Old Tube Drive (not the HD version, the old one) from the Firehawk vs the new Valve Driver model on the Helix

[phillips21d]

Did anyone else come from a Firehawk and use the old Tube Drive stompbox (not the HD one, but the old one) and find that the Valve driver in the Helix (both of which I believe are meant to model a Chandler Tube Driver) doesn't sound anything like it at all?  I'm a worship leader for my church and that Tube Drive was the core of the tone that I used for pretty much everything I played.  It was extremely responsive to how hard you picked the strings so you could easily go from completely clean, picking it light, to pretty well cooked when you dug into the strings which was amazing for what I used it for and I didn't have to do much pedal dancing because it gave me such a range of tone just from my pick.  I recently upgraded to the Helix excited for the options I had to work with in using multiple delays and reverbs and play with the signal chain some more, but I can't seem to build even the basic tone on the Helix that I had from the Firehawk, which is frustrating.  I also used one of the line 6 amp models, the Line 6 21st Century Clean after the Tube Drive and it is described by line 6 as this:

 

 Line 6 21st Century Clean â€“ To create this Amp Model, we essentially grafted the preamp and tone stack of a JC120 (Roland’s popular “Jazz Chorus†solid state combo) onto the power amp and transformer of a classic Marshall® JTM-45 tube head, thereby giving you the crisp and clear front end typical of a solid state amp, but with a rich, satisfying tube amp-style bite as you turn it up.

 

The Helix doesn't have this as an amp and doesn't seem to be able to let me create it by stacking a preamp onto a poweramp like they did in the Firehawk model.  This isn't as necessary to the sound I had as the Tube Drive was, but I'm surprised that in my "upgrade" to the Helix I seem to have lost some of the options that made me love line 6.

 

The closest I've been able to come to a similar sound as far as the Tube Drive model goes is using an Essex A-30 (AC30) with the drive up between 5 and 7, but I can't seem to get as clean as I'd like when I play lightly or as edgy as I'd like when I pick hard like I did on the Firehawk.  I also tend to get pretty shrill high end when playing full open chords or triads up a ways on the neck which I never had before with the Firehawk.

 

Any chance the old original line 6 model of the Tube Drive stompbox could be brought back into the Helix and also the option of grafting pre-amp to power amps?

 

Anyone else had similar issues or ideas of what to try?  Thanks!

 

 

[ADBrown]

The Essex A-30 being a class A designed power amp will get into mild break up territory quicker than class AB stuff, but you won't be able to push it as far either. You could try and get close to the "21st Century Clean" model by using more than one amp model in Helix. Try the Jazz Rivet on path 1A and a Plexi model on 1B, put the Valve Driver before the split or possibly only in front of the plexi. 

[jbuhajla]

I play exclusively P&W at my Church. Those models are not in the Helix, but I have found a good combination of having something sound "clean" then breaks up nicely when digging in, and stacking light overdrives on top can really put it over the edge. My main preset is based around the Litigator amp model, two cabinets in parallel (one for dry, one for wet), ES Compressor, EP Boost, Timmy OD and a few different delays and reverbs. I play mainly Tele or Strat. 

 

If you find yourself getting frustrated, shoot me a message and I can email you my goto preset to try out as a reference. 

[zooey]

For an amp that cleans up with guitar volume down and/or light picking, but responds very nicely when you hit it harder -- without changing settings -- check out the new Derailed Ingrid (Trainwreck).

[phillips21d]

Thanks for the replies!  I'll try out some of the amp recommendations you guys gave and see what I can come up with.  I appreciate you taking the time to help me out!