HX Effects vs Helix LT?

[boynigel]

I’ve been using my LT exclusively for a few years now and I want to take a break and give my amps some love. 
 

i’m just wondering if the HX Effects would have any edge over the LT as far as how it would perform via 4CM with one of my tube amps.

 

I would imagine my LT is just an oversized HX Effects (w/amp and cab modeling of course) but I just wanted to make sure the HX doesn’t edge it out in this application for some reason unknown to me. 

[rwandering]

I cannot imagine how this would make any difference whatsoever.  

 

In both cases you would have the choice of what to put before the amp, and what to put into your amp's effects loop.

 

In both cases, the effects themselves should be identical, running on the same platform with the same outcome.

 

I can see advantages to the HX Effects (cost, size) for that use case, but not better "performance".

 

[amenity421]

I use my Floor exculsively in 4CM with a few amps and I love the versatility of running Helix Amp models with it. I pick the full amp model usually over the preamp. Sounds great. Most of the time I'm using the Minotaur with the Heir apparent or the Rams head muff into the front of my Fender HRD III. I say just use your LT and you'll be just had happy and your wallet will be a lot heavier.

[MayPRS]

If you're thinking about the form factor - yeah the HX Effects is great. I gig with one because I only use real amps.

 

If you already have a LT, I don't see the need (unless, as I said, you want some small and lighter!). LT also haves the EXP pedal - HX don't. If you want Wha and/or Volume control you need to add one.

[datacommando]

On 2/9/2023 at 3:51 AM, boynigel said:

I would imagine my LT is just an oversized HX Effects (w/amp and cab modeling of course) but I just wanted to make sure the HX doesn’t edge it out in this application for some reason unknown to me. 

Huh? 
 

The firmware for all the HX family of products is the same, the difference being, the HX Effects is exactly that! It doesn’t have the amp/cab models which the others do.

 

If you want to use your LT in 4CM with your real amps and cabs, simply bypass those models in the Helix.

 

Hope this helps/makes sense.

[codamedia]

On 2/8/2023 at 9:51 PM, boynigel said:

i’m just wondering if the HX Effects would have any edge over the LT as far as how it would perform via 4CM with one of my tube amps.

 

The only place the HX Effects wins is in size/weight. I've owned both and although I can't speak for the later HX Effects builds the LT has much quieter loops than my HX effects did. Actually - the loop noise in the HX effects was the reason I upgraded to an LT. 

 

On 2/8/2023 at 9:51 PM, boynigel said:

I would imagine my LT is just an oversized HX Effects

 

No... it's two HX Effects and even more!

 

The LT has 2 DSP's, an expression pedal, double the snapshots and up to 32 effect blocks. If you ever need "poly-pitch" you won't hit the DSP wall like you may with the HX Effects. 

 

A Helix (Rack, floor or LT) makes an incredibly powerful pedal board when you use it with an amp. You are not forced to always use the amp modeling. 

[boynigel]

On 2/9/2023 at 12:50 AM, amenity421 said:

I use my Floor exculsively in 4CM with a few amps and I love the versatility of running Helix Amp models with it. I pick the full amp model usually over the preamp. Sounds great. Most of the time I'm using the Minotaur with the Heir apparent or the Rams head muff into the front of my Fender HRD III. I say just use your LT and you'll be just had happy and your wallet will be a lot heavier.

If you have a moment, what's the trick to ensure that any amp modeling happens after my real amp's preamp?

[boynigel]

On 2/8/2023 at 11:53 PM, rwandering said:

I cannot imagine how this would make any difference whatsoever.  

 

In both cases you would have the choice of what to put before the amp, and what to put into your amp's effects loop.

 

In both cases, the effects themselves should be identical, running on the same platform with the same outcome.

 

I can see advantages to the HX Effects (cost, size) for that use case, but not better "performance".

Right, i realize all of that.  i probably could have worded the question better- i was looking to find out if the HX Effects was somehow better optimized than the LT to live in an amp's effects loop given that is what it was designed to do, where the LT was designed as more "stand-alone".  Sure, they've always said you could do 4cm w/helix, but the HX came later making me think there was a chance that its ins/outs were better optimized (input pads?) for use in an amp effects loop.  Especially in a case like mine where i have a very hot effects loop send level in my amp. 

[silverhead]

On 2/9/2023 at 9:09 AM, boynigel said:

Right, i realize all of that.  i probably could have worded the question better- i was looking to find out if the HX Effects was somehow better optimized than the LT to live in an amp's effects loop given that is what it was designed to do, where the LT was designed as more "stand-alone".  Sure, they've always said you could do 4cm w/helix, but the HX came later making me think there was a chance that its ins/outs were better optimized (input pads?) for use in an amp effects loop.  Especially in a case like mine where i have a very hot effects loop send level in my amp. 

I don't believe there's anything different about the HX FX ins/outs that makes it any better in an amp's FX Loop. The design difference is, I believe, purely from a usability standpoint. The HX FX is more familiar to use for players who are familiar with analog pedals than with digital amp modeling. The HX FX is just a simpler and more familiar setup.

[silverhead]

On 2/9/2023 at 9:00 AM, boynigel said:

If you have a moment, what's the trick to ensure that any amp modeling happens after my real amp's preamp?

The 4CM cabling works in conjunction with the FX Loop in your Helix LT preset. Typically you would use either the real amp's preamp or the LT amp modeling. Not both simultaneously. So whether the amp modeling occurs before or after the preamp should, I think, be irrelevant.

 

In terms of signal routing the position of the FX Loop in your LT signal chain determines the point at which the signal leaves your LT, enters the physical preamp, and returns to the LT. If your preset is designed with the FX Loop after the amp model then the signal goes to your physical preamp after it has passed through the LT amp model. If the LT FX Loop appears before the amp model in your preset then the signal goes to your physical preamp before the amp model.

 

But as stated, you don't want both the amp model and the physical amp's preamp to be simultaneously processing the signal. If your LT preset FX Loop is turned off then you want your amp model on. In that case the signal never leaves your LT. The physical amp's preamp is bypassed; the signal never passes through it. Similarly if the FX Loop in your LT preset is on then the signal goes to your physical preamp and you want to bypass the amp model in your preset, whether it appears before or after the FX Loop in the signal chain.

[boynigel]

On 2/9/2023 at 9:30 AM, silverhead said:

The 4CM cabling works in conjunction with the FX Loop in your Helix LT preset. Typically you would use either the real amp's preamp or the LT amp modeling. Not both simultaneously. So whether the amp modeling occurs before or after the preamp should, I think, be irrelevant.

right.  that's how i've been using the LT for the last few years- into the effects return of my amp, obviously w/speaker modeling bypassed.  i somehow thought that i could maybe now run the LT via 4cm using my actual amp's preamp section, with hopes that if i wanted to occasionally insert a Helix model post-preamp on my amp...but now that i think about it, the front of my amp would still be receiving my guitar signal in addition to the amp model after the amp's preamp.  so close, yet so far!  not a big deal.  this is all about switching things up for fun and the sake of something a little different for a little while

[rwandering]

When you wire 4CM, you can do both things you are describing: bypass your preamp and use an HX preamp (or amp) in the amp effects loop; and, use your amps preamp and use (or ignore) the effects loop.  With a Helix Floor/LT, you can even do both at the same time! 

 

edit: actually, if the latter is possible (both at once) it would take some tricky routing, but who wouldn't want to do that anyway? 

[silverhead]

On 2/9/2023 at 10:42 AM, boynigel said:

right.  that's how i've been using the LT for the last few years- into the effects return of my amp, obviously w/speaker modeling bypassed.  i somehow thought that i could maybe now run the LT via 4cm using my actual amp's preamp section, with hopes that if i wanted to occasionally insert a Helix model post-preamp on my amp...but now that i think about it, the front of my amp would still be receiving my guitar signal in addition to the amp model after the amp's preamp.  so close, yet so far!  not a big deal.  this is all about switching things up for fun and the sake of something a little different for a little while

I’m not sure I understand. With 4CM the cabling looks like this:

Guitar -> LT Guitar Input -> LT FX Loop Send -> physical amp front input (preamp section) -> amp FX Send -> LT FX Loop Return -> LT main output -> physical amp FX Return. 
 

Yes, you can “run the LT via 4CM using my actual amp's preamp section“. Simply include an FX Loop block in your LT preset. When its FX Loop block is active your signal will be routed through your physical amp’s preamp section. When it is inactive your physical amp’s preamp will not receive a signal from your LT. You should construct your LT preset so that only one of the FX Loop block and the amp model blocks is active. If your FX Loop is active your amp model should be bypassed because your physical amp’s preamp section is being used, and you generally don’t want both amps. Conversely, if your LT preset’s FX Loop block is inactive you want the LT amp block to be active. In this case no signal is sent to your physical amp’s preamp.

 

You CAN use both the physical amp’s preamp and an LT amp model simultaneously but it generally will not sound good.

[boynigel]

On 2/9/2023 at 12:16 PM, silverhead said:

When its FX Loop block is active your signal will be routed through your physical amp’s preamp section. When it is inactive your physical amp’s preamp will not receive a signal from your LT.

I'll give this a try when i get home.  I typed this up before seeing this response.  sending just in case there's any info that would change anything:

 

So in the 4cm scenario of primarily using my amp’s preamp (LT for effects only), but occasionally swapping the actual amp’s preamp for a Helix amp model via a snapshot, the hurdle seems to be that, sure, I can simply activate the Helix amp model in the effects loop of the physical amp (post-preamp of course), BUT- the front of my amp (preamp) will still be getting a signal from my guitar in addition to the Helix amp model for that given snapshot.

 

Unless, and I’m at work as I write this so I can’t test it, there’s a way to have a snapshot that re-routes my guitar input into the effects loop, thereby bypassing any guitar signal routing (within that snapshot)  to the physical amp’s preamp.  I’ve never had any reason to try to move my guitar input block to anywhere besides the default front of the chain, and I’m guessing its position is fixed.  Plus, if I remember correctly, snapshots don’t allow you to change the order of blocks, so maybe I’m asking too much of the Helix.  Everything has its limits.

 

On 2/9/2023 at 12:16 PM, silverhead said:

You CAN use both the physical amp’s preamp and an LT amp model simultaneously but it generally will not sound good.

this is why in a perfect world it would be nice if L6 modeled some AIAB pedals, like the Wampler Thirty-Something.  of course it's pretty obvious why they wouldn't, and i couldn't blame them.

[silverhead]

On 2/9/2023 at 1:16 PM, boynigel said:

...., BUT- the front of my amp (preamp) will still be getting a signal from my guitar in addition to the Helix amp model for that given snapshot....

Assuming your 4CM cabling is as I've described all you have to do is bypass the LT FX Loop (turn it off) in the snapshot where you activate the LT amp model.

 

It sounds to me like your cabling is wrong. In 4CM your guitar should be connected to the LT Guitar input, not the front of your physical amp.

[boynigel]

On 2/9/2023 at 2:06 PM, silverhead said:

It sounds to me like your cabling is wrong.

Sorry for the confusion, as i haven't physically tried this yet.  I've been doing 4cm for years, just never w/helix, which for me gets a little more confusing when you've got effects loops within an effects loop, but i know how to route correctly for 4cm.  my statement that you quoted me on was based on an assumption i made based on past 4cm setups i had with different gear always had guitar hitting the front of the amp no matter what...so i guess i wrongly assumed that the guitar into the amp's pre would be a constant.  Will try this tonight.  thanks.