Helix 3.8 when?

[complication_unknown]

Did you look at the right amp? The Super Reverb has a Bright.
View attachment 33348

You are right, my mistake. I did play through it, the Vibrato model that is, and later switched to what I now see is the Twin Vibrato model. Hence, the absence of the bright switch.

Thank you for pointing that out, man!

I need to edit the previous comment now, not to confuse anyone.

P. S. Still a silverface dude.

 

[la szum]

Congrats L6'ers!

Makes me want to own an Helix again.

 

[Los-D]

Me after the circle is complete now that the (amazing!) 5150 III made it to the Hx family…

 

[spawnofthesith]

so is boosting panama red with a pillars deranged?


because I liked it better with a pillars up front

 

[eggpl@nt]

so is boosting panama red with a pillars deranged?


because I liked it better with a pillars up front

That’s how I’m running it. I didn’t particularly care for the Precision Drive in front of the EV Red.

Also giving the Gov cab a spin. It’s pretty good. I still don’t love the Helix cabs, but I can appreciate when they offer something novel like this.

 

[Byrdman]

Updating now...

Done! Took 5 min...

 

[sashimi]

Whatever you do, don’t let your laptop go to sleep mid update

My macbook screen only went dark for half a second before I touched the trackpad and I thought I bricked my LT for a minute yesterday. Hx edit would not recognize it after that and there was a boot error showing on the LT screen. But I was able to finish the update in line 6 central thankfully.

 

[mikah912]

Just gotta say....

Both of these high-gain amps and the new cab absolutely smoke. I've always liked Helix sounds, but there are audible and tangible changes to the quality of their amp modeling that I've noticed in these past few updates. Gives me a really good feeling about how they're positioned for their next flagship.

 

[James Freeman]

there are audible and tangible changes to the quality of their amp modeling that I've noticed in these past few updates.

I concur.

 

[Byrdman]

I loaded my presets after playing with the new amps, they didn't sound the same and not for the better. It's probably something I'm doing on my end but I'm going to find out for sure tomorrow.

 

[Cactusprick]

only thing that will never leave my desk until i die - FM3, HX Stomp, THR5/THR10C..... I couldn't ask for more.

 

[Zero72]

Hi friends, i'm new in the gearforum.

3.80
Someone can tell me if this is normal? I've noticed only now and i don't remember if was already in previously fw versions.
Editing a block (in this example was a modulation effect), when I browse to another family (here the delay) and I select a group (here the mono) the arrow in the main category switch back to the previously used one (here the modulation) still showing to the right the list i'm navigating. So here you see the delays graphically listed as contained in the modulations ‍‍

 

[BenIfin]

I don't rule out that we can feel and hear things differently. But I always suggest these adjustments:
Ripple=0
Hum=0
Master= about 3 or 4 (but it depends on the amp and on the drive level: less gain -> higher master level, even 10 with almost clean sounds and more vintage circuits)
Bias=about 8
Bias X=about 1
Sag=this is difficult and depends on personal preference; I often tend to adjust it about 3 (or a little higher with "clean-ish" tones)

Hey Lele. You are the Man.

I've taken my 4 main presets and reconfigured them from scratch on my Stomp following your advice settings above and they worked perfectly to fix the stiffness, lack of bounce and midrange congestion as compared to my FM3

Your settings got me %90 of the way there - all I added was (i) a small midrange cut as the first EQ Block after the Input and (ii) re-set the Input Impedance to 230k which I had inadvertently set to Auto.

I've always loved the 230k Input Impedance on the Helix and always used it but just dumb forgot this time ... for me and my guitars the 1M Ohm and Auto have always hit the Amps too "hard". I've always used 230K with my Helix's - which has always intrigued me (?) because I run a very low Output 6.5K Humbucker for %99 of my tones and playing - clean and dirty - but it works beautifully.

Many thanks again mate - I was on the verge of re-selling it but somehow knew I wasn't doing something right - hence why I posted my initial comments above.

Ben

 

[BenIfin]

Oh and b.t.w - the Park 75 Bright Channel Brit P-75 Brt Amp - what a freaking amazing Amp. Crank the Gain - keep the Bass-Lows under control - hit the front with something like the Timmy or dirt of choice - crunch and clarity with just the right amount of [not too much] mid-range sizzle !!

 

[Lele]

Hey Lele. You are the Man.

I've taken my 4 main presets and reconfigured them from scratch on my Stomp following your advice settings above and they worked perfectly to fix the stiffness, lack of bounce and midrange congestion as compared to my FM3

Your settings got me %90 of the way there - all I added was (i) a small midrange cut as the first EQ Block after the Input and (ii) re-set the Input Impedance to 230k which I had inadvertently set to Auto.

I've always loved the 230k Input Impedance on the Helix and always used it but just dumb forgot this time ... for me and my guitars the 1M Ohm and Auto have always hit the Amps too "hard". I've always used 230K with my Helix's - which has always intrigued me (?) because I run a very low Output 6.5K Humbucker for %99 of my tones and playing - clean and dirty - but it works beautifully.

Many thanks again mate - I was on the verge of re-selling it but somehow knew I wasn't doing something right - hence why I posted my initial comments above.

I'm happy that my favorite settings helped you, too.
Just a little more information (just imho and ymmv):

Ripple and hum=0
This way you reduce the chance of ghost notes (that I don't consider like a "nice" character of any amp) and of weird intermodulation distortion not depending only on the notes you play.

High Bias and low Bias X
These settings reduce the crossover distortion. Ok, this can add a nice character for some ears, but not for me... and the high bias compensates also a little the effect of the -->

Low sag
Well, I found out that I simply don't love the effect of higher sag, that is a kind of compression/delay in the pick attack. Maybe just with clean tones I can stand a little higher sag.

Low master level
This is an excellent tip I got from @James Freeman. He also suggested a way to test the proper level to adjust the master level that will depend on your pickups and preamp gain (bass=0 mids=0 treble=max presence=max; then with the pedal edit mode you can try the master from 0 to 10 and hear when the master just adds only compression/squish/noise: that's the level that you may not want to go beyond because it just doesn't add of lot of musicality but only final tube amp compression and sound "congestion").
So I found out that often a rather low adjustment of "master" level is very helpful to get a more musical sound (even between 2 and 3 when you have a lot of distortion) with the Helix amp sims.

 

[DieSchmalle]

[...] I've always loved the 230k Input Impedance on the Helix and always used it but just dumb forgot this time ... for me and my guitars the 1M Ohm and Auto have always hit the Amps too "hard". I've always used 230K with my Helix's - which has always intrigued me (?) because I run a very low Output 6.5K Humbucker for %99 of my tones and playing - clean and dirty - but it works beautifully. [...]

Compared to 1M the 230k setting reduces the input level but it also tames the (passive) pickup's resonant peak in the upper mids. The attack comes across less hard.
E.g. you can simulate the "2" input of a Fender amp (or the low inputs of the Park) with 136k for a smoother sound.

 

[dronerstone]

I'm happy that my favorite settings helped you, too.
Just a little more information (just imho and ymmv):

Ripple and hum=0
This way you reduce the chance of ghost notes (that I don't consider like a "nice" character of any amp) and of weird intermodulation distortion not depending only on the notes you play.

High Bias and low Bias X
These settings reduce the crossover distortion. Ok, this can add a nice character for some ears, but not for me... and the high bias compensates also a little the effect of the -->

Low sag
Well, I found out that I simply don't love the effect of higher sag, that is a kind of compression/delay in the pick attack. Maybe just with clean tones I can stand a little higher sag.

Low master level
This is an excellent tip I got from @James Freeman. He also suggested a way to test the proper level to adjust the master level that will depend on your pickups and preamp gain (bass=0 mids=0 treble=max presence=max; then with the pedal edit mode you can try the master from 0 to 10 and hear when the master just adds only compression/squish/noise: that's the level that you may not want to go beyond because it just doesn't add of lot of musicality but only final tube amp compression and sound "congestion").
So I found out that often a rather low adjustment of "master" level is very helpful to get a more musical sound (even between 2 and 3 when you have a lot of distortion) with the Helix amp sims.

Thank you very much for these suggestions, @Lele

I'm liking what I'm hearing through headphones so far, can't exactly say what it is, but it sounds different.

Let's see how they translate with a power amp and cab moving some air. Maybe I'll give it a ride within the next few days.

 

[BenIfin]

Compared to 1M the 230k setting reduces the input level but it also tames the (passive) pickup's resonant peak in the upper mids. The attack comes across less hard.

^ This.

For me and to my ears and hands, on the Helix the 1M Ohm has always been "too hard" - thanks for explaining why - I had no technical idea.

 

[dbagchee]

Hi friends, i'm new in the gearforum.

3.80
Someone can tell me if this is normal? I've noticed only now and i don't remember if was already in previously fw versions.
Editing a block (in this example was a modulation effect), when I browse to another family (here the delay) and I select a group (here the mono) the arrow in the main category switch back to the previously used one (here the modulation) still showing to the right the list i'm navigating. So here you see the delays graphically listed as contained in the modulations ‍‍View attachment 33388

Looks like you found a bug! Did you do a factory reset and restore after updating?

 

[Byrdman]

I've always loved the 230k Input Impedance on the Helix and always used it but just dumb forgot this time ... for me and my guitars the 1M Ohm and Auto have always hit the Amps too "hard". I've always used 230K with my Helix's - which has always intrigued me (?) because I run a very low Output 6.5K Humbucker for %99 of my tones and playing - clean and dirty - but it works beautifully.

Many thanks again mate - I was on the verge of re-selling it but somehow knew I wasn't doing something right - hence why I posted my initial comments above.

Ben

Compared to 1M the 230k setting reduces the input level but it also tames the (passive) pickup's resonant peak in the upper mids. The attack comes across less hard.
E.g. you can simulate the "2" input of a Fender amp (or the low inputs of the Park) with 136k for a smoother sound.

Do either of you know if this setting is available for the Stomp? I have looked for it, but cant find it. Like I mentioned in my above post, loading my old presets into the new update seems to be giving me some unwanted sounds issues. IDK if it's harmonics, artifacts, frequencies I have EQed lower before or just me being crazy, but it doesnt sound the same IMO and taming the input impedance could fix/help it.

Lowering the impedance setting would be an easy fix if it's available. If not, when I get some time this weekend, I am going to rebuild the presets from the ground up and see if that takes care of it and compare the two presets to see if I'm just going crazy.

I did a factory reset BTW.