Helix Talk

[sashimi]

I can’t hear sag in helix I try but I can’t hear any difference from 0 to 10. I must have shitty ears.

Now the bias and bias x do make a difference, as do hum and ripple. But sag? I gave up on trying to hear the difference.

 

[Sascha Franck]

I can’t hear sag in helix I try but I can’t hear any difference from 0 to 10. I must have shitty ears.

Now the bias and bias x do make a difference, as do hum and ripple. But sag? I gave up on trying to hear the difference.

It'll only be really noticeable on Class AB amps featuring a tube rectifier. Try the new Panama Blue, it's very noticeable there. In fact, it's so absurdly noticeable when turned all the way up that I doubt the real thing would exhibit something like it.

 

[mercifulfuzziness]

SAG i just keep around 5 since i also don’t really hear it in the amps I use. The hum and rip I do hear and I have those at 0. Bias and Bias X I also hear but don’t really play around with it much. I use Lele’s tip to keep it at 8 and 1.

I finally get a bit of a grip of what is happening from drive to master.

 

[paisleywookiee]

Helix in my FB feed is far from anything new, but in a Ray Ban/Meta commercial?

AR Helix editor in 2025! GAME CHANGER!!!

 

[sashimi]

SAG i just keep around 5 since i also don’t really hear it in the amps I use. The hum and rip I do hear and I have those at 0. Bias and Bias X I also hear but don’t really play around with it much. I use Lele’s tip to keep it at 8 and 1.

I finally get a bit of a grip of what is happening from drive to master.

I have been using the 8 and 1 trick for the bias and bias x too, except on some amps where bias sounds better a little closer to 5.

I actually like using a little hum and ripple for about to blow up tweed tones in the fullerton and grammatico LG. It’s interesting hearing how hum affects the grain of the distortion, all kinds of weird intermodulation distortion happens which can be kind of cool.

 

[banned]

I can’t hear sag in helix I try but I can’t hear any difference from 0 to 10. I must have shitty ears.

Now the bias and bias x do make a difference, as do hum and ripple. But sag? I gave up on trying to hear the difference.

You may not hear sag as much (unless you do something like Detailed Ingrid) but you absolutely can feel it. Infact, sag is THE magic knob to me on the Helix. Get the Plexi up to around 7.8 and the feel is just right on!

 

[the-trooper]

You may not hear sag as much but you absolutely can feel it

So you can feel it with the volume at zero? Right?
If you can "feel" it, you can hear it. Use your words.
And this goes for everything that guitarists "feel".

 

[sleewell]

So my goal tonight is to try out some different combinations of a boost and fuzz or maybe just fuzz as like something to sound a little different flavor than my main dirt sound.


Going to try them in series and then in parallel and use different boosts w different fuzzes to see what sounds best.



I know the sweedish chainsaw can be fun. I was also going to try that sub octave one too.

Do they have something like the swollen pickle in there yet?

 

[banned]

So you can feel it with the volume at zero? Right?
If you can "feel" it, you can hear it. Use your words.
And this goes for everything that guitarists "feel".

Sure - you get the feel from the tone. But what do you want me to say? To me it feels like the signal is delayed....almost like a different time constant is in there....and the tone overall a little sweeter.

My context is not chug-chug type music. But in almost all the amps I like - DR, AC30, Plexi...I like the sag knob a little past 7.8. Also, very important to note - when I play through any kind of "FRFR" (which I really don't care for), I don't feel like playing with the sag knob too much. It is when I play through an actual guitar speaker cab that I like to dial it like this. To me, it's the difference between good and great.

 

[spawnofthesith]

Denying the existence of feel/how an amp or modeller responds (or objecting to use of the word feel) is semantic pedantry at best

 

[Shredder777]

Sure - you get the feel from the tone. But what do you want me to say? To me it feels like the signal is delayed....almost like a different time constant is in there....and the tone overall a little sweeter.

My context is not chug-chug type music. But in almost all the amps I like - DR, AC30, Plexi...I like the sag knob a little past 7.8. Also, very important to note - when I play through any kind of ""FRFR"" (which I really don't care for), I don't feel like playing with the sag knob too much. It is when I play through an actual guitar speaker cab that I like to dial it like this. To me, it's the difference between good and great.

Could you do the same thing with a frequency adjustable delay?

In the old days, i would use a short, low delay about 10ms or less to thicken notes. The top of the delay was rolled off. You couldnt hear it, but it had an affect. Lots of these mystery parameters are just simple tricks.

 

[the-trooper]

Denying the existence of feel/how an amp or modeller responds (or objecting to use of the word feel) is semantic pedantry at best

If you can't "feel" it with the volume at zero, you're not actually "feeling" anything, no semantics there. You're 100% hearing it and you should be able to describe what you're hearing. There is no magic in what's coming out of guitar speakers. They're just pushing air like any other speakers.
It's especially counterproductive to talk to someone about tone, trying to explain what you're getting from your amp/modeler/device and how to achieve the same, and boil it down to "feel".

 

[mercifulfuzziness]

You may not hear sag as much (unless you do something like Detailed Ingrid) but you absolutely can feel it. Infact, sag is THE magic knob to me on the Helix. Get the Plexi up to around 7.8 and the feel is just right on!

Is this like people saying they would recognize wine in a blind test?

No judgement whatsoever, honestly curious

 

[mercifulfuzziness]

From a technical standpoint, why is the bass always more present?

Example: Cali 1, add a Minotaur to it and instantly I need to lower the bass EQ by a lot. In that sense, mid and treble seem more equally balanced in a way.

 

[laxu]

From a technical standpoint, why is the bass always more present?

Example: Cali 1, add a Minotaur to it and instantly I need to lower the bass EQ by a lot. In that sense, mid and treble seem more equally balanced in a way.

As the gain goes up, you usually want the bass to go down or it can become woofy and tubby sounding because those frequencies start to misbehave more easily with overdrive. Most overdrive pedals cut some bass already.

The Mesa Lonestar Classic (which I assume what you mean by Cali 1 here) is a pretty bass heavy amp so it's easy to end up with issues. I recommend you simply run bass pretty low on it, or use snapshots to lower it when you turn on the overdrive.

 

[laxu]

If you can't "feel" it with the volume at zero, you're not actually "feeling" anything, no semantics there. You're 100% hearing it and you should be able to describe what you're hearing. There is no magic in what's coming out of guitar speakers. They're just pushing air like any other speakers.
It's especially counterproductive to talk to someone about tone, trying to explain what you're getting from your amp/modeler/device and how to achieve the same, and boil it down to "feel".

That's just being pedantic. When someone talks about how it feels, obviously they are talking about "how my brain translates the sound I hear to how it 'feels' to play the strings".

Sag is one of those things where it's easy to tell the difference when you are playing because with enough sag, to you it feels like there's more "bounce and give" to the "feel" when playing the strings. It's much harder to translate into what frequencies might be emphasized and how.

One of the reasons I like Marshall-based amps so much is that they sit right in that "feel" sweet spot. Not too tight, not too loose. The extremes to me would be something like Fender Tweed or Vox AC30 = lots of sag, Fryette Pitbull/Deliverance = very little sag.

 

[mercifulfuzziness]

That's just being pedantic. When someone talks about how it feels, obviously they are talking about "how my brain translates the sound I hear to how it 'feels' to play the strings".

Sag is one of those things where it's easy to tell the difference when you are playing because with enough sag, to you it feels like there's more "bounce and give" to the "feel" when playing the strings. It's much harder to translate into what frequencies might be emphasized and how.

One of the reasons I like Marshall-based amps so much is that they sit right in that "feel" sweet spot. Not too tight, not too loose. The extremes to me would be something like Fender Tweed or Vox AC30 = lots of sag, Fryette Pitbull/Deliverance = very little sag.

So you have low sag on Marshall amps because it already feels natural?

 

[laxu]

So you have low sag on Marshall amps because it already feels natural?

Nah, I was talking more about real Marshalls here.

On Helix I'd generally leave sag at the default setting because I like how it feels, but the option to adjust is there if you don't.

 

[HomespunEffects]

I need to know how you guys are defining sag. Are we all talking about the same thing?

 

[mercifulfuzziness]

I need to know how you guys are defining sag. Are we all talking about the same thing?

Balls