good patch, say for a section of your lead break for example (or maybe your entire lead break) what is your preferred compressor and what settings? I'm not talking about FREEZE here, just massively long sustain? In this particular instance I need it for Possum Kingdom lead section, but it's a common issue.

I had concluded the same thing. But I just had to make a post because it seemed so odd. It seems to be the only Helix feature which they didn't really try too hard to nail it. Most of the features of Helix are just outstanding and they show that the people behind it really thought it through. Kind of a bummer for such a great piece of gear.

I I'm not trying to do much really. Just fill in a one-note riff on stuff like Cars songs until we find a keyboard player that suits the band. I'm not familiar with the Source Audio C4. Have you compared it to EHX SYNTH9 for example? I kind of hate to spend a chunk of cash on a pedal I don't intend to keep using. I just don't know how long I'll need to do this.

I'm connected via the DVI for Variax. I'm only using non-Variax if I break a string as I only have one Variax thus far. Will get a second one and will be using only DVI. You would tend to expect that it would "just work" over DVI, but I'll try with a compressor at start of the chain later tonight. Obviously I can only use a Compressor within Helix. I can't boost the signal going INTO Helix.

I've got a JTV-89F. Have tried a number of synth patches on Helix and all of them sound like absolute crap. Doesn't track well. Anyone else run into this or am I having gear problems?

I'm not a fan of cases with open storage. The Fender ABS Strat/Tele case has a compartment door to keep stuff from rattling around inside your case when it gets moved around. This is my favorite case that I have. I got one for another guitar few years back for like $79 astonishingly. Brand new. Wish I had bought two because now they're $200 new.

Does it have an inner compartment with a door or is it just open?

I know "thump" wasn't the core of your question, but I would recommend that you avoid bottom end if you are a guitar player in a band. Once you have invested some time in learning how to record at home, you will learn that that there's real value in the guitar sound sitting nicely in a mix. Pretty much the first thing a recording engineer does with a guitar track is cut out lows. If you're typically playing guitar solo or not with other instruments that bring in the bottom end, then by all means go for it. I know "thump" wasn't the core of your question, but I would recommend that you avoid bottom end if you are a guitar player in a band. Once you have invested some time in learning how to record at home, you will learn that that there's real value in the guitar sound sitting nicely in a mix. Pretty much the first thing a recording engineer does with a guitar track is cut out lows. If you're typically playing guitar solo or not with other instruments that bring in the bottom end, then by all means go for it.

There's a Mission Line 6 pedal that is only for the Helix Rack and one that will work fine with Helix floor and most other Line 6 units. The difference is the toe switch. It requires a separate input for the switch on/off which Helix floor does not have. For a unit like this where they thought of SO MUCH that users would want, seems a pretty big oversight to me. BUT...not an issue. You should be able to configure your external expression pedal to behave like auto-on.

You guys should talk about what lube you used for this, or more importantly what lube others should NOT use for this?

Someone (at Line 6, ideally) should summarize the info in this discussion on a page of its own for using the pedal for Wah.

I've heard that track before, but yeah I will listen to it again to refresh my memory. Good idea. Funny, but I had just read the gear page you linked above. I like your gear suggestions to try. I'm probably not going thru the effort to pin this particular tone down super-precisely. I think I have a patch now that comes reasonably close to the guitar sound when played with my SRV Strat (I have to refresh my memory as I haven't done diddly with guitar for a year!). I forget if I used to play it on bridge or middle pickup, but that was a totally different rig anyway. I haven't yet actually tried to use Helix wah in a live gig yet. Before Helix I used to "cheat" with a Morley Bad Horsey wah which springs back for you automatically. Not always a desirable feature, but for this song which was my first where I really needed to use some significant wah playing live, it made it much easier to learn. Also it had contour and volume options that help with adjusting tone a bit. With the Helix I'll have to train my foot properly! No spring back.

I'm about to sit down with Helix (floor) and create a patch I can use for songs like "25 or 6 to 4". I don't think Kath's rig was particularly complicated, but hey: any advice or recommendations on setting up a patch that will really sound right?

THAT was the connection I wasn't making. I had seen demos with the brackets thing, but had not seen anyone state what you just said clearly. Thanks for the assist!

Ok, so I am a noob to Helix, but not a complete noob. I'm a software developer, good with tech. But, I'm seeing some weird behavior with editing snapshots in HX Edit that doesn't seem to match up with how they are supposed to work. Before I dig into this, let me say my global preferences are set to discard changes to snapshots. So, I have to save them or they get discarded. So I have this lead patch, and I want that exact setup for Snapshot 2, but I want to customize Snapshot 1 and save it as a more dialed down sound. Basically 1=rhythm, 2=lead. I bypass a couple of effects, and I make some significant tweaks to parameters on the 10-band EQ. I save the patch (thus saving my snapshot changes), then switch to Snapshot 2. When I do that, the bypassed pedals are no longer bypassed, which is what you would expect. However, the EQ parameters stay the same. They don't bounce back to Snapshot 2 settings. If I now edit them again, save the patch, and go back to Snap1, they are once again NOT restored to Snap1 EQ settings. What gives here? My understanding is it should restore the individual parameters on each block?