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Patch Change Speed | External Wah Placement | Analog Pedals


PapaTongue
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Hi All,

 

I'm currently using a TC Nova System for effects only and midi control center. One of the biggest problems with the Nova is that it is so slow to change patches (you have to hold the button down, wait for the new patch to load, then it engages on button release) which makes it a nightmare for live use.

 

I would like to switch to Helix but am interested to know the following...

 

1. How fast are the patch/stomp changes when a footswitch is pressed and is activated on button press or release?

 

2. I love my Morley wah which auto engages and would want to keep it in the rig and use the helix expression pedal for volume/whammy only. I always have my wah pedal first in the chain but what would be the best placement fur use with the helix (ie before the helix input or in one of the helix loops)?

 

3. In 4CM since the signal always goes through the AD/DA conversion process is there any point in using analog pedals in the loop (ie OD etc) or would it better to just to use the inbuilt digital distortion/dynamic effects instead? I guess what i'm asking here is will your favourite analog pedals still sounds as they should once they've gone through the AD/DA processing?

 

Thanks.

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I can answer #1. As of firmware 1.03:

 

Stomp changes (turning on/off a single effect within a preset) are perfect, instant with no glitches, like an analog pedal.

Patch changes (switching from one preset to another) are pretty bad, like 200-500ms of dropout/silence. OK for between songs only.

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I can also give some input on #3. A/D and D/A conversions really don't add or subtract anything from the sound, with modern high-quality converters like those in the Helix.

 

If your pedal sounds different after going through a conversion, it's more likely a volume difference or a difference in impedance, as opposed to a sound imparted by the converters.

 

Modern converters are really, really transparent, and all the actual scientific blind tests I've ever read about support the conclusion that people cannot tell the difference between a signal that's been through an A/D/A conversion and one that hasn't (guesses no better than 50/50 chance).

 

It's worth mentioning that every A/D or D/A conversion imparts a tiny bit of latency (delay), in the neighborhood of 1 millisecond, which could cause audible comb filtering if two paths (one delayed 1-2ms, and one not) of the exact same sound are mixed together. By itself though, 1-2ms latency isn't perceptible in any practical circumstances.

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1. How fast are the patch/stomp changes when a footswitch is pressed and is activated on button press or release?

 

 

Patch changes (switching from one preset to another) are pretty bad, like 200-500ms of dropout/silence. OK for between songs only.

 

I just wanted to clarify on this point.  From my measurements using the factory presets, load times range from 60ms to 120ms in both v1.03 and v1.04.1.

 

Thanks!

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I can answer #1. As of firmware 1.03:

 

Stomp changes (turning on/off a single effect within a preset) are perfect, instant with no glitches, like an analog pedal.

Patch changes (switching from one preset to another) are pretty bad, like 200-500ms of dropout/silence. OK for between songs only.

 

That 200-500ms dropout/silence is very significant and definitely audible and should be addressed with software optimizations or maybe by caching the other presets showing on the selected bank. That way at least any visible preset showing might be switched to more quickly. Preset changing should not be limited to between songs due to latency.

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I can answer #1. As of firmware 1.03:

 

Stomp changes (turning on/off a single effect within a preset) are perfect, instant with no glitches, like an analog pedal.

Patch changes (switching from one preset to another) are pretty bad, like 200-500ms of dropout/silence. OK for between songs only.

 

wow this is both surprising and disappointing. i was hoping and perhaps even expecting that with all that new horsepower under the hood that patch changes would be almost instantaneous. for the cost of the unit how can you use it in a live situation with that type of lag?

 

i wonder if it would improve if none of the patches have any amp/cab modelling? since i would be using 4CM and therefore my external amp and perhaps a couple of inbuilt distortion/overdrive effects prior to amp and modulation/delay/reverb effects post amp maybe the patch change lag would be better. has anyone been able to verify if patch change speed improves without modelling?

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The longest gap for a preset change isn't anywhere near 500ms. I believe even going from a pretty complex tone to another is something like 150ms, maybe a little higher, but not 500ms.

This sounds better. Is a complex time including amp modelling and if so would it improve without modelling?

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The longest gap for a preset change isn't anywhere near 500ms. I believe even going from a pretty complex tone to another is something like 150ms, maybe a little higher, but not 500ms.

That depends on what's in the patch. if it's just say, Amp, Cab, delay verb then yes it's almost instantanious. But fill up both Patchs 1, 1B, 2 & 2B. That's where the lag get's around at least 250ms.

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Guys, thanks for adding actual measured times - my figure was an estimate based on a memory, so might be a bit off.  ;)

 

Either way, even though the "gap" seems bad, it's not far off from what other modelers do. Also, at least speaking for myself, I have never found a situation where I absolutely had to switch patches during a sustained note/chord within a song.

 

The versatility and flexibility of the switch assignments means that you can (at least I can in the situations/songs/styles that I play - YMMV) always find a way to make any needed sound changes within a patch, and not have to switch patches except between songs or in silent sections.

 

Edit---- having said that, I'd really like some kind of "scene" functionality. An easy way to implement it would be to detect when two patches have *absolutely identical* block architecture, just with different settings. In that case, the Helix software should be able to skip loading any new effects, and instead just update the settings of all the (already-loaded) blocks.

 

(and in case you were wondering, I tried it with two identical-block patches just with different settings, and at least on 1.03, there is still an appreciable gap.)

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20ms is more than audible, 10ms is definitely audible.... 150ms is unacceptable. Does it take that long for patch changes on something like the Kemper/AFX? The patch lag on the digitech units is nowhere NEAR 150ms, and that;s a performance issue. You shouldn't have to cram everything into a single patch for a song to be able to change sounds..... Is this something that can be remedied via firmware in the future? I ordered one of these expecting that L6 would have LESSENED the patch lag experienced on the HD500X (which can be noticeable in quick distortion/clean changes) but that amount of changeover time is ridiculous.....

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20ms is more than audible, 10ms is definitely audible.... 150ms is unacceptable. Does it take that long for patch changes on something like the Kemper/AFX? The patch lag on the digitech units is nowhere NEAR 150ms, and that;s a performance issue. You shouldn't have to cram everything into a single patch for a song to be able to change sounds..... Is this something that can be remedied via firmware in the future? I ordered one of these expecting that L6 would have LESSENED the patch lag experienced on the HD500X (which can be noticeable in quick distortion/clean changes) but that amount of changeover time is ridiculous.....

 

Can you describe an example of the kind of situation where you absolutely need two separate patches, and wouldn't be able to make the sounds you want with various paths, blocks, and multiple-changes-per-switch in one patch? It's not that I don't believe multi-patch-requiring situations exist, but just that I haven't encountered one, so I'm curious.

 

I've created about 45 patches on my Helix, some for very complicated songs with multiple vocal and guitar effect changes, and haven't had any problems using one patch per song. For example, I do a cover of Band on the Run with 2 different electric sounds, an acoustic sound, and 2 different vocal effects, all in a single patch.

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Can you describe an example of the kind of situation where you absolutely need two separate patches, and wouldn't be able to make the sounds you want with various paths, blocks, and multiple-changes-per-switch in one patch? It's not that I don't believe multi-patch-requiring situations exist, but just that I haven't encountered one, so I'm curious.

 

I've created about 45 patches on my Helix, some for very complicated songs with multiple vocal and guitar effect changes, and haven't had any problems using one patch per song. For example, I do a cover of Band on the Run with 2 different electric sounds, an acoustic sound, and 2 different vocal effects, all in a single patch.

I have often used a patch switching strategy within tunes. Many pedal boards until you get to the Axe & Helix either didn't have adequate functionality to do multiple assignments of effects and parameters with one footswitch or were a programming hassle and it was just easier to make multiple presets. Changing presets was the most effective and easiest way to toggle multiple effects, amp type, and various parameters at one time when you wanted to go from let's say a clean tone to a lead tone with different effects. As you know, multiple assignments on one switch saves you from having to do the pedalboard dance.

 

On the Helix I am primarily setting up my presets as flexible virtual pedalboards that I can play an entire song on but I still often prefer just switching to another preset entirely and set up my bank with a clean, crunch, lead, and "super" lead preset so that I can switch to the one I need within the song. I set up a bank of presets to mimic a channel switching amp. One bank may be set up as a Marshall, another as a Fender, with different effects. Each preset in the bank is a channel on one type of amp, or sometimes multiple amps, for example, a Fender Twin for my clean and Soldano for my lead.

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I typically do the same thing as many of my songs switch between clean, distortion, lead, etc all in the one song with many different effects and therefore I would plan to have the bottom row of buttons as presets and the top row of buttons as stomps. I can't imagine doing it any other way in an effective manner. Having quick changing presets is particularly important when going between clean and distortion sounds and vice versa in one song.

 

Since I would be switching channels on my amp with the helix via midi would this be instantaneous even if the fx haven't loaded yet?

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Can you describe an example of the kind of situation where you absolutely need two separate patches, and wouldn't be able to make the sounds you want with various paths, blocks, and multiple-changes-per-switch in one patch? It's not that I don't believe multi-patch-requiring situations exist, but just that I haven't encountered one, so I'm curious.

 

I've created about 45 patches on my Helix, some for very complicated songs with multiple vocal and guitar effect changes, and haven't had any problems using one patch per song. For example, I do a cover of Band on the Run with 2 different electric sounds, an acoustic sound, and 2 different vocal effects, all in a single patch.

I have one song where I switch from a clean channel with some dirt, some phase, some chorus, some delay, a reverb and two amp models to my "main" distortion which usually consists of at least two gates, a pre-EQ, an overdrive, a comp, and then delay, reverb, pitch shift and harmonizer on switches for when I need them. I have other songs where I'm using up to 3 presets in a single song two cleans, and a rhythm distortion, or clean/rhythm/lead, all with various effects available. 

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Im so gonna regret getting into this discussion.

 

Ive been using presets for years...since the first red bean came out.  I have never yet had a situation where I had to change preset in the middle of a sustained chord.  I have never had a situation where the preset change was not at the start of a beat (usually the start of a bar but not always) and I simply hit the switch on the "and" (the 8th)  or on the "e" (the 16th)  before the first note of the new patch.  (an 16th note at 120bpm is 125ms...seems to be enough)

 

I have never heard the delay in switching while performing.  I have never heard the delay in switching in recordings of gigs.  No-one, be it friends , bandmates, colleagues or family, has ever mentioned anything suggesting a gap.

 

What sort of music or performance are you guys doing that requires such "instant " patch changes???

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Tech metal with constant time signature, key, feel, and tone changes. Some of our songs require me to switch to a clean with delay/chorus/verb (along with the typical compression/EQ/whatever else is needed for the amp sound) for maybe one or two eighth notes on a quick chord stab and and back to heavy distortion. Sometimes this will happen multiple times in a single measure. Sometimes  I need to switch from a clean patch for rhythms to a distorted patch for one flurry of sixteenth note triplets at the end of measure and back to clean on the 1. I don't always have an extra "and" or "e" to have no sound as I'm the only guitarist in the group and with few exceptions am accenting fills/changes/etc. all the time.

 

Not really sure why it matters why I need it. I do, and it seems Helix isn't even switching patches as quickly as the HD500X, which can have audible lag if its done while there is still sound being processed. 

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It doesn't even need to be as technical as that. Some sections might have clean ringouts or whatever and then you need to kick in a big distortion sound. It is audible and annoying if you press the footswitch on the beat but the change in sound doesn't happen until sometime afterwards. Trying to predict when to press a footswitch in advance is equally annoying and not reliable either if different presets take different times to load. All this can easily lead to lost mojo on stage.

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Papa, how complex are your tones? Is a single path enough for each?

 

You can have heavy tone on path 1 and clean on path 2.  Then use a gain block at front of each and assign a foot switch to toggle between paths.  All trails should ring out and change should be instant, though i haven't tried it yet. 

The theory is in one preset, all effects in both paths are running whether on or off.  switching paths only sets which one is heard. 

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My typical signal path would be "guitar > Morley wah > helix input > helix loop 1 > Nova drive > helix loop 2 > amp input > amp fx loop send > helix fx > amp fx loop return".

 

So I wouldn't be using any amp modelling or gain/dynamics on the helix. But I do use a lot of various modulation and delay effects sometimes all within the one song. To give you an example one of my songs I use 5 different presets...

 

1. Clean ambient pick slides with mod/delay/reverb.

2. Clean verse with different delay/reverb settings.

3. Clean bridge with reverb and pushed to breakup with Nova drive.

4. Heavy distortion with amp only.

5. Heavy lead with different mod/delay/reverb.

 

Because of the variation of amp channels, fx and their settings I can only imagine achieving this using presets otherwise I would still have to do the footswitch tap dance each time the song changes section.

 

Is there another way this could be achieved with the helix and it's multiple paths and multiple blocks per button? If so would the lag time be better?

 

Note as well I would like to use the mic in for processing vocals along with my guitar signal.

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Without ir or cab sim there should be quite a bit of DSP available. Check out the templates. You can run 3 seperate guitar routes and one vocal.

 

Some day i hope "scene" mode will be integrated into the helix.  It would make what your trying to do much easier. 

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I got the preset change lag time blues! Praying that they can work something out on this elephant in the room. I've seen the pcb board in the helix with the dps chips on it in a youtube video, and there's plenty of room to spare. Would be great if they would slap two more of those chips in there and charge whatever they need to charge, I would gladly buy such a device. The Helix quad mod! I dunno, but dying for a solution in one form or another! My fantasy was that I would be able to stop tap dancing on stage, and just hit one button at a time, somewhere between 10-20 preset changes per song. Some day I hope, until then I'm locked in one preset per song.

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I got the preset change lag time blues! Praying that they can work something out on this elephant in the room. I've seen the pcb board in the helix with the dps chips on it in a youtube video, and there's plenty of room to spare. Would be great if they would slap two more of those chips in there and charge whatever they need to charge, I would gladly buy such a device. The Helix quad mod! I dunno, but dying for a solution in one form or another! My fantasy was that I would be able to stop tap dancing on stage, and just hit one button at a time, somewhere between 10-20 preset changes per song. Some day I hope, until then I'm locked in one preset per song.

 

100% agree, the DSP chips they are using are relatively inexpensive!

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okay guys thought of something how about when you have 2 patches that you need to be quickly switched between you pack both patches into the signal chain so that you have 1 path taking on patch1 then another path for patch 2 and switch between them with another switch or in the case of super small usage if a momentary switch could be more usefaul is that possible. 

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