Trad Amps with FX - Atomic Amplifire with FX - Or sod it all and get a Helix/LT

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  • sweepysweepy Frets: 4158
    Get a Kemper, 
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  • Thanks all for your help, lots to think about!! 

    My head said brake, but my heart cried never.


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  • RolandRoland Frets: 8590
    This advice from a long term AxeFX user:

    Get a second hand Helix. Keep your pedals for now. Learn how to use the Helix. Set it up to get close to your pedals. This will take you a few weeks. You think you’ve got it. Then, like climbing a mountain you discover it was only a ridge, and there’s more on the other side. You will reach a point when you decide one of two things. Either “I can’t stand this pfaffing around” and sell the Helix for what you paid for it; or “I don’t need all those old pedals” and you sell them for more than the Helix.

    Your second problem is on stage sound. Some people find it difficult to let go of 4x12s and hot valves. They are great for the guitarist. Everyone else either finds them unhelpful, or doesn’t notice. In a covers band you need to think about what the audience hears. Ditch the large amp. DI the Helix, and use a small amp or powered speaker. Face it to you rather than the audience.

    Tree recycler, and guitarist with  https://www.undercoversband.com/.
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  • Thanks mate, yeah I know from chatting to my best mate in his rock covers band. He much prefers having a cooking amp behind him, and even the other guitarist who is pretty experienced with modelling and digital stuff has gone back to amps as he prefers them live too.

    I'll see how I go and what decisions I come too, and update the thread accordingly. The appeal for me is the ease of it all, and one rig for all options, home, rehearsals and live. Plus the ease of storage, flexible sounds etc.. The biggest downside for me is spending that much on something that although will probably stay at £800+ for a while will one day be worth zip. Winds me up, but that's no different to most things these days!

    Anyone have any idea if Line 6 have any plans to update the Helix. By which I mean a newer model, or if they keep the same lines for a while? 

    My head said brake, but my heart cried never.


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  • John_AJohn_A Frets: 3775
    Boromedic said:
    Thanks mate, yeah I know from chatting to my best mate in his rock covers band. He much prefers having a cooking amp behind him, and even the other guitarist who is pretty experienced with modelling and digital stuff has gone back to amps as he prefers them live too.

    That's guitarist mentality, what he prefers shouldn't be the priority, as Roland says it's what the audience hears that's important.  Since switching to the Helix my sound, and more importantly the overall band sound has improved a lot.

    With 2 loud amps on stage (pub floor) everyone on one side hears guitarist A and vice-versa, the vocals get lost which is a good job because the singer cant hear himself and they are out of tune etc etc.

    I too love the feeling of standing in front of a 4x12, but I'm 25% of a band and keeping me happy shouldn't be priority over ruining everyone else's night
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  • John_AJohn_A Frets: 3775
    edited September 2018
    Oh, no Helix 2 for a long time yet according to Line 6.  
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  • Phew, that's a relief! Not that I mind like, played a Pod XT Live for a short while even whilst it was pretty old by that point!

    My head said brake, but my heart cried never.


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  • John_AJohn_A Frets: 3775
    Boromedic said:
    Phew, that's a relief! Not that I mind like, played a Pod XT Live for a short while even whilst it was pretty old by that point!
    Even if one did come out I don't know what I'd do with it.  I've probably used less than 50% of the Helix' capabilities in the 2+ years I've had it
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  • Yeah I look at all it can do and how amazing it sounds in the demos and can't see what improvement can be made

    My head said brake, but my heart cried never.


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  • BoromedicBoromedic Frets: 4700
    edited September 2018
    One last question, honestly! How easy is to level your patches/snapshots? Ensuring your volume doesn't fluctuate between them. Obviously going from clean to drive to boost you would probably have a tiny volume lift but you wouldn't want them all over the place. 

    This was a bit of a bugbear with the Amplifire to be honest, so I wondered how it was with the Helix. Cheers!

    My head said brake, but my heart cried never.


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  • John_AJohn_A Frets: 3775
    Boromedic said:
    One last question, honestly! How easy is to level your patches/snapshots? Ensuring your volume doesn't fluctuate between them. Obviously going from clean to drive to boost you would probably have a tiny volume lift but you wouldn't want them all over the place. 

    This was a bit of a bugbear with the Amplifire to be honest, so I wondered how it was with the Helix. Cheers!
    Piece of cake.  Every patch has a master output level you can use to trim the volume after you’ve set all your amp volumes 
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  • Cool, so you'd use that to level off each patch relative to the others you use? Sounds similar to the Atomic then, best not to have multiple patches for different bands then eh?!!

    My head said brake, but my heart cried never.


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  • John_AJohn_A Frets: 3775
    Boromedic said:
    Cool, so you'd use that to level off each patch relative to the others you use? Sounds similar to the Atomic then, best not to have multiple patches for different bands then eh?!!
    Exactly - In practice I use one patch with 4 snapshots for 95% of the time with a few FX on the top row of buttons I can switch in and out
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  • Thanks mate

    My head said brake, but my heart cried never.


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  • NelsonPNelsonP Frets: 3347
    edited September 2018
    Boromedic said:
    One last question, honestly! How easy is to level your patches/snapshots? Ensuring your volume doesn't fluctuate between them. Obviously going from clean to drive to boost you would probably have a tiny volume lift but you wouldn't want them all over the place. 

    This was a bit of a bugbear with the Amplifire to be honest, so I wondered how it was with the Helix. Cheers!
    It's really not that hard on an Amplifire - I match all mine up using the amp level in the amp block.

    ....but from reading this thread it seem that you are GASsing for a Helix and so that's probably the best solution for you.
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  • BoromedicBoromedic Frets: 4700
    edited September 2018
    Oh I agree completely, its not overly difficult, it just seems the volume levels vary so widely when you start with the Amplifire. I am considering the Helix purely because I like the idea of everything all there in one. The Amplifires FX are a tad awkward that's all.

    My head said brake, but my heart cried never.


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  • NelsonPNelsonP Frets: 3347
    edited September 2018
    Im not a massive fx user - give me a compressor/gate, boost/od, phase and delay and i'm happy.

    I've found that Amplifire fx are good provided that you are happy with the basics and invest some time in getting them set up.

    I've actually got down to 5 presets with varying levels of gain. 2 clean, 2 dirty and a solo boost. Ive set up the effects i need on those and it works for me. I like the simplicity of it.

    I used to have a pod xt which had more effects 'models' but found i didn't use most of them. 

    And before that i had a 2 channel mesa and an Arion sch-1


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  • John_A said:
    Boromedic said:
    Cool, so you'd use that to level off each patch relative to the others you use? Sounds similar to the Atomic then, best not to have multiple patches for different bands then eh?!!
    Exactly - In practice I use one patch with 4 snapshots for 95% of the time with a few FX on the top row of buttons I can switch in and out
    I’m pretty much the same. 4 Snapshots (clean, crunch, overdrive and lead), top row for effects I use the most (Tube screamer, Delay, Chorus and volume boost)

    I also have 4 extra effects I can get to on the second mode screen. This is stuff I rarely use (Tremolo, Phaser, Slap back Delay, and a switch setup to turn the HBE channel on the Friedman amp)

    Thats about all I need.


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  • I haven't read all the comments, but I think it's brilliant if you want "good enough" sounds (and I mean that in a generally positive way, as a lot of the Helix sounds are seriously good, but obviously you can't swap one tubescreamer for a slightly different tubescreamer as you can with single pedals), and the flexibility and plug+play element is brilliant once you're setup. If I was gigging I'm 99% sure I'd have kept mine. 

    The reason I didn't keep mine was largely that I found I missed actual pedals from a tactile point of view. Turns out I actually really like the "thingness" of single stompboxes, and I enjoy the experience of shopping for them, trying them, building them etc.  Combined with the pitch-shifting really not being up to scratch and it didn't quite tick all the boxes. I reckon once they've got pitch-shifting up to Whammy standards I'll be very tempted to try another
    The Assumptions - UAE party band for all your rock & soul desires
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  • John_AJohn_A Frets: 3775
    Think it's a lot more than 'good enough' I've gigged with some seriously big and expensive set-ups and the Helix sounds better than any of them IMO.

    And the ability to swap pedals in and out, there's a choice of 24 drives to start with, how many options does anyone need


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