Why is the Helix Stomp lacking a nice EQ?

[timobuske]

Hi,

 

I love love love my Helix Stomp XL! I mostly I use a noise gate, an amp sim + cab like the Badonk and the LA2A only and then later tweak the sound in the DAW after recording. Mostly I just need some EQing and it sounds good enough for me. With the stuff in the DAW and a VST-EQ plugin this is pretty easy. However when I want to replicate the EQ later on the Helix for a live setup or just to play around without DAW, I'm kinda stuck...

There are two EQs that would kinda work, the 10 band GEQ and the parametric EQ. But... both have drastic limits: Why only +-12dB? And why is the low band of the parametric EQ just up to 500 Hz? Wouldn't it be super easy to provide more options here? Just allow +-24 dB and extend the frequency ranges. And wouldn't it be easy to create a PEQ with 4 bands? I can work around it using two parametric EQs but workflow wise this is not great plus I use up one more block + DSP power I would need for other stuff like chorus later on or a second amp for stereo.

 

Hey Line6, can you please create a more advanced parametric EQ?

Suggestions:
* +- 24 dB
* wider band ranges

* 4 band PEQ version

 

Chers

Timo

 

[theElevators]

24 decibels is a LOT!    If you ever need more than 12, how about adding two EQ blocks instead of 1?

[DunedinDragon]

Sorry to say but IMO if you need that much EQ there's something more fundamentally wrong in your signal chain such as the amp you've chosen, the guitar and settings you've chosen, the settings on the amp, the cabinet and mic'ng solution you've chosen...something along those lines.  EQ's by their nature are a somewhat unnatural solution for fixing a fundamental signal chain flaw and that's why they squeeze the natural sound out of the signal.  Over the last 9 years of using my Helix in thousands of recordings and live performances I rarely need anything more than a final finishing EQ with a couple of small tweaks.  I can typically get closer to what I want just moving the mic placement or maybe a different mic worst case.

[SaschaFranck]

On 8/23/2024 at 1:24 AM, DunedinDragon said:

EQ's by their nature are a somewhat unnatural solution for fixing a fundamental signal chain flaw

 

No, just no, that's just nonsense.

By that token, I guess you never use your guitar's tone control, either. Let alone the tone stack of your amp. Because, well, they're EQs, too.

[Schmalle]

I completely agree with the OP. IMHO the parametric EQ in the Helix work but are implemented kind of toy-ish.

 

And there is the wrong implementation of the Q parameter:

 

In the context of resonators (like parametric EQ) there is the so called bandwidth-definition of Q:
Q = f_r / Δf
Q (Qualtity factor; how narrow a filter is) is defined as frequency-to-bandwidth ratio at the resonant frequency f_r where Δf is the resonance width or full width at half maximum (FWHM).

Line 6 uses Q = ( f_r / Δf )² which is wrong. And it's undocumented so you have to stumble over it when trying to copy eq settings from other devices.

[timobuske]

Thanks for your opinions. However I still don't think the Helix EQs are very nice.

 

Of course there are workarounds like using multiple PEQ blocks but...

* I would like to use those blocks for other effects. There are only 8. Wasting one more block to just get an adequate EQ would be really a big sacrifice.

* Using more blocks is a bad workflow switching between blocks to adjust parameters.

 

+-24 dB is not much. Check out the Acoustic Sim effect in the Helix. This one is doing exactly that, even slightly more. Having the possibility of doing this using a PEQ instead of Acoustim Sim block, would be a great oppotunity of saving some DSP power for other effects.

 

I think it would be really easy to just provide larger param ranges for the PEQ. And it would give us so much. Especially the lower band freq range would be great to have a bit more flexibility there.

[lou-kash]

On 8/23/2024 at 1:24 AM, DunedinDragon said:

if you need that much EQ there's something more fundamentally wrong in your signal chain such as […]

 

… the piezo pickup in my old acoustic bass guitar which the previous owner implemented the wrong way so that it now sounds like crap…

Yes, sometimes things are so "fundamentally wrong" that the best way to fix it is by taking unconventional measures.

For the above case, apart from the parametric EQ for finetuning, I have used the Multiband Compressor to radically suppress the frequence range that I don't want to be there. It works.

[somebodyelse]

I'm kinda both sides of the fence on this one.

 

The EQs do what they do.

I agree with the comment about needing 24 db of gain. If you do, you're doing something fundamentally wrong. I start getting 'itchy' if I go over +/-3 db.

I'd have liked a 5 band Parametric - 3 plus high and low cut is okay, but...

[craiganderton]

The 3-Band Comp is a highly versatile equalizer if you defeat its dynamics processing. There's a bunch of info about this in version 1.4 of The Big Book of Helix Tips and Tricks. 

 

Page 489 describes how to use the 3-Band Comp as a Targeting Equalizer. You can get up to +36 dB gain and -120 dB attenuation. The TL;DR summary is turn the Thresholds up to 0, specify the hi, mid, and low bands you want to EQ, then use the associated level controls for the desired amount of boost or cut. (FYI as a Helix Native user, the 3-Band Comp sometimes solves problems that other DAW-oriented EQs can't.)

 

Page 481 has info on using the 3-Band Comp as a focusing EQ for bass.

 

Page 402 describes how to use the 3-Band Comp to do "Combi-Band" processing. This delivers some of the benefits of processing three frequency bands—low, midrange, and high—with only two paths, like HX Stomp has.

 

Page 403 describes why the 3-Band comp is the most accurate way to split frequencies. 

 

The Free Files folder also has some presets that use the 3-Band Comp. Overall, the 3-Band Comp may not do exactly what you want, but it's an extremely powerful EQ when you defeat the dynamics processing. Check it out! It's a great complement to the other EQs.