Settings for Different Guitars

[kane21014]

Okay so this is going to sound stupid but im new to Helix and wondering how i can adjust for for Two guitars. One High Output EMP 85/81 LP style. And the other is just a standard Squire Strat. I'm thinking one strat preset and one LP for each but wondering is Gain or Ch. Volume what i need to adjust to match guitar s to presets?

[silverhead]

Adjust the channel volume first to level preset volumes; it doesn’t affect tone. Don’t adjust the gain or drive before the amp because that will affect tone. 
 

There are other options too, like using the Hi gain input setting on your active pickup guitar preset, or putting a Gain block at the end of the signal chain, or an EQ block with an increased level setting and neutral tone settings, or increasing the level of the Output block, or.....

[SaschaFranck]

Personally, I have a gain block as the very first thing in my chain. I do then create my patches with my main guitar(s), in general that's 2 medium output guitars. When using other guitars with noticeably different output, I usually adjust the gain block so the gain staging is at least sort of identical. Very often, this allows me to use the same patches with all sorts of guitars, just that sometimes I may want to take advance of whatever characteristics and hence manipulate amp settings and the likes.

For recording duties, I have a bunch of patches tailored for individual guitars, but they're not much.

[DunedinDragon]

A lot really depends on your approach.  I personally have distinctive presets for specific to each of my guitars depending on the sound I'm after.  That's because the preset I would use my strat on is not the kind of preset I'd want to use my Les Paul on, or my Gretsch hollow body, or my Tele, or my Gretsch resonator.  Not only is the guitar different but most of the time the amp is different and the cab/ir/mic setup is different as well as many of the other blocks.  The guitar is every bit as much a part of the signal chain as is anything else in the preset.

[Schmalle]

I think this video might be helpful. Rhett describes in detail how he dials in amps. Later in it he demonstrates matching an amp for different guitars:

 

[emagli]

For some guitars I use different presets, like a single coil into a Tweed or a humbucker into a Plexi. However, I have other guitars having somewhat similar "style" (e.g., two guitars with splittable humbuckers) and I like to play them through the same presets. Live, one serves as a backup to my main guitar. In that case, what I would really find very useful is a global "gain" control on the input that I can use to balance the signal level from each guitar. The input pad does that, but it's either on or off. If the global eq were acting at the beginning of the chain, its level control would get the job done for me. I would rather avoid having a gain control at the beginning of each patch, which I have to tweak for each patch as I switch to a different guitar.

[SaschaFranck]

17 minutes ago, emagli said:

In that case, what I would really find very useful is a global "gain" control on the input that I can use to balance the signal level from each guitar.

 

I higly second that. Pretty much similar to the Input Pad but with more attenuation options (several 1dB steps would likely be sufficient, something such as 10). Ideally, you could switch between two settings through a footswitch, in case using the same presets but guitars with different output level is your game (it surely is mine). I'm even thinking of rebuilding an old little (active) input booster/attenuator that I once had on a pedalboard. Got that because at the time I was often bringing my Ibanez 335 clone to gigs - which has insanely high output (for reasons unknown to mankind, especially given that it's from the early 70s) but otherwise sounded great through pretty much all of my standard sounds. So I simply attenuated its output with that little box.

[emagli]

1 hour ago, SaschaFranck said:

I'm even thinking of rebuilding an old little (active) input booster/attenuator that I once had on a pedalboard.

 

I was contemplating adding a clean boost to the small board I keep next to Helix (especially if I can get rid of the Drop with firmware 3.0, but that's another story). I tried with the MXR CAE MC406 which I already have, and found that the piezo pickup in my Godin LGXT at max volume saturates the boost and generates clipping. So much for that...