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Base theme by DesignModo & ported to Powered by Vanilla by Chris Ireland, modified by the "theFB" team.
Comments
View my feedback at www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/1201922
I used to bang on about IR's too until I bought some patches from Choptone on a whim, I listened to their youtube demo and it sounded great! There's nothing flash about the patched in most cases, an amp, cab, EQ and reverb but they sound stunning (amazing what some good ears can do) and they use the Helix cabs
Thanks all all for the replies!
The 158 Euro is not for the board - it's just for the lid of the board!!!
368 Euro for the cheapest one.
Blimey!
https://soundcertified.com/speaker-ohms-calculator/
That's pretty much where my head was at.
I like the scribble strips but intelligent use of the screen works just as well as far as I can seen
two loops is as much as I've ever used anyway
I've never seen the need for a separate headphone volume.
I haven't used the Mic input since the first 'incident'
Im curious why you still have the L2 link socket on it. At the moment it is virtually useless, so future plans?
As far as I can see all it does is bypass the global Eq?
ive read some of his posts on other forums and find him and his, albeit very well produced, comparisons VERY lopesided
It shouldn't be hard to dial any amp sim in really, as long as you've picked something suitable. People used to say that you needed to spend more time dialling in a Fractal but honestly at certain points real amps and even Kempers did sound better with less dialling in. Both Kemper and Fractal have improved since then, a lot of Fractal users (myself included) stick to basic controls now and don't use advanced parameters. That wasn't the case for me a year ago but it has improved. I'm sure Helix will too.
The talk of old FW applies to the Fractal too - that's on Quantum 6.02 and the current 7.02 has some pretty noticeable changes to speaker compression and breakup modelling, things which would have improved the clean/crunch sounds if used.
View my feedback at www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/1201922
"By Ola’s verbal description, I get the impression that he turned off the power amp simulation for both the Fractal AX8 and the Helix. I downloaded his patch and indeed found this to be true.
His reason for doing this was because he created an IR of his own cabinet using the tube power amp of the Mesa. While this will capture certain tonal aspects of the tube power amp, it certainly does not capture all of them. Plus, IRs don’t capture nonlinear elements. In short, both Helix and AX8 were essentially being played without the full, intended modeling process.
Sure, tone is essentially subjective, metal music is based around preamp distortion, and I’ve heard of plenty of situations where metal dudes intentionally will use only the preamp versions of the models. Still, a very important part of our modeling process was essentially left out."
At the end of the day I think the Helix sounds good, I just think there are other products I feel do things I like better.
But as I said there were points where I only thought real amps or Kempers could do what I liked - I didn't buy a Kemper because I didn't like the workflow (I wanted models, not to work with profiles someone else made as I was going all digital). I can also recognise people wouldn't buy a Fractal because they prefer the Helix workflow - especially if you tweak on unit and not with a computer editor...
Line 6 have been developing quickly and are ahead of the game in some areas (such as recent bass gear). So my opinion may change in time. Right now I don't hear the character I'd pick, however I know people who feel the opposite and prefer the Helix character. At the end of the day all these units are just tools to make music with, and there are a lot of aspects to using tools which mean different people have different priorities/preferences for choosing
His IR's were made for use with his Fractal though. That was what I was trying to say earlier without having the time to go into much detail.
l freely admit that the fractal stuff sounds better pound for pound than the Helix stuff on YouTube demos. However I think the gap has closed massively in the last year.
Im going to summarise by the guys posts about his methods making his comparisons were a bit like "this is my favourite amp on the Fractal with my favourite settings... here's Helix with an amp that's kinda similar with everything set at noon"
My experience with Fractal stuff is that if you are prepared to spend a lot of time with the units and you really know what you are doing you can do amazing stuff, but I found creating patches to be an unenjoyable slog and it was taking me a whole evening to create 1 patch I was really happy with.
The Helix UI makes it a joy to work with and I could get something close to what I was looking for within a few minutes even though I was much more experienced with the Fractal.
The upshot is that if I was Clarky or Drew with the skills and inclination to spend a long time on patches then the Axe might sound a bit better, (and that is might) but given the time I have and level of ability I know the results I would get from the Helix would be much better.
I don't agree the gap has closed massively, because I've not heard a Helix clip that's convinced me otherwise.
Even if the gap has - to what benchmark, where the Axe FX 2 was a year ago? Looking at my downloads folder a year ago was Quantum 2.01, we're now at 7.02, with some major improvements along the way. I don't know what boards you post on but I know multiple users on here only post on here, and there's not really much hype around any digital unit except the Helix these days. If Fractal or Kemper have updates often people don't even post about it. But all the products are continuously updating. I'm not directing this comment at yourself, but it does feel in some ways that some Helix users see the product in a vacuum and aren't aware it's not the only unit getting improved - the same is true of many Kemper and Fractal users (especially on the Fractal board).
I recognise this is opinion and even though I feel I am objective I don't expect anyone to believe I am - mostly because a lot of people on forums are biased towards stuff they own, which is natural I guess. I'm not especially tribal about my gear ownership. I've got a hardware 1176 compressor clone in my studio rack and unless it's a lead vocal I just use plugin 1176's because the difference isn't big enough for the extra hassle - that's how I might feel about the Helix vs the Axe FX 2 in some situations, if I owned both... I think the Fractal sounds better if we're picking on sound but for tweaking stuff on the fly at a gig the Helix design is more suited to that, and it still sounds good.