Line 6 Helix

siraxeman

Does the helix have a decent harmoniser inside? (Assuming it does...just Never heard mention of one). 

Teetonetal

siraxeman said:

Does the helix have a decent harmoniser inside? (Assuming it does...just Never heard mention of one). 

It has a harmonizer, but it's one of the weaker points. It got updated then rolled back due to a bug, so I  imagine it's being worked on.

siremoon

siraxeman said:

Does the helix have a decent harmoniser inside? (Assuming it does...just Never heard mention of one). 

No.  It has one but imo it's truly abysmal and the worst thing in the box by a substantial distance. 

FarleyUK

Clarky said:

guitarfishbay said:

John_A said:

FarleyUK said:

I'm looking to try an AX8 in comparison to my Helix, and possibly replace it. Anyone else here done that? From everything I've read and heard, the tones and the 'feel' of the AX8 seem better than the Helix.

Had the two side-by side and it's really too close to call.  An Axe-8 that's been well programmed in the hands of a good player will sounds great, so will a Helix and Vice-Versa.  By all means give it a go, but if you're not getting anything that pleases you out of he Helix I wouldn't expect miracles out of the Axe-8

Yeah it's subjective.

For some people there'll be nothing much in it and for others there'll be plenty, and potentially in either direction. 

As far as I'm concerned there are a bunch of amps I can pull up on the Fractal and get the sound and dynamics I want really fast.  With Native I'd spend several minutes trying to work out why I couldn't, and I just found it frustrating and extremely slow - part of that is the plugin interface (which won't apply here), which needs scrolling to reach all the amp controls I want to use.  But for the sounds I want there was more than enough in it for me.  .

For other sounds I like but don't use as much, less so - the Helix Vox models are pretty nice I thought and I've owned an AC30 before.  And for bass, currently I'd take a Helix over a Fractal (though it looks like Fractal might be starting to look at bass gear).  There are a load of good sounds in it. 

Just for higher gained modern rock sounds I think that's pretty much the Fractal's forte, there are 8 5150 channels, 7 Rectifier channels, 11 Boogie Mark, 7 Friedman, and 35+ Marshall models in there.  It probably is OTT, but the idea is if one doesn't work another will.  Realistically you only need a couple of models that work, but it can be faster trying different shades of that than trying to tweak advanced settings, or at least that's what I find anyway.

the other thing with the Axe-FX [don't know if it's the same with the AX-8] is the customisation..
I have a JCM800 and set the Phase Inverter post master volume
it goes nuts.. turns into this mental hi-gain beast..
you have to do a few other things to keep the low in under control [like emulate a TS-808 set clean]..
but it's awesome.. 

That's another big reason as to why I'd like an AX8 as well - the amp tweaking options are much more fleshed out. I'm always tweaking with my tube amps (modded my JVMHJS and AFD100), so the ability to do it 'virtually' is very very appealing.

Plus - they have a crap-ton more amps (including Silver Jubilee!).

siraxeman

Oh well can't have everything...most likely I'll do it old school in the studio anyway...can always buy another boss ps-5 pedal seeing as here boss kick line 6's ass.

John_A

siraxeman said:

Oh well can't have everything...most likely I'll do it old school in the studio anyway...can always buy another boss ps-5 pedal seeing as here boss kick line 6's ass.

I would bet there's some new pitch shifting in the next update

siraxeman

Maybe the line 6 bods could write to boss and ask 'em "how do ya do pitch shifting so much better than us?"

gearaddict

Is there a sustainer type effect in the helix? Kind of like the sustainiac sort of thing?

Clarky

FarleyUK said:

Clarky said:

guitarfishbay said:

John_A said:

FarleyUK said:

I'm looking to try an AX8 in comparison to my Helix, and possibly replace it. Anyone else here done that? From everything I've read and heard, the tones and the 'feel' of the AX8 seem better than the Helix.

Had the two side-by side and it's really too close to call.  An Axe-8 that's been well programmed in the hands of a good player will sounds great, so will a Helix and Vice-Versa.  By all means give it a go, but if you're not getting anything that pleases you out of he Helix I wouldn't expect miracles out of the Axe-8

Yeah it's subjective.

For some people there'll be nothing much in it and for others there'll be plenty, and potentially in either direction. 

As far as I'm concerned there are a bunch of amps I can pull up on the Fractal and get the sound and dynamics I want really fast.  With Native I'd spend several minutes trying to work out why I couldn't, and I just found it frustrating and extremely slow - part of that is the plugin interface (which won't apply here), which needs scrolling to reach all the amp controls I want to use.  But for the sounds I want there was more than enough in it for me.  .

For other sounds I like but don't use as much, less so - the Helix Vox models are pretty nice I thought and I've owned an AC30 before.  And for bass, currently I'd take a Helix over a Fractal (though it looks like Fractal might be starting to look at bass gear).  There are a load of good sounds in it. 

Just for higher gained modern rock sounds I think that's pretty much the Fractal's forte, there are 8 5150 channels, 7 Rectifier channels, 11 Boogie Mark, 7 Friedman, and 35+ Marshall models in there.  It probably is OTT, but the idea is if one doesn't work another will.  Realistically you only need a couple of models that work, but it can be faster trying different shades of that than trying to tweak advanced settings, or at least that's what I find anyway.

the other thing with the Axe-FX [don't know if it's the same with the AX-8] is the customisation..
I have a JCM800 and set the Phase Inverter post master volume
it goes nuts.. turns into this mental hi-gain beast..
you have to do a few other things to keep the low in under control [like emulate a TS-808 set clean]..
but it's awesome.. 

That's another big reason as to why I'd like an AX8 as well - the amp tweaking options are much more fleshed out. I'm always tweaking with my tube amps (modded my JVMHJS and AFD100), so the ability to do it 'virtually' is very very appealing.

Plus - they have a crap-ton more amps (including Silver Jubilee!).

and.... if the JCM800 is too harsh in the highs, swap out the EL34's with KT88's

Jonathanthomas83

Clarky said:

FarleyUK said:

Clarky said:

guitarfishbay said:

John_A said:

FarleyUK said:

I'm looking to try an AX8 in comparison to my Helix, and possibly replace it. Anyone else here done that? From everything I've read and heard, the tones and the 'feel' of the AX8 seem better than the Helix.

Had the two side-by side and it's really too close to call.  An Axe-8 that's been well programmed in the hands of a good player will sounds great, so will a Helix and Vice-Versa.  By all means give it a go, but if you're not getting anything that pleases you out of he Helix I wouldn't expect miracles out of the Axe-8

Yeah it's subjective.

For some people there'll be nothing much in it and for others there'll be plenty, and potentially in either direction. 

As far as I'm concerned there are a bunch of amps I can pull up on the Fractal and get the sound and dynamics I want really fast.  With Native I'd spend several minutes trying to work out why I couldn't, and I just found it frustrating and extremely slow - part of that is the plugin interface (which won't apply here), which needs scrolling to reach all the amp controls I want to use.  But for the sounds I want there was more than enough in it for me.  .

For other sounds I like but don't use as much, less so - the Helix Vox models are pretty nice I thought and I've owned an AC30 before.  And for bass, currently I'd take a Helix over a Fractal (though it looks like Fractal might be starting to look at bass gear).  There are a load of good sounds in it. 

Just for higher gained modern rock sounds I think that's pretty much the Fractal's forte, there are 8 5150 channels, 7 Rectifier channels, 11 Boogie Mark, 7 Friedman, and 35+ Marshall models in there.  It probably is OTT, but the idea is if one doesn't work another will.  Realistically you only need a couple of models that work, but it can be faster trying different shades of that than trying to tweak advanced settings, or at least that's what I find anyway.

the other thing with the Axe-FX [don't know if it's the same with the AX-8] is the customisation..
I have a JCM800 and set the Phase Inverter post master volume
it goes nuts.. turns into this mental hi-gain beast..
you have to do a few other things to keep the low in under control [like emulate a TS-808 set clean]..
but it's awesome.. 

That's another big reason as to why I'd like an AX8 as well - the amp tweaking options are much more fleshed out. I'm always tweaking with my tube amps (modded my JVMHJS and AFD100), so the ability to do it 'virtually' is very very appealing.

Plus - they have a crap-ton more amps (including Silver Jubilee!).

and.... if the JCM800 is too harsh in the highs, swap out the EL34's with KT88's

Well, the timing of that was absolutely perfect!!! Thanks for that. I've been struggling with the highs on the JCM model. @Clarky where are you doing the phase inversion stuff? Where's the setting?

Sporky

gearaddict said:

Is there a sustainer type effect in the helix? Kind of like the sustainiac sort of thing?

I'm not sure how you'd do that. They could do something like the Boss DF2 or EHX Freeze (nothing currently) but the Sustainiac works directly on the strings. No pedal sounds or behaves the same way.

ChuckManual

I saw a video a few months ago where a guy was using the foot pedal of the Helix to morph between two entirely different sounding amps (one at one end of the pedal's travel and the other at the other), where every parameter changed incrementally in value between A and B - and I was wondering if that method could be used to do something more simple, like morphing between two different EQ settings...?

Many thanks.

Sporky

Yes - just assign multiple parameters to the expression pedal.

BintyTwanger77

Looks like I'll be needing a quiet playing solution come Feb, as my housemates in the basement flat in our house are having a baby, and the favourite looks to be a Helix LT. How much do used LTs tend to go for?

Also, added bonus, was feeling left out on here, every bleeder on FB seems to have a Helix now, even @Wazmeister.

simonk

BintyTwanger77 said:

Looks like I'll be needing a quiet playing solution come Feb, as my housemates in the basement flat in our house are having a baby, and the favourite looks to be a Helix LT. How much do used LTs tend to go for?

Also, added bonus, was feeling left out on here, every bleeder on FB seems to have a Helix now, even @Wazmeister.

LT is a tremendous bargain at £747 I'd say. Grab one sharpish before they head back to just under a grand.
Don't think I've seen any second hand ones crop up yet...

Wazmeister

simonk said:

BintyTwanger77 said:

Looks like I'll be needing a quiet playing solution come Feb, as my housemates in the basement flat in our house are having a baby, and the favourite looks to be a Helix LT. How much do used LTs tend to go for?

Also, added bonus, was feeling left out on here, every bleeder on FB seems to have a Helix now, even @Wazmeister.

LT is a tremendous bargain at £747 I'd say. Grab one sharpish before they head back to just under a grand.
Don't think I've seen any second hand ones crop up yet...

Wow. That IS cheap. 

BintyTwanger77

Wazmeister said:

simonk said:

BintyTwanger77 said:

Looks like I'll be needing a quiet playing solution come Feb, as my housemates in the basement flat in our house are having a baby, and the favourite looks to be a Helix LT. How much do used LTs tend to go for?

Also, added bonus, was feeling left out on here, every bleeder on FB seems to have a Helix now, even @Wazmeister.

LT is a tremendous bargain at £747 I'd say. Grab one sharpish before they head back to just under a grand.
Don't think I've seen any second hand ones crop up yet...

Wow. That IS cheap. 

Is there any word of the LT non-full fat versions going up in price any time soon? Am I going to have another one of 10000s of reasons to hate Brexit?

simonk

BintyTwanger77 said:

Wazmeister said:

simonk said:

BintyTwanger77 said:

Looks like I'll be needing a quiet playing solution come Feb, as my housemates in the basement flat in our house are having a baby, and the favourite looks to be a Helix LT. How much do used LTs tend to go for?

Also, added bonus, was feeling left out on here, every bleeder on FB seems to have a Helix now, even @Wazmeister.

LT is a tremendous bargain at £747 I'd say. Grab one sharpish before they head back to just under a grand.
Don't think I've seen any second hand ones crop up yet...

Wow. That IS cheap. 

Is there any word of the LT non-full fat versions going up in price any time soon? Am I going to have another one of 10000s of reasons to hate Brexit?

Andertons have it for £945, which I assume is the new stock price going forward.

digitalscream

Wazmeister said:

simonk said:

BintyTwanger77 said:

Looks like I'll be needing a quiet playing solution come Feb, as my housemates in the basement flat in our house are having a baby, and the favourite looks to be a Helix LT. How much do used LTs tend to go for?

Also, added bonus, was feeling left out on here, every bleeder on FB seems to have a Helix now, even @Wazmeister.

LT is a tremendous bargain at £747 I'd say. Grab one sharpish before they head back to just under a grand.
Don't think I've seen any second hand ones crop up yet...

Wow. That IS cheap. 

Yep - that's the price I bought mine at (on HP, ended up about £33/month). It's probably the best value I've ever had in buying a new bit of gear.

This afternoon has demonstrated why...the other guitarist, the bassist and I got together at a local rehearsal studio with fairly flat-sounding acoustic treatment to sort out our recording tones through laptop and monitors.

Other guitarist (Blackstar HT-100 -> dummy load -> interface) - loads of tweaking and mucking around, took about 45 minutes.
Bassist (Darkglass-based board -> Helix cabs -> interface) - less tweaking, took about 15 minutes.
Me (Helix) - copied live patch, adjusted bass on rhythm snapshot, done. Took approximately 3 minutes.

This thing is like witchcraft, only real.

Wazmeister

@BintyTwanger77 - Id jump on that pretty quick if I was you mate, as they will go up in price.