Presets by Helix

[acousticglue]

After having spent almost 2 years now with Helix I can safely say the issue with the Helix, if at all, is the presets onboard for factory. I can create some presets from onboard cabs that are basic and get great tone. The even better tone I get is from better IRs. So why dont we add better ones? Not sure really but only to uphold a lynch mob market for selling. The FX are pretty dang great, the amps are fine. The Favorites is nice, although I would still like a highlighted diff color of my own IRs when in use in Browser. Can give you heads up on what is being used the most. But the factory presets are all pretty much horrible. All I have here. Still love it...

[theElevators]

Agreed, they are all mostly horrible  Why?  Because priorities are elsewhere. 

 

A lot of gear has horrible factory presets in my not so limited experience.  On the Helix there are always wild volume fluctuations, and presets are so overly exaggerated and "show-off'y", that they try to cram as much stuff into them in order to demonstrate what is possible, while making them sound unmusical. 

 

I remember when I first got my Helix, I scrolled through a couple presets, then promptly cleared every single factory preset and started building my own. 

 

I know FM9 for example has amazing presets that can be used right away.  I watched some rig rundown and the guitarist said he wound up using the default factory preset during a session, that's how good it sounded.  But Line 6 has its priorities elsewhere.  The same reason why this Line 6 Forum has broken avatar pictures, etc...

[rd2rk]

Factory presets are meant for demonstration purposes. They are NOT meant for serious use. At BEST, if someone LIKES a factory preset except it needs a little...they function as base tones and learning tools. This is true not only of Helix, but pretty much all modelers. Lots of people wonder "Well, if they're meant as a demonstration of capabilities, why don't they make them sound GREAT?" Because what sounds GREAT to one user sounds like CRAP to another. There's no winning the battle when it's all totally subjective.

 

NOTE: No one from L6 hangs out at this forum. If you have product improvement suggestions/requests here's where you go:

 

https://line6.ideascale.com/a/login

 

Be sure to search keywords before posting so as not to dilute the voting when the idea has already been suggested 10 times!

[silverhead]

Also, there’s a lot of outboard non-Helix gear between your fingers and your ears that contributes a LOT to the sonic quality of the tone you hear. From the style of play, the pick (or not), the guitar strings, the guitar body, the external PA speakers, headphones, studio monitors, guitar amp…. All of those individual items add up to flavour the preset itself. It’s a fool’s game to try to create factory presets that will sound good to everyone in any environment.

 

For instance, take a tour through CustomTone sometime. There are many presets that are described with a song title, songs with which you are familiar. Rest assured that the preset creator, when posting that preset, truly believed that the tone of the song was closely matched. And it probably was - in their environment. Download and test some and judge for yourself in your environment.

[acousticglue]

Oh I get the fact that presets can suck and ear of the beholder thing. BUT my point is, the amps sound great, CabIRs are OK. Better ones have been made since. I get many wouldnt want those IRs upgraded on older presets. BUT AGAIN, this thing can be made sound fantastic, just feel sorry for a new user trying out in a (store lol) and doesnt get it.

[acousticglue]

oh and ps. That Grammatico BRT amp sounds great with about any cab IR

[silverhead]

On 7/27/2022 at 3:55 PM, acousticglue said:

Oh I get the fact that presets can suck and ear of the beholder thing. BUT my point is, the amps sound great, CabIRs are OK. Better ones have been made since. I get many wouldnt want those IRs upgraded on older presets. BUT AGAIN, this thing can be made sound fantastic, just feel sorry for a new user trying out in a (store lol) and doesnt get it.

Here’s a thought. Please post to CustomTone some of your presets that focus on a specific amp, matching the amps in Helix Factory Setlist 1. Make it sound better than the factory preset. I’ll download it and compare it to the sound of the factory preset in my environment and let you know my honest impressions. Perhaps others will do so too. And perhaps we’ll be able to persuade Line 6 to replace their factory presets with your offerings in a future firmware update!

[rd2rk]

When I first got my Helix in 2016 I bought some preset packs from the pros. I was not overly impressed but learned a lot.

Some of the presets in the Helix and HXS were made by (at least one of) those pros. Some people say they suck. Myself, I think they're meh.

Once you learn how to make presets that sound good TO YOU on YOUR GEAR there's no going back.

Be grateful for what you've been given and always consider that with Helix and in life the MOST gratifying results will most likely come from your own efforts.

 

My 3/4 ton profundity for the day. :-)

[acousticglue]

oh agreed

 

[datacommando]

On 7/27/2022 at 8:55 PM, acousticglue said:

Oh I get the fact that presets can suck

Here ya go!

 

Check out post #6 in this thread -

Buy the T-Shirt - it was posted by Digital Igloo - AKA, Eric Klein (Chief Product Design Architect at Yamaha Guitar Group, Inc. / Line 6 / Ampeg).

 

The post from DI at number 9 is even better.

 

Roll yer own!

 

 

[DunedinDragon]

In my 8 years with the Helix I have never even been tempted to use someone else's presets for the same reasons cited above.  There are so many factors that affect the tone that are outside the control of the Helix it just doesn't make sense.  That doesn't mean I haven't examined and borrowed ideas from any number of YouTube postings in building presets of one type or another.  That's FAR more productive than messing around with someone's preset using setting you don't understand why or how they were used.