Helix Talk

Hello, I am Merciful and I am an habitual Helix tweaker.

Today is my first day I have not tweaked anything and just played.

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Maybe I am not the buyer persona of Helix. Because I really don’t want to learn what that first sentence means. I just want to play.

it’s nice that Line 6 makes these parameters the way the amp is suppose to sound.
IMHO, when there's such optional complexity in configuring an amp, there should be a "simple/advanced" mode toggle somewhere,v removing many parameters that not many will want to learn or tweak.
 
IMHO, when there's such optional complexity in configuring an amp, there should be a "simple/advanced" mode toggle somewhere,v removing many parameters that not many will want to learn or tweak.

Yep. But there is in a way. Just leave all below master at 5 and that is how the amp is intended.l, i believe. Except for présence

So then you have the knobs you will normale have
 
Is quad cortex really that much better in the amp department?

“From a pure amp/cab/pedal tone perspective, QC is in a totally different league. Way more natural. It’s super easy to get a great tone without much work. Now that I’ve heard the QC in person, I can’t go back. If natural tone is your goal, go QC all the way. But it’s new and missing allot of features (like weak stomp mode options).”

(2021)

This is what you hear often. Also in that Pedal Show this was mentioned without bashing on competition. The artist was of course endorsed by Neural DS0
 
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Talking about QC, I wonder why some amps have similar names to Helix's (Marshall-Brit, Fender-US).

EDIT: just browsed through all QC blocks. I'm missing so many amps and effects from the Helix. I might enjoy the QC amps, but in its current state it's not sexy enough.

And yes, I too wonder if there's that much difference in terms of amps.
 
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Is quad cortex really that much better in the amp department?

“From a pure amp/cab/pedal tone perspective, QC is in a totally different league. Way more natural. It’s super easy to get a great tone without much work. Now that I’ve heard the QC in person, I can’t go back. If natural tone is your goal, go QC all the way. But it’s new and missing allot of features (like weak stomp mode options).”

(2021)

This is what you hear often. Also in that Pedal Show this was mentioned without bashing on competition. The artist was of course endorsed by Neural DS0
No, their modeling isn’t better, IMO. Captures
CAN sound amazing as long you find what you’re looking for, and the plugins do all kinds of stuff as well as just being overall louder than a lot of plugins to “sound better”.
 
The helix team a bit of a related response but not a direct answer to my question

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Not that I’d disagree with a lot of this, but it’s a bit like saying Line 6 frequently cuts out the bright caps and their amps have an inherent fizz. Some of the EQ differences seem to be down to the impedance curve.

It’s all a wash really, not worth worrying too much about. I generally prefer NDSP plugins over Helix Native but Helix fills a lot of gaps and is a solid option. I haven’t used the QC anywhere near as much but it sounds pretty good to me
 
Not that I’d disagree with a lot of this, but it’s a bit like saying Line 6 frequently cuts out the bright caps and their amps have an inherent fizz. Some of the EQ differences seem to be down to the impedance curve.

It’s all a wash really, not worth worrying too much about. I generally prefer NDSP plugins over Helix Native but Helix fills a lot of gaps and is a solid option. I haven’t used the QC anywhere near as much but it sounds pretty good to me
"I like how this sounds" and "This is accurate modeling" are two separate discussions. You can have something that sounds great while being wildly inaccurate in its behavior.

I agree that NDSP plugins and QC sound very nice, and feel fun to play. I think you can get comparable results from Helix, but it's going to take more effort in tweaking.
 
"I like how this sounds" and "This is accurate modeling" are two separate discussions. You can have something that sounds great while being wildly inaccurate in its behavior.

I agree that NDSP plugins and QC sound very nice, and feel fun to play. I think you can get comparable results from Helix, but it's going to take more effort in tweaking.

Tweaking in what? The settings of the amp and cabs? Cortex is better straight away?

Why has Line 6 such trouble doing this?

(Must say I have not tweaked one bit on the Super Reverb so maybe Line 6 stepped up their game again?)
 
"I like how this sounds" and "This is accurate modeling" are two separate discussions. You can have something that sounds great while being wildly inaccurate in its behavior.
Yep. And both can be accurate to their testing conditions and yet sound very different. I don't really have any reason to think either companies modelling isn't accurate to the real world. In fact, I don't think I've ever got a tone out of a QC that I didn't think wasn't accurate - for instance, I can make my rectifier sound JUST like the (often maligned) recto model in there. and similarly, the old 2204 model was accurate to Line 6's reference amp, it just sounded bad.

My friend with a QC actually came to my studio to make some captures of our rectifiers when he first got a QC and once we dialled the QC model in, he's just ended up using that over the captures. To make it sound like our amps, you have to set the MV very low and use a similar sounding load. It sounds pretty killer, I always think when I'm reading negative comments about it that people must be running the MV too high.
 
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