nateweeks83 Posted July 26, 2018 Share Posted July 26, 2018 Hey guys, ive had my Helix for several months now and love it. My only complaint is and am wondering if you can give me some advice on is this: When I am playing clean and on some presets it’s worse than others the volume is barely audible when I’m picking very lightly or if I’m using my fingers. It’s like the dynamic range is either off or on. If I hit a string lightly it barely sounds but if I pick harder it goes right to almost 100. Is the Helix lacking dynamics or am I missing a crucial setting? It doesn’t matter if I have a compressor on or off. I see this as possibly being trouble in a live setting. Anyone else ever experience this? And if so can you shoot me some advice? thanks in advance guys! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brue58ski Posted July 26, 2018 Share Posted July 26, 2018 Hard to diagnose without seeing each patch. Is your noise gate on and if it is, what happens when you turn it off? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruisinon2 Posted July 26, 2018 Share Posted July 26, 2018 8 hours ago, nateweeks83 said: Hey guys, ive had my Helix for several months now and love it. My only complaint is and am wondering if you can give me some advice on is this: When I am playing clean and on some presets it’s worse than others the volume is barely audible when I’m picking very lightly or if I’m using my fingers. It’s like the dynamic range is either off or on. If I hit a string lightly it barely sounds but if I pick harder it goes right to almost 100. Is the Helix lacking dynamics or am I missing a crucial setting? Well from the description, you seem to be suffering from an overabundance of dynamics...;) It's gonna be hard to diagnose without looking at the patch(es) in question. Is there a noise gate? Maybe the one in the input block is turned on? Till we know what's there, we can only guess. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nateweeks83 Posted July 26, 2018 Author Share Posted July 26, 2018 Thanks for the responses. is there any way to upload my patch(es) so you can take a look or should I snap some pictures? how is the dynamic range on your guys Helix? is it really touch sensitive? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nateweeks83 Posted July 26, 2018 Author Share Posted July 26, 2018 P.s the noise gate is on. If it’s off I have wicked hum. Maybe from the crummy electrical in my current apartment. but it also happens when Ive tried to play through it at church....good electric there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruisinon2 Posted July 26, 2018 Share Posted July 26, 2018 6 minutes ago, nateweeks83 said: P.s the noise gate is on. If it’s off I have wicked hum. Well that could certainly be part of it... if you have the threshold set too high, it could easily choke everything off unless you're really banging on the strings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
datacommando Posted July 26, 2018 Share Posted July 26, 2018 (edited) On 7/26/2018 at 4:19 PM, nateweeks83 said: Thanks for the responses. is there any way to upload my patch(es) so you can take a look or should I snap some pictures? how is the dynamic range on your guys Helix? is it really touch sensitive? Hi nateweeks83, If you want to upload a patch here, you will need to click on the word "Quote" under this reply to you. It will open a response section were you can type your reply. Also there is a symbol of a paperclip and Drag files here to attach, or choose files... That is where you can upload you sample file. I will attach an example here to show you it works. Edited September 1, 2020 by datacommando Removed file - low on space Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nateweeks83 Posted July 26, 2018 Author Share Posted July 26, 2018 Datacommando, thank you man! I will upload a patch tonight after work. I really appreciate the help! Hopefully someone will be able to identify an issue with my setup! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brue58ski Posted July 26, 2018 Share Posted July 26, 2018 So when you turned off the noise gate, I know there was a lot of hum, but did the low guitar signal phenomenon still happen? If it did lower your threshold. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nateweeks83 Posted July 27, 2018 Author Share Posted July 27, 2018 So guys, I’ve done some tweaking tonight and I’ve found that on some of my patches I had the noise gate way to high. I would dial in a distorted tone with the gate on to keep the excess noise away, but never really considered what would happen if I switched to clean in that same patch. So the gate was killing some dynamics. Also some of the IR’s that came preloaded from the previous owner like the Badger or the Splawn were way to hot right outta the gate and really, actually now that I’m fresh from just playing, kinda sound like crap! So what I did was cranked the cabinet volume way low to compensate. I get a lot of clipping in my head phones if the cabinet volume on these IR’s is at 0 so I have to take it way down to get rid of that. I’m using the Sony 7506’s is this normal? I’m going to assume my headphones are good enough, do these cabs sound like junk to you guys? And if so can you recommend any good IR’s? It seems like the volume for even pre loaded stock patches are all over the place, I wish the Helix had a way of showing you your output so you could take it to max without clipping and avoid cutting tone. anyways, I sure do appreciate the advice and willingness to help a guy out. I’d really appreciate some suggestions on whether or not I should worry about head phone clipping vs live through a pa and how you guys set up for that. I know the volume wouldn’t be an issue through a big powered speaker. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HonestOpinion Posted July 27, 2018 Share Posted July 27, 2018 1 hour ago, nateweeks83 said: So guys, I’ve done some tweaking tonight and I’ve found that on some of my patches I had the noise gate way to high. .. You can assign the 'Threshold' parameter on the noise gate to the snapshots. The more distorted and noisy your snapshot is the more you raise the threshold. Distorted leads get a higher threshold and cleaner sounds a low threshold setting, often to the point where it never engages as it is unnecessary. If for example you have "Clean, Rhythm, Chrunch, Lead", snapshots set up each one gets a progressively higher threshold setting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbuhajla Posted July 27, 2018 Share Posted July 27, 2018 11 hours ago, nateweeks83 said: I get a lot of clipping in my head phones if the cabinet volume on these IR’s is at 0 so I have to take it way down to get rid of that. I’m using the Sony 7506’s is this normal? I’m going to assume my headphones are good enough, do these cabs sound like junk to you guys? And if so can you recommend any good IR’s? It seems like the volume for even pre loaded stock patches are all over the place, I wish the Helix had a way of showing you your output so you could take it to max without clipping and avoid cutting tone. I believe the default level for IR blocks is -18dB. If you crank it up to 0, then you are probably over driving the signal chain causing clipping. Leave your IR at default level and adjust amp parameters and/or OD parameters to level out the preset. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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