Helix Input Impedance With G10 Relay

[cabojoe]

What would be the proper Helix global setting for input impedance when the input is a G10 Relay?

[jeremyn]

It makes no difference as the G10 is effectively buffering the guitar and feeding an active signal into the Helix. The input impedance (and cable capacitance) only makes a difference with passive pickups. So it's safe to just leave the Helix at its default input impedance setting.

[PeterHamm]

And even if you are careful about impedance and try different things... don't necessarily expect fuzz to work quite right. Then again, I never use fuzz anyway...

[mikisb]

Still asked this question in the G10 subforum, but without any answer:

 

Is the G10 acting like a simple buffer wich eliminates cable capacity virtually or does id add a capacity so simulate a real cable? This would be important to know how Helic will react. And if G10 simulates a cable, even a fuzz should behave as expected, as far the input impedance of the model is equal to 1 MOhm when "auto" is selected.

[PeterHamm]

Still asked this question in the G10 subforum, but without any answer:

 

Is the G10 acting like a simple buffer wich eliminates cable capacity virtually or does id add a capacity so simulate a real cable? This would be important to know how Helic will react. And if G10 simulates a cable, even a fuzz should behave as expected, as far the input impedance of the model is equal to 1 MOhm when "auto" is selected.

 

Again, I don't use fuzz regularly, but in my experience, nothing but an actual cable will do.

 

but, I also dislike wireless for electric guitar anyway. a Lot.

[jeremyn]

There are two elements for making a fuzz pedal have a particular 'iconic/ideal' sound with a magnetic coil pickup. One is the cable capacitance, and the other is the input impedance (which is mainly resistive) of the fuzz pedal. Curly cords with really high cable capacitances cause the resonant frequency to drop significantly and the high frequencies to roll off heavily. On the other hand, a load resistance causes the resonant peak to be less pronounced and also causes its own high frequency roll off. Since most people use a normal length of standard cable, the resistive load of the pedal itself (around 10k Ohm for an old school Fuzz face) is the element with the overwhelmingly most significant effect on the tone.

 

When a signal is buffered between the guitar and the fuzz pedal, the heavy loading effects of the pedal are taken out of the equation, and the only thing left is the cable capacitance - which, even if you're using a super long curly cord between the guitar and the buffer, isn't going to have a big enough effect on the tone to bring that 'heavily loaded single coil' magic.

 

That being said, if you put an EQ in the chain before the fuzz pedal (or equivalent Helix blocks), you can get extremely close to the desired frequency response that would otherwise come naturally from heavily loading the pickup in the guitar. And IMO is a better option since it is both more predictable, more easily adjusted, and can be enabled/disabled along with the fuzz or wah effect.

 

The G10 is most likely acting as a simple buffer. In the complete void of technical information from Line 6 about the G10, I suspect it would have a typical 1Meg Ohm input resistance with maybe at most a few hundred pF of additional capacitance to simulate some small length of cable. I doubt it has a fixed simulated 'cable EQ' like the ones that can be dialled in on the other Line 6 wireless units, as doing that would make the G10 less usable for acoustic guitars (whereas any extra input capacitance would only affect passive pickups in the same way a short length of cable does). This is why I always add a 560pF capacitor to my short wireless interconnect cables.