JimDiGritz Posted May 19, 2018 Share Posted May 19, 2018 I'm pretty inexperienced with making Presets on the Helix and am struggling with the Leslie West / Mountain Tone as in Mississippi Queen. I've had a go but just can't get the tone dialled in.... According to most sources (eg: https://www.guitarplayer.com/players/leslie-west-decodes-his-mississippi-queen-tone and https://uk.line6.com/data/6/0a0643392bdc57b744bb9359f/application/pdf) Leslie used a Sunn Coliseum P.A. head and four 4x12 cabinets - the Sunn is Solid State and as I understand it it wasn't designed as a guitar amp.. I'm struggling to figure out a good Helix patch for this - and quite surprisingly my search for a pre-made tone to reverse engineer has come up blank! My real world knowledge of amps is very limited and I'm not sure any of the amps in the Helix are even solid state! Any tips or thoughts appreciated! James PS I'm willing to shell out a few $'s on a commercial patch if I have to..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soundog Posted May 19, 2018 Share Posted May 19, 2018 Great vintage tone, that! Without his pickups you'll need a good distortion pedal and (perhaps) a LoneStar amp model. Might be easier to find some Cream patches for Helix for a start? Just found a bunch of old youtube videos of Leslie West, but its hard to see if he is using any sort of stomp boxes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimDiGritz Posted May 19, 2018 Author Share Posted May 19, 2018 Thanks soundog - this is as close as I can get https://uk.line6.com/customtone/tone/3849005/ I'll have a play with some other early 70s patches! Jim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rvroberts Posted May 19, 2018 Share Posted May 19, 2018 I’m just going to say that the amp was not solid state. The first article say it had KT88 tubes. Nothing that old pretty much was solid state. “The KT88 is based on the 6550 but even more refined and boosted. It has even less distortion and an even cleaner tone then the 6L6 or even the 6550. It isn’t used in guitar amps as often as it is in hi-fi audio amps, but that being said, I know a few guys who totally swear by the KT88. I love the KT88 in a super-clean amp for maximum clarity, definition and chime or in an amp that’s got so much gain and power on tap that I want to clear up the tone. In other words, I use the KT88 instead of the 6550 (which seems to be the to-go tube for those kind of applications!).” So, you would imagine most of his overdrive was coming from overloading a valve mic preamp. Some further investigation might tell you which valves were in the preamp, and that might be useful, but I think what I’d get from that is a almost clean power section being driven just enough to to round out a seriously overdriven preamp. Dont know if Amy of that will help, but I mostly wanted to make sure you weren’t thinking solid state! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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