New Helix Owner Creating Patches? TheHelixChannel and others might be a good place to start.

[mileskb]

I've had my Helix now for a few months, and the more I work with it the more I find how powerful it really is.

 

So like in other things I try to find someone else that has already done the heavy lifting and work from there.  Without sounding like an advertisement for Scott at TheHelixChannel I wanted to share why I have found his patches to be most useful to me and maybe provide tips I found useful so you can find your favorite source of patches.

 

While I have had a guitar in my hand for the better part of 50 years, and I've owned a couple of studios and do live sound, I've never paid much attention to the nuts and bolts of guitar amps.  If I wanted a particular amp's sound either for myself of someone in the studio, or a cabinet or a mic, I just bought or rented the gear I needed and done.

 

So when I started creating patches with the Helix, I was at somewhat of a loss.  As with anything, there are usually a few ways to achieve the same result.  None really right or wrong until you try the "next" thing and realize you should have done the first one differently.

 

Enter Scott at TheHelixChannel.  Now you may have your favorite person to get patches from.  That's great. I think we'd all like to hear about it, but there are a few things about TheHelixChannel patches that speak to me and I thought others might find useful, even if it's just the Freeset Friday patches.

 

Things to consider when choosing patches to download:

 

1.  Simplicity while thinking outside the box. - Scott seems to be a master of the proper use of Sag, Ripple, Bias, etc..(see bottom of post)  Where other patches use gain stages and compression and distortion pedals etc...  He seems to be able to get these amazing tones from mostly (not always of course) but mostly just tweaking the amp and cabinet settings.   Not only is this helpful for learning how to create my own patches, but it keeps DSP usage at a minimum so there is plenty of room for adding time based effects or IR's.

 

2.  Tips and Tricks... - Mapping the gain controls to a switch for boost as example.  Again, sure you could add a volume block, but that's another block not needed in most cases.  Just one example of many.

 

3.  Effective use of the paths.  -  This sortof falls under tips and tricks, but for those looking for "scenes" seeing how to effectively use paths and switching may be very useful to you.

 

4.  Consistency -  Scott takes all of his patches and adjusts them for consistent level.  

 

5.  Demonstration -  Like a few others, TheHelixChannel demonstrates in video form what the patch sounds like in the mix.  

 

6.  Use of 3rd party IR's - Starting out, you may not want to use patches with 3rd party IR's yet.  What is important about finding a source is that if you have a favorite cabinet, 3rd party or built into Helix, if the patches are consistent, you can add a 3rd party IR or just drop in your favorite Helix Cab block and you're good to go.  Scott uses the Ownhammer IR's and also supplies patches that don't need the IR's.  In either case, you can use the description of the recommended IR to select a built in cabinet.

 

 

I want to mention that I have found some great patches on Customtone as well.   However, until I started using TheHelixChannel patches, which I use as my tutorials,  I wasn't really able to tweak the Customtone patches if I needed to. Glenn DeLaune has some amazing and complex patches that sound spot on, but again, when it comes to tweaking them, knowing how sag, ripple, bias, etc works and interacts goes a long way.  

 

One final note to consider when looking for patches... are you looking for an "Artist" based "Tone/Style Based" sound.  As example Scott's seem to be a bit more tone/style based, where Glenn's seem to be a bit more Artist based.  One isn't better than the other, but it's just something to think about when looking for patches even from Customtone and other sites.   Are you looking for a particular artists tone or are you looking for a particular style.

 

Hope this was some help and again, I cannot say enough how much understanding the below (although I'm not quite there yet) has helped in making patches...

 

 

Master - Adjusts the amount of power amp distortion. This parameter is highly interactive with all other power amp parameters—the lower the Master is set, the less effect the other controls will have.

 

Sag - Lower Sag values offer a "tighter" responsiveness for metal and djent playing; higher values provide more touch dynamics & sustain for blues and classic rock riffs.

 

Hum/Ripple -  Controls how much heater hum and AC ripple interacts with your tone. Ripple At higher settings, things get freaky.

 

Bias - Changes the Bias of the power tubes. Lower values achieve a "colder" Class AB biasing. At maximum, the amp is operating in Class A

 

Bias X - Determines how the power amp tubes' voicing reacts when pushed hard. Set low for a tighter feel. Set high for more tube compression. This parameter is highly reactive with the Drive and Master settings.

[victorloher]

Interesting post.  I know nothing about programming the Helix, so it was nice to learn a little something about it.  Thanks.