helix octoverb lacking

[VB70]

Am i the only one greatly dissapointed with the Helix octoverb? Its so much better on my M9. On the Helix my guitar still rings through the shimmer on the 100percent mix. Not to mention the volume drops off too much making it useless with the expression pedal. Aaarrrhghh!! So important to me. If anyone has a solution pls extend a hand

[Jos_K]

I usually compensate volume drop off with the level parameter of each effect block. You could also assign that to the sweep of the expression pedal (ie. 0db at heel position and +3db at toe position).

[jbuhajla]

I back Octoverb all the way off on dwell and have a very small mix to add just a hint of sparkle on the top end. I run it before a cave reverb block in series. I find it to be too overwhelming personally, that's why I just use a hint of it. 

[phil_m]

The mix knob for the effects on the Helix is scaled differently than the M9. With it at 50, the dry and wet signals will be equal. Once you go past 50, the wet signal will stay the same and the dry signal will decrease. At 100, you'd have all wet, no dry. The Mix knob on the M9 works more like a reverb knob on an amp. It doesn't affect the dry signal at all until you get to 100%, when it goes away.

[jbuhajla]

The mix knob for the effects on the Helix is scaled differently than the M9. With it at 50, the dry and wet signals will be equal. Once you go past 50, the wet signal will stay the same and the dry signal will decrease. At 100, you'd have all wet, no dry. The Mix knob on the M9 works more like a reverb knob on an amp. It doesn't affect the dry signal at all until you get to 100%, when it goes away.

That's a big "AH HA" moment for me. Thanks for that info Phil_M. That explains to me the "apparent" volume changes when going above 50% mix on certain effects. 

[duncann]

Am i the only one greatly dissapointed with the Helix octoverb? Its so much better on my M9. On the Helix my guitar still rings through the shimmer on the 100percent mix. Not to mention the volume drops off too much making it useless with the expression pedal. Aaarrrhghh!! So important to me. If anyone has a solution pls extend a hand

 

No, you're not, although I wouldn't say greatly disappointed, just mildly. I prefer the octo on the HD (same as M9) too, as well as how the mix parameter works on these other devices. It's much simpler and less complicated. At 100% mix, I also notice the dry signal is definitely not gone. It's faint, but still there nonetheless. I haven't checked this recently, so maybe they did something to fix this in an update.

 

For most cases when I use this reverb, I put it in a parallel path with 100% mix and tweak the level parameters (I'll only adjust the 'B' level, and leave the 'A' level at 0dB) of the merge block until I get the desired output. This also has the advantage of being able to put EQs, or whatever, after the octo to further tweak the octoness only. If I want to disable the octo, I have the split as an A/B and assign the 'route to' paramter to a controller so that it goes from either A100 or even split. Doing this seems to work better than a serial configuration for a more even, less bumpy trails effect, specifically if you want a mix greater than 50%. In other words, when the octo is in a serial config and the mix is somewhat more than 50%, when you disable the octo, there may be a sudden, dry level change, so using an A/B split makes the dry level consistent. Not only that, but the trails parameter on the octo fades out way too quickly. When using a parallel path, it does not. To me it is clear this reverb was made for another device and when Line 6 ported this to Helix, it didn't seem to port very well because of the reasons stated above. It's the same for the particle verb as well.

[ricksteruk]

^ Really good explanation of how to get the best out of OctoVerb and ParticleVerb.. Thanks Duncan  :)

[VB70]

Thank you Duncan, this helps tremendously!!

[MusicLaw]

Phil and Duncann, Thanks!

 

Line 6: These sort of Tips should be included in future revisions the HELIX User Docs! It is unfortunate that this great info is only here in the Forums for those who discover it. I would imagine many HELIX owners would benefit from this info and that they'll never find it here!

[tomu2]

Having recently purchased a Helix floor , I am also disappointed with the Octo , on my HD 500 the Octo has a pre delay parameter which I feel is hugely important to that effect and have noticed that the pre delay parameter on the Helix is not there , why ? .

It appears to have an intensity parameter instead but that doesn't  do the same job as the pre delay ?

[datacommando]

2 hours ago, tomu2 said:

that the pre delay parameter on the Helix is not there , why ?

 

Mmm... not sure why it's not there and I hadn't noticed till you just mentioned it.

 

All the legacy effects were supposed to have been ported over from the older POD HD500 and M series of FX. I don't know if pre-delay was an option on the M units and if it wasn't on those maybe that's the version which was brought over. I'm also not sure if "Intensity" actually work the same as "Pre-Delay", but there is quite a difference in the sound when it is set to 10% or then 70%. I'm unable to do a direct comparison between the 2 versions of the Helix and HD without doing a lot of re-plugging and cabling to check. They might have changed some bits, but those nice Line 6 boffins added a high, low cut and trails option that wasn't in the HD boxes.

 

I just had look at the M series parameter guide and for the Octo verb the options were: Decay, Time in milliseconds, Tone and Mix. Different again!

Edited October 8, 2020 by datacommando
Update Info

[Schmalle]

5 hours ago, tomu2 said:

Having recently purchased a Helix floor , I am also disappointed with the Octo , on my HD 500 the Octo has a pre delay parameter which I feel is hugely important to that effect and have noticed that the pre delay parameter on the Helix is not there , why ? .

It appears to have an intensity parameter instead but that doesn't  do the same job as the pre delay ?

 

Intensity controls how fast and wild the octaves go up.

Concerning the missing Predelay parameter: I agree that this does a lot to separate the direct signal from the cloud the Octo is building up. It helps the effect breathe.

 

There is a workaround though:

• Put a Simple Delay followed by the Octo into Path B (both!).
• Change the Split before them to Split A/B.
• Set Simple Delay's Feedback to 0% and Mix to 100%.
• Set Octo's mix to 100%.

Now use the Split A/B as replacement for the Octo's mix and the Simple Delay's Delay as the missing Predelay.

 

Have fun!