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Swell not that swelll?


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I had been waiting for it.... you needed it for ambient sounds..... the auto swell!

I am finding that sometimes it doesn't swell as well as for example the X3 swell used to do. i get a lot of attack even in not so fast phrases.... I have been working for it an hour of so and only thing i see it sort of works is to reduce the release to 1ms... but still you get the odd attack note that hasn't been swelled... again in slow playing mode...

 

Any help?

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In my brief try of this effect, my impression is basically the same as yours. I was hoping for something more along lines of the auto-volume delay from the HD, or the Boss Slow Gear.

 

I think the problem might be the use of a threshold, instead of the effect being trigger by an actual note being plucked. I don't know, maybe I just haven't found the right settings yet, but right now it has limited use, and depends too much on what's being played musically. The new delay swells are pretty much the same way.

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You have to set the attack time pretty high to get the sort of pronounced effect I think your wanting. Between that and the threshold, you should get more in that territory. It takes some tweaking. I worked with them a little during testing to help tweak this. I was able to get it pretty close to the Autoswell setting on my Möbius eventually.

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Tried that too but still not getting the goodness.... threshold seems backwards ... it gates from a level where is should be a reverse gate... gating high volume and letting lower volume pass.

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I can get some decent sounding swells from this block, but these decent settings (with a very low decay), once dialed in, are linked to a specific pickup. Change the pickup, say from a single coil to double coil, or neck to bridge, and the same settings don't work anymore. These good settings can also depend on how hard or soft you strike the string.

 

Another problem is a note can be suddenly cut off. So if you want to sustain a note (multiple seconds), you'll have to increase the decay time. But alas, doing that destroys the swell. So no note sustaining while using this block. This limits what you can do musically.

 

It's seems the implementation of this effect could be better, unless I'm completely misunderstanding what this effect is.

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I have a hard time dialing in the auto swell too. I find I have to Palm mute all strings between notes to get the swell to work like I expect when I manually swell with my pinkie finger on guitar vol knob. Then the trick is to use a long reverb or delay after it to act like sustain...

 

My settings with my Baja tele are

Threshold -65, offset -39, attack 3s, decay 71ms, taper linear...

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I found some new factory presets that utilize the autoswell feature, usually in conjunction with a delay.  I'd suggest taking a look at those and reverse engineering what's been done there, it's what I plan to do when I have time to explore this new feature.  :)

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Secret Travel is a good patch to start. I ended up putting an amp in front of the AutoSwell and adjusted threshshold to about -40 , Rel offset to -5 (have no idea what this is)...Attack to about 1.1 S and decay around 150-330 ms and linear. a couple delays after that make it pad glory. That particular preset is overload as is and doesn't seem to tweak the autoswell correctly for me as is but it was a good starting point.

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I'm having a rough time setting it up too. What presets have the effect? I think they released it before it was ready.

 

A Swell Time. And the one mentioned above, Secret Travel. Both are in factory 2. Only two I've found, but I didn't look at them all. Secret Travel is interesting, but the swell effect isn't why; it's littered with delays.

 

I think you're right in that it was released before being ready, or worse, and I hate to say it, maybe it's just poorly designed. The way it is now, I don't I think I'd find much use for it all. I was really looking forward to this effect. Oh well.

 

I fired up the HD to refresh my memory of what its auto-volume is like. Way better. Simple. And does exactly what you think it would do. The only thing missing from it is the ability to adjust the swell time for being longer, thinking second(s).

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I was hoping (probably unrealistically) that the swell effect would have a long enough attack time that it would perform duty as the automation effect I wished for on Ideascale.

 

         Automation       

 

For the average "swell" effect I realize that 20-30 seconds is overkill, but it would work for gradually bringing in a parallel effect chain. 

 

I'll keep wishing...

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A Swell Time. And the one mentioned above, Secret Travel. Both are in factory 2. Only two I've found, but I didn't look at them all. Secret Travel is interesting, but the swell effect isn't why; it's littered with delays.

 

I think you're right in that it was released before being ready, or worse, and I hate to say it, maybe it's just poorly designed. The way it is now, I don't I think I'd find much use for it all. I was really looking forward to this effect. Oh well.

 

I fired up the HD to refresh my memory of what its auto-volume is like. Way better. Simple. And does exactly what you think it would do. The only thing missing from it is the ability to adjust the swell time for being longer, thinking second(s).

 

I'm not sure why, but I don't have either of those presets and I've done the update. I've got all the new amps and effects.

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I'm not sure why, but I don't have either of those presets and I've done the update. I've got all the new amps and effects.

 

Have you done the global reset? That's the only reason why I can think those presets wouldn't show up.

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I agree with you all.., the auto swell is far from what I hoped to see, like the boss slow gear, and not very useful as it is now! Luckily I still have something workable on my GR-55 (Good Old Boss ;-)) Hopefully line 6 will get it right in the next update  :unsure: 

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Unfortunately I have to agree with the general feeling in this thread... I would much rather have an auto-swell effect that's simpler, more musically useful, and forgiving/easy to dial in, like the one in the HD500.

 

Is there a particular reason not to just port or recreate the one in the HD series?

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I have. I'll try again. Thanks.

 

 

When restoring presets with the Helix app after the update, you may have restored your entire bundle including ALL presets/setlists, rather than just your custom presets/setlists. This would have replaced the new 2.20 factory presets with the older pre-2.20 ones.

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Spent some time tonight trying everything to get happy with the auto swell pedal.  In the end it does ok, but not sure it will be replacing the volume pedal for swells. 

 

 

Thanks for trying and sharing Chuskey. Yes I agree, the new fx is a bit complicated to dial in and is not getting me where I want to be, like the sound in my 'slowgear' guitar solo in this animation film (if you don't like ambient music skip to 5:22)

 

 

 

Maybe I have to spend more time with it, if not..., I still have my GR-55 to do the job, so not a big deal ;-)

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No inside information, but it makes sense to me that Release Offset defines when in the sound envelope relative to the trigger threshold the decay starts?

Setting it lower would give the more of the natural decay and a small increase in decay should eliminate the chopped off effect

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I've had some luck with auto-swell.  Based on several recommendations here:

 

1.  The Rel Offset is important.  I have mine set at -5 (minus 5).

2.  I've placed the auto-swell AND ducked delay after the amp and cabs. Ed: the delay is important as explained in Chuskey's video.

 

3.  Here are my settings:

 

Threshold -60

Rel Offset -5

Attack 2.8 

Decay 1.0 ms

Taper Logarithmic

Level +7

 

Even so, every once in a while it seems to forget that it's on.  I can't predict when that'll happen, playing softly, loudly, with pick, with fingers, wearing a hat, eyes closed.

 

I have a hunch that it's a bug or a misconception in the design but I really don't know.

 

The sound I'm after is on the Line 6 DL-4 and the Line 6 M5/M13 so I know they know how to do it.

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I have a hunch that it's a bug or a misconception in the design but I really don't know.

 

The sound I'm after is on the Line 6 DL-4 and the Line 6 M5/M13 so I know they know how to do it.

Yeah, you would think if one effect would be easy to build, it would be an auto volume swell. But then again, I don't write code for effects modeling. 

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I just updated and this is the first new block I tried. I tried the settings suggested on this thread and nothing was making it for me. I still don't know if this thing is just not very intuitive or it just doesn't work right, but so far I can't see it beating a good old fashioned volume pedal for the desired effect. Oh well!

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...had fun with this yesterday for a while...still not exactly sure what the Rel Offset does. But with attack and decay set very low(fast) I was able to get a good VH Cathedral sound. Turned the attack up and got close to Metallica Damage inc. intro. I'm just a basement guitarist.... so perfection is only in my ears. Using a lot of palm muting seems to help individual notes.

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Here is the trick: The Auto Swell detects signal by the time you pres down the chord in your left hand and that lollipops up the hole thing. 

I have had great luck by placing a pretty radical Hard Gate right before the Auto Swell... This help the block understand when you play and when you dont. 

But I will have to agree: The autoswell in the M-series was way more useful ! (!). 
The old one would react if you played a new note at higher velocity than the one you were already sustaining... I dont think this block is able to do the same thing :/ 

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  • 3 months later...
i have to agree, i too, uses this kind of sound and its kind of poor

the main problem is that, only the first note is slow attacked and the next one dosent.

only if i silent my guitar the next note will get the slow attack correctly

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i have to agree, i too, uses this kind of sound and its kind of poor
the main problem is that, only the first note is slow attacked and the next one dosent.
only if i silent my guitar the next note will get the slow attack correctly

 

That is how they work. The gate has to shut when you mute the note so that it knows when a new note is being articulated. 

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  • 3 years later...

I'm having similar issues on m y Pod Go - which i'm sure is running off the same code.

Yes I've experienced far better results in vintage line6 kit, as well as other multi fx.

Unfortunately envelope control always seems to be an afterthought on multifx,. but this is by far the worst - which is a bit devastating as it's an integral part of much of my sound.  I really couldn't believe it could be screwed up this badly, and now we're talking  what - 4 years on from the original post? And apparently no improvement.

Also surprising the complete lack of info on the parameters of many of  - particularly the more interesting  - effects  - reverse delays, pitch etc - really line6 - how hard would it be to get that right?  After fixing the bugs that is.

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