felixahlstrom

Yeah even compared to the preamp pedals it's that much cheaper and more convenient, would need an entire pedalboard just for the preamps :D That being said, having 8 Vinny's in different finishes on a shelf would be pretty cool :D

Haha yes indeed it would. You probably could just use separate volume pots, could actually be useful for balancing the tone and volume of the strings but yeah it would cost quite a bit to build. I have in all honesty considered buying 8 of the Benson Preamp pedals but I'm not sure if that would provide any significant improvement in tone over just using Helix Native via a load box into my amp like I do now. Actually playing around with this as we speak, the Fullerton bright, full amp model with some EQ to event the mid dip from the Poweramp simulation is actually sounding pretty darn cool and close to what I imagine running 8 Viny's would sound like!

That is exactly what I'm using Helix Native for at the moment. I have a custom 8-string which has individual outputs from each string which I can then apply whatever effects/overdrives, even different pickups-responses should I choose. This then goes out to my Marshall Astoria Classic combo. The ideal would be to have 8 Vinnys to give that beautiful power amp overdrive to each string before going into a clean amp. All the richness in tone with one of the mud, even when playing huge piano-like chords or dual counterpoint melodies. however, cost is obviously a factor here, hence my using Helix Native :D

That is one neat build! Looks beautiful so far! Up for building me a giant 8xVinny for my 8-string that I mentioned in my previous post? ;)

Thank you for being so informative and helpful, really appreciate it! Duly noted regarding the placement of the switches and that makes sense if the goal is to get the distortion from the power amp rather then pre amp as that would shape the signal going into the power amp and thus give a smoother/tighter distortion with some bass and treble cut. I'll continue to experiment then by using the Voltage Queen Preamp/EQ locks I combination with one of the Tweed models as that should be enough to get me I the ballpark. Worth noting is that I'm using Helix Native and using pickups with individual outputs for each string to generate polyphonic overdriven sounds so even if I got one real Benson amp for each string, the resulting sound would still be wildly different from plugging a regular guitar into one Benson if that makes sense.

Got it, so tone is Post-preamp and the UK/US switch (which as far as I've read is pretty much curated settings of bass and treble on the Chimera) is actually Pre-Preamp? That would explain the distortion getting much tighter when the UK switch is engaged and the amp is overdriven. If this is the case, it could be pretty easily emulated by using an EQ or something like the TEEMAH with drive at 0 before the amp. I gave the Voltage Queen a shot last night, not bad! Using just the pre-amp section and running it into my Marshall Astoria Classic Combo sounded pretty damn similar in the room to the Benson Preamp pedal! If you don't mind me asking some questions about the Monarch Circuit, would the over all topology lean towards the 5E3 side, not just the tone control but everything from how the input is filtered to how it saturates/overdrives etc? I heard I an interview that Benson himself mentioned that when developing his amps, he intentionally designed them without any kind o mirage cut at all, quite unlike most amps from what I understood which has some kind of cut in the midrange regardless o how the tone controls are set. Is this something you can confirm? If so, I'm thinking that the Grammatico and/or Fullerton models, perhaps with a slight mid boost pre/post might be a pretty good fit for this kind of thing as well?

Thats fascinating that you're actually building a clone! If you wouldn't mind me asking - what would be the closest equivalent to the Tone stack in that amp? I figure that the American/British switch cuts bass before the pre amp but what about the tone control? II you where to compare the Monarch with tone at 12 o clock to another tone stack (this classic fender/marshall etc as per TSC) which one would you say is closst and at what settings of the controls? I'll give the voltage queen a go, thanks!

First time posting here but have been using Helix for quite some time but have never really tried to achieve anything outside of the specified models. I've become increasingly smitten with Benson Amps, especially the Vinny and the Vincent's Dirt channel which is in fact a Vinny cascaded into a Chimeras preamp. How would you all go about replicating this in Helix to get that almost fuzz-like power-tube overdrive? Which amps/settings should I be looking at specifically? Any and all ideas are welcome! Posting some links so you can hear for yourself what I'm looking for. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=445&v=Um-xGkLP8GM&feature=emb_logo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpGqib0ur-Y&t=561s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SujwF0Zhnw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx6AmudZCrM&t=228s