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Is there to way to open older files from CustomTone?


hiero18
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Just got a Helix LT the other day, and was looking at CustomTone this afternoon.  There are a lot of older patches that look good: is there a program that will allow me to open them up, so that I can try to recreate them with my Helix?

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Not sure what you mean by ‘older’ but I presume you mean they appear in Customtone as being compatible with older Line 6 products (not Helix) rather than being shown as compatible with Helix but with an older posting date.

 

It will not be a simple task to take an arbitrary download from Customtone and be able to view it in its compatible editor. Older Line 6 products use different editors. For instance, if the preset is shown as being compatible with a POD HD500X you need to use the POD HD500X program. A POD HD ProX preset needs the POD HD ProX Edit program. A POD X3 or POD XT preset needs either Line 6 Edit or Gearbox - I’m not sure which. Also, some of these edit programs need to have the compatible device connected in order to work. I other words you would need to have POD X3 device in order to view the POD X3 preset.
 

However, the POD HD suite of editors can be run offline (I.e. no device connected). It would not be too difficult to download an HD preset from Customtone, download and install the appropriate editor program, and then be able to view the preset without the associated POD HD device connected.

 

 

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Further thoughts for you....

 

Firstly, Customtone is an unmoderated site. Any one can post any preset with any name and description. That doesn't mean it will sound like whatever mental image that may conjure up in your mind. In fact, most Customtone presets do not initially sound as you might imagine at first listen. That's because your equipment in your environment is almost certainly different from the person's who posted the preset. Factors like the specific guitar, string guage, playing style, and most importantly the monitoring equipment (guitar amp, PA speakers, studio monitors, headphones) will be different. The sum of these have a huge impact on what you hear. In most cases a Customtone preset provides, at best, a good starting point for tweaking.

 

Secondly, you want to try matching settings in a preset designed for a non-Helix device in a Helix device. Again, that will at best provide a starting point. In this case the reason is that Helix family devices use different modeling technology than previous devices. The very same 'based on' amp model with exactly the same parameter settings in the older device will sound different (sometimes vastly different) on the Helix device. The same is true for all FX models. Don't expect good results initially.

 

My advice? Forget about trying to transfer settings from older Customtone presets to Helix. Spend that time (and there will be lots of it) learning how to build your own Helix presets.

 

 

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On 5/17/2023 at 7:03 AM, silverhead said:

Further thoughts for you....

 

Firstly, Customtone is an unmoderated site. Any one can post any preset with any name and description. That doesn't mean it will sound like whatever mental image that may conjure up in your mind. In fact, most Customtone presets do not initially sound as you might imagine at first listen. That's because your equipment in your environment is almost certainly different from the person's who posted the preset. Factors like the specific guitar, string guage, playing style, and most importantly the monitoring equipment (guitar amp, PA speakers, studio monitors, headphones) will be different. The sum of these have a huge impact on what you hear. In most cases a Customtone preset provides, at best, a good starting point for tweaking.

 

Secondly, you want to try matching settings in a preset designed for a non-Helix device in a Helix device. Again, that will at best provide a starting point. In this case the reason is that Helix family devices use different modeling technology than previous devices. The very same 'based on' amp model with exactly the same parameter settings in the older device will sound different (sometimes vastly different) on the Helix device. The same is true for all FX models. Don't expect good results initially.

 

My advice? Forget about trying to transfer settings from older Customtone presets to Helix. Spend that time (and there will be lots of it) learning how to build your own Helix presets.

 

 

This is very helpful!  Thank you so much! :)

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On 5/17/2023 at 10:03 AM, silverhead said:

Further thoughts for you....

 

Firstly, Customtone is an unmoderated site. Any one can post any preset with any name and description. That doesn't mean it will sound like whatever mental image that may conjure up in your mind. In fact, most Customtone presets do not initially sound as you might imagine at first listen. That's because your equipment in your environment is almost certainly different from the person's who posted the preset. Factors like the specific guitar, string guage, playing style, and most importantly the monitoring equipment (guitar amp, PA speakers, studio monitors, headphones) will be different. The sum of these have a huge impact on what you hear. In most cases a Customtone preset provides, at best, a good starting point for tweaking.

 

Secondly, you want to try matching settings in a preset designed for a non-Helix device in a Helix device. Again, that will at best provide a starting point. In this case the reason is that Helix family devices use different modeling technology than previous devices. The very same 'based on' amp model with exactly the same parameter settings in the older device will sound different (sometimes vastly different) on the Helix device. The same is true for all FX models. Don't expect good results initially.

 

My advice? Forget about trying to transfer settings from older Customtone presets to Helix. Spend that time (and there will be lots of it) learning how to build your own Helix presets.

 

 

 

THIS...

 

If wasted time took up physical space, then Customtone would be the world's biggest landfill. It's a nice idea that is entirely unworkable in the real world, as the list of variables that contribute to one's tone is of Biblical length, and when the only common denominator is a bunch of 1's and 0's of Helix code, tonal continuity from one person to the next is essentially impossible. You'll grow old and die before you find anything in there that you don't have to tweak extensively to your liking...might as well just do it yourself from the jump, and save yourself the aggravation. 

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On 5/17/2023 at 8:35 AM, cruisinon2 said:

 

THIS...

 

If wasted time took up physical space, then Customtone would be the world's biggest landfill. It's a nice idea that is entirely unworkable in the real world, as the list of variables that contribute to one's tone is of Biblical length, and when the only common denominator is a bunch of 1's and 0's of Helix code, tonal continuity from one person to the next is essentially impossible. You'll grow old and die before you find anything in there that you don't have to tweak extensively to your liking...might as well just do it yourself from the jump, and save yourself the aggravation. 

 

I think that the primary purpose of Customtone is to educate new users to the necessity of learning to create one's own custom presets from scratch. At best, Customtone presets are useful to show what NOT to do.

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I find Customtone presets can sometimes be useful examples to learn about different routing and application options. For instance, a single preset for Helix guitar and vocals, or for blending Variax models and mags, or parallel paths, or using expression pedals as FX parameter controllers, or using Snapshots, etc.

 

Having said that, the Search function in Customtone doesn’t easily support finding such presets.

 

But in terms of tone it’s best to spend the time learning to build your own presets.

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On 5/17/2023 at 12:26 PM, rd2rk said:

 

I think that the primary purpose of Customtone is to educate new users to the necessity of learning to create one's own custom presets from scratch. At best, Customtone presets are useful to show what NOT to do.

 

Amen to that, lol...

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I tend to use Customtone to find presets of songs that I want to have a go at when I’m feeling lazy, which is quite often!
 

Rightly or wrongly, I focus on the ones that have more stars and a reasonable number of downloads as an indicator of how useful it might be. I also tend to seek out those from known contributors, which typically get the stars and download volumes.

 

The theory being that in either case I’m likely to get a good starting point and if lucky the author of the preset has done the research regards amps, settings and effects that were or at least thought to have been used on the original song.


As others have said, rarely do you get a gem that’s just right for you straight off for all the reasons given.

 

Sometimes though I start from scratch myself, do a bit of research on the song the guitarist etc. and build from there. I don’t profess to know how the heck I then refine this, in many cases that just seems trial & error or putting up with as far as I get before getting bored, in most cases there’s too many variables to know which or which combination does what but I get so far and get by! The beauty of the Helix is that I can do this and in doing so some stuff registers in my head and some of that is retrievable next time!

 

One thing I have recently found and tried and have got pretty impressive results is this ChatGBT stuff but not via the techie route, no that’s way too scary and pointy headed for me - just use the new Bing Chat feature in Microsoft Edge and hone your question to be specific to something like ‘what amp and amp and effects module settings are used in the Line 6 Helix to get the guitar tone from the song x by y’. I have gotten some good starter results from this with useful explanations and references. I even asked it how I could transpose the Billy Preston keyboard solo on Get Back to guitar and whilst I didn’t get the magic tab sheet, I got some pretty useful and thoughtful ideas back!

 

I just thought this might be helpful to those who had not discovered this yet.

 

It is surprising however that nobody has created a comprehensive library of guitarist rig and settings for given songs, I know there’s some general nice rig diagrams out there but I’m talking the next level, cos the thing is many of us really want to be playing the songs not spending ages figuring out how to get the sound - the one downside to the Helix is that it can distract you from actually playing! Maybe that’s something I could ask Bing Chat to create!

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