gsummers Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 Maybe a silly question and personal preference but I'm curious what most people are using for patch settings when recording into your DAW. I am running a pair of Yamaha HS7 reference monitors. When setting up patches i've been toggling between using an amp or a preamp, obviously 2 different sounds. Any suggestions on best practice for creating patches for recording purposes? I'm on information overload since I received the Helix rack yesterday. I did hook it up at a rehearsal last night to a small practice amp and copied some presets and changed from "amp" to "preamp" and chose the same model. It's just when I get home to record where I wasnt sure the best method. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
njglover Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 If this is for direct recording purposes, ie you want it to sound like a miked guitar amp, then you would want an amp and a cab in the signal chain. Without a cab, it's going to sound like taking a direct out from a guitar head, which very few amps offer to begin with (and generally sound like crap anyway). With just preamp, you will be missing the entire power section of the amp, so not getting a lot of the feel of the amp. There may be some potential uses for those sounds, mind you, but if you want your guitar to sound like it's going through a guitar rig, you want the full amp and a cab (unless you are planning on using an IR in the box later). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gsummers Posted May 19, 2016 Author Share Posted May 19, 2016 Yes, direct recording. I do have a cab in the chain though. Doesnt that take care of the mic'd part. With the amp/cab it does sound different, but both setups sound ok, although the amp/cab on a couple were sounding "boomy" if that makes sense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
njglover Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 The cab takes care of the miked part, yes, but you would still be missing the power amp section if you only use the preamp. This would be basically equivalent to plugging the effects loop output of your amp into your speaker. It is not literally equivalent, since you would get basically no signal doing this in the real world, but that is what you are modeling in the Helix by using the preamp only. If it works for you, kudos, but if you want it to sound like a real piece of gear, you are going to want to use a full amp going into the cab. If it sounds boomy, you probably need to lower the bass on the amp or play with the low cut on the cab block. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gsummers Posted May 19, 2016 Author Share Posted May 19, 2016 Thank you very much....Haven't had much time on it so just trying learn everything I can. Any suggestions on a good resource for programming concepts, scenarios, etc. Maybe a particular website or youtuber? Thanks again for your help! Greg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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