Helix and tube amps in stereo (the Quest continues!)

[ColonelForbin]

This is for the folks (like me!) using Helix with tube amps. Hey ya’all! Wasssup.

I spent my weekend messing with four tube amps –all at once – made possible using a Radial Shotgun to send the signals, and it was glorious!

I got my two amps back at the home studio for now, and my buddy had left his two amps at my place – and I had the house to myself for the whole weekend and was off work Monday so.. yeah; you get the idea.

The Radial thing is key; it can take one signal and send it to four amps, or it can take a stereo signal and send to two pairs. 

Started as simple as could possibly be, given the concept: Guitar > Radial Shotgun > Four Tube Amps. Oh Yeah!!!

The whole polarity / phase reverse thing was a serious eye (ear!) opener. Plus, ground lifts per send. Obviously, these are simple controls. Ground lift, hummmmmm, switch on, silence. Polarity switch: position one, ok…. Position 2, yes! Much better! Or the reverse… It sounded fairly obviously better in one or the other position.

Then I got more complex, connected my pedalboard in 4CM with my amp, stereo delays and reverbs, then used the Radial to send the stereo fx loop signal to the returns of all four amps; two pair. Sweeeeetness. Worked a stereo looper after the stereo FX before the Radial; also much fun.

Anyway, the whole thing got me thinking again about using Helix with my amps; as FX processor and routing center, and looper, etc., and going out to the Radial to clean up the connections and power issues, and be able to feed four amps!

I tried it before without the Radial with two amps; might have been getting phase/polarity issues, I dunno, but I want to revisit the idea though! In particular, run Helix as pedalboard, into both amps’ front inputs, then use both amps fx loop sends back to Helix, process both preamps (in stereo, and/or in parallel?) then back to the two amp’s fx loop returns.

So, is there a way I should be thinking about balancing two amps preamps like this? Helix has a ton of ways to make this happen; obviously.

The main two ways I have come to think of it, would be either merge/blend the preamps after the fx returns to Helix, and then hit the stereo mod/delay/verb, -OR-, run the preamps fx sends into parallel paths so they each get their own set of delays, verbs, etc. You could use the two returns 1 and 2 and assign input of path 2A to return 1 and path 2B to return 2. Though I imagine I will also run short on DSP rather quickly doing this! I suppose some of that could be parallel then merge them back together and use a cool trick of snapshots, expression pedals, etc. to blend the two paths. A/B/Y?

Depending on how many FX you want in front of the amp, vs. in the amp fx loop seems like would determine where the two amp fx loop sends will come back to Helix, in terms of, in path 1 as an fx loop block, or return blocks – perhaps split the end of path 1 so each send/return gets it’s own path, then route the output from path 1A to path 2A, and from 1B to 2B. You can probably work some outboard FX in to path 1 in front of the amps if you want to save some DSP and offload drive pedals to outboard gear. I am thinking of doing this; I have a small pt jr. board with some comps, drives and boosts, and a couple of modulation effects. Would be nice to be able to cut that whole board out of the signal chain when not in use, and would save a ton of DSP!

Anyway, I don’t know when I will get to test this; going to build some scratch presets to see what is possible for routing, then when I get time (and house to myself..) will rig all this up and report back.

 

Cheers!