Guitar + Mic: Helix Native to HX Edit (and back)

[danieles]

Hi everyone :) First post here. Really happy with the Helix so far.

On my preset on Helix I have two tracks for voice (panned L) and guitar (panned R).

I would like to be able to record both signals, mix and create the preset in Native, and export everything to Edit.
Right now in Native I only see one "host" input, and while I can create two tracks each with its own Native instance, I don't know how to merge them into one preset, other then copy-pasting each block one by one.

I hope that's clear enough.
Can you help?

[datacommando]

On 10/29/2020 at 10:52 AM, danieles said:

Hi everyone :) First post here. Really happy with the Helix so far.

On my preset on Helix I have two tracks for voice (panned L) and guitar (panned R).

I would like to be able to record both signals, mix and create the preset in Native, and export everything to Edit.
Right now in Native I only see one "host" input, and while I can create two tracks each with its own Native instance, I don't know how to merge them into one preset, other then copy-pasting each block one by one.

I hope that's clear enough.
Can you help?

 

Hi,

 

I have never really considered this as an option because ideally you would record your guitar and vocal take separately purely for separation more than anything else. I understand that the vocal and guitar preset that you have will be for a live situation, but for recording purposes what you suggest is a little unnecessary. There is absolutely no reason to stop you recording both at the same time if your really want all the overspill in the recording. Using USB 7 as the the re-amp source for guitar and USB 8 for the Mic will capture your mono dry (Direct Injected) signal. It's quite simple, and once you have it down you can process and reprocess the dry audio in as many ways and as many times as you wish. You're probably overthinking this whole thing.

 

Actually, just for giggles, I dug out an old recording of a Spanish guitar duet and set up a really "quick and dirty test" to try out your "idea". The trick is all in the signal routing, first audio on channel 1 and second track on channel 2 with two instances of HX Native each running the identical preset on split paths. For the first guitar I muted the FX on the Second guitar path and for the 2nd guitar I turned off the FX on the first, so then the 2 mono signals are routed to Stereo Output 1-2. Darned complicated way of working. It's a lot easier to have Presets for Live setups and another bunch for Recording work. It's not a difficult job to edit presets and duplicate settings. I just think the you might be looking at using the hardware and software versions of Helix in a really awkward way.

 

If you really want to make your recording life difficult - here's and real quick and dirty example of how to go about it. Oh, yeah - and a copy of that hideous test preset I used attached here. I used totally crazy effects to check that thing were working as expected.

 

 

 

 

 

GitR and Vox.hlx

Edited April 11, 2023 by datacommando
Removed attachments

[danieles]

Hi @datacommando,

thanks for taking the time to reply.

 

What you showed is getting close.

As you pointed out, the preset will be for live situations. The reason why I want to work on it in Native, is to really hear how the preset and snapshots will sound for the audience.

While playing, I hear my own voice and guitar, so I can't really know how the presets sound for the audience.

 

I would like to be able to record a song with the dry signals (as if I'm on stage), mix the two signals in Native, prepare all the snapshots, etc., and put everything back in the Helix to have a ready, perfectly mixed preset ready for live.

 

With the two tracks in Logic and the effects muted, there's still a discrepancy between the presets/snapshots in Logic and the actual final result, se there's still a lot of manual work to do...

 

I hope it makes sense... :)

 

If what I want to do would be possible, it would really be the perfect workflow for me and would save so much time...

 

[danieles]

I tried with two tracks panned L and R sent to a bus with one instance of Native in Dual Mono.

This gives me one track for Voice when L is selected and one when R is selected, but there's still the problem of separate snapshots and copying the entire path.

[datacommando]

15 hours ago, danieles said:

 

I would like to be able to record a song with the dry signals (as if I'm on stage), mix the two signals in Native, prepare all the snapshots, etc., and put everything back in the Helix to have a ready, perfectly mixed preset ready for live.

Hi, again,

 

As I mentioned in the earlier post, the thing I did was really just thrown together. Initially, I was going to bus the signals the same way you have, but something wasn’t quite right, I noticed there was some sort of bleed through/crosstalk of the FX from one side to the other. I was probably rushing it and simply didn’t have it configured properly. The other thing that I left out was, while using the same preset on both tracks, I originally had a “gain block” at the start of each path which would be handy for silencing each path rather than individually switching off each item. As I wound up using only one effect for testing, I simply turned those on and off.

 

Anyhow, I digress. If you are wanting to audition presets that you intend to use in a live setting, I would simply record the dry guitar and vocal into Logic, then put the both tracks into loop playback and send them back out to your Helix on USB 3&4 and adjust to taste on the hardware. When you get the result you require, you can back it up using HX Edit. A little trick that some folks use for checking out Helix presets is to stick a looper in the front of everything to continually play through different configurations of amps, effects and Impulse Response files until they get what they want.

 

There is a really big thing that you should understand about what you are trying to achieve, and that is the “Fletcher Munson Curve”. No matter how much you adjust things on your presets, when they are not at gig level - you will be surprised at how much change there is in your “perfected sound” when playing in a different environment. This is a bit of an obsession with some contributors on the main Helix forum.

 

EDIT:

I have remembered why I went for 2 mono channels into 2 instances of Native. That method gave 2 clean isolated signals for the left and right audio paths. Whereas, using the method that you have, those channel strip items that appear to be pan knobs, are actually “balance” knobs (default setting in Logic). True panning must be selected by “Control” clicking on the pan button. You can tell that panning is selected by the small white handles on each end of the green ring. 

 

Hope this helps/makes sense.

Edited October 30, 2020 by datacommando
Added info

[danieles]

I solved by using a second output couple on the interface as input to the Helix.

I just have to temporarily change the mic and guitar input to return 1 and 2 while working on the preset.

 

Pretty cool :)