Sounding GOOD!

[KasperFauerby]

Perhaps a useless post, but...

 

I've been a Hx Effects user for a while, playing a rig consisting of a Revv Generator 7-40 with the Helix products in 4cm, serving as preset/channel manager and on effects duty. Been working pretty good for me. Recently I upgraded to a Helix Floor for a couple of reasons:

1. I wanted the extra buttons because I needed a few more snapshots and presets available at a single button press

2. I needed the extra processing power. The HX Effects could *just* handle the setups I wanted to do, but with a few compromises. No problem with the floor

3. I wanted a good backup solution in case of amp failure

 

So for point number 3 I obviously had to dial in some pure modelling tones. Because of Corona I haven't been doing live shows for a while, but here in Denmark the situation is luckily such that we can still rehearse with the band. So I've been postponing dialing in the modelling presets until I was totally happy with my 4cm tones. Today I gave it a shot - and it sounds *good*!

 

My method was this: I started out recording short sound clips of all my 4cm presets with the Revv head. When recording and practicing at home I use a loadbox and IR's so I'm very used to the "virtual cabinet" tone in this room. Then I copied the 4cm presets and ONLY changed the Fx loop block that previously held the Revv head with the block I needed to emulate those tones. So this involved inserting amp models, and an extra distortion block. Then I carefully level matched, and recorded the same snippets with a model amp, trying to get as close as possible to the real thing.

 

End result - I got *really* close! And, to my surprise, the most gainy presets actually sounds a bit fuller using the Revv model than the real head. Could possibly be because I'm gigging the 40W version, while I'm sure Line6 modelled the big 120W Generator head.

 

Some thoughts:

 

I wish Line6 had added all the Revv channels, and not only the purple and red. I actually think the blue and green Revv channels sound great as well. The blue is kind of Fender'ish, so in my case I decided to use two amp blocks in my presets, and enable/disable one of them through snapshots. I went with the Fender Deluxe Vib, which immediately sounded really close to the Revv blue channel.

 

For my "drive" and "lead" tone I'm using the Revv red channel, and this was easily matched with the corresponding Helix model. The final tone, as mentioned above, sounded a bit fuller than my 40W head... but that's cool. 

 

The most problematic preset to tone match was my "crunch" preset, which is based on the green Revv channel. I ended up going for a Teemah overdrive in front of the Fender Deluxe Vib model, which got close but not exactly the same...

 

All in all, I'm very happy with the tones from the Helix Floor... I think I might start using these modelling tones when practicing because I could then leave my amp head at the rehearsal room and/or save some power tube life (I tend to run the amp head quite hot at home, now that I'm running through a loadbox anyway).