Line 6 Helix - Why does it sound so god awful

Roland

Seziertisch said:

5. Embrace what the Helix can do that a real amp can’t ...

When I started using an AmpFX I matched it as closely as I could to my 50w 2x12 valve combo. After that I let things develop. Last month I thought I’d go back to compare my patches against the valve combo. The combo sounded absolutely shit. Not just the EQ but the whole feel of the thing. Obviously it’s no worse now that it was when I gigged it. My ears and my playing have moved on, and I’ve got used to using features which straightforward valve amps can’t provide.

robinbowes said:

Seziertisch said:

2. 3rd party impulse responses are a must.

Sorry, no they're not. It's perfectly possible to get a great sound from the stock cabs.

I’m sure it is. Horses for courses.

TTBZ said:

Celestion ... IRs are much brighter and thinner sounding than the other big names imo. Not really to my taste. 

Kevin at Ownhammer is a metalhead. He has devoted his life to creating and processing IRs. A lot of them EQd and mixed, and will sound fatter than Celestions. Again, it depends what you’re looking for.

This is the root of the problem. Switching from a valve amp to modelling is not a case of comparing apples to apples. There’s so much more involved.

Seziertisch

robinbowes said:

Seziertisch said:

2. 3rd party impulse responses are a must.

Sorry, no they're not. It's perfectly possible to get a great sound from the stock cabs.

IRs have their place but they're not essential. 

I’ve never got a result with a stock cab/cabs where I haven’t preferred an IR over it, this is particularly true of the Celestion IRs, which just seem to have a bit more realism to them than some others.

Maybe IRs are not a must, but seeing as they can be bought for very little money and that they give results without having to do nearly any tweaking, they are also a real time saver.

Seziertisch

Teetonetal said:

Seziertisch said:

Wazmeister said:

You know, I just wish someone would write a checklist of stuff that needs doing IF the sound isn't working for you with the Helix. 

There are lots of good suggestions on here, which aren't immediately obvious to the average guy. Imho.

1. Make your own patches. A patch with various gain stages and eq options in it needs to be matched to the output of your guitar/pickups. Other people’s patches will only be usable insofar as your guitars output matches theirs.

2. 3rd party impulse responses are a must. The onboard cabs are fine and offer a lot of tweakability, but it can be just another rabbit hole to fall down. I’ve used Celestion and Ownhammer IRs, both are good, Celestion have a bit more top end detail and resemble more what you would expect to hear back over the monitors in the studio without any processing on. The Ownhammer sound a bit more massaged. Depending on what you are after, either could be made to work but one may be preferable to the other.

3. High and low pass filtering is a must. Try using the inbuilt ones in the IR or speaker can block or adding a separate EQ block after. There is a difference between the two as the dB per octave roll off is different. Depending on what you are after one may work better than the other. As has been said, high pass somewhere around the 80 to 100 hz mark, low pass somewhere between 6 and 9k. My personal preference is to get the amp/amps sounding as close as possible before switching on the high and low pass filters for the final tweak. This also means that the patches behave a lot more predictably if you hook them up to an external power amp and cab.

4. Listen with your ears not with your eyes or your expectations of how something should behave. The eq on the amp blocks doesn’t necessarily behave like you would expect a real amp to in my experience, though it could be the case that it perfectly matches the specific amps they are modelling. In terms of controlling top end harshness don’t be afraid to set treble and or presence at zero or very close to it. The same applies to the gain settings, less is sometimes more.

5. Embrace what the Helix can do that a real amp can’t or couldn’t without a pretty elaborate set up. In terms of improving the feel/realism of your patches try mixing in low level short delays and reverbs into the chain after your amp blocks. A short single repeat delay or a small splash or verb mixed in at 5 or 10% is not something you could pick out necessarily as being there but when you turn it off you will notice that it’s missing. It’s a feel thing as much as a sound.

6. All of my patches have two amps, one on each chip (internally) or line on the display. I them bring the signal back together at the for a single IR. One is usually set cleaner, the other slightly dirtier. My thing is edge of breakup sounds and this works great for that, maintaining clarity while getting gritty. 

7. The modelled dirt pedals in the Helix are fine, but for overdrive stuff try using an amp preamp block in front of the amp block or even changing the drive and eq settings on your amp between your snapshots.

8. The Helix plays really well with other pedals. Hit the front of it with a real dirt pedal of choice and be surprised how much your modelled amp behaves like a real amp. All of the onboard effects are usable but they are not necessarily the best in class, try adding modulation pedals into the loops on the Helix, set the pedal to 100% wet and then blend in using the send amount on the Helix.

Can’t say that 2 or 3 are a must for me. I really like the stock cabs. I have 1 amp into 2 stock cabs, one with a dynamic mic the other with a condenser.

i found IRs to be loads more faff for zero improvement.

What do you monitor through? I have found a low pass to be a must. I was in the studio recently modifying a patch from mono to stereo, with an IR on one side and a built-in cab on the other. Treble and presence were set low/off on the amps. I forgot to put a low pass on the built-in cab and the producer noticed it immediately and said it was a problem. 

Also, do you use global EQ?

Teetonetal

Seziertisch said:

Teetonetal said:

Seziertisch said:

Wazmeister said:

You know, I just wish someone would write a checklist of stuff that needs doing IF the sound isn't working for you with the Helix. 

There are lots of good suggestions on here, which aren't immediately obvious to the average guy. Imho.

1. Make your own patches. A patch with various gain stages and eq options in it needs to be matched to the output of your guitar/pickups. Other people’s patches will only be usable insofar as your guitars output matches theirs.

2. 3rd party impulse responses are a must. The onboard cabs are fine and offer a lot of tweakability, but it can be just another rabbit hole to fall down. I’ve used Celestion and Ownhammer IRs, both are good, Celestion have a bit more top end detail and resemble more what you would expect to hear back over the monitors in the studio without any processing on. The Ownhammer sound a bit more massaged. Depending on what you are after, either could be made to work but one may be preferable to the other.

3. High and low pass filtering is a must. Try using the inbuilt ones in the IR or speaker can block or adding a separate EQ block after. There is a difference between the two as the dB per octave roll off is different. Depending on what you are after one may work better than the other. As has been said, high pass somewhere around the 80 to 100 hz mark, low pass somewhere between 6 and 9k. My personal preference is to get the amp/amps sounding as close as possible before switching on the high and low pass filters for the final tweak. This also means that the patches behave a lot more predictably if you hook them up to an external power amp and cab.

4. Listen with your ears not with your eyes or your expectations of how something should behave. The eq on the amp blocks doesn’t necessarily behave like you would expect a real amp to in my experience, though it could be the case that it perfectly matches the specific amps they are modelling. In terms of controlling top end harshness don’t be afraid to set treble and or presence at zero or very close to it. The same applies to the gain settings, less is sometimes more.

5. Embrace what the Helix can do that a real amp can’t or couldn’t without a pretty elaborate set up. In terms of improving the feel/realism of your patches try mixing in low level short delays and reverbs into the chain after your amp blocks. A short single repeat delay or a small splash or verb mixed in at 5 or 10% is not something you could pick out necessarily as being there but when you turn it off you will notice that it’s missing. It’s a feel thing as much as a sound.

6. All of my patches have two amps, one on each chip (internally) or line on the display. I them bring the signal back together at the for a single IR. One is usually set cleaner, the other slightly dirtier. My thing is edge of breakup sounds and this works great for that, maintaining clarity while getting gritty. 

7. The modelled dirt pedals in the Helix are fine, but for overdrive stuff try using an amp preamp block in front of the amp block or even changing the drive and eq settings on your amp between your snapshots.

8. The Helix plays really well with other pedals. Hit the front of it with a real dirt pedal of choice and be surprised how much your modelled amp behaves like a real amp. All of the onboard effects are usable but they are not necessarily the best in class, try adding modulation pedals into the loops on the Helix, set the pedal to 100% wet and then blend in using the send amount on the Helix.

Can’t say that 2 or 3 are a must for me. I really like the stock cabs. I have 1 amp into 2 stock cabs, one with a dynamic mic the other with a condenser.

i found IRs to be loads more faff for zero improvement.

What do you monitor through? I have found a low pass to be a must. I was in the studio recently modifying a patch from mono to stereo, with an IR on one side and a built-in cab on the other. Treble and presence were set low/off on the amps. I forgot to put a low pass on the built-in cab and the producer noticed it immediately and said it was a problem. 

Also, do you use global EQ?

Depends on what I am doing, could be headphones, studio monitors of some description, the PA, my amp fx return. I used to use the Global EQ, as at first I found the amps kinda fizzy, so put a high cut on,  but it's been a long time since I felt the need to do that and mostly have the global EQ off.

If I was to have a must, it would be to always put a smidge of reverb after the cab if you are recording or playing through headphones. I think helix is very dry and it's just a bit odd to listen to. Most of us would be used to hearing an amp with some room in it - or a mic that is picking up some natural ambience, even if you don't then add further reverb too it. Adding a dash of reverb to a helix amp brings it to life.

Seziertisch

Teetonetal said:

Depends on what I am doing, could be headphones, studio monitors of some description, the PA, my amp fx return. I used to use the Global EQ, as at first I found the amps kinda fizzy, so put a high cut on,  but it's been a long time since I felt the need to do that and mostly have the global EQ off.

If I was to have a must, it would be to always put a smidge of reverb after the cab if you are recording or playing through headphones. I think helix is very dry and it's just a bit odd to listen to. Most of us would be used to hearing an amp with some room in it - or a mic that is picking up some natural ambience, even if you don't then add further reverb too it. Adding a dash of reverb to a helix amp brings it to life.

What changed that you no longer found the amps fizzy?

jeztone2

I sold my Helix. I just found my head was on YouTube learning how it works. If I was 20 again, that wouldn’t be an issue. But I just found I’d hardly played guitar. So I sold it. 

Im going to build another pedalboard. But at the moment I’m using a TC Nova System. Which although equally quirky, I’ve found myself really enjoying. 

nickp

I struggled initially as it's a big thing with lots of controls.  Then a well respected muso who uses one for pro gigs suggested this:

buy the M Brett presets.  https://mbritt.com/product/m-britt-helix-preset-pack-1/  they aren't expensive.

once you have worked out how to marry up the ir (speakers) with the presets it slots into place really quickly.  

great starter tones.  not over processed or anything either so seem quite easy to get to a gig sitch.

it's what i did after faffing around.

then I came back from a weekend of watching bands knowing that I wanted a marshall sound, nice n full and chewy - none of that fizzy shit or scooped mids - think lizzy. gary moore etc etc 

picked the plexi preset with bright and normal jumped (watched the sadites vid on setting these up just for background) and then went about using the amp controls to set up four set ups - cleanish, break up, crunch and nice and gained.  for each tweaked the amp controls like what you would do in real life.  

used a klon or the tubescreamer pedal to give a kick when needed

I think it's a fabulous tone now - just what I was looking for.  not harsh, nice overdrive.  Yet to try it at rehearsal/band environment because we are currently having a pause, so although I can have it fairly loud at home, I'm not sure whether there's enough bite for the band - but we'll see as the eq plays different at gig volumes.

I'm running through a yamaha speaker (about £250 s/h).  

I am now really chuffed.  Don't faff around just play and enjoy - les paul/super strat and a prs - rock obvs and blues. 

Interestingly in terms of eq the presets do the low and high cut as part of tehe IRs (speakers) but it's there - taking off that high top end and boomy bottom - I found this out coz I was trying to marry the advice that is out there with the presets that I was using 

The blackstar head and cab are in the garage waiting for me to rehearse and gig with the helix.  I fully expect to sell them