somebodyelse

I haven't read every reply, so apologies if it's already been said.

12dB gain at the input... and all three guitars?

I'd be looking at the noisegate in the input section, for starters. I hate noisegates with a passion, I'd rather have noise than notes getting cut off, however if it's set higher than -60dB, then I'd be looking to fix whatever is causing the noise.

Other thing to look at, is there a problem with your cable? They tend to either work or not, but I'd check anyway.

Lastly, we've all done daft things and not noticed, are you actually plugged in to the right input?

I remember his live sound from the time sounding more like it had been double tracked using a short delay - could be mistaken for chorus.

Of course, try a chorus, but also try a short delay, instead, and go with whichever sounds closest. Something around 40-80ms delay, no feedback and adjust the mix to taste.

Not saying it's definitely delay and not chorus, but I do remember thinking back then that it had a feel of late '50 rockabilly style echo.

They were mastering records through digital delay units as far back as the 70s, so most who argue the toss don't even realise they're quoting "analogue" examples that were digitised, anyway.

FWIW, the process was the mastering engineer had to EQ the master on the fly, so a delay was introduced to allow him to make realtime adjustments. He listened 'live', made adjustments, the delayed signal was  sent to the master.

On 3/14/2022 at 10:13 AM, datacommando said:

Hi,

 

Yes, that used to be correct. The Core operating system of the Helix “brain” was seriously modified and improved in version 2.80. The installation would appear to experience a “boot failure” mid way though the update, while the new core was loading. This prompted many posts here along the lines of “update bricked my Helix”. Essentially this was because people had failed to read the Release Notes which pointed out this occurrence.

 

Since then the firmware update installation has been “almost” fully automated, and since v.3.0 the release note have included this statement:

 

 

My Helix/HX is at version X.XX. Can I go straight to 3.15?

Yes, but note that if you're starting from 2.80 or lower, the update will appear to happen twice. This is normal.

 

Hope this helps/makes sense.

Okidoki.

When I got mine, it was on v2.30, around the time v3.00 was released. I had the same error when I went through the v2.80 update, but it also crashed my PC, so I just set it all going again and crossed my fingers. All went well.

If it had failed, I'd have just sent it back to the retailer - UK Law obliges them to repair or replace it if it's defective in the first 12 months.

Not had any problems since.

Traditionally, guitarists don't like change. I'll keep the reasons why to myself, suffice to say, the Fender Jaguar was "too complicated" for the first 35 years of it's existence for most.

I've been using a MIDI controlled, rack mounted rig since the early '90s, which still scares my mates.

All that's actually changed since then, is the new stuff is quieter and you don't get back ache editing presets.

It used to be you had to update to v2.80 first, before going for the latest update, if you were on older than v2.80. Is that not the case, anymore?

On 3/9/2022 at 5:56 PM, patriot2006 said:

Was not aware that the term Brit was synonymous with Marshall. Also when a person ask a question they obviously are unaware of the answer or they would not be asking. . So, In retrospect, no question is ever stupid. You may find yourself asking one of those "Stupid" questions some day yourself.

There are questions, stupid questions, and 'I'm too lazy/stupid to read the instructions' questions.

I get this error everytime the big Windows system updates come around eg. 21H1>21H2.

It's a PITA, but the de-authorising and re-authorising sorts it out (via L6 Auth Manager), but you have to go and log in to the site, as well and remove the previous Windows instance, IIRC.

Next time, I must try and remember to de-authorise BEFORE I do the update, to see if that removes the necessity to faff around on the website?

If so, then it becomes a 'nothing problem'.

I have a couple of other plugins that behave similarly, and if I don't keep on top of it, I end up running out of authorisations.

On 2/24/2022 at 6:30 PM, Rachmaninoff said:

I own the Helix LT.

 

You can plug your amp using the 4-cable method, and it essentially becomes another block inside the Helix FX chain. The DSP power of the LT is very useful once you start experimenting all those effects and possibilities.

 

Just for the record: these days I don't use my amp on the stage anymore. My Helix LT (loaded with some impulse responses) does the job. Not carrying a heavy amp is liberating!

Unless I missed something, you can't do 4CM with an AC30.

You'd need an effects loop?

On 2/24/2022 at 2:57 AM, SaschaFranck said:

 

Not that I think I did, but it's still likely. If anything was ever cast in stone, it'd be that Germans have no sense of humor.

That's not been my experience.

3 hours ago, rd2rk said:

When you adjust those settings on your real world amp, do you hear a difference?

 

WHAT? You say that REAL WORLD amps don't HAVE those settings?

 

Hmmm....

 

Methinks the answer to the question "What am I missing?" is "NOTHING of any great import!" :-)

 

Okay Golden Eared Tone Sniffers - READY - SET - GO!

Well, a lot of amps have the bias adjustment, don't they. ;)

What are they missing? Ooh, a whole heap of expense when the amp goes bang.

L6 should change the setting from numbers to 'Right, Wrong and F***ed'

I doubt you've killed 'em.

Hang around and guys who know these things inside out will be along to guide you through sorting it - datacommando and rd2k (sorry, can't remember his exact handle) and PiersM know their stuff.

Until then, there's a recent thread which contains the recovery codes. If you find it try 'safe mode' and then try updating the firmware manually - open HX Edit and update from the file, not over the net. Also make sure you have a good usb cable.

I agree, I think he was channelling his inner Jimmy Page, so you probably wouldn't be far off with a Les Paul, with decent (unpotted) pickups and a Zeppelin-esque patch.

Just spent two days translating my Hank Marvin settings for the Helix - 75 patches in all.

This is 'Apache'.

Apache.hlx

17 hours ago, SaschaFranck said:

 

Why would there be a "natural latency"? Choir voices or bigband sections aren't 40ms apart from each other. And once I manually harmonize a line (as in actually playing a hamonization), there's no 40ms of latency, either.

I didn't say they were 40ms apart, but I guarantee they aren't dead on in sync - neither are you, by the way.

There is 1 ms of 'latency for every foot of air between a sound source and your ear. 

My own experience...

I've been using pitch shifting since the 80s - MXR m129 and then later an Eventide H3000.

The Helix shifter/harmonisers are not bad, but they do take a bit of work. Of course, it does depend on the sound you're after - Brian May harmonies are a very different sound to Big Country bagpipe guitars.

I have so many does and don'ts, I don't know where to start...

One thing that did make a big improvement on the Helix for me. The MXR m129 has an inherent latency of around 40ms - yeah, I know that seems massive. When I first started trying to get a decent shifted sound on the Helix, there was something not quite right. I suddenly remembered this latency, dialled in a 40ms predelay on the Helix and it was thereabouts.

That may be because that's what my ear expects to hear after 35+ years or that when humans harmonise with each other there is always a certain amount of natural latency between them...?

Yeah, I know how to use them, it was the 'Reaper/rest of the industry units thing' that was confusing me. At least it keeps me from 'EQing by numbers'.

Trust yer ears, as they say.

My first amp, back in the 80s, had a parametric control for the mids (frequency and gain). Of course, I had no idea what I was doing, back then. If I'd known then what I know now... I would dearly love to get hold of one, now, but it was a cheapish tranny amp - Laney Session 40 - so most got binned when they died and are rare as rocking horse poop, today.

The ReaEQ bandwidth control has it's units in octaves. I've been using Reaper ten years or so, and assumed that while it's the same function as 'Q', the units weren't the same. I don't know whether that's the case, but it's always bugged me - why they just couldn't standardize it.

FWIW, an octave either side of 440hz would be 220-880hz, but I assume you know that, and it's just a typo...

15 hours ago, rd2rk said:

 

The question has nothing to do with "ITB (DAW)" latency, two different animals. The question relates to input to output latency within the Helix/GT1000 themselves, which is primarily caused by the AD/DA conversions, and secondarily by the processor speed. Since converters these days are all pretty fast, as phil_m suggested, the difference between the Helix and GT1000 could be the oversampling, 48k vs 96k.

I see.

So I need YOUR permission to post on this thread/

F***ing lollipop.

19 hours ago, datacommando said:

Latency? It hasn’t troubled me in the past 5 years, so I didn’t think I will be worrying about this sort of (scientific) nonsense in future. This was previously mentioned in respect of the Helix processed and dry audio signals into a DAW for re-amping. If you compare the signal peaks they are slightly off. It is easy enough to fix - not a problem.
 

Frankly, my Helix is very good  at what it does - I won’t lose any sleep.

It's actually easy to avoid in Reaper (and presumably other DAWs) as it comes with a latency compensation plugin for send/return purposes.

Okay, another way of looking at it is, what have you already got?

In my case, I've already got my old Ground Control Foot Controller (Voodoolabs) which if I added a volume pedal to, would give me an expression pedal. I've also got a Nektar LX25+, which I could add an expression pedal to and write my patch changes in on the MIDI Events page - let the DAW do the changes while you concentrate on playing... or I could just map the mod wheel to act as an expression pedal, if it's something I'm adding post-recording.

If you have no MIDI controllers, then of course, buying one is necessary, but whichever direction you come from, you end up having to map something and assign things.

Everything has a latency.

Every foot between the speaker and your ears adds 1 ms.

If the total, round trip latency adds up to less than 12 ms, you can't HEAR it.

It's as bad as the sample rate and bit depth BS,

If what YOU'RE doing works for you, why give a f*** what anyone else's gear can or can't do?

Kerching!

For an Ayrton, you can't go wrong.

Cheers

Yes and no, apparently.

It was introduced in a recent update, but it doesn't work.

If you're asking, just in case anything goes wrong in the future, then you can export individual presetsl which I do when I write new presets.

If you've got one that's duff... at this point it looks like you'll have to rewrite it from scratch.

Thanks... what I was actually pondering is can all backups be restored or is there a cut off point where they can't be updated/rebuilt, during restore.

In terms of editing the old 'Extractions', can they be opened in Helix Native, with compatibility mode off? 

Also, may have been mentioned already, is there a pattern to which extracted presets are corrupte- eg. every 12th preset, every preset with a certain effect,...?