theElevators

@josehdx This is my setup. No microphones were used to reproduce my guitar sound. No 4-cable method was used. All the sounds are created by the Helix. Helix: Left XLR + Right XLR -> front of the house in stereo Helix: Left/Mono 1/4" -> power amp -> speaker .... to hear myself on stage and get feedback, and to feel the air move when I play guitar. I use the power amp + speaker as a personal monitor. I did not plug in the Fender Deluxe, I simply used it as a glorified speaker cabinet. Ironically, the "amp" portion of the combo amp was a backup, in case my (very portable) power amp should die.

Played my Helix direct to FOH, using Mooer Baby Bomb into the speaker of a Fender Deluxe amp for stage volume. Can't say enough great things about the Baby Bomb!! The Helix didn't let me down, but I took my LT as a backup. And it went a little bit something like this :)

you can instead save your tempo delays using milliseconds, that way the tap tempo does not affect what's already saved. Easy enough to find a conversion chart for the bpm to ms.

For me: Helix Floor has scribble strips, as mentioned already. They make it a lot easier to see in the dark, if you have an involved show. They are also a separate source of light on a dark stage as a bonus. Like I played one show where the stage light was completely out for about 10 seconds. I was able to navigate the stage thanks to having the Helix as my beacon of light :) Also, the Floor has a 10-stomp mode, that the LT does not have, plus more effects loops. Helix LT has a flimsier expression pedal. If you don't click the pedal in to switch between EXP 1/2, then the onboard pedal will last you just fine for years and years. LT has no scribble strips, but the performance view where the snapshot names are displayed on the screen is superior to the Helix Floor if you are playing outdoors. Scribble strips are more difficult to see if you are playing outdoors, compared to the "virtual" scribble strips that LT offers. If you don't plan on switching your sounds too much throughout your show, and you don't do all these dramatic dark stage moments where you emerge out of the fog and all that theatrics -- just get the LT. If you are worried about the expression pedal not being too robust, you can always get an external pedal and use that. Save yourself like 700 USD.

Installing a killswitch is not that difficult. I remember around 12 years ago, everybody was doing that--removing a tone knob on their guitar and putting in a kill switch. It's something that somebody can easily do if they're not afraid of opening up their guitar.

Well, that killswitch sound is basically tremolo. Go check a bunch of those effects and see what suits you the best. Set your tremolo mix to be 100%, so you have actual sound interruptions. You can also assign the rate parameter to the expression pedal and speed up the tremolo effect, or slow it down. Or you also can try the “bleat chop trem” block which alters the tremolo tempo for you. So maybe that will be more natural sounding for you. That’s about it.

I have an LT from 3 years ago, and it's held up better than a Floor that I also own! In terms of the expression pedal, it developed a loud squeak after about a year of me owning it. After using graphite spray, it's been quiet ever since. One more thing is I don't use the toe switch at all, as all of my presets are using EXP 2. I think switching from EXP 1 to EXP 2 with the toe switch may put an unnecessary strain on the entire construction of the pedal, it can be quite tough and for me the entire Helix tilts when I tied to press that toe switch in. So maybe all the early reported breakages were also partly due to people stepping onto the toe switch with the weight of their entire body. I made all of my presets work where certain effects are auto-engaged when I start rocking the pedal, or they are simply enabled/disabled in specific snapshots. Another advantage for using EXP 2 exclusively is that you can connect an external expression pedal and it will seamlessly work with all of the presets as external expression pedals are always and only EXP 2.

Or..... you can just go into the tuner, and press every single knob--that way they will reset to the factory settings.

Do you have a volume pedal in the presets?

It’s a neat feature to turn on your preset and have it default to whatever snapshot you saved. I use it all the time, personally. For example I put my harsh sounds in a specific spot in all presets. Some songs start with that harsh sound, some not. So it saves me a click to default to whatever the first sound is in that particular song. To default to something else just takes 2 mouse clicks in HX Edit.

The simplest thing to do is to use the same basic chain in all your presets. Sure, you can have all different types of overdrives/distortions/octavio's between songs theoretically. In practice, when you do a sound check, the sound guy sets you up for one preset. Deviating from the basic signal chain is a recipe for unexpected volume jumps, EQ inconsistencies and so on. I use the same basic distortion/amp setup in all my presets and that definitely simplifies things a great deal. When I first tried using an acoustic sim, it was such a nightmare! At home it sounded nice and round, but on stage during the sound check, all of a sudden there was way too much bass, and it appeared too loud all of a sudden. Good thing I had an EQ block that I had added at the end of the chain, and I was able to dial in my acoustic/electric balance very well. So there you go: even though you can, don't have drastically different signal chains between your presets, that's speaking from experience.

I've taken apart my Helix LT and put DeoxIT on the microwsitches. That made them less clicky. The buttons themselves are still as noisy as before, just the click is less loud. What you can instead do is use the expression pedal to control some things whenever it has to be absolutely dead-quiet.

Hey gang! I made a short video recently about how I set my presets to make them as dummy-proofed as possible. I've taken my Helix on the road many times so far, and here are some of the recommendations that I have.

Only on a Variax guitar/bass you can change the tuning. Otherwise, as others have mentioned, there is no way to downtune only one string on a conventional guitar. Try the poly capo feature, however. You may be able to rework your songs/parts to be able to play in low B-tuning. Here's a video where I show how to create low tuning of the entire guitar digitally.

If you don't want to use snapshots for some reason, you can assign the block to a stomp button as well. Press the button and you have reduced gain.

On guitar, I use a volume pedal fixed at 10% position. It cleans up my sound. Rather than turning my distortion off, I always clean up the sound with a physical or virtual volume knob/pedal instead. You can use the same approach: 1) add a volume pedal 2) make it fixed: select the "position" parameter. It's pre-selected with Expression Pedal 2. Set it to "none". 3) set the percentage to 10% 4) create a snapshot where this is enabled. This will be your "HOT BASS" snapshot. Alternatively, you can also use another input, like Return 1, 2, 3, 4... and set it to be of lower volume than your main input. I created a little video you can follow:

Use the output level as the last resort. If you can't achieve the high enough volume you need otherwise, then crank the output level.. It does introduce noises in certain cases when you switch between presets/snapshots where the output level is different. Instead, there are lots of workarounds to achieve the same: Add a fixed volume pedal, boost, or EQ, or simply adjust the output level of some of your blocks. For example, in my lead sound, I have an EQ. The EQ has an output level. So I can dial in the output level of my EQ sound so that it balances perfectly. You can even have an EQ block that does not actually equalize, just controls the volume level in your chain. From experience, do not mess with the amp settings between your snapshots -- that also introduces pops/crackles and boings.

And learn how to solder

There's also the pickup height and angle that play a very important role in how your guitar "sustains" and how bright it sounds. I had my strat set up for that quacky sound for the longest time. That meant pickups were pretty low. Recently I decided to make it match my other guitar in terms of volume and tone. All I did was raised the pickups and all of a sudden it completely transformed from the quacky twangy sound to a singing rich with harmonics rock machine.... the sustain increased too. If you raise the pickups too high, then the sustain can actually decrease as the magnet interferes with the string at this point. Sustain can be both electronic and physical, of course. You can hear the strings vibrate, but if the pickups are too low it sounds dead. There's a middle ground where it works optimally. If I were to describe in terms of tonewood cliches what a few turns of the screwdriver did... it changed my guitar from that maple sparkly immediate attack to a more resonant full-bodied chocolatey rosewood sound. I was actually shocked... now that guitar could be used as a backup for my main axe. Whereas before, none of my presets worked with it properly.

I am a user of both Helix floor and LT. I have the exact same setup you are describing. I go to FOH in stereo with XLR (L/R) cables and use Left/Mono 1/4" for my personal monitor mix. However.... I experience a bug that always comes back shown below. See other threads regarding Left/mono not working correctly. When I power on my Helix, I must always plug something into the right 1/4", then unplug it. Without doing that, Left/Mono 1/4" is not summing the signal correctly. If you want to be sure you don't experience this live, then perform the trick I describe. If you play professional gigs and you don't want to unexpectedly start hearing something weird your important solo moment? -- then perform the trick I describe. I tried using an adapter to combine Left 1/4" and Right 1/4" into a single 1/4" jack. However, the signal was noticeably hotter that way. So I went back to (see below).

I also played this big outdoor music festival one time and played my Chinese Ignition Hofner bass, which sounds freaking sweet. At the end of our set, a guy came up to me and complimented on the bass, saying it sounded phenomenal. Then I told him it's a 300-dollar Chinese bass, and he immediately lost interest. That made me LOL. BTW, here's a recording with that amazing bass. I love how this song came out, except a few double bass-drum things that the drummer did. A plywood Chinese instrument into a vintage 1960's compressor, into Logic.

check global settings: you can set the output level for all your outputs: XLRs, 1/4", etc. For example, for me the XLRs are set at a microphone level, and the volume knob controls the 1/4" but not the XLRs. Maybe you have your 1/4" set at a microphone level.

There are some topics that immediately divide the people into truthers and conspiracy theorists. I think it's rather interesting to shatter that status quo, and maybe realize that we all have fallen victim to a scam perpetuated by the traditionalist thinking :) Or maybe to make us pay way more for our gear than we should. I bet you, there'll be a video of the same guy doing an analog amp v. modeled amp soon.. Aren't we all Helix users? Here's what I have gathered so far: Re: tonewood: with a solid-body guitar and non-microphonic pickups, the wood, granite, glass, plastic or non-wood makes such an insignificant difference, that it can be practically ignored. So, if you take the Gilmour Black strat, it can sound extremely similar to a well set-up Squier if you pull out the pickguard out of it and install it into that new body. Why spend thousands of dollars on a custom shop guitar, if you can achieve extremely similar results if you have quality parts and build an exact same guitar out of the same components? If you have a hollow-body guitar, however, then obviously it feeds back, resonates and rattles differently. And since every pickup is microphonic to a certain extent, the hollow body guitar has more acoustic-guitar sound mixed in. A vintage non-potted or simply crappy pickup that is extremely microphonic will pick up things other than the string vibration. People listen with their eyes. Light wood is bright, dark wood is dark-sounding. Ultimately, IMO it's about playability and being inspired by your gear. Plus there's familiarity with your gear--if you practice your guitar everyday, you know all if its characteristics and you begin to learn how to overcome all of its quirks, dead notes, warped neck, etc.

The first video about guitar amps really blew my mind... I mean I think I can always dial in my "signature" sound with any amp, unless it's uncontrollably overdriven or too boomy... But this is just fantastic. Take that, you cork-sniffers!

thanks guys! Yes, clearly a scam... although I have found bargain prices before so it can happen. For example bought the Helix LT open box for 900 dollars open box, and my main Brian May guitar that goes for like 6 grand now for 1200 USD... Will be more vigilant in the future!