glideman

"Personally, I see this whole thing as Fractal, Line 6, Kemper, and Atomic together against the ill-informed masses who claim modeling sucks." Agree 100%. As I've posted on the forum before... I have owned and own some great tube amps and was somewhat of a tube amp snob. I've owned tons of modelers. Up until AFTER my Helix purchase and evaluation, I owned AT THE SAME TIME an Axe FX II XL+ AND a Kemper Rack. I merely grew tired of the rack plus a MIDI pedal live (space constraints, more crap to carry and hook up...) Once I did a thorough evaluation of the Helix, I chose to let the other two go. I did not hate them... I got great tones and feel from BOTH... I got great tones and feel from the Helix. I chose Helix because it was just as good sounding in my humble opinion, and I wanted one less piece of gear and connections on stage. PERIOD! I really don't like to hear the bashing from any of the "big 3" modelers (and now the Atomic thingy)... Having owned all but the Atomic pedal, I know what they are capable of. In the hands of the right person, they are all equally capable of great touch sensitivity, volume rolloff accuracy, vibe, cleans, crunches, hard rock drive, metal, etc.... I am a reformed tube snob... believe it or not, I can still make my Tonelab LE sing into two of my custom built tube amps for days... (old hybrid rig). I play with another tube snob that is seriously considering converting to Helix. I know another tube snob (reallllllyyyyy old school) that has complimented many of my tones and played into my rig. It's not for him, but he finally admitted that if he didn't know what I was using, he'd swear I was not digital. I firmly believe if you go into these things with a preconceived notion at all, you will most likely convince yourself that it's not going to work. I kind of like the Lincoln Brewster situation... the guy could play through about anything he wanted to, but he's using POD... and supposedly received a very early release Helix from Line 6. If Fractal is your thing... use it... they're great... if Line 6 Helix or POD is your thing, use it! Same for Kemper and Atomic, etc. Digital is for real now. However, I'm keeping some glass bottle driven toys in the house, too. :)

... and by then, spikey will have had his Helix for awhile finally. LoL!!!

One day spikey will hit paydirt!

I'd have a beer with him whether we ever agreed or not! ðŸºðŸ˜Ž

Gratz

I must like mud... Because my helix is the same "mud" I got from my: Axe FX Ultra Axe FX II XL+ Kemper Rack Mesa Road King II head Rebuilt blackface Fender Twin Two custom built tube heads Various Marshall tube heads H&K Triamp II head You can make any of them sound bad or muddy, but you can certainly get some Holy Grail tones if you know how to tweak them and have soul and skills. Helix is the same way. Agree with others, state your beef once. Multiple instances starts to go troll mode after awhile.

Tend to agree heavily! There is nothing soft and distant about the majority of my presets (only if I want them programmed that way). I have NO problems cutting though the mix into FRFR, and the band and 2nd guitarist (still using a tube amp and pedals) have all been very complimentary and amazed that I'm getting these tones through "one of those electronic digital thingies." The other guitarist knows well what I get out of my tube amps and pedals. He's actually considering going Helix when he gets the spare change to afford it and an FRFR.

When I crank the FRFR up nice and loud, I get a pretty good simulation of amp in the room... the best news is I don't HAVE to endure that on stage every time I play now. Ears have gotten a major break. However, when I'm in a post work mood, I crank two FRFR monitors up high and the neighbors swear it's my tube amps and 4x12's and 2x12's. Hehehe

So why exactly is the cab modeling on the Helix a weakness? It was good enough for me to unload an Axe FX II XL+ and a Kemper... No more MIDI pedal and rack for me. I'm a fanboy of none. All 3 are great products. I'm assuming of course quite logically that my Axe II was a little better than the AX8...

😎

Nope. Gotta have some sort of power amp, whether built in the speaker box or external.

Either way, you can get some great financing on Helix!

Cool! 😎

Yeah. What kills me is I was a long term owner of Kemper rack and Axe FX II XL+. Didn't sell then until I made sure the Helix would give me the same tones and vibes I got out of those two amp/cab wise. I was able to determine that within 2 weeks or less. I no longer have to lug around a rack plus MIDI pedal. I also now use the same rig live and in the studio. I don't have a brand bias... I owned everything but the Atomic one that's out. Thought about buying one of them just for a super portable jam pedal.

Nothing like a bad power tube popping fuses. Then you cross your fingers throwing in a full spare matched set without biasing and praying it didn't take out the output transformer/caps/resistors when the tube blew. That brings up why I started toting around either a solid state amp or spare small tube amp back in the day. Now I just keep a trusty old Tonelab LE in the Yukon XL for dire emergencies. I have never had any modeler die on me. Tonelab SE, Tonelab LE, POD X3 Live, POD HD500, POD HD500X, Kemper PA Rack, Axe FX Ultra, Axe FX II XL+. That's not even including a Digitech RP1000.

Yeah, I prefer delays as well... never have been a huge reverb guy other than a little in the studio.

One trick with delays is to run them in a parallel path if you don't need over a certain amount of delayed signal. Used to use that well advised tip from the Axe FX II days. Kept the delay level from monkeying with your dry signal too much...

Has Glenn emailed the Satriani patch yet? I have all the other artist patches he's done so far through SRV, etc. Just sent me the latest versions a few days ago, but no Satch patch yet...

Glad you could follow my mad ramblings off the top of my head. LoL!

You have to navigate to one or the other pedal and use the Bypass button to toggle it to the opposite on/off state of the other one. Then save it with the button in the state you want when initially called up.

That's not good...

They also used some mid range super boost with graphic EQ's if I'm not mistaken. I forget the particular frequencies, but I'm pretty sure I remember a graphic EQ pedal being involved.

X3 = flour and water biscuit Helix = Steak & Lobster dinner

Good news! ðŸ‘

Guess the ole WD-40 wipedown is outta the question... aCk!!! :P