Vocal FX

[cultivator]

Hello! Question to the developers.
What is the chance for full-fledged vocal effects to appear in helix? Such as deesser (the most important), harmony, doubling, choir, autotune, vocoder, gender-change, anti-feedback. Without them, he is no good for singing.

TC Helicon voicelive 3 looks more interesting.

 

[DunedinDragon]

As with any product, the chances of anything being added will be based on demand for the feature.  That's one of the main reasons Line 6 uses IdeaScale as a way to measure how much demand there is for a given feature.  Given that the vast majority of customers of the Helix are more interested in guitar related features than vocal features, I'm not sure this would be an area that would generate a lot of interest.  But you never know.  Submit it to IdeaScale and see how the users vote on it.

[Ed_Saxman]

I think the anti-feedback would be the most interesting feature to add.

Recently I have bought an Stagesource L2T and his anti-feedback feature works really well, but I lose it when using my mic connected to the Helix Floor and then to the L2T via L6 Link. Not having that feature in the Helix makes the L2T even dangerous to your ears, using certain effects with the mic.

 

As a previous VL3 Extreme user (sold to finance a Helix Floor), I have to say that there was no anti-feedback feature either.

In addition, I wasn't happy with the VL3. It has a obnoxius latency, probably due to a 10 years old DSP, and the worst of all: they have a high failure rate and a very poor post-sale technical support where you have to send your machine overseas to repair it.

The harmony features are limited to basic harmonies (triads or 7th chords) with poor tracking capabilities (dont try to play chords with some tensions, it doesnt work).

It was a machine with interesting ideas inside, with better external MIDI implementation than Helix, though.

But overall, it wasn't for me.

 

I would like L6 to develop a kind of vocal pack, it would be very useful for many of us, but since half of the Helix line doesn't have mic input (Helix LT, HX Effects) I find it quite unlikely.

 

 

 

[ADBrown]

The best place to get your feature request seen by product managers is to post them on ideascale. On ideascale you can post and vote on enduser feature/product requests.

 

https://line6.ideascale.com/

[soundog]

There have been a couple of similar requests on IdeaScale. This one https://line6.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Voicelive-type-vocal-processing/772456-23508#idea-tab-comments has the most votes by far (214). Better to pool the votes rather than create a new request and split them. You can also add your ideas to the existing idea.

 

BTW, the older TC Helicon devices are better than the new ones, and can be had for cheap in the used market. They seem to have taken an odd turn towards trying to make rap beatbox loopers you can mount on a mic stand, and they cut costs so the processing power is diminished.

[jbuhajla]

On 4/3/2018 at 6:36 AM, Ed_Saxman said:

I think the anti-feedback would be the most interesting feature to add.

Recently I have bought an Stagesource L2T and his anti-feedback feature works really well, but I lose it when using my mic connected to the Helix Floor and then to the L2T via L6 Link. Not having that feature in the Helix makes the L2T even dangerous to your ears, using certain effects with the mic.

 

 

You could route a separate output (XLR or 1/4") from Helix with your mic signal to the L2T. Then use Link for all other signals. 

[cultivator]

Thank! I registered at the ideascale, and gave my vote.

[Ed_Saxman]

On 4/4/2018 at 4:24 PM, jbuhajla said:

You could route a separate output (XLR or 1/4") from Helix with your mic signal to the L2T. Then use Link for all other signals. 

 

Good idea! Although I can see some inconveniences doing so:

 

— The L6 Link provides effective isolation against ground/electrical noise (in my experience)

— The volume using the L2T analog inputs seems to sound noticeably lower than using the L6 Link digital input.

— This implies an additional D/A + A/D conversion

 

Still, this is definitely something I have to try, thank you!

[Grazoner]

 

On 4/3/2018 at 10:38 AM, cultivator said:

Hello! Question to the developers.
What is the chance for full-fledged vocal effects to appear in helix? Such as deesser (the most important),

 

Hi, I'm brand new to the helix but I have a pro recording background. 
You have a multi (3) band compressor in Dynamics. You should be able to set the low and mid band up so they do nothing and then tweak the hi band to clamp on esses.

It's not quite the functionality of a deesser, and it's a shelf rather than a bell curve - but it will get you into that zone and may be usable for your proposes.

I agree though, a dedicated deesser has FAR more cool uses than just taking spit out of a vocal and should be implemented, esp. as there's a mic input here.

[craiganderton]

You're correct that a de-esser uses compression to clamp down on the highs. It's basically dynamic equalization. However, most commercial de-essers use a notch filter, to zero in on the offending frequency. Clamping down on the entire high end could (but not necessarily!) cause the audio to sound dull. 

 

With Helix, using a parametric stage set to a notch that's tuned to the ess frequency may be more effective. The problem is you lose those frequencies regardless of whether or not there's an ess sound, but the frequencies above it remain intact, which may be good enough.

 

In the studio, I use Helix Native quite a bit as a vocal processor. It has "guitar" functionality that other vocal processors don't have. 

[weitzhandler]

Yes please add auto-tune! It's super essential to me too!

[datacommando]

On 2/19/2025 at 6:21 PM, weitzhandler said:

Yes please add auto-tune! It's super essential to me too!

Hmm… a couple of years after the original post, you’re making a request for Auto-Tune.
 

Well, if you read through the thread, you should realise that no Line 6 staff monitor this forum, and they seldom visit this user group. Requests for new features should be posted on IdeaScale.

 

I’m also wondering, if this is “super essential” to you, how are you managing to function right now? Plus, what will you do until, or if, it is ever implemented, which I seriously doubt this far down the line. It’s a guitar processor with Send/Return sockets for adding dedicated external processing.

 

Hope this helps/makes sense.