Do updates have undesirable side effects?

[johnnyvlee]

Anyone besides me think Helix updates with modern amp models seem to make older amp models sound worse?

 

Might be my imagination, I don't know. But I play a lot of cover rock from 60s-80s and I faithfully update my Helix updates as they become available, but it has seemed like my existing patches which use amp models that are older don't sound as good as they used to.  By the way, I'm not comparing with the newer amp models, that's just playing the same songs after an update.

 

My approach has been to create a patch per song, and use snapshots within the patch. Sometimes for a new song I just copy another song's patch, and I may or may not tweak it.  So, I end up using the same amp models in multiple patches. For example, I know I have used the WhoWatt 100 in quite a few patches. Those all seem to sound not great anymore.

 

Also, I've used AMP+CAB models a lot.  I had thought I would go back and change those to separate models, but it's a bit of a pain since you have to manually duplicate the amp and speaker settings.  Would have been fantastic if they would have had a feature in HX Edit to split up the amp/speaker models for you.

 

Then again, they don't even have a search function within a setlist, which seems to me a very basic need.

 

Anyway, I'm debating no longer doing updates.  But I know it will nag me every time I run HX Edit for any reason.

[SaschaFranck]

Downdate, record something, update, record something, ideally using reamping or Helix Native. Then compare.

That's the only way to really find out.

[silverhead]

…I think you would need to downdate/update Helix Native also…

[silverhead]

On 1/18/2025 at 11:41 AM, johnnyvlee said:

Anyone besides me think Helix updates with modern amp models seem to make older amp models sound worse?

 

Might be my imagination, I don't know. …

I expect it’s your imagination. Some updates can alter the tone of previous presets but that is really rare and well documented in release notes. Even major updates like rewriting the cab engine as was done recently do not affect the tone of the previous cabs. Even very minor things like a different volume level on your Helix knob or your speakers/mixer can trick your ears into thinking something’s different - and it is. But not due to the update.