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Overdrive in front


grindking111
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Does anyone run a physical overdrive pedal in front of the input?  When I ran it through a loop (first in the chain), it made an ungodly amount of noise.  Running in front sounds fantastic.  Now of course it's on all the time.  So if you run an external pedal, how do you turn it off at channel switch without tap dancing (something an all inclusive helix-like unit is supposed to eliminate)?

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I use a Catalinbread SFT(a deadly foundation overdrive pedal) in one of my loops to emulate Josh Homme(QOTSA) tone and never have a problem with noise, other than the wanted distortion it does so very well. Plus, putting it in one of the loops allows you to move it anywhere in the chain. Maybe it is a grounding issue?

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OK - I'm going to say something here and I'm betting a lot of you are going to disagree..........

I don't miss any of my old overdrive pedals!  I'm totally happy to use the internal drive pedals.  I'm always suspicious that people having problems with overdrive in the Helix have not fixed the basic issue of setting their high and low cuts to get great sound in the first place - not saying this applies to you.

What I do think is that the overdrives included are great simulations of the pedals out there. If I want something different, it's probably something I can build using 2 overdrives together and say some EQ on those pedals.  It's never failed me..................

Just my opinion.

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I have recently been trying my pedalboard with the LT . I have a mini TS, ZW overdrive,MI Audio SCB and a Carl Martin Plexitone drive pedals connected to a a G-LAB GSC-4 Midi switcher. The Minotaur and tubescreamer in the helix are superb and if I didn't have any other pedals I could totally get by no dramas.But for distortions I prefer the MIAB varieties I have into the US Deluxe

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It's worth noting that some of the overdrive models do weird things with the gain. I was seeing the Vermin attenuate the signal by about 20dB, which I've never seen a real-world overdrive pedal do.

 

Regarding getting a lot of 'noise' when using the OD in a loop, I'd agree with the comments that suggest that it was probably set to the wrong level. I'd start with having it on minimal drive and attempting to get roughly the same output whether the send/return blocks are on or not by adjusting the line/instrument choice and any other gain parameters on the block, and once I'd got that, then I'd adjust the tonal settings of the pedal to taste.

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7 hours ago, rvroberts said:

OK - I'm going to say something here and I'm betting a lot of you are going to disagree..........

I don't miss any of my old overdrive pedals!  I'm totally happy to use the internal drive pedals.  I'm always suspicious that people having problems with overdrive in the Helix have not fixed the basic issue of setting their high and low cuts to get great sound in the first place - not saying this applies to you.

What I do think is that the overdrives included are great simulations of the pedals out there. If I want something different, it's probably something I can build using 2 overdrives together and say some EQ on those pedals.  It's never failed me..................

Just my opinion.

I agree. The only thing I outboard is a talkbox because I have to.

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On 6/26/2018 at 8:35 PM, grindking111 said:

Does anyone run a physical overdrive pedal in front of the input?  When I ran it through a loop (first in the chain), it made an ungodly amount of noise.  Running in front sounds fantastic.  Now of course it's on all the time.  So if you run an external pedal, how do you turn it off at channel switch without tap dancing (something an all inclusive helix-like unit is supposed to eliminate)?

I did once modify a Blackstar overdrive pedal by adding an extra jacksocket wired to the pedal switch, so I could use the channel switching capabilities of a g-system. You could try this with the Helix.

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Do you have the HX effects or the full helix?

 

Not sure if this an actual issue from your post but...

 

Some of the earlier HX effects were made with out of spec parts and resulted in the effects loops making horrible noise with certain combinations. Mine only did it with my brothers pedal. There is a post somewhere on here about it from line 6. If that is your issue they will cover repairs and shipping and for me they got it back in less than a week after I shipped it (Shipped Thursday, received it back Tuesday)

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