mattbarden

I went down the Fractal road and came back to Helix plus Native for all my guitar sounds. There were just too many compromises I had to make in my workflow and cable routing situation that I didn't like. Getting everything to work like the Helix just does with one USB cord was a pain. It wasn't worth the 5-10% increase in better base sounds to me when you can dial either of them in to sound great. Both will require some tweaking!

I recently started using the new cabs full time and forgot you could save them as favorites for some reason...It's like building your own Helix IR library, neat! I felt IR's were my best option for a long time, but even the best ones had something that sounded "off" too me. Gimme that new Mesa cab with a 57 and one of the ribbon mics though...yes!

I'd probably keep the dynamic reverb post cab but that's just because of how I use it. I approach it like a room mic, so it's not something I'd be running thru a cab in real life. But the rule goes "if it sounds good it is good" so keep us posted on which way works best with your setup!

For those bands I'd probably start with a dual Cali 4x12 and some combination of a 57, 421, 121 or 160 maybe? I like using a single Revv Red or Vitriol Lead myself and the Cali seems to work pretty well with both of them. Not sure how it'll mesh with your sweet dual amp setup but it could be worth a try.

It's a little trebly but in a way I like. My Schecter with EMG's sounds really good with it almost at stock settings. My LTD with EMG's is a bit darker sounding through the same patch but also in a way I like. I use the cab cuts and I also have a Horizon Gate and a lo/hi cut EQ right after my cab/IR block. Those are what I typically use to tame the harsher frequencies on most of the Helix models.

Guy who just re-bought a Helix chiming in - I really like the new cabs and the engine. What makes a tone "good" is in the ears of the beholder tho. These are just a ton of IR's with a more intuitive interface than scrolling through lists at the end of the day. Whether or not you like the sounds of those IR's is totally up to you. I've tried plenty of IR's people claimed were amazing that sounded like absolute lollipop to me, so you COULD have a similar experience these. But I think most would agree the new cabs and interface are a huge improvement in both sound quality and workability if that's what you're after. FWIW, I still tend to use a tried and true IR for most of my stuff but it's just personal taste. I'd be set with the new cab engine if it's all I had. Will it unlock the full potential of the Helix for you? Maybe? The Helix always had a lot of potential. Some of us reached it a long time ago but I feel like some of us are just getting there now. The new cab engine is awesome but it's the new Vitriol amp and Plumes OD that IMO brought it up to Fractal's level. If that's the kind of tone you like, those are freaking fantastic! So for me 3.5 sort of unlocked the full potential of the Helix. If you can get a trial version of Native I'd do that first and see if you can dial in some sounds you like. That's what really unlocked the Helix's full potential for my needs.

The sad truth is it only occurred to me recently that I could use Native like this lol. But your 100% correct, it's not only a great amp sim plugin but also a really good FX suite.

I'd say your good to go updating now for some maybe not needed, but extra goodies! 3.5 firmware is very stable in my experience and your patches don't have the potential to change drastically like they do after an Axe FX update with Line 6 stuff. More stuff if you want to go "gear shopping for free" is never bad thing lol

The expression pedal on the original black one I got a year after launch was perfectly dialed in out of the box. The new blue one I got I did need to take the hex key too but no squeaks from either thankfully. Weird how that happens to some and not others?

Warning, this is going to get lengthy! I've been lucky enough to have a Helix and an Axe FX 3 side by side the last couple weeks. Both do a lot of things very well, but after working with both now I don't think it's a matter of "which one sounds better?" anymore. Both of these things sound freaking awesome if you know what you're doing with them and they'll sound equally bad if you don't. Helix does take a little more tweaking, but the Fractal stuff isn't as out of the box as people say it is either. There is a certain feel playing an Axe FX next to a Helix where you can tell the Fractal is doing it a little better, even after the 3.5 cab update. IR's do level the playing a bit but it still goes to Fractal. The 3.5 update did bring the Helix's stock cabs much more in line with what everyone else is doing now though, the new cabs sound really good! Ultimately I still prefer the ML OG Alpha IR mix for my stuff, just personal taste. IMO the ML stuff works best with the Helix after going down that rabbit hole, but I could get a tone I'd record with the new Helix cabs no problem too. I do like the amp modeling in the Axe FX just a little bit more. Not enough to make it a dealbreaker though. They are surprisingly close if you know how to dial everything in. This is something that can be a rabbit hole in itself with Fractal's stuff. Helix narrows it down where I can adjust some deep parameters, but do I really need to be swapping the tubes and all that? I don't personally. I dig the drive pedals in the Helix more. Something about the Axe's drives sound off to me. I can set tubescreamer type pedals in the Helix more true to life than the Axe's. I really like the new Plumes OD, awesome addition! People crab about the noise gates in Helix...Yeah, they aren't the best but the Axe gates are horrible. They just updated them and I still think they suck in comparison. My Helix is dead silent when it needs to be and gets plenty of sustain, how is that not good enough? I can't get anything like it out of the Axe FX. Maybe they aren't the best, but I still prefer them. I've noticed adding a Horizon Gate after my amp and cab blocks at low settings tames a bit more of the noise, but also the high end in the Helix in a good way. I also like adding the Low and High Cut EQ right after that and simply turning them on to 20Hz and 20kHz. Brings down a bit more of that "fizz" we all hate. Tweak the new Dynamic Ambience reverb to taste too. I've been treating it like a room mic and it's awesome! The Helix tuner does suck. In course mode it's not that bad, but I'd much rather intonate a guitar on the Axe FX's tuner vs the Helix. Fractal does pitch shifting WAY better. Even with the updated engines in the Helix I don't feel like I could get away with playing a song downtuned with one of it's shifters as confidently as I could with the Axe. Are Helix's good enough? Yeah for most purposes. But for really fine stuff Fractal does it better. Re-amping is insanely easier on the Helix (but you should totally spring for Native). If you do it according to the manual on the Axe it's so much more complicated, having to go into the actual hardware menus and change settings. Helix is a couple clicks in HX Edit and I don't have to remember to reduce my DI track levels to -6dB first either. That's in the Fractal manual, read it! I have seen other methods but I think the Axe's recommended way gets ever so slightly better results. I don't know how it works with Fractal's OEM pedal boards, but dear lord is it a nightmare to try and program a midi foot controller vs the Helix with it's "just touch this switch and it's there now" approach lol. That couldn't possibly be easier and whoever thought of it deserves all of the raises. I can set the Fractal to a little bit lower latency rates in my DAWs and external plugins with no pops or clicks, but that does depend on my own computer too so YMMV. Routing FX loops is pretty much spelled out for you if you know how to navigate the Helix and just look at the back of it. Fractal is more complicated, which brings me too...Just overall workability. If you've got them both connected to a computer it's not a problem with the editors. But on the hardware itself, absolutely no contest. Helix wins all day every day. You really do need to read the manual if you want to know how to use the Axe FX stuff properly. But if you're familiar with any kind of tech you can figure out how to use the Helix with a bit of poking around. Both are incredibly awesome pieces of gear. You can get anything you want from either of them if you know how to dial them in, maybe the right IR even. It's Native that really does it for me though. It's such a timesaver not having to re-amp things in real time. Just track your wet and dry recordings, load the wet patch into Native and tweak until it's perfect on your DI track. No need to sit there and wait for them to re-record again.

I figured the Stomp users would really like that extra DSP! I'm digging the new Cali too. I love the sound of a good Mesa cab but even the best IR's I still found kind of lacking what I wanted from them in one way or another. This one's hitting some sweet spots for me though. Here's my current settings for it: 57 - cap edge - 1.00" - 0 deg - low cut 80Hz - hi cut 10.0kHz - level 0.0dB - center - 0.0ms 121 - center - 7.00" - 0 deg - low cut 80Hz - hi cut 10.0kHz - level -2.5dB - center - 0.02ms Sounds awesome to me with the Vitriol Lead and Plumes OD!

This has definitely proven to open up a few more useful combinations too! I usually connect the two paths when I setup new patches anyways, but my pitch effects always live on path 1 with a clean amp and cab, path 1 seems less restricted now with the extra DSP available.

I'm a high gain player too and I agree, pre 3.5 I couldn't get a "good" sound out of my Helix without IR's and even then they still sounded off somehow. I think the sound quality of Helix post 3.5 is pretty fantastic though. I can dial in a good sounding patch in a lot less time now. All "in the box" and straight off the board if I feel like it, footswitches programmed and everything. The whole "just touch the switch you want that effect or whatever to be on and boom, it's there" setup is insanely easier than trying to route a midi controller! Here's what really got me back with the Helix stuff though. Reamping is cool, but loading Native onto my DI tracks and taking a tone I ballparked solo and fine tuning it in a mix without having to mess around with reamping is 1,000x better and faster for me. Fractal doesn't have a digital version of their hardware living in my computer that I can screw around with in real time. Helix does and now it's proving to be a very effective solution after the 3.5 update. Reamping an Axe FX (properly and per the manual anyways) isn't as simple and straightforward as it is on a Helix either. If all I had was a Helix and reamping it would still be a bit easier. But I have Native, so why not just use that instead? Native is Helix's secret weapon in "the great modeling wars". It really unlocks the full potential of it, at least IMO. Reamping to fine tune your patches is effective but this is a lot faster and you can work with every guitar track you have Native loaded on at once rather than independently reamping one track at a time. Both can save the end patches and load them onto the hardware after reamping, but nothing works as good as Native and Helix combined for this now in my experience. Don't get me wrong, Fractal has a lot of love and it's very well deserved. Metallica uses them live for a reason right? There's something about the feel of playing an Axe FX that I really like and I can't 100% match it in my Helix, at least not yet. If I had to describe that difference I'd say the Fractals feel a little more "loose and spongy" and the Helix feels "stiffer and slightly less dynamic" by my comparison. But is it different enough to care about if I can streamline everything else in my guitar workflow? No, they aren't that far off and you wouldn't even know the difference unless you played them side by side. The "stiffness" I feel with the Helix can actually be an advantage sometimes if I'm doing really precise palm muted stuff. Different picking techniques in general though translate a tiny bit better on the Fractal stuff. So for me at least that's why Helix now wins. The sounds are good, the workflow is good, what's not to like about that? The Vitriol Lead model is really growing on me now too, but could it replace my tried and true Revv Red? It just might...

Quick background - I sold my Helix when I got an Axe FX 3. Both great devices, but I liked the Axe FX better. There are some quirks that made some things a lot more cumbersome, but overall I felt I was getting better results with it. Still kinda chasing them tones though... Poking around my plugins a few weeks ago I noticed I still had Native so I figured I'd update it and play around with the new 3.5 stuff. Holy smokes that update was no joke! I love the new cab engine. It feels good to move a mic around in real time instead of scrolling through lists. I did some comparisons with the York IR's I like and the new Cali V30 cab is a legit beast. Haven't even made it past that one yet but I don't think I'll need IR's anymore. Cabs make up for so much of the tone and before IR's were the best option IMO, but that's such a rabbit hole/money pit and after that whole experience I'd much rather use something that was specifically designed to work with the amp sims I'm using. I think they really nailed it here, everything sounds and feels much better to me than it did before. The Pillars OD is sick, it has something to it I wasn't getting with the other OD's before. The Vitriol is awesome too, it's like a better version of the 5150 IMO. Wish we had the option for the boost but oh well, my personal favorite is still the Revv Red after going through them all again. So unlike IR's lol, exploring the 3.5 update was actually a pretty fun rabbit hole to go down! I was really digging the sounds I was getting out of what is essentially a stock Helix. No fancy IR's, no preset packs, just a few minutes alone with an updated version of Native. Definitely impressed, so I shot it out with the Axe FX in a song I'm working on and after a little bit more tweaking, I got much closer to the sound I was after with Native. Tone is subjective, but I liked what I heard and I got that sound a lot quicker with Native. It was also just kind of fun setting up the patch with how intuitive the Helix stuff is, I can't say I've ever had fun designing an Axe FX patch. So nicely done Line 6, you just made me buy another Helix lol. I did get the cool blue one so that helps me justify it by telling myself it's not the same old one I had before, it's different. Upgrades! Going back to the ease of use with Helix is an upgrade in itself tho IMO. Fractal does many things well but intuitive accessibility isn't really their strong point. I'm a one man band so anything that can help me streamline my workflow while giving me the results I want is a godsend and Helix, especially paired with Native, ticks more of those boxes for me now than it did before the 3.5 update. It's been really cool to see Line 6 continue to expand and improve the Helix platform since it launched. I see it like a completely different device now. They can have my Helix money twice, they earned it lol. Super stoked to see what they have up their sleeves next!

In case any of you missed it, the free preset Bill shared here is killer! https://blog.line6.com/2021/04/15/bill-kelliher-the-mastodon-guitarist-riffs-on-helix-and-heaviness-and-bestows-a-free-preset/