Bassist here. Newb question-can the Helix do "Royal Blood"-type sounds?

[pbass6811]

Hey all,

 

I play bass in a 4-piece band(bass/drums/guitar/vocalist). I recently switched to a 2 pedal/2 amp "Royal Blood"-type setup. This allows me to play bass and "rhythm guitar" parts simultaneously. The band likes it, and it really fills out the sound when my guitar player goes into solos. Now, we're seriously considering going ampless and I'm trying to figure out if I can achieve something similar with the Helix,without having to buy two, which I can't do. In other words, can the Helix create two separate, distinct signals simultaneously and route them to separate outputs? I'm fairly certain that I already know the answer, but I wanted to ask you guys that know and use them if this is possible. Thanks much!

[njglover]

Yes, it can. You won't likely be able to do more than two amps with cabs at once, but if that's all you need, you're set. Still plenty of room to add FX in there, but you wouldn't likely be able to do a third amp is what I meant. Pan one to the left out, pan one to the right out. Or send one to the XLRs and the other to the 1/4" outs, or........ lots of options.

[Digital_Igloo]

Believe it or not, there's a Royal Blood-inspired factory preset: 1 FACTORY 1 > 20D Royal Power Duo. Footswitch 8 engages a band pass filter for the intro and Footswitch 9 kicks in the layered bass guitar an octave below. Tones like this work best with low-E string riffs; y'know, like how Mike Kerr plays. Royal Blood is obviously bass-drums-vox, but 20D's designed for guitar so it's gonna sound quite a bit different. For bass, you'll want to place a Simple Pitch block early on the guitar path set to an octave up (and then remove the Pitch Wham block on Path 2). That preset's Path 1 is completely filled up, so you'll have to do a bit of reorg to get it to fit.

 

Even though 20D doesn't have a Split > Crossover block, that feature was added specifically because of bands like Royal Blood and Death From Above 1979. Also check out 2 FACTORY 2 > 15A Low E Sludge, but that's more inspired by Spotlights and Torche.

[pbass6811]

Thanks much, guys! I really appreciate the help. This makes me very happy...

[jorisgriffioen]

It can easily do the routing and seperate tones for sure. The pitch shifting on the other hand will fall completely flat with chords, if you tend to stick to single note lines though it'll be fine (and maybe they'll improve it, but don't buy gear based on promises)

[philslinkee]

Could you split the signal path into bass and faux guitar and insert say a POG pedal using a send return block on the guitar path? Presumably you could then pan the two channels L & R and send them to different amps?

[thestratmanblues]

Back in 2015, I came up with this diagram after watching video, pictures and interview.

 

Don't know if Mike Kerr shared his secret sound since then, I guess note...
 

 

 

The source of this diagram is located here :  https://creately.com/diagram/ii90yf072/OblIpaHWvEDBpi77Y7k8mab6BhQ%3D

 

 

I also made 2 presets, one for Figure It Out, with an IR (to be played with a bass, octave up for guitar parts) and
Little Monster (to be played with guitar, octave down for base parts).

 

Just let me know if you're interessed.