(High) gain staging

[BBD_123]

11 minutes ago, kylotan said:

It's tiring, and unnecessary, to get insults about this.

 

My comment wasn't an insult, Kylotan. You need to read harder.

[BBD_123]

Kylotan

 

I've had a listen to what you've posted, including the AX vs HX clip and there's a possible solution. Here's an A / B where the only parameter change I made to your original patch was to lower the output block gain from +6dB to the default 0 dB:

 

A  Here is your original Rat into 5150.

 

High Gain Kylo.hlx

 

B  And now with a Path A split.

 

High Gain BBD.hlx

 

To my ears, the rat bite and the 5150 integrate a bit better when the 5150 preamp isn't pushed out of its comfort zone by the pedal. But I didn't turn your pedal settings down in patch B. So best of both worlds, but as ever, YMMV.

 

Hope this helps.

 

[kylotan]

Well, my response to the support ticket was basically as I had expected: "Helix is giving you an accurate representation of the real life gear/ gain staging". This is implicitly saying "Helix is right, Fractal and everyone else is wrong". There's a chance they're correct, but until I hear a clip of the real gear, I'm gonna doubt it. The rep goes on to talk about cab positioning which is clearly irrelevant so I doubt I'm going to make much progress there.

 

I tried the 2 presets line6bbd posted above. The first sounds no better than my previous preset (not sure if it was meant to?). The second sounds 'better', but is tonally quite different from the result I'm expecting. If I pull back the un-distorted signal into the amp relative to the distorted signal, it's back to mush pretty quickly.

 

About the best I can do is pull the Rat gain down to below 1.0, push the level up to 10 to compensate, and then it just about plays nicely into the PV amp. This no longer resembles the settings I use on every other sim with decent results, so it leaves me with the same conclusion I had at the start of this thread, namely that something is wrong with the Helix's internal gain staging.

[BBD_123]

1 hour ago, kylotan said:

tried the 2 presets line6bbd posted above. The first sounds no better than my previous preset (not sure if it was meant to?). The second sounds 'better', but is tonally quite different from the result I'm expecting. If I pull back the un-distorted signal into the amp relative to the distorted signal, it's back to mush pretty quickly.

 

The first (A) is your preset! Sorry, I thought that was clear.

 

The second (B) works best with the A path split at 50 / 50, just as I left it. The problem seems to be that the Rat pushes the front end of the 5150 too hard and causes unmusical distortion. So the obvious (only?) way round this is to use the A path split as shown - you get to keep your Rat settings and you hear something of the pedal's voice through the amp without the excessive distortion that arises from straight serial routing.

 

1 hour ago, kylotan said:

The second sounds 'better', but is tonally quite different from the result I'm expecting.

 

Literally *all* I did was to take your patch and split path A. It is the barest of bare bones. Working with the amp tone stack as well as the Rat might get you closer to where you want to be. As might continuing the patch to its (still absolutely bare bones) conclusion:

 

High Gain BBD 2.hlx

 

Something else I'd consider really carefully is the choice of pedal. The Rat may simply not work with the 5150 (IRL as well as in the Helix modeled environment). As Phil_M suggested quite early on, why not try a different pedal? Like him, I'd suggest starting with the Klon / Minotaur. Crank the tone up a bit and see how you get on.

 

Again, hope this helps.

[BBD_123]

1 hour ago, kylotan said:

About the best I can do is pull the Rat gain down to below 1.0, push the level up to 10 to compensate, and then it just about plays nicely into the PV amp. This no longer resembles the settings I use on every other sim with decent results, so it leaves me with the same conclusion I had at the start of this thread, namely that something is wrong with the Helix's internal gain staging.

 

The problem with this is that the only valid comparison you can make is with the real Rat and 5150. The VSTs you have been using are not going to offer the fidelity of modeling you are getting from Helix, so what you did with them has literally no bearing on how Helix behaves. You don't (IIRC) actually have an AX8, but rather referenced Englund's patches (details unspecified in the clip IIRC) so we don't know exactly what he did. Once again, this invalidates the comparison you are trying to make. All through, this is an apples and oranges situation which simply does not support a strong statement such as 'something is wrong with Hx gain staging'.

[gunpointmetal]

Maybe try dialing it in by how it sounds than by trying to get your numbers to match up.

 

Personal experience with VSTs versus the Helix is that VSTs rarely have comparably accurate knob sweeps as far as "50 on the gain on this VST is exactly the same amount of gain that you get at 5 on the real pedal". 

 

No insults intended, but a Rat into a 5150 or the 2204 sounds like a recipe for harsh mud. There's a reason most guys are using their boost ODs with the gain between 0-2 and then the level goosed into the front of the amp. If I ran my boosts at 50% gain even with the amp models gain at 2 it would be waaaaaay too overdriven. 

 

Just try tweaking by ear versus by #.

[BBD_123]

3 hours ago, gunpointmetal said:

Just try tweaking by ear versus by #.

 

In this spirit, another way to make the 5150 tone explode is to use the LA Comp instead of a distortion pedal:

 

High Gain comp.hlx

 

 

[kylotan]

line6bbd:

"The VSTs you have been using are not going to offer the fidelity of modeling you are getting from Helix" - I don't necessarily agree. Line 6 have done a great job with the Helix but VSTs from smaller developers where they have a focus on single pedals and amps have generally been outperforming general purpose modellers for years. When it comes to this specific permutation I wouldn't be surprised if Helix does a better job on the Rat than the other VSTs, but regarding the 5150 the general talk in the metal tone community is that the Helix's model is not the best. It certainly isn't taking pedals in front the way I'd expect.

 

"only valid comparison you can make is with the real Rat and 5150 [...] this is an apples and oranges situation which simply does not support a strong statement such as 'something is wrong with Hx gain staging". It's my conclusion. It is obviously not your conclusion. :) There isn't enough evidence either way, and I'd love to hear from someone using the actual hardware.

 

"referenced Englund's patches (details unspecified in the clip IIRC) so we don't know exactly what he did" - Ola's patches are downloadable in the description under the video. When using the Helix cab, he's got the Compulsive Drive (gain=1.4, level=7.5) going into the PV (drive=3.0). Both blocks sound reasonable when the other one is disabled, and sound bad together. He has another patch where he used his own IR, and that is the Scream 808 (gain=0, level=10) going into the PV (drive=4.7). That one just sounds pretty bad all round. And this is with overdrives - distortion is sounding even worse, to me.

 

gunpointmetal:

"a Rat into a 5150 or the 2204 sounds like a recipe for harsh mud" - it is meant to be harsh. It is not meant to sound like the typical "zero gain Tube Screamer before the amp". What it's not meant to do is sound fuzzy or like a bitcrusher. Several modellers do exhibit this property, which suggests it is inherent to the chain, but only the Helix does it to such a large amount.

[BBD_123]

2 hours ago, kylotan said:

I don't necessarily agree.

 

You are a bit of a lone voice in this and other respects then.

 

2 hours ago, kylotan said:

It's my conclusion.

 

And it isn't supported by the evidence, as I and others have tried to explain and you yourself agree:

 

3 hours ago, kylotan said:

There isn't enough evidence either way,

 

3 hours ago, kylotan said:

That one just sounds pretty bad all round.

 

Most of Ola's Hx patches sounded bad to me. On the *evidence* I'd say he hasn't cracked dialling in decent high gain Hx tones yet.

 

Just try the LA Comp instead. Ears for the win.

[BBD_123]

A miracle. My screen name has finally changed. Presumably as a result of the recent alterations to the forum software.

 

From the note on my profile page here:

 

When I chose 'line6BBD' I had no idea these forums existed, or that by using this name (chosen purely so I'd remember it) that I could be mistaken for a Line 6 employee. But as I quickly discovered, it is in fact impossible to change the name you used when creating your account. So I'm stuck with Line6BBD. Sorry for any confusion caused...

 

Hopefully I will be BBD_123 from now on. And once again, sorry for any confusion caused.

[pipelineaudio1]

10 hours ago, kylotan said:

line6bbd:

"The VSTs you have been using are not going to offer the fidelity of modeling you are getting from Helix" - I don't necessarily agree. Line 6 have done a great job with the Helix but VSTs from smaller developers where they have a focus on single pedals and amps have generally been outperforming general purpose modellers for years.

gunpointmetal:

"a Rat into a 5150 or the 2204 sounds like a recipe for harsh mud" - it is meant to be harsh. It is not meant to sound like the typical "zero gain Tube Screamer before the amp". What it's not meant to do is sound fuzzy or like a bitcrusher. Several modellers do exhibit this property, which suggests it is inherent to the chain, but only the Helix does it to such a large amount.

 

Without a doubt VSTs can potentially be WORLDS better than the insides of these units....potentially. As you surmised, they can be fanatically anal about a single aspect. Onqel in particular has proved his worth I'd say

 

About the bitrcrusher thing. I hate to be committing Helix blasphemy, but to me there IS a bitcrusher type of sound in the amps themselves. I know, I know, burn me at the stake, but some of the models, used in some ways can really show this. If you want to make a pathological signal chain, you can really hear it. I'm not surprised if certain other processes used in tandem will show it off more than others, but I do believe that the sound you are hearing is actually present in there, though probably in levels not normally enough to worry about, but give it the right chain of events and it becomes apparent, in a way that several VST amp models don't create (but in a way that some indeed do)

[kylotan]

On 5/19/2018 at 1:53 PM, BBD_123 said:

 

And it isn't supported by the evidence, as I and others have tried to explain and you yourself agree:

 

I said there isn't enough evidence. I did however post examples of 5 different modellers/VSTs using very similar paths where Helix was the clear outlier. That is evidence - not proof, but evidence - and whether it's sufficient or not is another matter. I'd like to hear the original hardware to be sure.

 

On 5/19/2018 at 1:53 PM, BBD_123 said:

Just try the LA Comp instead

 

Sounds barely different to me with it on or off. That's not the sound I'm going for. Glad it makes other people happy.

 

 

23 hours ago, pipelineaudio1 said:

Without a doubt VSTs can potentially be WORLDS better than the insides of these units....potentially. As you surmised, they can be fanatically anal about a single aspect. Onqel in particular has proved his worth I'd say

 

Definitely. I only just spotted your previous post about using the TSE Rat sim before the Helix amp. What I find is that the TSE R47 before the PV Panama is pretty bad sounding, but starts to approach being usable if I pull the drive back to 9'o'clock. The other way around - Helix Rat into TSE X50 - it sounds bad in a way I find hard to describe, which is hard to fix without pulling the Vermin gain down low and pushing the level up high.

 

Looking at the metering in Helix Native, the Rat does a lot of attenuation - with Gain and Level both at the half-way mark and Filter at zero, it's taking my roughly -20dB guitar signal and pulling it down to about -45dB. If I have the level below 3 then the output is basically gone entirely! Compare that with the Classic Dist from the Legacy models (so nobody thinks I'm Line 6 bashing!) - drive and output at halfway with filter off gives something like a 4 or 5 dB boost. The Classic Dist is louder on 2% output than the Vermin is on about 25%.

[BBD_123]

15 hours ago, kylotan said:

Sounds barely different to me with it on or off.

 

That explains a lot.

 

15 hours ago, kylotan said:

That's not the sound I'm going for.

 

I think I'll leave you to it, at this point.

 

I'd like to hear the original hardware to be sure.



 

IRL nobody seems to put a Rat in front of a 5150. Perhaps because it sounds dreadful?

[gunpointmetal]

If the output levels are that different just turn it up till it matches the sound. I mean, if you're going for something that sounds like lollipop, running a Rat with the gain on 50 into ANY high-gain amp will get you some lollipop tone.

Dial it in with your ears, not your eyes. It's different gear. Maybe they modeled two different versions of the rat for the different makers? Or maybe the hardware reacts differently to your gear than you computer does?

[kylotan]

Not interested in arguing with the "you shouldn't do that" tone police. Not relevant here.

 

I think I have the answer to my original query, anyway - it seems like most of it is caused by the output level from the Helix Vermin model being far too low, and partly because the PV Panama model has some characteristics that don't sound great in situations where other modellers do okay. I'll work around it.

[gunpointmetal]

Try the Elektrik model, its a "custom" 5150-type model. Might respond differently to the distortion models.

[BBD_123]

4 hours ago, kylotan said:

Not interested in arguing with the "you shouldn't do that" tone police. Not relevant here.

 

 

I think you misunderstand. When I said IRL, that's what I meant - nobody puts a real Rat in front of a real 5150, presumably because it sounds dire. If the Helix is modelling the Rat and 5150 with fidelity, then it too will (and does) sound dreadful when you put the one in front of the other.

[kylotan]

And I'm saying that what "sounds dire" is subjective. If you think putting a compressor in front of an amp is going to achieve what I've been using a distortion for then it's obvious our subjective idea of what is needed here is too different to have a useful discussion.

[BBD_123]

1 hour ago, kylotan said:

And I'm saying that what "sounds dire" is subjective. If you think putting a compressor in front of an amp is going to achieve what I've been using a distortion for then it's obvious our subjective idea of what is needed here is too different to have a useful discussion.

 

As I've said before, you need to read harder. Let's try again:

 

Nobody puts a real Rat in front of a real 5150, presumably because it sounds dire.

 

Maybe what you are trying to do neither works with real kit nor with a good quality model of real kit.

 

Therefore you may need to try a different pedal.

 

Do you understand now?

[BBD_123]

It's also possible that the sound in your head isn't actually achievable by any means. Since you have never provided an example of what you are trying to achieve, it's impossible to know whether or not it can be done, or if it can, to assess whether or not you are going about it the wrong way.

[steelstringer]

You might try the Kinky Boost (gain - 0, boost - on, bright - on) into a Minotaur (gain-3, tone -4, level - 6) into your high gain amp of choice (gain around 3-4, master around 5-7). This works well, and it doesn't change the tone/character of the amp as drastically as the Rat or Screamer. I was so excited to try the Rat into the JCM 800 model when I got the Helix, and it just doesn't sound great to me. Just a suggestion...