wlaycook

MEMORY PRESET.hls

OK here are the two presets (ignore the misspelled "aemory") I was using while trying to channel switch.

Thanks - I will try to send the preset when I get home.

I tried again this morning before heading to work, and all seemed to work fine. An interesting pattern that I've noticed is that the MIDI functionality seems to start acting erratically after I've had the amp on for several minutes / extended play. This matches with what happened at my rehearsal a few weeks ago. It's like the MIDI stops communicating after the JVM has been on for a while. I've posted over there to see if there are any thoughts.

Either way, I'm going to have my amp tech take a look as soon as he can.  

Hey guys - been having some issues with my Helix MIDI channel switching recently that are making me want to pull my hair out.

I have a Marshall JVM 410H, and about four months ago, I followed the great guide here with respect to setting up Snapshots for channel switching while also switching effects from the Helix that feed into the amp (using the bank/program method). I followed the guide and everything worked perfectly (even gigged a few times with this setup and it was great).

Well, last week, I fired it up again at rehearsal and noticed that the MIDI communication wasn't "talking" to the amp (the Snapshots were switching between FX configurations within the preset accordingly, but the amp's channels were not switching).

After playing around with it for a few hours, I decided to do a factory reset on both my Helix, as well as a MIDI reset of the Marshall (where you hold down the clean channel while powering on). Tried the above method with a few new blank Helix preset. No luck at all. What's weird is that after powering the amp down overnight and back on in the morning today, it seemed to work briefly as intended but then after a few more times of cycling through the snapshots, it stopped again.

I'm really at a loss, as I've troubleshot seemingly everything. The only thing that has changed since it was last reliably working is that my amp tech rebiased the amp and replaced the preamp and power tubes with some new JJs. Amp sounds great, but really upset that the MIDI switching doesn't work. Have a gig in a week so would really appreciate any feedback.

Any ideas?

Always pretty shy about posting this type of stuff (and excuse me if this type of post belongs elsewhere), but I have not had my Helix long at all and have loved every bit of it. Have been able to get some massive tones out of it. Took this cut earlier this week (was going for a total Lynch/Sykes/Jake E Lee vibe) and thought it sounded decent (was a few beers deep so excuse a bit of sloppiness). Just wanted to share.

Hey guys,

I have a lesson next week over Skype/Zoom and would like to find a way to use my Helix such that I can send the Helix signal over Skype/Zoom, but also still be able to have my voice be heard via microphone. How would you rout this setup? I have a Shure USB condenser mic that can plug into my MacBook (see here: https://www.shure.com/en-US/products/microphones/mv88plus), but not sure if it can do into the Helix. Any way I could use that? Do I need another normal condenser mic (maybe so that I could have that as a signal in as well, and mute it when not talking). Just trying to make this as seamless as possible.

Thanks

11 hours ago, DunedinDragon said:

Generally speaking disabling the Helix volume knob tends to me most appropriate when going to a mixing board so that you can appropriately gain stage the incoming signal from the Helix so that it has enough headroom.  I never disable the Helix volume knob when going direct to speakers as I always set my powered speakers at unity (12 o'clock position) and control my output with the Helix volume knob.

Bear in mind that just because you have the Helix volume max'd out doesn't mean your signal won't be too hot for the preamp that you're going into whether that be the preamp on a powered speaker or a preamp on a mixing board depending on the settings you have in your signal chain.  That's ultimately why you need to manage your signal levels within each preset using the amp model's channel volume.  The signal meter on the Helix that's accessed by selecting the output block isn't perfect but it will give you a pretty good indicator of how hot your signal is.  I generally have that signal meter hitting between 60 to 65 percent and never have any problems with my patches being too hot.

Yep, this is exactly the conclusion I reached. My signals were too hot, largely because my channel volumes were so high.

Hi guys,

Since I've been using my Helix for the past several months, I've normally set the volume knob to 12 o'clock. However, after learning more about optimizing gain staging, signals, etc., I learned that the large volume knob should be set at 100% (or simply disabled), since that is basically the unadulterated Helix signal at 0.0dB. Note that this is when I'm using my Helix as an audio interface (USB > Mac, and XLRs > two powered JBL monitors).

With the volume knob maxed or simply disabled (i.e., at 0.0dB), I have turned down the trim/gain on my monitors to compensate for the actual volume in the room. However, with this new setup, a lot of presets that were otherwise fine are resulting in crackling/artifacts. How is this the case if the volume knob theoretically doesn't impact anything before it (as it relates to potential clipping)?

As it stands, I might just go back to using the knob at noon (also was a lot more convenient being able to turn my entire output of the recording setup up/down with that knob instead of via the apps/software or trim levels on the backs of the monitors), but wanted to get your thoughts.

Thanks

10 minutes ago, Schmalle said:

Are splits and mixers before / after the cabs the same?

Bingo...I swear I had looked at those at least a dozen times before posting, but turns out the merge block for the second path has been defaulting to "inverted" for B Polarity. Flipping it back to "normal" solved the problem. Not sure why it defaults to inverted though - any clues, out of curiosity? Also, the black/white color combo (especially when not looking at the old merge settings) made it difficult to tell immediately which setting was active. No big deal though.

Thanks guys. I've been playing with this thing for 8 hours this evening. Time to give it a break for the night...

On 3/8/2021 at 7:53 PM, qwerty42 said:

If all you want is a small phase offset, which is what you're hearing from the DAW monitoring, you can do this quite easily with the stereo Dual Delay or even the Simple Delay blocks. Set the feedback to 0, the mix to 100%, and dial in however much delay you want on the channel you want. You can either use these as stereo blocks, or split your path and apply the delay to only one of those paths (e.g. to offset a dual amp or dual cab setup). Also pay attention to how you have your channels panned to adjust the stereo field width (there is actually a stereo width volume block that lets you tweak this, too). I think it's fairly self explanatory once you start playing with these things, but if you want I can make some example patches.

 

A word of caution here: if you do this, it's best to dial in the offset with different amps/cabs/effects on the L/R channels. If you simply add the phase offset but the signal is otherwise identical, you can get phase cancellation issues on mono playback or even stereo speakers. I always check how my stereo patches sound by collapsing them to mono with a mono gain block at the end, which you can bypass to go back to stereo. It should sound good in mono too... If it doesn't, adjustments are needed somewhere.

Thanks so much for this helpful info. Should I be worried about phase cancellation issues if I just use the pitch shift block as described above? Regardless, some example patches of what you are describing would certainly be really, really appreciated...I'm trying to envision how that would look, so that would be helpful. Thanks a ton.

Hey guys,

I'm tweaking a preset right now to add space for a few more front-end effects. Basically, my thought process was just to move the amp/cab (and post-amp effects) to signal path 2A. Sounds simple right? Well, for some reason, when I do this, my signal is significantly duller / less level. I'm literally just moving pre-existing blocks below, so I don't see why anything should change...Can you guys look at the below and tell me if I'm missing something? Thanks...

Original Preset / Signal Chain

New Signal Path (Why does this seemingly have less output than the above? All settings are constant for each FX...)

Hey guys - really enjoying my Helix so far. Have already spent 20+ hours this week playing around with it. Anyways, I'm loving the stock cabs and have gotten some great tones, but I'm also curious about IRs. I've been checking out some of the Ownhammer products to play around with, but I'm not really sure which ones to go for. I typically use a hot rodded plexi/Marshall tone for my main preset, and my tonal inspirations include guys like George Lynch, John Sykes, Warren Demartini, Jake E. Lee, Jerry Cantrell, and of course EVH (although I do have times when I'm more in a Strat/single coil/heavy blues mode). Any recs of some good IRs I should check out? Obviously, I assume It will be some sort of Marshall with Greenbacks/V30 type of setup, but would welcome any specific recs...

Thanks

On 1/8/2021 at 5:34 PM, amsdenj said:

I use HX Edit with Big Sur. It works fine as long as HX Edit retains the window focus. If it looses focus, HX Edit will disconnect after about 30 seconds. But clicking reconnect gets it right back without any loss or much delay. I haven't done any exhaustive testing, but I use it a lot and that's the only issue I've seen so far.

 

I'd be careful about disconnecting during updates. I've done it, but make sure HX Edit retains the window focus until the update is done. Not sure it would be a problem if it disconnected, but I didn't try it.

 

This is the only issue I have encountered. I'm actually a new Helix user, and my MacBook Pro was already running Big Sur when I got the Helix. Without realizing there were supposed compatibility issues, I tried updating to the latest firmware via the software on Big Sur, but it ended up messing up my unit such that I had to do a factory reset just to get it to start up again properly (it's my friend's Helix while I wait for mine to arrive, so there were already presets on there he had saved fortunately). I instead updated on my Windows computer to 3.01 before plugging in back into my Mac. Everything works fine now apart from the HX Edit disconnect issue (just have to hit reconnect though).

These are perfect suggestions. Thanks guys. I tried the Dual Pitch effect, and it got me where I wanted. Interested in trying this "Double Take" effect though.

Hey guys,

First time Helix user here - first off, wow! This tool is absolutely incredible. Maybe the most revolutionary thing for the instrument so far this millennia. Can't believe the naysayers out there who act like they can't get a good tone out of this thing (or any of these types of tools, for that matter). I was actually all set to go with another similar product until my friend who had surgery on his hand let me borrow his LT until he heals up, but now I'm totally sold. Line 6 it is.

Anyways, I wanted to see if a particular signal path / tone is possible. I actually discovered it serendipitously when arming my guitar track on my DAW (which unintentionally has a slight latency that produces a really cool "natural" chorus sound that sounds somewhat like John Sykes' tone when using the 2204 preset when heard back through my monitors). Question is, how would I best go about emulating that effect via my Helix "the right way"? For instance, I'm trying to emulate running a master/slave setup with a slight delay between the two to produce that massive sound. I guess more specifically, is there a way to set the time of a delay pedal very short and send the "wet" signal to another amp/cab? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Wade