I put a fuzz in my chain and the sound went dull

[givemeacent]

I believe this has already been discussed in another form, however, today I would like to maybe bring it up as this might be something a new person that has not seen the other threads might be confused about.

 

(The fuzz is always disabled by the way, not turned on when describing these symptoms)*

 

I had a great chain on both paths a and b. Yesterday I decided to add a fuzz, Arbitrator fuzz, to mess with. I was using headphones, it wasn't obvious to me the sound had changed. I went to go play at church where I normally play, still didn't notice because I play really loud anyways to begin with.

 

I went home to practice. I noticed how low my volume was on my practice amp, didn't think much of it. Then I thought about making a new signal chain to come up with new ideas. The moment I went to a new blank preset, all the clarity and volume came back. My amp sounded great again, good strong volume, very nice clean and clear signal.

 

I began testing things between my old preset and new blank preset. I found out that, if I delete the fuzz, arbitrator fuzz, on my old preset, the volume comes back with all the shimmer and greatness on the amp. So then what I did was, on the new blank preset, I added that fuzz. The sound went dull and low. So then I remembered that old thread and I started messing with the guitar input block. With the fuzz still there, if I changed the setting on the input block from "low z" to a much higher "ohm" setting, basically the further to the right the slider went, the better the sound came back, up until 230 ohm, I have a strat, and at 1m ohm the sounded became to crisp and brittle.

 

So based on that other thread I read, if you add a fuzz, you need to tweak this impedance setting on the input block if you don't want the sound going flat and dull.

[mkornell]

Yup. The only problem with that is that the fuzzes usually work best at low impedance settings. You want a low impedance when the fuzz is engaged and a high(er) impedance when it is being bypassed. And the Helix doesn't do it that way.

 

There were a couple of threads here talking about that issue last week...

[duncann]

If you don't use snapshots and only need two impedance values, you could tie the input impedance parameter to the same switch the fuzz is on. If you need more than two impedance values, snapshots would be the way to go.

[ManM1972]

I had a art eq that  I Bought for a different set up few years ago  

 just plugged in the loop before my velocity amp did a couple of cuts and that works for 90% of my

Patches  

 

The first distortion pedal I owned was a art it had some sort of noise gate built in it. I never needed a  gate because of that pedal,,,,,  finally died though

Had a flood in the basement a month ago I believe it was 20 years old

[brettchinery]

I had this issue too when the fuzz is first in the chain - the work-around is to programme the same button you use to turn the fuzz on and off to also change the impedance setting - I have it as auto when the fuzz is on and 1m when it is off  

[Joepeggio]

I had this issue too when the fuzz is first in the chain - the work-around is to programme the same button you use to turn the fuzz on and off to also change the impedance setting - I have it as auto when the fuzz is on and 1k when it is off

Do you meam 1M? I hope Line 6 fixes this.

[brettchinery]

Do you meam 1M? I hope Line 6 fixes this.

Yes - sorry, meant to type 1m

[Digital_Igloo]

Do you meam 1M? I hope Line 6 fixes this.

There's nothing to fix. You can set the Guitar In's impedance manually, have it automatically change to match the first block on path 1A, assign its value to a footswitch, assign its value to a snapshot, and/or assign its value to a preset. The only thing Helix doesn't do is dynamically go down the line of 32 blocks and compensate for every possible combination of block bypasses, which, as we've discussed, would slow preset switching and cause minor audible clicks every time certain blocks are turned on and off.

[givemeacent]

It's true, I don't think this is something to be fixed. But definitely something more people should know about. I am happy that I was able to quickly find out what had happened to my sound and not become frustrated like I am sure other people would get.

[FlyingsCool]

There's nothing to fix. You can set the Guitar In's impedance manually, have it automatically change to match the first block on path 1A, assign its value to a footswitch, assign its value to a snapshot, and/or assign its value to a preset. The only thing Helix doesn't do is dynamically go down the line of 32 blocks and compensate for every possible combination of block bypasses, which, as we've discussed, would slow preset switching and cause minor audible clicks every time certain blocks are turned on and off.

 

Thanks for discussing this (again).  We sometimes know not the consequences of that which we ask...

[Joepeggio]

Didn't catch that part of the discussion with the artifact noise etc... That could be bad.

 

I'm curious how the other companies that claim to use the first active block impedance deal with it. Do they have a pause in the switching, like preset change? Which is unacceptable IMO.

[phil_m]

Didn't catch that part of the discussion with the artifact noise etc... That could be bad.

 

I'm curious how the other companies that claim to use the first active block impedance deal with it. Do they have a pause in the switching, like preset change? Which is unacceptable IMO.

 

People just have to deal with the pops... I've seen posts on the Fractal forums where people have complained about pops when they turn a wah on, for instance, and the input impedance changing abruptly is the culprit.

[zooey]

There's nothing to fix. You can set the Guitar In's impedance manually, have it automatically change to match the first block on path 1A, assign its value to a footswitch, assign its value to a snapshot, and/or assign its value to a preset. The only thing Helix doesn't do is dynamically go down the line of 32 blocks and compensate for every possible combination of block bypasses, which, as we've discussed, would slow preset switching and cause minor audible clicks every time certain blocks are turned on and off.

I don't mean to be argumentative, and of course you know something about Helix internals and firmware and I completely don't, but I don't get those logics, especially the "every possible combination" part...

• With all the complex and horsepower-demanding audio-rate stuff Helix does, checking in signal-chain order for the first enabled block and using its impedance doesn't seem like a huge cpu drain, or that intense to code
• Far as clicks and switching delay go, we can already control the same impedance-changing circuitry via any of the mechanisms you mentioned, so the side effects of doing that can't be that horrible
• A global setting for whether Helix should try to do any of this would let users who find any downsides objectionable opt out, back to the world as is its today

The only flies I see in that ointment (outside of priority juggling, about which no comment) are:

• The two paths might be in parallel
  • Just doubles the (I hypothesize) fairly trivial first-active-block calculation, and adds the basic math to combine them
• There might be splits and merges, some of which may mix between two blocks, possibly dynamically
  • This is the only real conundrum in my book, and might be why you're backing away from this whole thing
  • I personally think it could get short-circuited by some simplified logic, for instance maybe, if the first-active-block logic hits a block like this without finding one...
    • Pick the higher impedance of the two blocks, or the lower of them, L6 to experiment and decide
    • Average them
    • Give up and use the input block impedance
  • In any case, I'd hate to see this whole basically simple train of thought get derailed by that one tricky topology

Make sense?

[Joepeggio]

^^^^^^ this.

 

Or just "bypass" the impedance of the extreme effects, ie Arbiter Fuzz, etc.

 

Changing from 1M to 500k may not be enough to worry about, but the Fuzz Face with <10k is extreme (Not sure what Helix actually goes to)

 

Again, maybe just deal with the extreme effects.