Helix JCM800 2203 Request Thread (FW 3.70 new Brit 2203)!

[James Freeman]

James get a Fractal and be done with

I will not leave Helix in the hands of Facebook for it to become an Ambient Sound Processor.
AMPS is where it's at, amps is what determines if a modeler sounds outdated, effects are pretty much forever.
Amps is where I think Helix is behind, at least for some classic models discussed in this and other threads here.

 

[the-trooper]

I will not leave Helix in the hands of Facebook for it to become an Ambient Sound Processor.

What are you talking about. Helix neeeeeeeeds another 49 reverbs to be borderline usable. At least.

 

[BahamaDada]

Uargh... let me know for real this time: Is this the place where we can bitch about Helix stuff like missing stock 2203 and 5153 WITHOUT some ambient dork chiming in, that he (it's always a he, women aren't so needy) needs a very super specific reverb bc he does Black Shoegaze Ambient World Music? We need bread and butter sounds. Mashed potatoes, too. Stuff that 99% of the userbase uses.

(I still take any new reberb, it's fun to dork around.)

 

[James Freeman]

Everyone can ask and bitch about anything they want, nobody's gatekeeping anything.
Take my posts with a huge grain of salt, I'm not serious most of the time, this is just my posting style.
Reverbs are cool, all requests are cool.

EDIT:
But yes, we are all about bread, butter, mashed potatoes and steak here.
Keep the soy milk requests on facebook please.

 

[Stone]

Everyone can ask and b*tch about anything they want, nobody's gatekeeping anything.
Take my posts with a huge grain of salt, I'm not serious most of the time, this is just my posting style.
Reverbs are cool, all requests are cool.

EDIT:
But yes, we are all about bread, butter, mashed potatoes and steak here.
Keep the soy milk requests on facebook please.

Meat and Potatoes huh

Meat and Potatoes Rock and Roll

Back in the 80s, I remember Alan Hunter, one of the VJs on MTV, describing Bryan Adams style of music as meat and potatoes rock and roll. That description stuck with me for nearly 30 years and inspired me recently to put together an 80-minute CD of pure meat and…

robertpaul.livejournal.com

 

[Hush]

I will not leave Helix in the hands of Facebook for it to become an Ambient Sound Processor.

Yeah but it's so good for that. Here's me and a friend making some ambient noodles. I'm more on the right side, all Helix with some SY-300 blended in.

 

[BahamaDada]

Another thing...

When the 2203 topic comes up people on the other place always (always) tell me and others the Placater will do JCM800 just fine. How? Never got it to be like that. I love the Placater, but it's its own beast IMO.

 

[James Freeman]

Tell'em to head right back to Facebook.

The Friedman does not sound like a JCM800, even if it was based on a modified Marshall the circuit is very different from the source.
Here's the thing with early Marshalls in general, the circuit is so simple you can immediately hear if something was changed, especially if the peaking and/or bright caps were removed which was a simple and popular mod.

Nothing sounds like a stock JCM800 other than an exact replica of that circuit or a very accurate digital model of it.
That sound is iconic in and of itself, it's on a million records, there is no need for it to sound like anything else.

 

[DieSchmalle]

Tell'em to head right back to Facebook.

The Friedman does not sound like a JCM800, even if it was based on a modified Marshall the circuit is very different from the source.
Here's the thing with early Marshalls in general, the circuit is so simple you can immediately hear if something was changed, especially if the peaking and/or bright caps were removed which was a simple and popular mod.

Nothing sounds like a stock JCM800 other than an exact replica of that circuit or a very accurate digital model of it.
That sound is iconic in and of itself, it's on a million records, there is no need for it to sound like anything else.

Fractal Brit800 vs Helix Placater

Settings:
Fractal: everything stock settings except Gain at 8.
Placater: gain 6, bmt 2.5, presence 9, master 5, sag 7.5, fat on, C45 on, Bias 5.5
Same IR and reverb.
Close enough for me...

 

[EOengineer]

Another thing...

When the 2203 topic comes up people on the other place always (always) tell me and others the Placater will do JCM800 just fine. How? Never got it to be like that. I love the Placater, but it's its own beast IMO.

The Placater is too refined to stand in for a stock 2203. It doesn’t do the crushed glass top end thing.

 

[SwirlyMaple]

Yeah but it's so good for that. Here's me and a friend making some ambient noodles. I'm more on the right side, all Helix with some SY-300 blended in.

This is really great, nice job!!!

Don’t revoke my TGF membership, but… I listen to purely electronic music similar to this waaay more than I listen to guitar-centric music, to help me focus when I’m working during the day.

 

[James Freeman]

Close enough for me...

-> Try Here

Sounds good though.

 

[pipelineaudio]

Fractal Brit800 vs Helix Placater

Settings:
Fractal: everything stock settings except Gain at 8.
Placater: gain 6, bmt 2.5, presence 9, master 5, sag 7.5, fat on, C45 on, Bias 5.5
Same IR and reverb.
Close enough for me...

Where can I learn about what those switches do on the Placater? I remember trying to find manuals but all i really found was forum arguing

 

[SwirlyMaple]

Fractal Brit800 vs Helix Placater

Settings:
Fractal: everything stock settings except Gain at 8.
Placater: gain 6, bmt 2.5, presence 9, master 5, sag 7.5, fat on, C45 on, Bias 5.5
Same IR and reverb.
Close enough for me...

The Placater is too refined to stand in for a stock 2203. It doesn’t do the crushed glass top end thing.

“Crushed glass top end thing” is great descriptor. You can hear it even in this clip. The Placater is fuller in the lows and low mids and just doesn’t have that brash top end that the Fractal 2203 has.

Clean-ish sounds make the differences really apparent, where you can hear that “crushed glass” breakup in the top end when you really dig in with the clean tone riding underneath.

 

[EOengineer]

“Crushed glass top end thing” is great descriptor.

Thanks. It’s so hard to describe this stuff without tumbling into haunting mids or some other woo territory.

 

[James Freeman]

Where can I learn about what those switches do on the Placater?

FAT - changes the coupling cap after the first gain stage from 2.2nF to 22nF making the sound fatter and less tight.
C45 - adds treble peaking network after the first gain stage, making the sound brighter, tighter and with slightly more gain.
HBE - adds a whole gain stage before the first gain stage, from 3 to 4 gain stages, Jose mod.
Saturation - adds clipping diodes before the tonestack, Jose mod.

The circuit itself is far removed form the JCM800 but it looks like it started as one.

 

[SwirlyMaple]

EDIT:
But yes, we are all about bread, butter, mashed potatoes and steak here.
Keep the soy milk requests on facebook please.

*cries in Tofurkey*

 

[James Freeman]

I see two gain stages with 500pF caps in parallel with the plate resistors in the preamp, these roll off a lot of treble, Friedman BE is known to have a smoother/darker sound probably because of this.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

FAT - changes the coupling cap after the first gain stage from 2.2nF to 22nF making the sound fatter and less tight.
C45 - adds treble peaking network after the first gain stage, making the sound brighter, tighter and with slightly more gain.
HBE - adds a whole gain stage before the first gain stage, from 3 to 4 gain stages, Jose mod.
Saturation - adds clipping diodes before the tonestack, Jose mod.

The circuit itself is far removed form the JCM800 but it looks like it started as one.

Isn’t it more that it shares common ancestry with a 1959 Super Lead, like a 2203 does. 2203 just swapped some values around to make the cascaded channels behave a bit more nicely than say a one-wire mod. BE cascades the channels and tinkers to get them playing nicely, but without the cold clipper.

Poweramp also has a fixed depth circuit I believe (on the older BE’s, DLX has a NFB pot, depth pot and thump switch)

 

[James Freeman]

@MirrorProfiles, what's your general impression between your BE and your 2204?