theElevators

"sit better in the mix" is a sort-of a broad statement. What are some of characteristics of a good sound mix, when it comes to your guitar sound? 1. Guitar does not interfere with other instruments, and vocals 2. solos are nice and loud 3. rhythm sound complements the rest of the band, without sticking out, and all notes are heard as needed. 4. no crazy out of control delays that overpower the rest of the band, and there's enough 3d effects so it sounds like a CD. 1. You don't want to have too much bass in your guitar, so I always resort to cutting the extreme lows on the amp block. I like the Jimmy Page sound approach -- the sound is pretty mid-range-ey. In other words, I don't ever want to have the "and justice for all" guitar sound. The 1990 "metal zone" sound only works in the bedroom when you jam by yourself, and live is too boomy. There are certain frequency spectrum ranges that are known to be occupied by instruments. For example, the "2k" range is typically reserved for the vocals. So IMO, a nice mid-range is what guitars should go for. When you have multiple guitars, they need to be eq'ed differently, one more honky, the other one more bright and together they work nicely. Also stereo panning helps separate several instruments. 2. For my solos, I add an EQ block before the amp block where I radically boost 2k 10db. This is the vocal range that is occupied by the vocals normally, but when you play a solo, this frequency range makes your solos pop out. 3. Don't have too much dirt in your sound. Once again, the sound that works in your bedroom may not always translate to the live situation. 4. Delays/reverb also needs to be adjusted to taste. After playing several shows, soon after I got the Helix, I went home and listened to the recordings of the live performances and made several adjustments. In one case, the stereo delay was pretty much overpowering everything at home, but on stage was not nearly as loud as I wanted it to be, so I turned it up. In another instance, there's this one tricky intro to one of the songs that is very very recognizable and needs a certain sound--I always struggled with it live until I bumped up the delay some more and then it became easier to play and sat so much better in the mix. Tweaking your sound takes a long time. Each piece of equipment has so many different parameters. If you used to have good results with your analog gear, and then are struggling with the modeler, maybe it's time to take the "modular" approach to your sound -- try to replace one piece of gear at a time. That's actually what I did in the beginning -- I connected the pedalboard to the Helix and then one-by-one replaced all my pedals doing A/B comparisons. At first I played through my physical tube amp, and got rid of my pedalboard, when I found all the effects on the Helix. Finally, I got rid of the amp too, also doing A/B comparisons: with the tube amp / with the Helix emulation. Finally, I took the Helix to the rehearsal and made tweaks as I saw fit. Eventually, the Helix is my only piece of equipment that goes to the FOH and to my monitor mix. The sound guy still needs to make volume adjustments, he says, but the consistency is a lot better than with the old pedalboard I used to use. Because of the pandemic, I didn't have time to finish setting the loudness of all my presets/snapshots, but when I have time, we will go to a big space and run through our set and make those final tweaks. That is pretty much impossible to do unless you play on a big club stage. Those issues can never be addressed at home or even during the band rehearsals.

Was messing around with the Helix yesterday and came up with this, if anybody is interested in getting the signature delay sound...

Add a stereo volume pedal at the end of your chain, boom! You can un-assign the expression pedal from it. Put the cursor on it and save your preset. When you enter that preset, the block will be highlighted and the knobs will allow you to adjust the parameters as you please: position % and curve. So if things are too loud, reach down and turn down the percentage with the knob.

My advice is to set up a basic preset with all your necessary sounds.... then copy/paste that preset and tweak the copies. You should not use different amps/effects in each of your presets, because that is asking for trouble, as there will be volume/tone discrepancies.... So Take the template, build your own preset from it, copy that preset and tweak it in all your next presets. It'd be faster than recreating your preset from scratch each time.

I've had my HX Edit crash a few times... usually when the preset was very very heavy in terms of DSP usage. It also caused some of my bypassed/un-bypassed parameters to switch around after it crashed. My guess is that it's your preset. Maybe try re-saving your preset from the Helix itself first, and then connect it to your computers.

Time to introduce the concept of an open source guitar processor box, where you can run a VM with Helix, Kemper, Fractal, Zoom, whatever firmware... Wouldn't that be wild?

Here's another trick I came up with for auto-engaged effects -- it's a visual cue that I use. Take a look:

So usually a Fender combo amp has this little piece of 1/4 inch cable that is coming from the speaker itself. This little cable is plugged into the “speaker” jack in the back of the amp. Simply unplug that little speaker cable and plug it into the Baby Bomb’s out jack. All combo amps have an ability to use an external speaker cabinet if you want…so you can plug an external amp into it. Just obviously do not turn on the amp, and unplug any pedal switches from the amp prior. And so you’ll have a simple speaker cabinet with a short cable coming out the back of it that you can power with a micro amp…

I started using Mooer Baby Bomb amplifier and have been extremely happy. It's tiny and can fit into the top pocket of your Helix bag. I get a very consistent sound each time. Let me explain what I have been using: I take the 1/4 inch out of the Helix and connect it to the Mooer Baby Bomb. Then I connect the Baby Bomb to the speaker cable of the amp. I have been using Fender Deluxe and Fender Twin speakers and it sounds amazing: in other words the actual Fender Twin is not connected to the outlet and is just used as a glorified speaker cab. I don't even have to adjust my global EQ, my sound is that consistent... unless I use something like a 4x12, then the sound is too boomy without taking off the lows This in my experience is still a lot more consistent than going into an effects loop of an amp. A lot of amps don't have an effects loop to begin with. And the amps' effects loop may be way too muddy/distorted for what I do. With the Baby Bomb, it just sounds and feels like you are playing out of a conventional guitar amp and it's plenty loud at 8:30 with the bright setting. Anyway, this is what I recommend, and what works for me -- it's small and consistent and this tiny little box can be deafening on stage if you so desire. https://www.amazon.com/MOOER-Baby-Bomb-Micro-Power/dp/B07C1JJ6CH

I think what you are describing is you are in fact on crack or something equally heavy... What you describe, needing to "calibrate" the expression pedal is the fact that your expression pedal's position is saved inside each preset. This is the behavior that I personally use. I go into my preset, and the expression pedal is saved at 99% regardless of the actual position of the pedal. Then as I start rocking the pedal, it starts following the actual physical position of the expression pedal. Why do I personally want that? Because sometimes I don't have the time to move the expression pedal up when I switch from a previous song... and always want my preset to start out with a specific wah-position. That way I have to do less work, as the ideal initial wah setting is already pre-dialed in. You know, sometimes if you put the wah in the heel position, it loses volume and tone -- I don't want to have to remember to pre-adjust the exp pedal prior to switching my sounds. Plus I always put the pedal in the down position when I'm done using it in a specific preset.... for consistency. Regardless.... Check Global Settings / EXP pedal. If you have Expression pedal 1/ 2 "per preset" or "per snapshot", then there's your answer right there. Until you move the pedal, regardless of the actual physical position, the pedal will at the "saved" percentage amount.

Heya. Was doing a sound check yesterday and the issue came back! At least I now have my #0 preset “sound check” that tests left/right delay so I know: if I don’t hear the sound I want, I re/plug my monitor mix cable. The bug…It comes and goes. Doing a reset solves it for some time, but without doing anything (no change to any settings)….it comes back. Support can’t replicate it because it only comes up after some time, not when you restore your backup right away / when you do a reset. ughhh

In 2040

This to me has: 1. slow envelope filter that auto-engages on each note attack 2. octave down somewhere in the chain, with a mix of around 70 percent, just not 100 3. one of those wah-wah pedals with a big sweep.

I used graphite spray on my Helix LT.... worked pretty well. It's a little bit messy but not greasy like WD-40. https://www.amazon.com/CRC-Graphite-Lube-Aerosol-Black/dp/B007I9XUD0

You can use the Send block to send your sound right before the amp/cab block. On the Helix you can have one preset output 4 different signals with different amount of "stuff". So you can split your signal right before the amp, add the same delay as you would have, etc, and get your sans-amp signal from the Send 1 jack. If I were to be perfectly honest, just use the processor for the amp sounds, don't bother with the 4 cable methods, or this. Helix sounds great. Just plug it into an FRFR or an effects loop of an amp, or get yourself Baby Bomb by Mooer, which is a stomp-sized power amp.

Here's my old video demonstrating the standard D tuning with the Helix.

I have been using the "wham" block in the past to downtune my guitar. I removed the control assignment for the pitch and just made it fixed. In my experience it sounded just as good as the poly one. So if you have an issue running out of DSP, give it a try....

I made a little video how I do it...

If you want to do the "queen" multitracked solo sound, you need to harmonize the distorted signal as opposed to do it the other way around. Also, mix the harmonized note down to about 90%. It should not be exactly as loud as the actual not you are playing -- that's the secret to it not sounding artificial IMO.

In that case, it's a lemon so send it back. I've never heard nor experienced these issues you are describing.

https://www.amazon.com/M-Audio-EX-P-Expression-Pedal/dp/B000NLRWEI/r M-Audio EX-P | Universal Expression Pedal for Keyboards, MIDI Keyboards/Controllers and Supported Guitar Effects Pedals Cheap, light, durable, for around 30 USD.

I personally never press up/down to go to snapshots. I set up my presets to display 8 snapshots. Maybe try that approach instead?

there are also linear or logarithmic settings that can make a difference.

If you want one Reverb to fade out and the other one to fade in, then you can assign the mix parameter to the expression pedal: on one block it's positive, the other it's negative. In HX Edit, you can right-click on the mix parameter of each block and assign a controller for it -- in your case the expression pedal. Heel position one reverb is mixed at 70 percent, the other mixed at 0; and toe position the first block is mixed at 0, while the other one is mixed at 70 percent... As you rock the pedal, it will morph between 2 reverbs. With effects like reverb or delay or even wah-wah you can use the mix parameter to effectively bypass the effect entirely. I have a bloated preset where multiple things are controlled by the same EXP 2, but in some snapshots some blocks are set at mix = 0, making them bypassed.