ricksteruk Posted April 14, 2016 Share Posted April 14, 2016 Its ordered - should be with me tomorrow with a fair wind. :D I've been mulling this one over for a few months now to see if the Helix would work for me. Can I just say a big part of my decision has been the help and support given on this forum both by fellow users and also Digital Igloo who has responded to two of my questions. It's great to get feedback and answers from the creators of the unit. Big Respect to DI and the rest of the team Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glideman Posted April 14, 2016 Share Posted April 14, 2016 Look on the bright side, too... You don't have to back up your presets before you do your first firmware update and editor install since it will occur as soon as you take it out the box. It will be the last time that's the case. LoL! :) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarrellM5 Posted April 14, 2016 Share Posted April 14, 2016 Congratulations, enjoy!!!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxnew40 Posted April 15, 2016 Share Posted April 15, 2016 Congrats, I just got mine on Wednesday and am going to use at a gig tonight. -Max 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ricksteruk Posted April 15, 2016 Author Share Posted April 15, 2016 Congrats, I just got mine on Wednesday and am going to use at a gig tonight. -Max Good luck for the gig! Shows how user friendly the Helix is if you feel able to gig with it after just a few days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spikey Posted April 15, 2016 Share Posted April 15, 2016 Im still simply awestruck by the tones. Ive been using my strat and loved it, but this morning hooked up my SG and... damn.... Amazing.... You will love it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ricksteruk Posted April 16, 2016 Author Share Posted April 16, 2016 My Helix has arrived! And I LOVE IT :wub: I spent about 6 hours trying it out both through a full range PA speaker and through different two amps in 4cm. In 4cm with my 1989 Laney AOR 30 combo it sounded absolutely jaw dropping! Something to do with the rawness of the gain from the Laney combined with the smoothness of the FX in the Helix. It just might become my main rig. The only slight complaint I have is that all the cabinets remove too much High Frequencies by default. I went through them all doing an A/B test with my combo speakers and all the cabs had too much bottom end and too little HF - no matter which mic was chosen. The low was easy to remove with the cabinets Low filter (or by increasing the mic distance) - but the high filter was set on max and already was taking off too much high. I'll have to either add an EQ block before the cab, or try to find suitable IRs instead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HonestOpinion Posted April 16, 2016 Share Posted April 16, 2016 My Helix has arrived! And I LOVE IT :wub: I spent about 6 hours trying it out both through a full range PA speaker and through different two amps in 4cm. In 4cm with my 1989 Laney AOR 30 combo it sounded absolutely jaw dropping! Something to do with the rawness of the gain from the Laney combined with the smoothness of the FX in the Helix. It just might become my main rig. The only slight complaint I have is that all the cabinets remove too much High Frequencies by default. I went through them all doing an A/B test with my combo speakers and all the cabs had too much bottom end and too little HF - no matter which mic was chosen. The low was easy to remove with the cabinets Low filter (or by increasing the mic distance) - but the high filter was set on max and already was taking off too much high. I'll have to either add an EQ block before the cab, or try to find suitable IRs instead. Glad to hear you are enjoying your Helix, it is more fun than a barrel of monkeys. I am thinking the loss of highs may have something to do with your setup/equipment as I think most people find the cab highs to be rich (I usually have to EQ/cut them on the high end) going through full range equipment like a PA speaker. Are you hearing the same loss of highs when you go direct to the PA speaker? I also end up as you have found cutting the low end as well. There is certainly no harm using EQ to adjust to your particular setup though. The global EQ might help as well so that if you change rigs you don't have to modify all your presets again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ricksteruk Posted April 16, 2016 Author Share Posted April 16, 2016 Glad to hear you are enjoying your Helix, it is more fun than a barrel of monkeys. I am thinking the loss of highs may have something to do with your setup/equipment as I think most people find the cab highs to be rich (I usually have to EQ/cut them on the high end) going through full range equipment like a PA speaker. Are you hearing the same loss of highs when you go direct to the PA speaker? I also end up as you have found cutting the low end as well. There is certainly no harm using EQ to adjust to your particular setup though. The global EQ might help as well so that if you change rigs you don't have to modify all your presets again. Yes - it was going through the RCF PA speaker where I noticed the Helix cab blocks attenuate too much high frequency. The RCF 712-A Mk2 speakers are good quality speakers and I'm confident in their sound - I've done live sound with them at quite a few gigs and also played back recorded music so I know they are well balanced tonally. When I listen to the Helix Factory Presets through the RCFs the overall mix is fine - there are plenty of highs there. I expect all the presets have just got excessive high EQ to compensate for the muddiness of the cabs. I set up a new preset so I could test out each part of the Helix system individually - and I split the path just before the outputs putting a cab on the XLR path and running that to the RCF while the 1/4in jack went to the amp F return. I'm comparing this to two guitar speakers - one 30 year old Celestion G12L-35 in my Laney combo, and one year old Eminence custom speaker in my Hughes & Kettner. The Eminence is a bit brighter than the Celestion, but both of them had substantially more highs than any of the Helix cabs. Of course if I bypassed the Helix cab block the RCF speaker then became incredibly unpleasantly bright and buzzy. I've been messing again since then and I've just put a Simple EQ block before my cab block to bring back some highs - it seems to have done the trick. I've also spent quite a while setting up a Brit 2204 amp block to replicate the sound of my Laney AOR preamp. The Laney is basically a hot rodded JCM800 so I've managed to get it to sound almost identical. I've set one footswitch to switch off the FX loop that feeds the Laney and switch on the Brit 2204 so I can A/B between them to tweak the amp block... I might try recording it in a bit - not recorded any audio from the Helix yet... Let's see if it gets on with Logic! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ricksteruk Posted April 16, 2016 Author Share Posted April 16, 2016 I tried some recording. This is my attempt to copy my Laney AOR preamp using the Brit 2204. I used the single coil bridge pickup mode on my zexcoil. https://soundcloud.com/ricksteruk/helix-tele-singlecoil-gain-chords Unfortunately when I plugged in the USB it made a ground loop with the Laney, so there's a horrid hum when I switch the Laney on. The first riff is the Helix, the second riff is the Laney. They are both going through a simple EQ to add 3db of High Frequencies and then through the 2x12 Interstate cab block. If you compare to a previous recording I made of the Laney you can hear the differences. I think there was more gain on the preamp on the older recordings. Of course there is a lot more room in this recording too.. I mixed in a room mic that was about 6 feet away. https://soundcloud.com/ricksteruk/zexcoil-test-tele-gain-chords Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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