Anyone have a GOOD Fender Twin CLEAN tone??

[buckytom]

I'm looking for just a crisp Fender Twin style clean tone that I can use as a starting-point for my patches.  I've played with all of the factory presets, and a LOT of the clean-tones I've found on the forum, and so far I haven't been able to find anything that just sounds like a regular old CLEAN Fender Twin.  They all seem to sound like 1 of 2 things: either just too squashed (they all sound like there's already some gain happening- if you just play a chord with any force, they already seem to start breaking up); OR they're those super ambient reverb-delay type clean tones (which don't get me wrong- those sound super cool and all, but I need just a good flat CLEAN tone).

 

I play in a band that covers a LOT of different styles of music.  Right now I get about 90% of my tones on-stage from just my clean Divided by 13 JRT 9/15 (think SUPER clean like a Fender Twin) with an Analog Man King of Tone in front of it, all mic'd by an SM57 pretty close to the grill.  That's IT.  And that's basically what I'm looking to replicate with the Helix, but I haven't even been able to get CLOSE, yet.  Now, I know that's a "boutique" amp with a  "boutique" pedal in front of it, but really I'm just looking for ANYTHING that's super clean, and NOT squashed.  Like a clean tone where if you just strum an E-chord with some force, you can hear the fullness (headroom?) of the low AND high E-strings, without any breakup.  Again nothing wrong with some killer break-up, but that's just not what I'm going for, here.  I want it to be CLEAN as can be, until I put on a distortion pedal.

 

I'm SURE the Helix is capable of this kind of clean tone, but apparently I'm too freaking dumb to make one myself!  Every "clean" tone I've downloaded seems to sound like a Fender Twin.... only with like a blanket over it.  Please- SOMEONE help me find a NOT-squasehd, BIG, crisp clean tone!

 

Lastly- not sure how much this matters or not- but I'll be using this tone directly to/through the PA.  We play a lot of big rooms, and I need a clean tone big enough to fill the space.  That's where I've run into a lot of problems- a lot of the Helix clean tones sound okay until I have them going through the PA, at which point they seem to go from a little-squashed to "why aren't you just using an amp, you chump" squashed.  

 

THANKS, everyone!

[alpag]

I wonder whether you would benefit from some third party IRs.

They can be more open sounding imho.

It could help make it sound less compressed.

[DarrellM5]

Have you tried creating your own?  I'm pretty impressed with just the Twin Reverb model all by itself, with the stock settings, in a patch.  I think it sounds really authentic as I spent a few hours playing a real one this weekend.

[DavidBurt]

I'm looking for just a crisp Fender Twin style clean tone that I can use as a starting-point for my patches.  I've played with all of the factory presets, and a LOT of the clean-tones I've found on the forum, and so far I haven't been able to find anything that just sounds like a regular old CLEAN Fender Twin.  They all seem to sound like 1 of 2 things: either just too squashed (they all sound like there's already some gain happening- if you just play a chord with any force, they already seem to start breaking up); OR they're those super ambient reverb-delay type clean tones (which don't get me wrong- those sound super cool and all, but I need just a good flat CLEAN tone).

 

I play in a band that covers a LOT of different styles of music.  Right now I get about 90% of my tones on-stage from just my clean Divided by 13 JRT 9/15 (think SUPER clean like a Fender Twin) with an Analog Man King of Tone in front of it, all mic'd by an SM57 pretty close to the grill.  That's IT.  And that's basically what I'm looking to replicate with the Helix, but I haven't even been able to get CLOSE, yet.  Now, I know that's a "boutique" amp with a  "boutique" pedal in front of it, but really I'm just looking for ANYTHING that's super clean, and NOT squashed.  Like a clean tone where if you just strum an E-chord with some force, you can hear the fullness (headroom?) of the low AND high E-strings, without any breakup.  Again nothing wrong with some killer break-up, but that's just not what I'm going for, here.  I want it to be CLEAN as can be, until I put on a distortion pedal.

 

I'm SURE the Helix is capable of this kind of clean tone, but apparently I'm too freaking dumb to make one myself!  Every "clean" tone I've downloaded seems to sound like a Fender Twin.... only with like a blanket over it.  Please- SOMEONE help me find a NOT-squasehd, BIG, crisp clean tone!

 

Lastly- not sure how much this matters or not- but I'll be using this tone directly to/through the PA.  We play a lot of big rooms, and I need a clean tone big enough to fill the space.  That's where I've run into a lot of problems- a lot of the Helix clean tones sound okay until I have them going through the PA, at which point they seem to go from a little-squashed to "why aren't you just using an amp, you chump" squashed.  

 

THANKS, everyone!

I've been looking for a similar sound and found that using the Helix US Deluxe normal pre-amp with a third party IR did the trick.

 

I recently bought some 3 Sigma IR's and found that their Fender 65 Twin IR opened up the sound and gave some clean high's w/o break-up compared to the built-in Deluxe cab. I haven't tried my Ownhammer IR's yet.

[fukuri]

I do but bizarrely enough it comes from the Soldano Clean

Go figure... sounds great though

[billlorentzen]

Have you tried the /13 amp - the same one you own - set up just like yours? I use a bunch of different amps for clean with my super strat, depending on the tone I want: the /13, the Gibson, the Dr. Z, the SLO, the Shiva, the HiWatt. Personally, I don't use the Twin, although it sounds ok with my semihollow.

 

If you can't get the amps clean enough, try putting an EQ with a drop in gain in front of the amp. Make sure the sag is all the way off, if you don't want any compression.

[JimBenson]

I just uploaded two clean patches to CustomTone.  Search my name at CustomTone to get the patches.  (I can't figure out how to paste the links into this forum.  I will work on that later when I have more time.)

 

Jim

[gkinder]

I've been looking for a similar sound and found that using the Helix US Deluxe normal pre-amp with a third party IR did the trick.

 

I recently bought some 3 Sigma IR's and found that their Fender 65 Twin IR opened up the sound and gave some clean high's w/o break-up compared to the built-in Deluxe cab. I haven't tried my Ownhammer IR's yet.

 

Did the same, clean amp settings with Redwirez IR did the trick...no breakup at all....though I did put in a "touch" of verb on my simple patch for a little more depth....

[buckytom]

Wow- THANKS for all the responses, everyone!  Awesome to hear that so many of you have put time in on this type of sound (and hopefully have saved ME some time!).  Heading back on the road for this weekend's gigs, but I'm gonna just set up an ALL-HELIX day next week and try all of these ideas/sounds out.  I'll report back once I've checked em out.  Thanks again!

[PeterHamm]

Before you even download or purchase other IRs, you need to mess with speaker cabs (my favorite is the Dr. Z 2 x 12 or the Fender 4 x 10 on EVERYTHING and sometimes dual cabs with one of each) and with mics (dude, just go RIGHT to the ribbon mics and thank me later) and turn that amp master down a bit (you can add volume later in the chain if you need to).

And yes, the /13 model in there is stunning, one of only 3 or 4 I use (right now all my patches are using the Matchless, but I like the /13 a lot, too). And frankly, one other guy in my church with a Helix is getting awesome clean tones from the stock Twin model, just tweaking the preset that has it and a couple FX a teeny bit.

And check your input impedance.

[ThreeDogNate]

First thing.. in the 2nd page of the amp model... turn down the master volume. You are getting some of that grit there... you can decrease the bias to clean up the power amp sim a bit more too.

[gkinder]

First thing.. in the 2nd page of the amp model... turn down the master volume. You are getting some of that grit there... you can decrease the bias to clean up the power amp sim a bit more too.

 

 

Just tried adjusting the bias, works great to get that last bit of grit out of the tone.  Hadn't thought about that, thanks for the tip!!!!

[d0stenning]

Have you tried the /13 amp - the same one you own - set up just like yours? I use a bunch of different amps for clean with my super strat, depending on the tone I want: the /13, the Gibson, the Dr. Z, the SLO, the Shiva, the HiWatt. Personally, I don't use the Twin, although it sounds ok with my semihollow.

 

If you can't get the amps clean enough, try putting an EQ with a drop in gain in front of the amp. Make sure the sag is all the way off, if you don't want any compression.

yes i've been using the /13   as a clean thing with wet reverbs.  nice. 

[drdoughnut]

What is a /13 amp?

[silverhead]

It's the Divided Duo Helix.amp model.

 

http://www.dividedby13.com/jrt915.html

[spaceatl]

If an amp that shouldn't be breaking up is breaking up, then you might be hitting it too hard...try the input pad...if the gain goes back to reality, you were probably a bit hot coming in...I have the pad in more than out, even on passive guitars...especially hot pups...passive guitar pickups have stellar transients and you can get right into the limiter on the AD converter if you are not careful...If you tone has turned to glass with no spank, you might be too hot...

[cmsaw83]

As was just mentioned in the post above mine, you should try engaging the Input Pad in the Global Settings section of your Helix Menu.  I'm willing to bet that like me, you are going to come to find a whole new world available to you once you do this.  Initially, I thought that the Helix must have been designed for Strats and ONLY Strats when I first got it and started playing, because my Les Paul with Pearly Gates (which are humbuckers, but PAF types only registering at 8.0k (neck) and 8.5k (bridge) respectively, so not what I would consider "hot" by any means) pickups just made pretty much EVERYTHING break up right out of the gate.  As soon as I found out about the Input Pad and engaged it, Problem Solved!  Just like that, everything became usable, and I don't even disengage it when I want to use my Strat.  Though my Strat does have EMG pickups, so I don't doubt that there are others who may switch it on and off when switching between different guitars.  I will say though, that even with the active pickups (aside from the 89 in the bridge, except when in the single coil mode), my Strat did not come in so hot to the front of the Helix that it required the Input Pad to be turned on.  I guess that's just another reason why it surprised me as much as it did when I found out the difference it made.

 

It's worth it to mention the fact that there are other things to consider as well, such as the use of a high/low cut (both as an effects block and in the Global EQ), a compressor at the end of signal chain, an EQ as an effect, and then of course, the EQ and settings of just about EVERY amp found in the Helix, as just about ALL of them require some adjustment, even if it's only the lows in the EQ.  All of the amps in the Helix are set with the lows too high.  I am not sure why this is?  I tell myself that there is some logical explanation, as I can't see the people at Line 6 engineering such remarkable amp sims, while at the same time being ignorant of what a decent setting is for lows on an amplifier, but who really knows.  I just know that it is one of few things that people seem to agree upon pretty much unanimously.  That being said, there are other settings I find on amps which are also quite often set too high by default, gain (which could obviously have a lot to do with the situation you are describing, though I am not saying that's what it is, just that it's worth taking into consideration as a factor), also Master Volumes are another setting I find to be notoriously set too high, and the Master will inevitably effect your gain.  As I understand it, Channel Volume is one of, if not THE only control that can be adjusted on any of the Amps within the Helix that will not color your tone in any way, simply bring overall volume up or down.  And the list goes on, some amps being easier to deal with than others.  And while I find Line 6 did a magnificent job at duplicating the sounds of the amps they included in the Helix, and making each one act/react the way they would in reality for the most part, still there are some that don't fit that mold quite as well as others, but I feel like this is something that can be and should be expected in a device capable of providing us with what is quite literally a WORLD of different tones and near endless options.  There are afterall, limits to what a given device can do, even the Helix, but given all it CAN and DOES do, I am extremely happy with the way I get mine to sound overall, with just about any amp or combination of amps I can dream up!

[cmsaw83]

2 hours ago, drdoughnut said:

What is a /13 amp?

It is a boutique amp manufactured by a company called "Divided by 13".  Like Matchless, they specialize in Clean, or CleanER amps.  I LOVE the Matchless amps in the Helix, though I love the Essex 30 and 15 just as much.  The Vox style amps just sound great, both in reality and in the Helix!!