Line 6 Helix Sounds Terrible?

Sporky

meltedbuzzbox said:

I still don't think it's the second coming that it is often billed as on here

Where?

Certainly a fair few of us have one and like it, but I think you're the only person using that phrase. Let it go chief.

There are, I think, a few factors at play in the OP's experience.

1) The Helix (as mentioned) doesn't play nicely with all headphones.

2) Stock presets in pretty much everything are awful.

3) The GT series are pretty good too.

If the Helix doesn't work for you then there are lots of alternatives. Even among those of us who love it there are disagreements about how it works best - there are people adamant that third party IRs are essential to make it sound OK (personally I find the onboard cabs sound fine and are less faff, but I may have a different needs). There are people who use it for effects and routing (including USB interface) only, and have an external amp and/or loadbox and/or IR loader.

The main advantages the Helix has, to my mind, are its massive flexibility, the very flat and mostly very straightforward interface, the decent sound quality (this might sound like I'm selling it short to some people - I'm just not gushingly effusive about such things) and the steady stream of updates from Line6, which have added lots of new blocks and functionality. Doesn't mean it'll suit everyone.

TheBigDipper

I'd agree with the OP that the GT-100 is a steal as the release of the GT-1000 drives the prices down. The 'two screens' approach makes it remarkably easy to use and program without needing a computer, too. Not Helix-easy, but easy enough. 

dindude

I was up close and personal with a Helix at the weekend for a good few hours.

It was going into a Yamaha FRFR speaker and it sounded pretty darn good. It helped that the chap who uses it was a). a fabulous player and b). treating it as a traditional rig. i.e. one signal chain, lowish gain amp with a sprinkling of reverb and/or delay. When played myself, it felt different than playing a valve amp and the low end is where you notice it most, but it was WAY better than I expected. Not enough to make me rush out and sell my valve amp and pedals but very nice.

Anyway the purpose of this ramble is that the only reason I would consider (could justify) one is for silent practice so disappointed to hear they got the headphone out so wrong. If I was buying one, this is how I would try it out as this is how I would be using it a lot of the time.

Also, why do manufacturers fond it so hard to do decent presets, this IS what people will use when trying it out in a store.

peteri

My experience of the Helix was that it does sound very good, but for me needed a lot of tweaking and also putting some of the values where I wouldn't have expected them.

I got a lot of mileage out of a compressor early in the chain, which I wouldn't normally do etc. I think it's very easy to overdo things too.

I ended up with an AX8, which for me (assuming you edit on the computer) was much more intuitive and a £10 headphone amplifier off Amazon

Jonathanthomas83

@Glaw343 do you want a multiFX or a modeller? Sorry, I'm slow to the party

hubobulous

I created some patches at home, using headphones as my listening interface. Too the Helix to Peach a couple of weekends ago to try some things out and played it through a FRFR cab. Sounded pretty much spot on. I'm not someone who will tweak to the nth degree, but units like this almost demand that you spend a little time getting to know them and understand how to enact the changes that you desire.

I've not gone down the 3rd party IR route as currently the stock cabs do the trick for me. As with most things, there comes a point when its what's being played that becomes the defnining factor as to how good something sounds.

flying_pie

GT 100 presets are truly awful. I can only imagine how awful the Helix presets must be if they sound worse.

welshboyo

yeah, sounds terrible...just remember a lot of also depends on what the headphone is set to from globals...

sgosden

welshboyo said:

yeah, sounds terrible...just remember a lot of also depends on what the headphone is set to from globals...

link isn't working. make it work. I wanna hear.

welshboyo

welshboyo

welshboyo

sgosden said:

welshboyo said:

yeah, sounds terrible...just remember a lot of also depends on what the headphone is set to from globals...

link isn't working. make it work. I wanna hear.

@sgosden linkys now working hopefully

NelsonP

I've not tried a Helix. But I have tried a POD HD500x, GT100, and Atomic Amplifire.

The Amplifire sounds fabulous. Either via headphones (Audio Technica ATHM50-x) or direct to PA.
And much better than the POD HD or GT100 (not a huge surprise I guess). 

From what I've read there is no easier user interface to use than the Helix. Having said that my Amplifire 12 is v straightforward to use, now that I've set it up the way I want.  I have the bottom rom of switches set up as varying levels of gain - clean, crunch, dirt, lead etc The the top row is comp, boost, modulation (chorus or flanger), delay and tap tempo/tuner.

It's also much smaller and more portable than the Helix.

One other thing to consider is that modellers can often sound good in isolation but then get lost in the mix in a band context. Much the same as a solid state amp can, as opposed to a valve amp which just seems to cut through. The amplifire does not have that problem.

Glaw343

Sporky said:

meltedbuzzbox said:

I still don't think it's the second coming that it is often billed as on here

Where?

Certainly a fair few of us have one and like it, but I think you're the only person using that phrase. Let it go chief.

There are, I think, a few factors at play in the OP's experience.

1) The Helix (as mentioned) doesn't play nicely with all headphones.

2) Stock presets in pretty much everything are awful.

3) The GT series are pretty good too.

If the Helix doesn't work for you then there are lots of alternatives. Even among those of us who love it there are disagreements about how it works best - there are people adamant that third party IRs are essential to make it sound OK (personally I find the onboard cabs sound fine and are less faff, but I may have a different needs). There are people who use it for effects and routing (including USB interface) only, and have an external amp and/or loadbox and/or IR loader.

The main advantages the Helix has, to my mind, are its massive flexibility, the very flat and mostly very straightforward interface, the decent sound quality (this might sound like I'm selling it short to some people - I'm just not gushingly effusive about such things) and the steady stream of updates from Line6, which have added lots of new blocks and functionality. Doesn't mean it'll suit everyone.

I just measured my headphones and they come out at about 40 ohms tip to ring and about 20 ohms tip to sleeve, someone on here said they need a much higher impedance, however I haven't checked with line 6 yet, It looks like the problems I was having may just be down to that, as for your other points I agree as well, I was able to have a good tweak of the stock presets and have a go at making my own on the helix but like you said, it doesn't play nicely with all headphones, so it was kind of doomed to fail from the start

Glaw343

welshboyo said:

yeah, sounds terrible...just remember a lot of also depends on what the headphone is set to from globals...

I checked that it was set correctly for headphones, apparently the helix needs higher impedance headphones to sound good, I'm going to check with line 6 as I measured mine at about 40 ohms tip to ring and about 20 ohms tip to sleeve, as for the video, I wouldn't say that I think that's a bad guitar sound but I'm not overly keen, I think the thing that really stands out to me is Paul's fantastic playing just to clarify I'm not trying to say the helix sounds bad, the post is basically me asking what I was doing wrong to have the helix sound as bad as it did (with a lot of tweaking of preset sounds and trying to make my own), someone else on this thread had a similar experience when using the helix with headphones like I did and the videos I've seen where I've heard absolutely fantastic sounds from the Helix like Pete Thorn's video are generally not utilising the stock IRs although that doesn't seem to be the problem as a lot of people are also getting great sounds from the stock IRs, it looks like the problem lies in the compatibility of the headphones I used, like I said I'll ask Line 6

Glaw343

Jonathanthomas83 said:

@Glaw343 do you want a multiFX or a modeller? Sorry, I'm slow to the party

I suppose both, I'm looking for an amp modeller that I can then add effects too, which I can use with headphones for practice and plug into an amp or run direct live 

impmann

Glaw343 said:

welshboyo said:

yeah, sounds terrible...just remember a lot of also depends on what the headphone is set to from globals...

I checked that it was set correctly for headphones, apparently the helix needs higher impedance headphones to sound good, I'm going to check with line 6 as I measured mine at about 40 ohms tip to ring and about 20 ohms tip to sleeve, as for the video, I wouldn't say that I think that's a bad guitar sound but I'm not overly keen, I think the thing that really stands out to me is Paul's fantastic playing just to clarify I'm not trying to say the helix sounds bad, the post is basically me asking what I was doing wrong to have the helix sound as bad as it did (with a lot of tweaking of preset sounds and trying to make my own), someone else on this thread had a similar experience when using the helix with headphones like I did and the videos I've seen where I've heard absolutely fantastic sounds from the Helix like Pete Thorn's video are generally not utilising the stock IRs although that doesn't seem to be the problem as a lot of people are also getting great sounds from the stock IRs, it looks like the problem lies in the compatibility of the headphones I used, like I said I'll ask Line 6

Seriously, Line6... you make a product that needs headphones that are a specific impedance? And it sounds shit when you don't?

FFS, who signed *that* off...

Sporky

Glaw343 said:

I just measured my headphones and they come out at about 40 ohms tip to ring and about 20 ohms tip to sleeve, someone on here said they need a much higher impedance, however I haven't checked with line 6 yet, It looks like the problems I was having may just be down to that, as for your other points I agree as well, I was able to have a good tweak of the stock presets and have a go at making my own on the helix but like you said, it doesn't play nicely with all headphones, so it was kind of doomed to fail from the start

It does seem odd that the headphone output is so unforgiving.

And apologies - I thought you'd said you didn't do any/much tweaking - I think I misread or misunderstood your post.

My guess is that it's the headphones thing that did it - quite a few people have complained about the sound with headphones.

NelsonP

Maybe put a post on TGP. Frank Richotte from Line 6 is on there a lot and you might get a quick answer there.

Digital_Igloo

siremoon said:

If everyone judged Helix by the presets they would not have sold very many, even the product manager has said more than once that they "suck".

That's me, but it's not just Helix's presets that suck. All. Presets. Suck.© In every box. If you just so happen to find a preset that doesn't suck, it's likely because it was created by someone with a very similar guitar, pickups, impedance load, strings, playback system, playback volume, location of their ears with regard to said playback system, listening environment (including temperature and humidity!), tempo, playing style, genre, *and* music sensibilities. And even then, that same preset will likely suck the next day when one or more of those things changes.

Expecting any factory preset to sound good across more than a tiny percentage of literally trillions of permutations is a lesson in futility. That said, we have some ideas, but none of them have anything to do with "making great presets," just like you can't expect Tinder to "make great dates."

TL;DR: Make your own presets. Then they'll suck for everyone but you.