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Sounds really great, and a great concept.

 

I can think of dual path methods that might work, but that would be some serious trial and testing.  We'll probably get some good proposals from the users too.

 

But I must say an "easy button" for this as a single L6 Helix effect would be nice.

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Be cautious about the volume effect - we almost always perceive something louder as better. Sometimes as little a 1dB can have a noticeable impact, especially after distortion.

What's that about?

 

I've double tracked in the studio PLENTY of times and it's never been about the loudness. It's about getting a big sound.

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What's that about?

 

I've double tracked in the studio PLENTY of times and it's never been about the loudness. It's about getting a big sound.

 

Its just that sometimes a small change in volume can have almost the same impact as a lot of signal processing on a track, especially in a dense mix. 

 

Double tracking is a great technique for thickening a track. And effects that simulate this can be useful too, reducing tracking time and pocket editing. But sometimes its also nice to keep things simple and solve problems with fader stability techniques instead of more plugins.

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Its just that sometimes a small change in volume can have almost the same impact as a lot of signal processing on a track, especially in a dense mix.

 

Double tracking is a great technique for thickening a track. And effects that simulate this can be useful too, reducing tracking time and pocket editing. But sometimes its also nice to keep things simple and solve problems with fader stability techniques instead of more plugins.

Ok, other than the bit about volume, the rest of this response has little to do with your first post which like the first part of this this post, almost sounded like you're saying that you could just turn the guitar up and get the same fullness. I completely disagree.

I don't know what you mean by "fader stability". In my experience, all faders are for the most part stable unless they need cleaning. I also don't understand where the bit about plugins came in. We're talking about an existing pedal and the Helix - which uses no plugins. We're talking about the feasibility of having a doubler pedal included in a future update for the Helix for live use.

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Must be some black magic technology in a $140 pedal, or.......does anyone know what the circuit is actually doing so that we can reverse engineer the effect? Does not seem to have any sense of latency on the doubling. I have an idea what it might be doing but the Helix is not polyphonic tracking. Best bet at this point is a dual amp thing. 

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Must be some black magic technology in a $140 pedal, or.......does anyone know what the circuit is actually doing so that we can reverse engineer the effect? Does not seem to have any sense of latency on the doubling. I have an idea what it might be doing but the Helix is not polyphonic tracking. Best bet at this point is a dual amp thing.

Latency has no bearing on this effect. It's of no consequence. In fact, it's intentionally delaying the duplicate signals and intentionally varying the delay time and pitch ever so slightly and randomly - which is almost exactly what happens when you double track in the studio. The only difference is that it in the studio, one or two of the signals will be randomly slightly ahead - not possible to do on a pedal... unless it's hooked up to a time machine.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I don't know what you mean by "fader stability". In my experience, all faders are for the most part stable unless they need cleaning. I also don't understand where the bit about plugins came in. We're talking about an existing pedal and the Helix - which uses no plugins. We're talking about the feasibility of having a doubler pedal included in a future update for the Helix for live use.

 

By fader stability I mean that during a mixing, the goal is to establish fader levels that let you hear the most important thing to the least important thing. Fader stability is how stable a fader level is throughout the song. Can you set it someplace and leave it, or do you have to continually move the fader to get the mix right.

 

There are various approaches to mixing based on fader stability techniques. The first is the fader itself, determining the max and min movement of a fader within a track. The next thing is to use panning to separate things to make the fader more stable, less movement is required. Then compression can be used to automate some of that movement by reducing dynamic range. Then EQ can be used to make space for different frequencies so the fader becomes more stable. Finally there's automation to handle cases where the fader can't be made stable with other techniques.

 

Similar techniques apply to live music since this is just playing the tracks live instead of playback from a DAW. The point I was making is that if you use the fader stability techniques first, you might find that each instrument fits nicely in the mix and is distinct. If you start adding "plugins" - in this case Helix effect blocks or pedals - this could result in fitting better in the overall mix, but often doesn't. Effects usually add things - reverb, delay repeats, time and frequency based modulation, etc. These tend to add complexity to the overall sound that can make things less distinct and muddy. We sometimes try to compensate by moving the faders - the effects may introduced additional fader instability making it harder to get a consistent mix. Sometimes less is more.

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By fader stability I mean that during a mixing, the goal is to establish fader levels that let you hear the most important thing to the least important thing. Fader stability is how stable a fader level is throughout the song. Can you set it someplace and leave it, or do you have to continually move the fader to get the mix right.

 

There are various approaches to mixing based on fader stability techniques. The first is the fader itself, determining the max and min movement of a fader within a track. The next thing is to use panning to separate things to make the fader more stable, less movement is required. Then compression can be used to automate some of that movement by reducing dynamic range. Then EQ can be used to make space for different frequencies so the fader becomes more stable. Finally there's automation to handle cases where the fader can't be made stable with other techniques.

 

Similar techniques apply to live music since this is just playing the tracks live instead of playback from a DAW. The point I was making is that if you use the fader stability techniques first, you might find that each instrument fits nicely in the mix and is distinct. If you start adding "plugins" - in this case Helix effect blocks or pedals - this could result in fitting better in the overall mix, but often doesn't. Effects usually add things - reverb, delay repeats, time and frequency based modulation, etc. These tend to add complexity to the overall sound that can make things less distinct and muddy. We sometimes try to compensate by moving the faders - the effects may introduced additional fader instability making it harder to get a consistent mix. Sometimes less is more.

 

 

You seem determined to drag this subject into the recording environment.  That's not why I'm interested in the Doubler Effect.  The whole point behind this discussion is to be able to have the doubling effect for LIVE use. If I want a doubling effect in the studio, I'll actually double track it.  If it doesn't work or muddies up the mix I won't use the double track - same goes for live use.  I just don't get your point in belaboring the subject from a recording point of view. I repeat, we're talking about live use. From your standpoint, it sounds like we shouldn't even be using a chorus effect. Do you not understand that doubling a track is essentially creating a more natural sounding chorus effect? Do you want to use it all the time? No, of course not. So again, I ask, what's your point?

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