Best Presets To Buy For Metal and Hard Rock

[Pubcrawl30]

So, I’ve done a lot of research and am pretty sure I’ll be giving the freman big pack and the freman update 2.30/2.50. However, most of the posts I’ve found are a couple of years old, so just wanna make sure they’re still the best for rock and metal and if there are any others out there you could recommend buying?

 

Also, is it necessary to get both of the Freman packs?

[PiFromBRC]

Keep in mind that you will still end up tweaking the presets.  Have you tried downloading ones from Custom Tone as yet?  Not trying to cost Freman a sale, but no matter what the source is, you will end up making adjustments.  You should try that out before dropping money on others.  Just a thought.

[roscoe5]

While I don't own the 3 Sigma Helix packs, I do own some of their IRs which are pretty good, especially for heavier tones.  I've thought about buying their Helix preset packs which come with some IRs.  I do like the 3 Sigma Helix Hi Gain pack demo clips a bit better than the Fremen ones I heard.

 

https://www.3sigmaaudio.com/helix-collection/

[BrokenGravity]

Hey Pubcrawl30,

 

If you're going for Freman, I highly suggest the big pack, big pack add on, synth tone packs for Metal and hard rock.  

 

I also HIGHLY suggest looking into thenickhill81 posts / tone walkthroughs:

 

 

I also suggest looking through GuitarjonSDS posts about metal / rock tones:

 

 

They do use Ownhammer IR's which you have to pay for,  But if you take a hard look around the internet you will find something that will work.

 

Best of luck!

 

[Pubcrawl30]

Thanks heaps guys, I’m a total noob at both the helix and this forum, I can’t figure out how to reply to you individually. 

 

This is a HUGE learning curve for me. I’ve played in rock and metal bands for 15 years, but I always just plugged into a noise gate and then into my Engl Fireball. That’s it. I’ve never owned any other pedals, don’t know anything about signal chains, or tweaking eqs, or mic positioning etc. I don’t know hardly anything. I’m seriously confused as to how to plug in to front of house for live shows. Like, do I need a DI box or something? And where the hell do I plug that into?

Simplicity was always my friend.

 

However, I recently bought the Shuriken Variax so I could change my tunings easily. Then I fell into this bloody helix rabbit hole and have now bought one and am selling my engl so I can buy a Yamaha drx12.

 

Anyway, my point is, while I have already spent a good thirty hours playing with this thing and look forward to the hundreds of hours ahead, I’m not getting anywhere with my metal tone. I’ve got some killer cleans and lead, but absolute crap with metal. I’ve downloaded a heap off of custome tone but had no luck. I’m aware that even after purchasing some presets I’ll have plenty of tweaking to do, but I want/need a very good starting point.

 

I don’t think I can stress how incompetent my knowledge is when it comes to this stuff. But, i lollipoping love this thing and I’m well it’s me that is producing the lollipop metal tone and not it. I cannot wait till the day I can crank loud and play hard and heavy with my perfect tone.

 

I’ll definitely check out all the vids etc you guys posted.

 

cheers

[kylotan]

Personally, I wouldn't bother buying presets. I think it's better to start simple and get used to building your tone up yourself. The Helix's tones don't require guru levels of experience or magic to dial in because the modelling is high quality to begin with, so 3rd party presets are likely to either just be duplicating 5 minutes of your own work at one extreme, or creating a complex patch you will be unable to effectively modify at the other extreme, or relying heavily on impulse responses to sound great at home but not necessarily good on whatever speakers you might end up playing through.

 

What I suggest for you is to start with a very simple patch and tweak that.

 

If you have access to your Engl Fireball:

• Create a patch with just 2 blocks - first block Preamp/ANGL Meteor, second block Volume/Pan --> Volume. Turn the Helix volume dial down, run a cable from the 1/4" output into the Effects Return of your Fireball. Turn up the Helix volume dial, and play. Tweak the amp settings to taste the way you normally would. Hopefully this shouldn't sound too different to when you plug into the front of the amp.

If you don't have access to the Fireball:

• Again, create a patch with just 2 blocks - first block Amp+Cab/ANGL Meteor, second block Volume/Pan --> Volume. Either listen on headphones, or run a cable from the 1/4" output into the line-in of your stereo, or your PC sound card. Tweak the amp settings to taste. Again, this shouldn't sound too different to when you plug into the front of the amp, but the Helix is simulating a specific speaker and microphone combination so this is more like a recorded tone than an 'in the room' tone. You can swap out the cab model or the mic models to get closer to what you want. Don't change the mic positioning. Don't worry about tweaking EQs - the amp EQ knobs and the High Cut and Low cut on the cab settings are all you really need. Anything else is just seasoning.

If you need the noise gate, select the left-most block, which should be the Input block (representing by a guitar or guitars), and ensure it is On. Adjust the threshold to taste, then the decay.

 

You might also want to add an overdrive before the amp block (Distortion --> Scream 808 is a decent choice), usually with the gain closer to 1 than to 10. For leads, maybe you'd add a reverb at the end of the chain (choose whatever you like, set the mix to somewhere between 20% and 40% most likely). Generally speaking, your overdrives, fuzzes, distortions go before your amp block, delays and reverbs go after your amp block. In the future you will probably want to separate out amp and cab blocks so you can put effects 'in the loop' but you can worry about that later.

 

Regarding live shows, that will depend on what the venue can provide but often you can just run an XLR direct from your Helix to their desk. It might be preferable to split the output path so that you can tweak the level on the XLR out without affecting your 1/4" out (which presumably will go to your amp, or your speaker if you're going completely amp-less).