SaschaFranck

Ok, this is something I've been through a number of times already and it always seemed to come down to this: Preamps in series rarely do your sound any good. I can't pinpoint the exact reasons for this, especially as these days proper level matching (such as getting the Helix output down to instrument level in order not to push the amps input stage too much) isn't an issue at all, but as said, it has always been like it for me, regardless of the modeler used (ranging back all the way to a shoddy Zoom 9000, followed by various Pods, Boss GTs and what not). I liked using the input of my amps (often a Fender "The Twin", which turned out to be a most excellent - perhaps the best ever for my tastes - pedal platform after I replaced the speakers) because that would allow me to use their tone stacks as master EQs, something I really like having quick access to, in order to adjust things according to the location. As soon as I switched the modeled preamps off and only used the provided dirt stomp boxes and FX, things usually went just fine. I suspect one of the reasons for all this to be that each and every guitar preamp (perhaps minus the preamps of a handful of solid state ones, such as a Jazz Chorus) adds its own pretty distinct compression (even a Twin with plenty of clean headroom does, and yes, I measured quite some preamps out of interest) and running them in series simply doesn't work well. Might as well be a frequency and saturation thing, but I think the kind of compression is the main culprit here - which would also explain why things seem to work fine at lower volumes but end up in a pretty un-defined sound once you're getting louder, especially in the context of a band. Fwiw, the same is true for a full amp scenario, most power amps add yet another bit of compression, and again that is true for most typical clean headroom power amps, too. You could even try these things out just within the Helix by running one (pre-)amp into another serially. I'm pretty sure you won't find too many pleasant combinations. Having said sll that, if I was using an amp without a power amp in, I would very likely skip the entire amp modeling and try to get along with just the various compression, EQ and drive pedals of the Helix for all core sound shapings. Yeah, that'd pretty much take away the main advance of the full Helix over the HX FX, but in the end, I'm sure your tones will improve quite a bit.

In addition to what has been said already, you might want to check the global "Guitar Input Pad" setting. Activating it gives you more clean headroom, something I find useful for myself. Needs to be said that this is a global thing and hence will affect all your patches.

Nah, the latemcy added by the loops comes on top in any scenario, regardless whether you're using it standalone or as an audio interface.

Post the preset for others to evaluate. And ideally an audio file of what it sounds like at your place.

I'd say it's a mixture of the used hardware and the drivers. And pretty unlikely to be improved, as otherwise that would've likely happened already. Given that quite some of the other "not too relevant" hardware things aren't any better than average (and in some cases not even that), I'd suspect a rather low level interface to work under the Helix' hood. Works fine for plain recordings but it's defenitely way behind pretty much all plain/dedicated interfaces.

I have no idea how things are in Reaper land, using Logic the answer is yes, it's all fine. But I'd think it'd work just as well in Reaper. After all, latency hasn't got anything to do with the correct placement of your recordings. Fwiw, in Logic, there's one scenario when this won't work, but I'm considering it a bug (and a very longstanding one at that): Once you have any latency introducing plugin on your master bus, recordings will be placed with an offset as large as the latency introduced by these plugins, even if you bypass them. Quite ridiculous that they haven't fixed that after years. I'm mentioning this because other sequencers might have issues with that, too (Cubase however doesn't, from all I know). In a nutshell, you should rather check out these things. In general, I can record into stuffed projects just fine, even if I raise my buffersize to the maximum.

As said, I would likely stick with hardware monitoring as long as possible - one of *the* great aspects of the Helix btw, being able to monitor without having to deal with latency issues while still having all re-amping options, even better in case you also own Helix Native. I could run things at 64 samples all throughout, but there's still the occasional plugin raising roundtrip latency, and while Logic has a low latency recording mode (which automatically bypasses all plugins adding more than a user-definable amount of additional latency) which is working pretty well, it still isn't too desirable pretty often. Using hardware monitoring through the Helix solves all these issues just nicely.

First off: You want hardware monitoring, at least for the amp sounds. Latency of the Helix family used as audio interfaces is anything but shiny. Of course, YMMV, but I can't (or at least don't want to) deal with 10ms of latency when using headphones. So, my advice would be to keep your sounds as they are and switch off all effects you'd like to be coming from Reaper (delay/reverb). Which is a pretty good idea of course, as any editing and mixing becomes a lot easier when dealing with dry core tones. Now, I don't know how this is dealt with in Reaper, but in Logic I simply drag my channel fader down and use pre fader sends to feed Logics FX (which are on busses, obviously set to 100% wet). Well, I even have a specialized input channel for these tasks, but that might not be possible in Reaper. Anyway, this way I'm getting the best of both worlds: Hardware monitoring with pretty much no latency (ok, around 2ms caused by the Helix hardware - which is pretty damn good) and software effects for monitoring pleasure only.

Pretty much this. I find the drives in the Helix to be quite excellent (minus perhaps the fuzz models, which I really don't think are doing too well - and yes, I fooled around with various input impedances) but their default settings are nothing to write home about, more to the opposite. As you say, plenty of them are adding way too much drive/boost (similar with the amps), as if they were designed to only please the high gain crowd. But once you do some tweaks, most of them are absolutely excellent IMO. No idea what the drives are like in Fractal land by now, but until not too long ago it was kinda wellknown that quite some Axe users were asking for drives delivering Helix quality.

What kind of sounds are you after? And could you please use a different text formatting?

Whether there's useful information above 7kHz in a typical electric guitar signal should be completely irrelevant to the subject as the Helix is meant to be able to process plenty of other signals, as well (in fact, it's meant to be able to process/record any signals), so it should rather be fullrange. Having said that, mine is, I just checked. All signals are passed through absolutely fine (connected another interfaces I/Os around the Helix and sent some pink/white noise through it).

I would totally agree with that. All "taste issues" aside, unlike with, say, synthesizer or sampler presets, which work with an extremely limited input source (namely MIDI notes, plus perhaps a bit of ModWheel and aftertouch here and there) the very source of guitar sounds features so many varying parameters (pick/fingers, picking strength, string gauge, pickups, guitar built type, wood, whatever...) it's absolutely impossible to get predictable results from presets unless at least, say, an identical guitar with identically adjusted pickups would be used. Might work more or less well with Variaxes and patches done using the virtual pickups (as that would eliminate a whole lot of otherwise variable factors already), but even then there's still plenty of room for variation (mainly due to individual playing styles). Having said that, I sometimes find it interesting to explore other folks' presets - but not exactly to use them or because I like a certain sound, but more because I like to see different approaches to patch layouts. But IMO that isn't exactly relevant when you start to explore a unit such as the Helix. As said before, I think it's vastly more important to find out about the core tones it has on offer. Btw, I'm still spending quite some time on that myself, just fooling around with drives, amps and cabs. And it still happens quite regularly that I stumble over some very interesting (and potentially useful) combinations that I haven't ever checked before. As some more or less funny mathematical observation along those lines: By now, we have 67 guitar amps, 29 drive stompboxes (ok, that includes guitar and bass models, but why not...) and 29 guitar cabs. That's 67x29x29 = 56347 possible combinations just using these (completely excluding the option of using multiple drives). Now, sure, I guess it's fair to say that around 90% can safely be written off (at least in case you're after somewhat traditional tones). That still leaves you with around 6k of "core tone" variations. And so far we haven't even touched a single parameter. Calculating that option in easily demonstrates that even a lifetime (or 10...) wouldn't be enough to carefully explore all possibly useful combinations. I mean, just one of the more flexible amps (say one of the Calis or the Litigator) along with a flexible drive such as the Tone Sovereign would give you more than enough tonal options to waste days on. And now add something such as the RedWirez Big Pack with >20k IRs, some of them drastically altering the core tone... Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say would be to find a handful of amp/cab combinations to suit your style and then build up upon that and possibly stick with it for a long time, unless you really run into some limitations or weirdnesses. Btw, this is also what pretty much all famous players do in the analog amp realm. Even if they could afford pretty much any rig they wanted, you usually find them using the same kind of amps for decades. You don't see a Carlton, Lukather, Ford, any of the Kings, SRV, Johnson, the Edge (or whomever, pick your poison) change amps all the time. Sure, the big studio cats do, but even someone such as Brent Mason seems to be getting away fine with around 5 amps and 10 pedals (at least kinda). The thing all these dudes are doing is to find a handful of decent core tones and then familiarize with the options these tones allow to achieve. Personally, I would highly recommend to do it the same with any modeler of choice, simply because otherwise you will without pretty much any doubt stumble into option paralysis. A handful of core tones and some "character" pedals will take you a very long way in case you know how to use them. Recreating any possible iconic guitar tone or exploring any possible combinations will however leave you with the recreation process (unless it's what you do for a living) and very likely take away a considerable amount of your precious playing time. Well, the latter also happens when you type longwinded posts on internet forums. Hence, I will now just stop and grab my guitar.

My oh my, what a lovely beast! Unfortunately, I can't vote it up as my absolute personal priorities are usability things that I'd like to see before anything else.

One of the things I still do (and one of the things more useful than anything else since years for me already, I even did that with my analog rigs): Insert a looper as the very first thing in your signal chain. That way, you can record some bits and fool around with your patches without having to play, interrupt yourself, adjust, play again, interrupt, adjust, etc... I would then check all amp+cab models at least briefly. While doing that, take notes of which cabs are coming with which amp! I found that to be important. In the end, you will likely load amps and cabs (or IRs) separately, but to get the basic ideas Line 6 had while creating their models, it's a good thing to chose the amp/cab combo they had in mind. Further, the very first amp parameters to observe IMO would be: Hum, Ripple, Drive, Master, Sag. I absolutely recommend to turn Hum and Ripple all the way down as all they do is to add static noise (for whatever authentic results - I never want any of it and have almost fooled myself into thinking something was wrong with my cables or whatever, simply because there was all that noise). Drive, Master and Sag all interact with each other, defining the gain structure of your patch (yes, Bias and Bias X also interact with the gain structure, but I think it's safe to leave them on their defaults when you just start out). I would have a look at how each of the amps you seem to be interested in (obviously you can't cover all of them straight away) reacts when using these controls. Very (!) important note: Some of the default settings the amps show up with when you select them are completely awkward (and no, I am by far not the only one to say so, plenty of people will agree on that), so very often at least fooling a bit with the parameters mentioned above will likely result in a *way* lovelier experience. Oh, another very important thing: Once you've found an amp model you like (preferably an overdriven one, just hang on...) and roughly adjusted it, make absolutely sure to head over to the global settings and check out the "Guitar In Pad" parameter. There's no absolute truth or anything, but *many* people seem to prefer the amp models to react much more balanced with it activated (it's turned off by default). I think this setting was implemented to take care of very high output guitars (switching it to "on" attenuates the input), but many people (myself included) are using it with rather low-ish output guitars as well. Personally, I just think it offers a better control over the "drive bandwidth" of certain amp models (IMO in the first place anything "british" profits a whole lot). It's really important to check out this parameter very early in your "Helix career", simply because it's a global thing, so all patches will be affected. And the last thing you likely want is to go through 1087 patches and readjust every single one of them in some months just because you found out that you prefer the Input Pad to be on (but constructed all your patches until then with it off). Anyway, getting comfortable with what is possible (or not) just by selecting and adjusting amps and cabs (well, you might like to have some reverb running for listening pleasure - even if I would recommend to not do that...) IMO is the single best thing you can do if you have the patience. It will pay off a whole lot later on, more than anything else. And well, personally I don't recommend watching patch tutorial videos. They often involve rather complexed setups, routings and what not. It's fine to get into that stuff later on, but in the first place, your core sounds should be right up your (<-! and not anyone elses) alley.

Fwiw, almost by accident I discovered some IRs that I simply found to be pretty much as excellent as they get. They're part of the Hotone VStomp Amp plugin which I purchased for around 9 bucks when it was on sale. It's just 12 IRs but at least 8 of them IMO are really, really nice. Now, I'm defenitely not talking anyone into purchasing the plugin (it's really not as great but I could recommend it to some folks not having much else, at least for that price), but from all I know, the IRs are as well installed with the demo, so you could just snag them off that. IMO absolutely worth it. https://vstomp.hotoneaudio.com/ProductsDetail.php?id=1

Personally, I prefer to have my guitar separated from other things, so yes, I usually like to have both. In other words, I simply treat my own monitor every bit as a guitar amp. I do however make use of it's extra input (or of the several inputs once I bring a little monitor mixer, too) here and there, in case space is tight or when there's not enough monitoring paths and wegdes, etc. Well, I'm always just using 1 patch per gig. That keeps leveling manageable. And it's one of the reasons why I keep asking L6 for global blocks to be added to the Helix. Because leveling a lot of patches properly is just horrible (and even worse than on other modelers).

I'm usually doing it pretty much similar to what DunedinDragon described, except that I prefer to have my personal FRFR (an Alto TS310 that I'm astonishingly happy with) placed in a more typical wedge monitoring style. I try to place it a bit further away than what one might know from stage wedges (helps with potential phase issues between woofer an HF driver, also my patches seem to generally translate better that way) and also usually put it on top of a small utility case (height around 20cm) which seems to help nicely with whatever proximity effects, hence reducing any boom - but I still always have my global EQ adjusted so it'll cut away some further low end (only applied to my monitor path) on very resonant stages. Don't usually need it, though. Works absolutely fine for me that way. I might try with one of these half height speaker poles one day (I actually own a pair since ages), but as I am trying to reduce the amount of things I'm bringing onstage (or forget at the venue, *sigh*...) as much as I can, I don't feel much of a need for that, especially given that I'm pretty happy already.

Seriously, I don't think you really need an LT. Sure, it has more of everything, but in a pure home environment, you will likely not need all that. I'd rather think about HX Stomp vs. Pod GO. If I was only playing at home, I would likely go for one of those.

You might want to try running the Helix straight into the power amp return. That way you could make use of the amps in the Helix (which likely don't sound too great running into a preamp).

Nah - missed that, sorry. So we're in pretty much a similar camp. Well, I use IRs for recording, too - but that's simply because my way of handling them is extremely comfortable and likely surpassing fooling around with HX Natives cabs (HXN is pretty slow to open whereas I don't need to open Logics Space designer at all to select IRs). Sure - but they're already made. Which might or might not be an advance. Sure - and that's what I used when I started out on the Helix. But maintaining one single IR block for me is just easier than dealing with a cab block plus an EQ. And the IRs I'm using live don't need any adjustment because I took care of that when mangling them already, so that adds to the comfort. I absolutely agree with that. The stock settings are quite strange here and there (not as bad as some of the stock amp settings, though... fortunately).

If you can, post a take without any cab simulation as well. That way people could have a look whether they'd be getting close with the internal cabs.

Well, yes and no. When I bought the Helix, I first thought I'd never use any IRs (especially as I'm a kind of freak when it comes to "data control" - and the Helix IR management situation so far is a plain mess regarding that). And well, I actually think that the internal cabs are quite fine. Yet, I also found that I constantly needed further EQ tweaks (the main reason likely being the rather wide slope of the cuts) and even with those tweaks there's some IR'ed sounds and "qualities" that I absolutely cannot reproduce with the internal cabs, especially when it comes to my live needs (I have spent quite some time to create some IRs myself just for that very task). In a nutshell, if I was only recording, I possibly would be fine with the internal cabs, but for live playing, I'm a lot happier with IR solutions.

I know that I'm sounding like a broken record, but this very example perfectly illustrates why I'm asking for a global block feature more than anything else. It'd solve this and a whole lot of somewhat related issues instantly. You could use it to adjust amp channel levels throughout patches, to adjust (or even completely turn down) reverb levels, should you be using an external unit in a larger setup, heck, you could even use it to globally switch your cabs on/off, something people are asking for all the time, etc. Instead of cramming as much as possible into one patch you could spread the load (and switch/snapshot assignments, which I'm constantly running out of) over various patches as adjusting their "core content" could be done within just a single patch. You could as well have a gain (or EQ) block at the beginning of your signal chain to slightly compensate for different guitars. And there's possibly a whole world of further things this would be extremely great for. Of course, all this is assuming you're using the same components all throughout the patches that you want to treat globally. But many people do just that (or wish for it, see this very thread). For instance, all throughout my live patches, so far I have only used 4 amp models in total on a whole number of pretty much completely different gigs. And they're always at pretty much the same settings - minus those adjustments I do on the fly to accomodate the gig, which is precisely what the global block feature would be able to do. With all my previous setups, I have been able to turn them from loungy bar jazz into almost full riff/shred heaven while keeping my preset "architecture" exactly the same - simply by adjusting a mere handful (or two) of parameters globally. This would save you from *lots* of editing work, from plenty of "save as"-es, it'll give you *way* better control over your sound should you run into whatever issues (different band, different venue, different sound system, different mood, etc.).

I absolutely love what I can do with the Helix, too. But I'm afraid I have to accept that the unit isn't made to last for long. Which is pretty bad, because I could as well imagine to not buy anything else (at least in terms of amp modeling) in a very long time. But maybe me buying a new one is exactly what Line 6 is hoping for.

Reading posts such as these is frustrating. Line 6 FBV: Broken switch. Line 6 M13: Two broken switches. Line 6 Helix: Broken switch (tap tempo, repaired under warranty by previous owner). POD XT: Just went off during a gig, broken ever since (defenitely no easy fix, had it checked). Why in the world can't they get their hardware right just once? I mean, the Helix is a weak hardware fest as it seems (mic preamp, XLR outs, joystick, switches and possibly the odd encoder failure too). My GT-5 and GT-10 operate as on day one (and both of them had their fair share of beer showers and what not), same with my Rolls MIDI Buddy floor controller, the Zoom G3, my Behringer FCB, the TC G-System (sold long time ago, still working on gigs every week in a mates setup) and what not. And apart from the TC, none of these are expensive devices, more to the opposite.