DugT

Thanks for your reply. I didn't know that the noise gate affects dynamics. I will check to see if my noise gate is set high enough to make much of a difference in dynamics. I haven't noticed it yet. The most distortion I use is classic rock style, not metal. Actually, noise isn't a problem for me. I'm just a sofa player in a relatively noise free newish house. I have guitars with humbuckers but I prefer the sound of single coils with the noise gate adjusted to taste. I'm no chicken picker but, for some of my music I like to get a tone that is similar to that of acoustic guitars and I like to use a single coil for that especially but everything sounds better through a single coil to me. Maybe that is because of old ears and hearing loss. Here is my real problem. I'm having difficulty finding a good SSS hardtail guitar with a flatter radius. Most SSS guitars have trems and most shredder neck guitars have trems. One exception to this is the Ibanez S671ALB but it has Fishman active pickups. A lot of people really like Fishmans so I thought I should consider them even though I wouldn't take advantage of their full benefits. I could replace the pups if I don't like them. The guitar doesn't have a tone pot. That could force me to use the Helix for that and have presets with the treble adjusted for each song or each pickup. That could be more efficient than finding the right tone knob setting everytime I play the song again. My Helix sits next to me at finger level so it is easy enough to use its tone knobs.

I'm considering buying a guitar that has Fishman Fluence pickups. Are Fishmans overkill since the Helix has good 60 hurtz hum supression? Another feature of the Fishmans is the gain can be increased by the push of a button but the same can be done with a Helix. While we are on the subject of hum, does anyone even need humbuckers if they have a Helix? Thanks

Thanks for the input. I replaced some 14k ohm ceramic humbuckers with some cheap 7K ohm AL2 single coil humbucker size pickups and it made a dramatic improvement but that is a pretty extreme example. Now it sounds like my other five guitars that all have different pickups but sound similar through my Helix effects. The humbuckers might have been better at heavy metal but the single coils were much better at everything I play. However, the biggest improvement in my tone has come from taking advantage of Helix options and playing in stereo. At this point, the most important thing about a guitar to me is having a neck I like and pickups that aren't too hot. I might try the B+C option if I get real board but I doubt if it will improve anything. Evidence of that is my google searches haven't found any discussions about it.

The tones I've heard from YouTube videos of people playing this guitar sound good so I think I will like it as is. It is easy for me to get good enough tone for me out of my Helix and stereo studio monitors.

Thanks for answering my question. My hearing isn't very good. For example, if I hear a difference between my guitars or my pickups, I can usually adjust my Helix to get them to sound similar enough to each other. I was wondering if this is common with people that have a Helix but apparently not. About two months ago, before I got a Helix, I asked here if I would notice much difference between a Helix and my Boss GT-100. Everyone was confident I would notice a substantial difference and they were right so at least my hearing is that good. Now all of my six guitars sound great to me so I am going to sell most of them. Tomorrow I'm getting a Schecter Banshee Elite-6 which might be the ultimate guitar for me, mostly because of the neck. It has two humbuckers and a five way switch so that is why I asked about A+D vs B+C. I was hoping there was universal truth and censensus about the tone difference between A+D vs B+C. Both pickups are about 11k ohms and have ceramic magnets. Between them and the Helix I think I will get good tone. Worst case I will get different pickups. Bridge Pickup Schecter USA SuperCharger Mach-6™ 12K Neck Pickup Schecter USA SuperCharger Mach-6™ 10K I get the guitar tomorrow and will play it for the first time tomorrow.

I have a question about guitar tone but I'm wondering if it really doesn't matter because final tone is so adjustable with a Helix. For example, with a Helix can you have guitar pickups that are not hot enough? Instead of getting hotter pickups it seems to me you can crank up the gain, add boost or overdrive to get as much distortion as you want. Are there exceptions to this? Here is another example. For the middle 5 way switch position, I was wondering if here is much difference in tone between the two inner coils in parallel Vs. the two outer coils in parallel? I suspect not much and I also suspect that and difference in coil configuration. This graphic shows what I'm talking about. I wonder if I could even hear a difference. If anyone knows the answer to this it would save me some soldering trial and error.

1 hour ago, LongDuckDong said: I researched the Helix. My favorite amp is the Mesa Boogie, Dual Rectifier, which the Spider Jam, has. I asked if the Helix brought more to the table than the Spider Jam. Of course the Helix has a lot more than a Spyder Jam except a power amp and a speaker. They are very different and no one here wants to study up on your Jam and then list the differences for you. The Helix costs four times as much and you are happy with your jam so party on. If you want someone to try and sell you a Helix, go to a guitar shop and talk to a salesman. Essentially you challenged us to argue why you should buy a Helix even though they are a lot more expensive but why should we bother? There is an excellent chance that you shouldn't buy a Helix. Please feel free to tell us why we should have saved a lot of money by buying a Spyder Jam.

It seems we don't know why you should or shouldn't buy a Helix. I know at least one of us doesn't care. You might try googling Spider Jam vs Helix.

Thanks for the good ideas I tried the looper. The tone that I hear while I'm playing sounds a lot better to me than when I replay the loop. Is the looper telling the truth? I hope not. I might stick with snapshots and also the return button.

To A/B compare different settings within a preset is it best to use Snapshots? I tried using a A/B split but that wasn't fast or easy. I also tried saving as different Presets but that wasn't real convenient either. I suspect Snapshots are the best way but before I learn how to use Snapshots, I thought I would ask here. Thanks.

3.01 isn't an Edit software update. It is only a hardware/firmware update.

To update to Helix 3.0, first you have to update to Helix Edit 3.0 Software. To update from Helix 3.0 Firmware to Helix 3.01.0 Firmware, you should go to Free Software Downloads>Helix>Helix>GO and then proceed to get the firmware. Helix 3.01.0 Firmware has nothing to do with Software. Maybe "Free Software Downloads" should be changed to Free Update Downloads. Maybe "All Hardware" should be changed to "Hardware/Firmware".

Thank you. Yes, I did mean headphone output. I was going to use one TRS cable and output from the headphone because that seemed like the simplist way to play in stereo but now I see that the Headphone output cannot be set to line. I will get two TS to RCA cables as you suggested.

Thanks for the replies! I did a search and it looks like using the TRS (Stereo) mic output and a cable like the one below would be a good way to do it.

For bedroom playing, will the Helix output work with the input of a good full size Yamaha stereo receiver? I would only play at lower volumes and only a few times a year. I don't want to take my frfr back and forth to my other house.

That reminds me of the song, "If I had a hammer..."

In your OP you said "I hope that the next Line 6' s efforts will be aimed at improving the dynamics of the amp models, especially those concerning clean sounds which, IMHO, are still missing a bit of "life"..." It is my experience that effects are how "Life" is added to tone. Only using "a little bit of delay" would make the tone way too dry for me. Maybe you should start a thread, "How can I add Dynamics and LIfe to clean tones."

My update to 3.01went well but I had a bit of a false alarm. After the update, it looked like my Presets were still in place but they sounded awful. I Clicked on File>Restore From Backup..... After the restore, the presets were fine. Later I turned the Helix off and back on. It said, Rebuilding Presets.... After that the presets sounded the same, which is good. I turned it off and back on again and everything worked as it should. I've only had my Helix for a week so I'm a rookie at this but I thought I my experience might help someone.

Thanks for the update. My new Helix sounds so much better than my GT-100, I no longer care that it doesn't have Tera Echo. In spite of that, I tried the dynamic split method that you described but I am probably too new at this to make it work right. Now I use regular Phaser and chorus in presets with distortion.

False alarm. My studio speakers volume was too high. This is how it is supposed to be done. Set Helix output to Line. Turn speakers volume to zero. Turn the Helix Volume output knob to 11. Play loudest preset while turning up the speakers volume to taste (so to speak.) I did this with my guitar volume set at 5 to leave some ability to control the volume at my guitar. After doing that I could just add a little drive to my clean preset and now it is loud enough and sounds great.

This is day two with my new Helix floor and I love it but I have one problem. The volume is too low when I play clean. Increasing the volume via drive or level or big output volume knob increases distortion to unacceptable levels. If my output is set to LINE, the clean volume is just a little better but then the higher gain presets are way too broken up. With the Output set to INSTRUMENT, my other presets are great but my clean preset volume is even lower. This is the case with three different clean amps that I have tried, US Princess, Jazz Rivit (Roland JC120), Archetype Clean, Can you think of anything else for me to try? I'm playing into powered stereo JBL studio monitors. I could crank up the volume on them but I would have to turn it back down when I play with any gain. Thanks

I plan to focus on only a few amps at first, like you recommend. I thought I might as well start with the best amps and that is why I started this thread. However, like someone here said, it seems like all the amps are good and therefore there are lots of different favorites. The good news is, it should be easy enough to get started with good tone and then make it even better.

I'll be playing in stereo too so I will definitely try those amp combinations.

Thanks, zappazapper! That was a great read. It was interesting and helpful.