MojoAxe Posted November 28, 2017 Share Posted November 28, 2017 I've had my Helix for six months now and sadly I've hardly used it, mainly because I haven't found the time to set up all of the patches I need to cover my band's setlist. I've used a Boss GT-100 for years and I have a good twenty-five or so dedicated patches that I use to cover songs ranging from the Beatles to Miranda Lambert to Lady GaGa. Its obvious that the Helix is a superior unit and I've had all intentions of recreating the patches within the Helix so that I could begin using but, I just haven't gotten around to it. A few weeks ago a friend of mine asked if I could come over to play guitar tracks for a singer he's helping out. My first instinct was to grab the GT-100, but instead I decided to jump into the water with the Helix. He said he wanted to do an alternate version of Love Potion #9, but I didn't know exactly what he had in mind, so I ended up creating a patch on the fly once we had run though the song a couple of times and I had a feel for it. In my head I wanted a dark-sounding tone and with little effort got exactly the tone I wanted. The chain of effects is pretty straight-forward, consisting of:Scream 808 Overdrive > LA Studio Compressor > US Deluxe Vib (clean setting) > Optical Tremelo > '63 Spring Reverb and Simple Delay (in parallel). The clean chords are played with only the Deluxe Vib and Reverb active. I created a snapshot that added the overdrive, the compressor, the tremelo, and the delay, which I used for the lead parts as well as the distorted chords in the background (with the guitar's volume backed off a bit. The signal was fed into a mic'd Fender Blues Junior with the volume, bass, and treble all set on about 3 which seemed to give a fairly flat response. We recorded the song live with me playing clean rhythm and the middle solo, then I added a track with the opening solo, dirty rhythm, and the ending solo. Like I said, I had a tone in my head and I was able to create rather quickly on the Helix. This really has me motivated to find the time to build all of the patches I need and shelve the GT-100 once and for all. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themetallikid Posted November 28, 2017 Share Posted November 28, 2017 I just last night sat down and set up some basic patches on my Boss GT 100 for use at practice only....man what a pain in the lollipop and the tones are nothing compared to what I can get in 3-5 minutes on the Helix. Night and Day difference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbuhajla Posted November 28, 2017 Share Posted November 28, 2017 Great tone! Most times, simple is better in terms of preset complexity. I find myself often just using an overdrive pedal, amp/cab,and reverb only. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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