Helix - ok, I get it now

Teetonetal

siraxeman said:

Sporky said:

siraxeman said:

 what we all know and love with a real amp and pedals is that feel factor

You do that a lot.

You like a thing, so you say "we all like this".

It's not true.

I speak as "guitarists in general" which is true. IMO. Gigging guitarists mostly play with real valve amps + pedals. Feel free to disagree though if you will feel bettererer. Digital modelling is more or less the bedroom rockers domain. ;-)

Oh you are a bit of troll aren't you.

Have you never played a shit valve amp? I'm guessing you've never toured with rented or provided gear? Also guessing that you haven't worked out yet that feel of the whole band is more important than feel of your own gear?

Whether modelling vs amp offers better feel is a moot point.It's down to taste and experience. There can be no catch all sweeping statement. There are plenty of charting bands using modelling these days (Metallica and Garbage being two that spring to mind) as well as plenty of semi pro musicians.

Generally, at the moment I use an amp onstage, but that is for the simple reason that I can only afford one helix and I prefer to leave it plugged in and setup in my studio. However I would prefer to use the helix if:

I went on a tour with rented back line - consistency from gig to gig is huge and the whole band would be better for knowing that I'm not fighting some cheap, shit under-powered or inappropriate amp. 

Big gigs where you are hearing your sound through a monitor. Might as well use a helix. As you are probably not hearing your amp anyway.

Festival gigs - A modeller would be so quick and easy to setup.

Fly dates - amp and pedal board in 1. (see @ChrisCox1994 thread about his Engleberg gig to see how useful a helix would have been).

As a depping guitarist, helix gives me access to a huge variety of tones - helping me to get the right sound for a band.

Without a doubt, in my mind the most important thing for me when I play live is that the band has a good, clear sound and that I can hear all of the others in the proportions that I need, with the same applying to them. I have been in lots of bands with ace gear, but that sound shit as two 4x12 stacks embark on a volume war, or the PA has no monitor and the singer can't hear anything etc, etc. The worst is "that guitarist" who has to have his amp "just so" and drowns out everything because his 100w amp has to be dimed to "feel" right.

ThePrettyDamned

When trivium switched from 6505+s to kemper, they were able to play other songs (like shogun) that were previously impossible as the amps wouldn't allow the tones needed and complex switching systems would be needed. 

At download a couple of years ago, most bands played with the same two backline fakes - blackstar or Marshall cabs. But I think more of the bands were using modellers than people would think, but they don't do much for show. 

John_A

We rehearsed last night at a different studio to usual, with a pretty crappy PA, plugged the Helix in and it sounded great. 

Sporky

siraxeman said:

Sporky said:

You do that a lot.

You like a thing, so you say "we all like this".

It's not true.

I speak as "guitarists in general" which is true. IMO.

No, it isn't. You're still doing the same thing - you like a thing so you insist everyone agrees with you to make yourself feel better - you're validating your own opinions through conjecture. This is normal in a five year old, but you should have grown out of it by now.

fretmeister

I like the way he says "...which is true. in my opinion"

It's almost like he doesn't know there is a difference between truth and opinion.

fnpt

Question: can you use cabinet impulses directly in the Helix or do you need to use them in a DAW?

Sporky

fnpt said:

Question: can you use cabinet impulses directly in the Helix or do you need to use them in a DAW?

You can use them directly in the Helix.

It comes with loads. You can also use third party ones; some people insist that it sounds awful if you don't. I found there was a huge level difference between the inbuilt and the Ownhammer ones which probably explains why people think the latter sound better - they're just louder.

fnpt

Great, thanks.

Teetonetal

Sporky said:

fnpt said:

Question: can you use cabinet impulses directly in the Helix or do you need to use them in a DAW?

You can use them directly in the Helix.

It comes with loads. You can also use third party ones; some people insist that it sounds awful if you don't. I found there was a huge level difference between the inbuilt and the Ownhammer ones which probably explains why people think the latter sound better - they're just louder.

I think the stock cabs are great. All my stuff uses them, just they take a little bit of care dialing in. Happy about that as I really can't be arsed to go down the IR rabbit hole.

guitarfishbay

The OH stuff is consistently (subjectively IMO IME etc) very well shot and more clearly organised than pretty much everything else I've tried, and that is accounting for level differences.

Whatever room he's recording in is nice, the captures are well balanced, there's not much boomy/muddy junk in the lows (which can come from sub optimal/too small rooms) and the mixes are nicely in phase.

Plus they're comparatively cheap compared to many other companies

Cabicular

My only issue with Its (apart from the endless scrolling choices of speaker type and mic position) is that the Helix Dual Cab is such an efficient way to do stereo it makes the IRS a bit clunky. For my own patch I run out of split points so I can't run them in stereo (at the end of the chain I split into Stereo XLRs with cabs and stereo 1`4 without)
I'm not sure I could do that with IRs

Sporky

guitarfishbay said:

The OH stuff is consistently (subjectively IMO IME etc) very well shot and more clearly organised than pretty much everything else I've tried, and that is accounting for level differences.

I didn't mean my post in a knocking-Ownhammer way, just that I think there's a lot of received wisdom that what the Helix comes with isn't good enough from people who've not taken care to make sure they're comparing fairly. You need to have the levels within about 0.1dB, otherwise the louder one almost always sounds better - more dynamic, bigger, blah blah blah.

professorben

Gassage said:

I'm very tempted to buy the Helix in the amp forum.

But it may be a downward spiral....

Only if you start a Nine Inch Nails tribute act. 

professorben

Bridgehouse said:

Gassage said:

I'm very tempted to buy the Helix in the amp forum.

But it may be a downward spiral....

With puns like that you need to stick to playing with your bush...

A rack in the hand is worth two in the bush. 

guitarfishbay

Sporky said:

guitarfishbay said:

The OH stuff is consistently (subjectively IMO IME etc) very well shot and more clearly organised than pretty much everything else I've tried, and that is accounting for level differences.

I didn't mean my post in a knocking-Ownhammer way, just that I think there's a lot of received wisdom that what the Helix comes with isn't good enough from people who've not taken care to make sure they're comparing fairly. You need to have the levels within about 0.1dB, otherwise the louder one almost always sounds better - more dynamic, bigger, blah blah blah.

I think that's a very fair point.

I was just posting my experiences, I've tried a lot of the competitor products and while there are great sounds from almost all of them I personally do think OH does the most consistent, well arranged product.  So while they may be louder in some cases (the bass pack definitely is quite loud compared to some other bass IRs I have) that isn't the only reason people would prefer them.

guitarfishbay

Cabicular said:

My only issue with Its (apart from the endless scrolling choices of speaker type and mic position) is that the Helix Dual Cab is such an efficient way to do stereo it makes the IRS a bit clunky. For my own patch I run out of split points so I can't run them in stereo (at the end of the chain I split into Stereo XLRs with cabs and stereo 1`4 without)
I'm not sure I could do that with IRs

Well it will ultimately be a workflow preference thing.

In general endless scrolling would mean you're not sure what you're looking for (assuming most would stop upon finding what they wanted).  In that kind of scenario it is better to have a bunch of broad strokes cabs to pick from so cab A, cab B, cab C etc until right flavour is found.  

If you do know what you're looking for then it's much easier to go straight to cab A.1, if that's not quite right then cab A.2 or A.3 would be more useful than going to cab B or cab C, if that analogy makes sense.  

My own opinion that it's better to start with the sound being as close to correct as possible before reaching for EQs etc.  Flicking through IRs takes seconds, the way I do it I'm pretty much pressing up or down and hitting a chord in between to see if I've got the right one.

I'm not sure exactly how Helix dual cab works as I don't have a Helix and I stick with mono anyway.

While I'll agree there's less merit in small % changes in a live context, for recording they can make a big difference.  If this was a real world situation in a recording studio with real mics and the mic position clearly wasn't quite right, in all likelihood the mic would get moved before a bunch of EQ got done.  That's where I see the merit/value is in IR packs anyway.  You can do all that sat on your backside listening at a comfortable volume.

TimmyO

Just watched a vid on blending between sounds - changing multiple parameters - very neat 

Cabicular

guitarfishbay said:

Cabicular said:

My only issue with Its (apart from the endless scrolling choices of speaker type and mic position) is that the Helix Dual Cab is such an efficient way to do stereo it makes the IRS a bit clunky. For my own patch I run out of split points so I can't run them in stereo (at the end of the chain I split into Stereo XLRs with cabs and stereo 1`4 without)
I'm not sure I could do that with IRs

Well it will ultimately be a workflow preference thing.

In general endless scrolling would mean you're not sure what you're looking for (assuming most would stop upon finding what they wanted).  In that kind of scenario it is better to have a bunch of broad strokes cabs to pick from so cab A, cab B, cab C etc until right flavour is found.  

If you do know what you're looking for then it's much easier to go straight to cab A.1, if that's not quite right then cab A.2 or A.3 would be more useful than going to cab B or cab C, if that analogy makes sense.  

My own opinion that it's better to start with the sound being as close to correct as possible before reaching for EQs etc.  Flicking through IRs takes seconds, the way I do it I'm pretty much pressing up or down and hitting a chord in between to see if I've got the right one.

I'm not sure exactly how Helix dual cab works as I don't have a Helix and I stick with mono anyway.

While I'll agree there's less merit in small % changes in a live context, for recording they can make a big difference.  If this was a real world situation in a recording studio with real mics and the mic position clearly wasn't quite right, in all likelihood the mic would get moved before a bunch of EQ got done.  That's where I see the merit/value is in IR packs anyway.  You can do all that sat on your backside listening at a comfortable volume.

With the Helix you pick your cab and your mic and then your distance then adjust to taste
with IRs you have to load a selection on and flick through them to decide how far you wanted the mic or if a 58 sounds better than a royer etc
The dual cab puts access to 2 cabs and 2 mics in one stereo block so you can have a Marshall 4x12 with greenback 25s with a sm7b at 1" on the left and a Matchless 2x12 with Alnico blues and a royer 121 on the right
It's just a lot easier to deal with IMO

TimmyO

another nice vid:

Bridgehouse

professorben said:

Bridgehouse said:

Gassage said:

I'm very tempted to buy the Helix in the amp forum.

But it may be a downward spiral....

With puns like that you need to stick to playing with your bush...

A rack in the hand is worth two in the bush. 

Maybe @Gassage should adopt that as a mantra for gear purchases