High gain amp lead ice picky help.

[km06ore]

Hi guys had my helix for about a month now, I've been trying to make my own thrash metal early Metallica, Megadeath ect  presets.
I've found some amp settings used by the bands and they sound not too bad when copied into the closest amps that helix has to offer.
The thing I'm having trouble with is they sound fizzy or ice picky when playing leads, should I be using eqs to cut the high end more or finding certain frequencies and trying to cut them.

Example of a signal chain I have tried would be the 5150, scream 808 in front and either the stock cab that comes with the amp or an ownhammer ir.

When I play the same amp from customtone the amps sound great, with it helix cabs or ir.

I'm listening to my helix on a pair of dt990s and mainly using my KH3 with active pickups.

I'm more than willing to learn how to dial in my own tones it just need a little guidance, looked around on YouTube but I can't really find any demos of lead playing to compare their presets to. Tried posting on the helix Reddit but I don't think I have enough karma to post.

[theElevators]

take a preset you like, take screenshots of all the components, re-create it from scratch.  that's how you can learn. 

[DunedinDragon]

The simplest way to address these sorts of things is to play with the mic and mic positions of the cabinet rather than EQ.  Dynamic mics like 421 tend to be more mellow than a shure 57 as will a 121 ribbon.  The trick is placement.  I've always had the best luck positioning it fairly close to the center with a couple of inches distance on dynamic mics and closer with a ribbon.  Try it with both mics in combination and play with it to get the sound that's smoothest.  Sometimes a Condenser mic a bit further out from the center can work well also.  The only EQ I ever tend to need is a final parametric EQ with high cut around 8khz.

[Paulzx]

On 9/7/2023 at 12:24 AM, km06ore said:

Hi guys had my helix for about a month now, I've been trying to make my own thrash metal early Metallica, Megadeath ect  presets.
I've found some amp settings used by the bands and they sound not too bad when copied into the closest amps that helix has to offer.
The thing I'm having trouble with is they sound fizzy or ice picky when playing leads, should I be using eqs to cut the high end more or finding certain frequencies and trying to cut them.

Example of a signal chain I have tried would be the 5150, scream 808 in front and either the stock cab that comes with the amp or an ownhammer ir.

When I play the same amp from customtone the amps sound great, with it helix cabs or ir.

I'm listening to my helix on a pair of dt990s and mainly using my KH3 with active pickups.

I'm more than willing to learn how to dial in my own tones it just need a little guidance, looked around on YouTube but I can't really find any demos of lead playing to compare their presets to. Tried posting on the helix Reddit but I don't think I have enough karma to post.

 

I can give you a short check list to solve that with those sort of tones, but first thing to look at is how you're listening to it.

Headphones, as good as they are for practising quietly, produce a very different sound to a guitar cab or FRFR speakers, very artificial sounding.

Maybe someone here can suggest some headphones that solve that but in my experience, none of them sound the way the Helix sounds through real speakers.

 

So are you only using headphones or are you going between speakers and headphones?

 

 

[errxn]

As @DunedinDragonmentioned, start with speaker selection/mic placement. Once you get that in the ballpark, start fooling around with the high cut. The extra step beyond this that I would take with the parametric is to find and notch out what I call the "whistling frequency," which is usually between 3.2-3.7K, depending on what amp/overdrive/etc. you're using. That's usually the biggest culprit when it comes to nastiness in high-gain tones, and is something that you don't really realize is having such an effect on your tone until it's gone. Use a fairly high Q setting, at least 7. This will isolate the bad frequency without affecting too much around it. I usually do this with the High band, since the Mid band is much more important for tone shaping, and you already have the High Cut control to generally deal with highs, anyway.

 

Once you get this trick down, you'll probably find that you want to back off on the high cut a little, since you've notched out the REALLY bad stuff. Also, keep in mind that this is easy to do, but it's also easy to overdo, and dull your tone down beyond what you want. I usually keep toggling the EQ on and off while adjusting, just to make sure I haven't gotten too crazy with it.

 

Hopefully this helps with your problem!

[codamedia]

On 9/6/2023 at 6:24 PM, km06ore said:

The thing I'm having trouble with is they sound fizzy or ice picky when playing leads, should I be using eqs to cut the high end more or finding certain frequencies and trying to cut them?

Example of a signal chain I have tried would be the 5150, scream 808 in front and either the stock cab that comes with the amp or an ownhammer ir.

 

In this example... if the rhythms sound fine then the "scream 808" should give you the basis for the lead.. but be careful of the settings. You don't often want to add more dirt with a tube screamer, you want to hit the amp a little harder. Keep the gain levels low on the 808 and dial back the tone control to get a creamy lead tone while adjusting the level to keep the volume a little louder than when it is off. 

 

The end result when engaging a tube screamer should be a thicker/richer mid range (great for leads) that doesn't wander too far away from the core amp tone.