theElevators

My approach to cleaning up the sound carried over from the old school technique of rolling down the volume knob. I too was struggling with cleans vs. distortion sounds, without the cleans sounding dead on the Helix. So my approach is that I set my overall distortion (using legacy distortion pedal) plus a pretty clean amp -- Mail Order Twin. It's one of those garage band-sounding amps, but I managed to dial it into something that is more flexible and usable. The whole chain is set up so that at "5" out of "10" on my volume knob, the sound cleans up, but doesn't lose loudness. It was a lot of trial and error, until I got it, adjusting it very slightly over several weeks. I tried every single distortion block available and only that legacy distortion worked for my needs. My cleans are a tiny bit dirty still, but only if you really dig in. So you can call it the edge of breakup. Anyway, the technique that I use is to either physically turn down the volume knob, .... or more recently simply cutting the overall volume in the beginning of the chain with a fixed volume pedal. The distortion pedal never gets turned off in my chain EVER! It's part of the sound, compression, etc. I did not touch any global eq (god forbid), or anything else on the cab side--all default settings. I used to like the ability to use the volume knob, because it really frees you. You can effectively change your sound from clean to distorted without being near your footswitches. Then I started incorporating the volume cut trick for parts where distorted/clean changes were too fast for me to use the knob. And more recently I play in bands that have minimal number of instruments, and I do a lot of actual nuanced playing, so I completely abandoned that volume knob trick for the time being. Regarding taking a solo, I take my clean or dirty sound and boost the 2K frequency anywhere from 2 to 10 db. I put that EQ block before the amp typically. That EQ makes the solos pop, but also cleans up the sound somehow, makes your solos pop. If the solo doesn't have enough oomph... or I need that twangy compressed sound, I add an LA compressor using the default settings, using the volume setting to taste. And I put that compressor between the amp and the cab (default cab for my Mail Order Twin). I also turn the ripple on the amp to 0 whenever I need to use that trick, because otherwise with distorted sounds it generates low-frequency hum. It's all personal what approach you use, what amp you use. But I dialed in my core sound 7 years ago at this point, and have not deviated from it at all for all these years. Except adding delays/reverb and other special effects to my sound. Every preset has the same identical distortion, amp, cab settings at all times. Even with my tried and true approach, some songs just sound louder than others. Some pickup combinations change the overall dynamics. Or even if you add a pronounced delay to your signal chain, your volume will change. When in doubt, I go and record myself either on the phone or in DAW, and I listen how all the parts sound. Sometimes signal volume does not equate "perceived" loudness. If you want to cut through the mix for that deafingly-loud solo, use the EQ. You know this for sure, but if you turn up the reverb with a high mix, it will lower your overall sound. Etc, etc. Every preset needs to be tweaked a bit more. Using the "level" setting on the delay blocks, or reverb block, or EQ block. Take a look at 1 of my videos explaining what I'm talking about.... And the volume knob video, demo'ing how I get clean sounds.

Before the "along came poly" release, I had one song that needed standard D tuning. I used the regular transposer "simple pitch" for it and it sounded just fine. It is not the "poly" effect, but it can definitely transpose multiple notes at the same time, absolutely no problem. If you just play distorted chords, lots of power chords, it will work fine. For all your shimmering clean stuff, you can forget about it, it will be glitchy. So the old transposer is just a little bit less accurate, but works just fine. Try it. Regarding the poly capo, yes it does take up a lot of DSP, but I managed to rearrange all my stuff on the Helix: moved stuff around and down to the 2nd line, so I can have a reasonable preset with all the necessities no problem. I played with a singer who often changed keys, so I always had a poly capo in every preset just in case. I like it, it does have some latency, but for 1-2 semitones it works great. Your last option is to get the drop pedal or something similar. People say they work great.

Check your global settings. If you have the expression pedal 1 and/or 2 persist by snapshot, then if you change snapshots it will reset to what the expression pedal value was when you saved that snapshot. That's a feature on the OG Helix. I used to hate that feature, but now I actively use it. I used to have the expression pedal persist by preset. Meaning that if I switch to a different snapshot, the expression value doesn't reset and remains where I left the physical pedal. So worth double-checking that.

I did a quick search and there doesn't seem to be a canned reese bass sound for the Helix. I'm assuming you're doing it on bass guitar. It's all subjective, but part of the sound is the vibrato, sometimes detuning, sub-octave (harmonizer to lower the pitch), some kind of a chorus, and distortion. All of these ingredients are available in the Helix. For detuning, you can use any harmonizer and harmonize it in unison with a few cents flat. I have personally used this trick on guitar to sound like bagpipes. With bass, if you do the detuning trick, then it will naturally start to pulsate, so you won't even need the vibrato effect; and you can dial in the rate by fine-tuning the out of tune note. Here's the detuned trick on guitar linked below, if interested.

Try a different guitar, try factory presets. I have never had such issue.

No such thing. The Helix replicates the studio sound, more than anything. When mixing, reverb is added post the amp/cab. The exception is the '63 reverb unit, when it was placed before the entire amp/cabinet. You can, however add the reverb before the cabinet, if you use separate amp and cab blocks. Honestly, it's all cork sniffing, and with some tweaking you can always get your desired sound. For example, you can experiment with adding a compressor + reverb between the amp and the cab.

Just for fun: turn on the Helix, plug something into the "right 1/4" out jack, then unplug.. Same result?

Why not just bypass one, un-bypass the other? I don't see any need for a loop to toggle between 2 different effects. The loop functionality is really not needed at all in most situations, unless you want to process the loop differently and join with the main signal path. Toggling between a bunch of effects can be done with them serially in line.

The "Thon" case is excellent, with 3 drawbacks. 1. The whole thing should have been upside down (handle on the opposite side). Instead, it's the way it is. That means that the Helix's weight rests on just a few centimeters of the foam you see here. As you can imagine, the foam starts getting compressed and the Helix is no longer snug, as it starts sliding down. The solution: glue an additional block of foam, or multiple pieces, so that it supports the weight of the Helix better. If they had put the handle on the opposite side, then that would not have been a problem. Once you add a block of foam (packing foam from your electronics), you wind up sacrificing the little storage space. I am still able to keep my power cable and 1/4" cable in there, if I fold it nicely. 2. The feet can pop off as you are unloading your gear. Pop them off, and re-glue them each with Gorilla glue. 3. The handle is solid, but very thin and painful if you want to carry your stuff on a train or bus. Solution: wrap the handle in something. They sell gel covers for these handles on Amazon, and they attach with Velcro. After addressing those, it's an excellent case. I've had it for 4 years, and that's where my Helix lives.

Assign the wah to be on in a specific snapshot only, as was previously recommended. I use the wah in sevearal ways: 1. automatic percentage-based engagement: when below 5%, turn off after 500 ms. 2. just always on in a specific snapshot, called "wah solo", that way I can rock the pedal in any position, even all the way in the heel position. 3. and I never using the toe switch. I disable that in all my presets. In some snapshots, I lower the bypass percentage of the expression pedal, so that the effect disengages when at 0%, as opposed to 5%. You can set that in your bypass assignment. Also there's a wait time of either immediately turn off or up to 1 second. I time these engagements/disengagements to a song, depending on how fast/slow that song is.

Check the midi channel on the stomp is selected correctly?

On the OG Helix, to make this work you need to: 1. make the expression pedal 1 and 2 not be "global" but saved per preset. 2. remove the "snapshot" assignment on the wah. Otherwise, it can act all wonky and flip backwards. Also there is a setting on the OG Helix to specify exact bypass behavior with the expression pedal, not just "flip" the on/off state of the block. I personally never had to use it, but I know it's there. I don't own the Stadium.

Time to clean the microswitches. A quick search of the forum, and you would have found this info. Enjoy!

If you want to prevent the parameter knobs from changing your sound, the easiest way is to put the cursor in a corner (x) (no blocks), and save your preset. That's what I've been doing, as I never need to adjust anything on the fly. If I do need to fix something, I'll use the joystick and scroll to the proper block, adjust it, save it, and put the cursor back to the corner. If you need to adjust the amp, there's a rather redundant "amp" button: press that and your screen will bring up the amp settings, as before. I've also used a dummy send block trick to see if the expression pedal is engaged or not, explained in the video below. In my experience, covers trap dirt and dust, and are not worth it. I use this "dummy send block" trick in every preset where the expression pedal is doing something. That is an extra cue for me to know that 1) expression pedal is going to be doing something and 2) to monitor if I forgot to disengage the expression pedal. When you are playing a loud show, it's easy to forget to turn off your wah, or some other sound, and you won't realize it because it can be that loud on stage. Been there, done that.

I have a lot of experience with the live sound mix and my OG Helix. If you want to "cut" through the mix, there are several ingredients and lack thereof to achieve that. So number one: reverb sounds good at home, sounds good when you record your guitar directly, but live it buries you and make your playing unintelligible. If you have any type of hall reverb, it should be lowered to a minimum, or removed. Concert spaces have natural reverb, so you really do not need any, except for special effects, or for that drippy reverb sound that surf music requires. Instead of reverb, I use subtle ping-pong delay that bounces a few times left/right, but does not cover up the initial attach of the note/chord. There are also "ducking" reverbs that let the note ring out, before applying. Also for regular reverb, the "pre-delay" parameter is very useful to be able to hear the initial attack of the note, without which it becomes a mess. For live concerts, there's a separate independent mix done on purpose--to represent what it sounds like in the venue, by adding all the reverb, etc back to the sound. And I stress, it's an independent mix from the actual FOH sound mix. If a concert is broadcast on TV, there are 2 sound mixers working independently of each other. So while reverb sounds good and can make your playing sound smoother and better, for live use it's not to be overused. I've listened to board mixes of my live concerts where I played and the guitar doesn't necessarily sound great direct. But that's the whole point--your guitar's sound needs to work for the venue's acoustics, not to sound great as a concert recording. I've also reviewed concert footage that people have posted from their phones, and confirm that that it sounded great with plenty of ambiance. Number two: for solos my approach that has worked for me is always boosting the 2K frequency with an equalizer in my chain. Turning up the volume does not work due to limiters, and whatever else the sound system has. When I needed to really cut through the horns and all that stuff, I boosted it by 10 db for the solo snapshot. Nowadays I go from 2 to about 6 db. Some songs need a deafeningly-loud solo, some don't. So I play by ear. Also depends on the pickups that I use. Single coils already sound pretty glassy, so further EQ-ing is going to sound extremely piercing if overdone. You should not have too much of that 2K frequency, as it is known to be headache-inducing. And when boosting this frequency you will definitely be heard. In my old band I didn't constantly noodle all over the place, I had a few concise solos and that's when it was used. Also I've used it for clean lead lines as well, think "Day Tripper" by the Beatles. That's all 2K, but it's not constantly hitting you over the head, I'd never strum chords with that sound....