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Humbuckers and the 'Guitar In Pad'


Graemey
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I'm a player who has receintly started playing a humbucker guitar more at gigs (previously Strats and Teles) to broaden my tonal spectrum.

Obviously my humbucker equipped Les Paul has a louder output than my Strat with single coils.

As a solution, I have added a Voodoo Labs Giggity pedal before the 1/4 inch input of my Helix floor to act as a preamp (VERY slight volume increase) to match the Strat's output to that of the Les Paul.

 

I've noticed some mild digital clipping at the input stage from both guitars now when strumming hard.

 

My questions are:

Is it a no-brainer to just turn the Guitar Input Pad to 'ON' to compensate for the louder pickups?

Do most humbucker players turn the pad on?

If I permanently have the input pad on, do I now have to add additional volume at the output block stage to bring my sounds up to gig volume?

(I'm currently gigging with a Line 6 Powercab+)

 

Thanks!

 

 

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Check the entire signal chain of your Helix -- everything from the Input Block(s) to the Output Block(s) and all blocks in between (including any Split and Merge blocks) to see if any have their level controls set too high. Also check your Helix Global > I/O settings to confirm your FX Loop I/Os are set as you need for your peripheral gear. If any one of the above are excessive it can lead to clipping. As the Helix does not have any internal signal metering nor clipping indicators, some will connect a mixer or other device with a metering, and step each of your Blocks disabling (bypassng) and enabling one at a time to check for excessive level. 

 

I have six Epi Probucker equipped guitars, none of which require Helix's Guitar In Pad be enabled.  My Custom Strat with Fender Noiseless pups produces a lower signal output level. This is a simple matter to accommodate in any Block of Helix's signal chain, on a Preset or Snapshot basis. Do whatever works best for you and what suits your ears, taste, and style of music.

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I highly doubt you're actually clipping the input... In fact, I'd almost guarantee you aren't (digital clipping will never sound mild - it will always sound horrible). If you're hearing what sounds like clipping, it's most likely somewhere in the modeling chain. There are different blocks that will exhibit clipping behavior when dealing with a hot signal, so that's probably what's happening.

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I'm inclined to agree with the above from MusicLaw.

But I'm going to point at a couple of other potential maybes!

Have you had a fiddle with the input impedance?

Back in the early days you needed to set this - then auto seemed to work fine and everyone seemed to forget about it.

So it's designed to match up to your pickups - but the Helix is not now seeing your pickups - it's seeing the Giggity.

Maybe that's a potential problem?

You may well need to drop the input level overall - till it reduces the Humbuckers to the strat level?

Otherwise you will need to adjust all your patches individually.

Personally. I'd never be plugging a humbucker into the exact same patch as a Strat - I'd be wanting to adjust gain and EQ at least specific to the guitar - so I'd have different patches for each 

guitar - but that's up to you.

Hope some of that might help?

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I personally switch between my single coil tele and strat and my les paul all the time and never have to do anything special.  However, I also have to say that I wouldn't expect a patch built for a Strat to work the same for a Les Paul.  And I wouldn't want it to.  I doubt it's digital clipping as well.  I suspect it's just the natural difference between playing a Les Paul through a patch built for a Strat.

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Some excellent advice there from all. Thank you, I will take something from each reply.

I agree with rvroberts about the Giggity causing potential problems with the input impedance. I have decided to remove it, and start from there.

BTW, the Giggity is a great transparent pedal when plugged into a valve amp. It just feels a bit 'wrong' to ramm it in front of a digital device.

 

I will work through my whole signal chain and hopefully solve the mystery.

 

Dunedin Dragon: If you read this, can you let me know if you have your input pad switched to on please?

 

Cheers!

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5 hours ago, Graemey said:

I will work through my whole signal chain and hopefully solve the mystery.

 

Dunedin Dragon: If you read this, can you let me know if you have your input pad switched to on please?

 

Cheers!

 

Nope...no input pad and impedance set to auto.  That's the same for all of my guitars, Les Paul, Tele, Strat, Gretsch hollow body, Gretsch resonator.  I just dial in my patch for whatever guitar will be using that patch and never have any problems.

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23 hours ago, rvroberts said:

Back in the early days you needed to set this - then auto seemed to work fine and everyone seemed to forget about it.

So it's designed to match up to your pickups - but the Helix is not now seeing your pickups - it's seeing the Giggity.

I could be wrong, but I don't think Helix guitar input sees the output impedance of the guitar in Auto mode. Rather it sets the guitar input impedance to the input impedance of the first block in the signal path. This loads whatever pickups your guitar has as the real effect would have and is typically important for fuzz effects. Note however that auto impedance does not change the guitar input impedance when the block is off. This can result in some unexpected loss in tone when the effect is off.

 

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