Input Distortion

[aed1421]

I need help elimitating input distortion on the Helix.  It happens on all my guitars and on almost all patches.  Was in the studio last week and it was the first thing the engineer said.  

Guitars: PRS CE (85/15 pickups), Fender Strat Ultra (Shawbucker), Gibson HP LP, Fender Tele Ultra (stock pickups).  Variax 

Input Gate:0n

Threshold:-74

Decay:500ms

Guitar in-Z Auto

Guitar Pad: Global

PROMISES.hlx

[toddkc]

On 2/17/2023 at 7:40 AM, aed1421 said:

I need help elimitating input distortion on the Helix.  It happens on all my guitars and on almost all patches.  Was in the studio last week and it was the first thing the engineer said.  

Guitars: PRS CE (85/15 pickups), Fender Strat Ultra (Shawbucker), Gibson HP LP, Fender Tele Ultra (stock pickups).  Variax 

Input Gate:0n

Threshold:-74

Decay:500ms

Guitar in-Z Auto

Guitar Pad: Global

PROMISES.hlx 69.64 kB · 1 download

Guitar Pad on Global means it could be off?  Change that to on and try it.

[aed1421]

XXXX-X497.XML

On 2/17/2023 at 9:29 AM, toddkc said:

Guitar Pad on Global means it could be off?  Change that to on and try it.

Yep.  It is now on and that helped.   Not sure why I thought Global meant it was on.  Thank you.

[brue58ski]

Even your Variax distorts? Assuming you have tested it with nothing in the path, that's gotta be some kind of hardware malfunction. Weird.

[PierM]

Please define Input Distorsion.

 

Is the input clipping?

 

I would find that pretty weird and not normal, especially with those standard pickups. JTV has hot humbuckers, but nothing that would clip the input.

 

Maybe the engineer was clipping his own inputs, which means checking the gain staging and output settings.

 

 

[aed1421]

I thought that helped but it is still there.  The engineer said it was input distotion.  I hear it but I don't see anything clipping.

On 2/17/2023 at 12:56 PM, PierM said:

Maybe the engineer was clipping his own inputs, which means checking the gain staging and output settings.

Not sure exactly what he meant.    He is a pretty experienced engineer so I just took his word for it.  We layed down the tracks but he indicated my parts would have to be redone.   Would an audio clip help?

[PierM]

On 2/17/2023 at 11:00 PM, aed1421 said:

I thought that helped but it is still there.  The engineer said it was input distotion.  I hear it but I don't see anything clipping.

Not sure exactly what he meant.    He is a pretty experienced engineer so I just took his word for it.  We layed down the tracks but he indicated my parts would have to be redone.   Would an audio clip help?

 

You need to look at your Helix input block, and check if the input blinks with red while you are playing (which means signal clipping).

 

If you don't see any red, or better, if it does just blink with green, then input is fine.

 

It's really hard to clip the Helix input with standard pickups, this is why I was guessing something else after the input. Honestly never happened to me in 8 years I use these HX devices...

 

Im of course assuming you don't have pedals in front of your Helix. In this case, let us know what pedal do you have as this could make a BIG difference... :)

[aed1421]

No pedals.  Helix only direct to FOH.  I use ethecon to connect the Variax and Sennheiser EW100-G4 wireless for my other guitars (or just a cable). I don't see any red and it looks good.  Just sounds bad.  I keep looking at the signal chain. 

[PierM]

On 2/18/2023 at 2:40 PM, aed1421 said:

No pedals.  Helix only direct to FOH.  I use ethecon to connect the Variax and Sennheiser EW100-G4 wireless for my other guitars (or just a cable). I don't see any red and it looks good.  Just sounds bad.  I keep looking at the signal chain. 

 

Im pretty sure you are not getting any Input Distortion. Problem is somewhere else. ;)

[aed1421]

Turning off the Deluxe Comp helped.

[datacommando]

On 2/18/2023 at 1:40 PM, aed1421 said:

I keep looking at the signal chain. 

 

Hi,

 

If the "PROMISES.hlx" preset file that you supplied is an example of one of your presets that exhibits this "input distortion on the Helix", I wouldn't bother looking at the signal chain.

 

I just loaded it into my Helix floor, and apart from a missing IR, I cannot find any issue with any unwanted or unexpected distortion occurring while going through the four Snapshots in the patch.

 

If, as noted by @brue58ski , this is also happening with your Variax over ethercon, then I'm with him and @PierM on this one - the problem is somewhere else. That may require a bench check by a technician.

 

If you have an audio clip that demonstrates the "distortion" it may help to narrow down any obvious causes, because I cannot find one in the example preset.

 

Hope this helps/makes sense.

[aed1421]

On 2/18/2023 at 11:38 AM, datacommando said:

apart from a missing IR,

There sould be an Andy Timmons IR in the chain.

[datacommando]

On 2/18/2023 at 6:45 PM, aed1421 said:

There sould be an Andy Timmons IR in the chain.

Yeah, but if it’s a commercial IR (sold, not free) then you are not allowed to pass it along to someone else, but it would have been nice to know what should have been there. 
 

Anyhow, unless your IR files for every preset are screwed up somehow, it still remains that there doesn’t appear to be any perceptible input distortion occurring in your example .hlx file.
 

IIRC, Mr. Timmons uses a LoneStar loaded with Celestion v30s on his clean stuff. As I didn’t know what your IR should have been I simply used whatever happened to be in that same slot when I loaded your preset, it was possibly a 4x12 Greenback, but hey, I was just looking out for any obvious and unexpected distortion. Using your “Clean” snapshot, thus avoiding any dirt added from the drive pedals in the other snapshots, would have shown any deficiencies on the input. In fact, I found it to be exactly as expected with my Strat single coils. Finding that to be the situation, I didn’t even bother to plug in my JTV-59 to check the Variax input, - probably unnecessary.
 

The result of this, without hearing what you (and your engineer) can hear, leads me to believe there is some other issue with your hardware. I have been running my Helix floor directly into Logic Pro almost everyday since late 2015 and have absolutely no extraneous noise problems, input, output, whatever.

 

Hope this helps/makes sense.

[soerenP]

Hi @aed1421 , 

 

could you provide some audio files? Maybe we could check if it's related to a PodGo issue I have and apparently someone else has, too: 

Thanks,

Sören

[codamedia]

On 2/17/2023 at 4:00 PM, aed1421 said:

Would an audio clip help?

 

Yes.... 

There are some experiences users here that have already said your preset is fine... so I'd love to hear what the problem really is. 

[SirNedwood]

On 2/18/2023 at 4:08 AM, aed1421 said:

XXXX-X497.XML 22.42 kB · 1 download

Yep.  It is now on and that helped.   Not sure why I thought Global meant it was on.  Thank you.

Global means it applies globally. I have it set per preset, and whenever I want to create a new preset I copy it from a template where those setting are set correctly. So for instance on my bass guitar I have to use the pad. But for everything else I don't need to. And for my Strat I have to have a lower gate threshold because I usually run it pretty high, and the strat output is too low.

[aed1421]

The culprit is The Tube Driver.   If that is off the nasty digital distortion is gone.  

[soerenP]

Hi @aed1421

ok, but still, for other users having similar problems, could you post some audio files? 

ME, for example, I am very eager to find out if any other users are experiencing these strange unpleasent artifacts that I can't believe are normal in 2020ies top of the shelve modeling gear. 

 

When I put the Tube Driver on, I think I actually managed to clip the output (I still had some +6db output level on), but without it, it still sounds kind of muddy. 

I would very much appreciate anyone posting audio files either from Tube Driver or from Colordrive breakup tones, just to compare them to what I am experiencing. I can't believe people would be satisfied with the results I get.  

This is what my Colorsound and HiWatt sounds like... Do you hear what I mean?:

[datacommando]

On 2/23/2023 at 5:44 PM, aed1421 said:

The culprit is The Tube Driver.   If that is off the nasty digital distortion is gone.  

Huh? Really?

 

Now I’m really confused. Can you please clarify?
 

You original post stated that -

“I need help elimitating input distortion on the Helix.  It happens on all my guitars and on almost all patches.  Was in the studio last week and it was the first thing the engineer said.”

 

@brue58ski asked, “assuming you have tested it with nothing in the path”, and @PierM asked “Is the input clipping?”. There was no really clear response to those comments, other than, “The engineer said it was input distortion.”

 

I checked out you example preset and didn’t encounter any unexpected distortion on the input, other than those blocks you had loaded into the preset signal path.

 

Just so you understand my confusion about this issue.
 

Again, in you original post, you specifically stated:- “It happens on all my guitars and on almost all patches.”, but your latest post states:- “The culprit is The Tube Driver.  If that is off the nasty digital distortion is gone.” Yeah, O.K., but from that comment it would appear that you have a Valve Driver distortion bock in almost all your patches? I’m surprised that throughout this thread we have all been chasing an “input distortion”, as mentioned by your studio engineer, although now it’s appears not to be a mysterious input problem, but in fact, a regular distortion block.

 

Surprised your engineer didn’t spot that one! Ye gods, I despair.

[aed1421]

I honestly didn't (and dont') know for sure what it was.  The engineer (who has worked with some big names) said it was input distortion so that is why I posted that.   I was just searching to see if anyone else was experining the same thing.  All I know is it sounds bad and none of the indicators (either input or output) show any red and nowhere in the signal chain is there any "red".   Yes,  all my patches used to have the Tube Driver but I will be eliminating that to help with this problem.   Sorry for all the confustion and I appreciate all the advice. 

[PierM]

Input distortion doesnt mean anything without specifying at which stage, since every single stage of an audio chain has an input and an output.

 

Im pretty sure your engineer didnt meant the cause of distortion was happening at your helix input. Something got lost in translation.. :)

[datacommando]

On 2/24/2023 at 4:02 PM, aed1421 said:

Yes,  all my patches used to have the Tube Driver but I will be eliminating that to help with this problem.   Sorry for all the confustion and I appreciate all the advice. 

Hi, again,

 

Now I’m really, really confused.

 

O.K. It might be the situation that you do have a Valve Driver in almost every preset that you use, BUT in the supplied example preset your signal chain had 2 distortion blocks. The first is a “Scream 808” model followed by a “Tube Drive”. Both of these are controlled by 4 Snapshots, 1=Clean, 2=Rhythm, 3=Main, 4=Solo, and both are engaged on Snaps 2, 3 and 4, BUT on the Clean snap BOTH are OFF!

 

The main confusion comes about because you said - “The culprit is The Tube Driver.  If that is off the nasty digital distortion is gone.”  Hmm … If that is the case, how come your “engineer (who has worked with some big names)” was convinced the there was an “input distortion”, even when your Clean Snapshot has no distortion blocks being used? Is he unaware what a Tube Screamer and a Chandler Tube Driver are designed to do? Did he still experience “input” issues with your Clean settings?

 

IME distortion blocks generally create a distortion effect, a bypass switch turns them off when you don’t want to hear distortion. Is it me, or is that not obvious?

 

I bet this doesn’t make sense to you, because it certainly doesn’t to me