Helix - unity volume between effects in a preset and also between presets

[tacoma50]

I am trying to maintain unity volume between effects in a preset and also between presets.

Other than trial and error and using your ear are there any Helix tools that help with this, if not it would be nice if Line6 developed such a HXedit tool...Although that could be quite the daunting task.

How do others tackle this?

[datacommando]

On 1/14/2024 at 10:48 PM, tacoma50 said:

I am trying to maintain unity volume between effects in a preset and also between presets.

Other than trial and error and using your ear are there any Helix tools that help with this, if not it would be nice if Line6 developed such a HXedit tool...Although that could be quite the daunting task.

How do others tackle this?

Hi,

 

Here we go again - this has been discussed many, many times in these threads.

Oh, look - here’s one from 7 years back.

 

 

or this:- 

There are others, but I don’t intend trawling through them all - just Google this stuff.

 

Here’s a video from Jason.

 

and another.

 

 

Hope this helps/makes sense.

[codamedia]

Long story shot...

 

There is no way to balance presets, or gain staging without using your ears. 

Meters get you part way there.... remarkably well. But beyond that, you need to put in the time. 

 

Learn how to do it, don't rely on tech to do it! 

[theElevators]

For this reason, it's a good idea to have all your presets be the same in terms of their basic components.  If you have 2 completely different presets, especially if you download it from Custom Tone, then it's asking for trouble. 

 

So what works is if you have the same exact signal chain for all your presets, same amp, same distortion, etc.  Then you add some extra bells and whistles, have different delay tempo between the 2 presets, etc... but the core of the sound is the same. 

 

If you completely reinvent the signal chain in each preset, you risk having lots of volume discrepancies and tonal discrepancies between your presets and their snapshots.  There is a reason you do a sound check, think of the old days--a guitarist will go through their clean/distorted sounds, and the sound guy is happy.  Now imagine instead of the main 2 sounds, you have 25 different sound with completely unexpected EQs that will completely change the band mix.  No good. 

 

Even if you analyze the DB level of your signal, some sounds appear louder because of their equalization, lack of reverb, etc.   No amount of tools and gauges will really be able to tune the volume balance between your sounds, until you know exactly what you need to do in your given situation, until you try out those sounds through a loud PA.  And once you know what works, you can simply copy/paste and create new presets based on this formula that you know works.

[tacoma50]

Thanks for the links to get me going. I'm a newb, I've had my STOMP for about 3 weeks now. I've built two good base presets so far that will be my main rigs.

[brue58ski]

Just another use your ears post. It surprises me how often sometimes the meter will say two sounds are of equal loudness but my ears make it obvious they are not.