Stereo guitar input

[kerryhall1]

I would like to try running my guitar in stereo, ie, taking the output of both pickups at once as left and right. (Someone recommended this to me, gave me a demo, and I love the sound)

 

From searching these forums, people recommend using returns 1+2 as a stereo guitar input.

 

But does this work for passive pickups? Is return 1+2 expecting guitar pickup level, or line level?

[silverhead]

You can set the input level for the Returns to instrument which will match your guitar pickup output levels. However, unless your guitar has different physical outputs for each pickup you will need an adapter to split your single guitar output to two duplicate signals. That won’t separate the individual pickups on your guitar to L and R. It will simply give you the same guitar signal into different Returns so that you can process the same signal differently within your Helix.

[rd2rk]

In Global Settings>Ins/Outs you can set the Sends/Returns to either INSTRUMENT (1M) or LINE.

What you lose is the AUTO INPUT-Z - if the device you're using has that.

When asking for help on this forum, it's helpful to specify which device you're using.

[kerryhall1]

Don't worry about the guitar side of things, I will wire my guitar to use a stereo output jack, taking outputs from both pickups, using a TRS cable that I then split into two mono signals for the returns 1 and 2.

[craiganderton]

Also sounds like a good plan for those with Rickenbacker guitars that have Ric-O-Sound wiring.