Helix Talk

[spawnofthesith]

Has anyone tried/succeeded at vaguely mimicking an EQD afterneath with any combo of helix fx? Particularly what the “drag” knob does when connected to an exp. Pedal? Half heartedly attempted without success on the HX one but I figure possibly with multiple fx blocks something could be approximated?

Love the afterneath, and it’s a crucial part of two of my bands songs but a pedal + expression for two songs is a lot of pedalboard space and I’d love to be able to simplify as much as possible… and being able to utilize that expression pedal for other stuff on the stomp would be cool…

 

[EOengineer]

Has anyone tried/succeeded at vaguely mimicking an EQD afterneath with any combo of helix fx? Particularly what the “drag” knob does when connected to an exp. Pedal? Half heartedly attempted without success on the HX one but I figure possibly with multiple fx blocks something could be approximated?

Love the afterneath, and it’s a crucial part of two of my bands songs but a pedal + expression for two songs is a lot of pedalboard space and I’d love to be able to simplify as much as possible… and being able to utilize that expression pedal for other stuff on the stomp would be cool…

You might get more help if you can post a YouTube video of the sound you’re chasing. I’ve been surprised at some of the things people have replicated.

 

[spawnofthesith]

You might get more help if you can post a YouTube video of the sound you’re chasing. I’ve been surprised at some of the things people have replicated.

Probably a bit more subdued in this recording than when we do it live but here’s a Spotify link of one of the songs in question… kick it on and start wonking around on the expression around 2:30 and then it’s on that “lead” part for the most part during that “heavy” section ( I think the in browser preview calls up the exact section too…)



I’ll try and make a more specific and isolated vid of what I’m going for though

 

[Sascha Franck]

Probably a bit more subdued in this recording than when we do it live but here’s a Spotify link of one of the songs in question… kick it on and start wonking around on the expression around 2:30 and then it’s on that “lead” part for the most part during that “heavy” section ( I think the in browser preview calls up the exact section too…)

You could possibly create a parallel path, slap some Whammy and a 100% wet reverb onto it. But I think it'd only sound kinda similar-ish at best. And it won't work too well with polyphonic input material.

 

[the swede]

Has anyone tried/succeeded at vaguely mimicking an EQD afterneath with any combo of helix fx? Particularly what the “drag” knob does when connected to an exp. Pedal? Half heartedly attempted without success on the HX one but I figure possibly with multiple fx blocks something could be approximated?

Love the afterneath, and it’s a crucial part of two of my bands songs but a pedal + expression for two songs is a lot of pedalboard space and I’d love to be able to simplify as much as possible… and being able to utilize that expression pedal for other stuff on the stomp would be cool…

How ironic in a way. As the Afterneath makes full use of all the things in the ”spin” that designers otherwise has been try to get rid off (or hide). I think it’s a little hard to mimic the intricacy of the delays that builds up the foundation in how Afterneath works. It can be very granular and Helix stuff has naturally evolved away from that (because people complain about reverbs sounding “old”)

What I do know is that I used one of the Helix reverbs that has Pitch generators (Plateaux maybe) and assigned the one (or both) pitch generators to expression. Then I used that to make it sound like a distant horn or “war alarm” kinda. This would probably a close approximation of the Afterneath V1 where you did this on the knob. But version 3 has all kinds of modes on knob.

So at least you could use the Plateaux for the pitch up and down thing (works great) and then you can maybe mix the Plateaux with something else to introduce the granular stuff. Maybe a subtle fast delay or the particle verb in parallel with Plateaux? I think there’s many ways you could dirty up the Helix algos.

Take a look in the legacy delay section to, the “bubble” like delay (can remember its name) can also be made to sound glitchy and uneven.

 

[the swede]

While we’re at it @spawnofthesith
On the V1 when turning the drag knob there’s an even and linear change in the pitch effect.
In the v3 demos i heard it seems like the drag control is “stepping” the effect that you choose on the mode knob. Is it like that? Or is it that maybe they are turning the mode knob wich causes the stepping in sound.

 

[spawnofthesith]

While we’re at it @spawnofthesith
On the V1 when turning the drag knob there’s an even and linear change in the pitch effect.
In the v3 demos i heard it seems like the drag control is “stepping” the effect that you choose on the mode knob. Is it like that? Or is it that maybe they are turning the mode knob wich causes the stepping in sound.

If I am understanding correctly I think it depends on the mode you have selected. The first mode is just "unquantized" and the drag behaves the same as the earlier versions, some of the other modes climb scales/octaves/fifths which I believe is what you are referring to with the steps

 

[spawnofthesith]

@the swede

1. Unquantized: Smooth, unquantized response over the operating range
2. Unquantized with Slew: Smooth, unquantized response over the entire operating range, but with a musical slew that is reminiscent of turning the varispeed knob on a vintage British tape delay. The “Drag” will lag behind the knob or cv changes, but then quickly catch up.
3. Unquantized Volt/Octave: Smooth and unquantized, yet scaled to align with the 1v/octave curve to allow melodic modulation of audio in the buffer, or control the frequency of self-oscillation like a voltage controlled oscillator.
4. Chromatic Scale: Quantized 1v/octave to the chromatic scale
5. Minor Scale: Quantized 1v/octave to the minor scale
6. Major Scale (Lydian): Quantized 1v/octave to the major scale (Lydian)
7. Pentatonic Scale: Quantized 1v/octave to the pentatonic scale
8. Octaves & Fifths: Quantized 1v/octave to omit all but octaves and fifths
9. Octaves: Quantized 1v/octave to omit all but octaves

 

[the swede]

If I am understanding correctly I think it depends on the mode you have selected. The first mode is just "unquantized" and the drag behaves the same as the earlier versions, some of the other modes climb scales/octaves/fifths which I believe is what you are referring to with the steps

I liked the v1 the brief time I had it when I was using stomp. Regret that I sold it. The v3 has trails and soft switch right?

 

[spawnofthesith]

I liked the v1 the brief time I had it when I was using stomp. Regret that I sold it. The v3 has trails and soft switch right?

Yep! momentary and latching FS, can switch between trails or no trails and the expression jack is a game changer for me! always wanted that to be able to be controlled by exp. when I had the V1

 

[the swede]

Yep! momentary and latching FS, can switch between trails or no trails and the expression jack is a game changer for me! always wanted that to be able to be controlled by exp. when I had the V1

Fuck I want one…

 

[likitlikeyoulikeit]

Fuck I want one…

Welcome back!

 

[spawnofthesith]

Well all this sounds like I probably will be keeping the afterneath on my board. I love my keeley compressor + but I am hoping I can get something I like from the HX and pull that from the gigging board for now. I assume I'll be fine, I was perfectly happy with a plain jane dyna comp for years

So once the stomp arrives I'm thinking my board will look something like: wah>micro tron IV> stomp>amp>stomp>re-202>afterneath w/ moog exp.>rc-500

I guess that is somewhat simplified

on the fence about keeping an anolog drive on the board still or not. I have a SUF dire wolf I really like but I rarely kick that on at gigs. I need to put a JBL in my deluxe reverb and build a "jerry board" for that amp with it I guess lol

 

[the swede]

Well all this sounds like I probably will be keeping the afterneath on my board. I love my keeley compressor + but I am hoping I can get something I like from the HX and pull that from the gigging board for now. I assume I'll be fine, I was perfectly happy with a plain jane dyna comp for years

So once the stomp arrives I'm thinking my board will look something like: wah>micro tron IV> stomp>amp>stomp>re-202>afterneath w/ moog exp.>rc-500

I guess that is somewhat simplified

on the fence about keeping an anolog drive on the board still or not. I have a SUF dire wolf I really like but I rarely kick that on at gigs. I need to put a JBL in my deluxe reverb and build a "jerry board" for that amp with it I guess lol

I think the Afterneath in the stomp fx loop could be cool to… shuffle it around in the chain kinda, in different presets

 

[likitlikeyoulikeit]

I think the Afterneath in the stomp fx loop could be cool to… shuffle it around in the chain kinda, in different presets

(You know you gonna get that stomp again, now!)

 

[Orvillain]

Well all this sounds like I probably will be keeping the afterneath on my board.

I think you're gonna have to tbh. The Afterneath is pretty specialist!

 

[the swede]

(You know you gonna get that stomp again, now!)

 

[Alex Kenivel]

@spawnofthesith I had an Afterneath V1 which I sold after I got close to the sounds I was after in the Helix before FW 2.0. I can't remember what I did exactly to replicate the Afterneath but I do remember using one of the multitap delays and the Cave Reverb. I didn't play around with replicating the behavior of the Drag knob, but from what I remember and what I'm hearing from your song, adding something like the Adriatic delay into the fold and assigning the time to an expression pedal may get you in the ballpark.

 

[spawnofthesith]

@spawnofthesith I had an Afterneath V1 which I sold after I got close to the sounds I was after in the Helix before FW 2.0. I can't remember what I did exactly to replicate the Afterneath but I do remember using one of the multitap delays and the Cave Reverb. I didn't play around with replicating the behavior of the Drag knob, but from what I remember and what I'm hearing from your song, adding something like the Adriatic delay into the fold and assigning the time to an expression pedal may get you in the ballpark.

Sweet, I'll give all that a go as a starting ground. Seems like there's going to be a lot of entertainment value with this

Now just sitting here checking tracking like