Helix Talk

ian_dissonance said:
I can only hear it on dark stages. It completely disappears in sunlight.
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Season 9 Nbc GIF by The Office
 
BahamaDada said:
While I'd really dig that I don't know how that would be realized. It has so many modes, that in the end only 1 channel/1 mode would be modeled and people would moan.

I mean... I can live with only OD1 Orange. :-D
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Well, they also managed to model the Revv Generator with all its different channnels and modes.
 
Just this morning I saw a Helix Floor incl Case for sub 900 (899) on a German music forum. Damn, should have sold half a year ago... (to get a Stomp)

Stomps on the other hand go really strong. I seldom see one in good cond with a non-sketchy seller for sub 450.
 
synthpenguin said:
Anyone attempted to get a Benson Chimera / Monarch type sound in the Helix?

. . .
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Following up on this in case anyone comes across this and is looking for a Benson Monarch / Chimera type sound in the Helix without relying on tone match IRs or anything like that ~

I extensively A/Bed my HX Stomp with the Mixwave Benson Chimera plugin (which sounds great, by the way!* ), attempting to match a setting on the Benson of Volume at 3, Treble at 5, Bass at 5, and Bright switch set to Off, and I came up with something that was pretty close.

I mainly focused on the GrammaticoLG Nrm, A30 Fawn Norm, and Brit P75 Nrm (spoiler: the winner).

I expected a lot out of GrammaticoLG, and the low end could get pretty close, but the mids were always off, and it always has that buzz / crackle when driven, which can sound great... but the Benson doesn't really do that. It's a cool amp, but a different thing, despite having a lot of architectural similarities to the Benson Chimera & Monarch.

The A30 Fawn Norm can get in the same territory. It's never "quite right", but I think if you want a quick route to this general sound without any weird settings, go with this + a greenback IR (especially a GR12H30, which are what the Benson speakers are based on). I've seen that a lot of guitarists who use the Benson amps previously used or currently also use AC30s, and I get why. And I went with and prefer the Normal channel block, but definitely try the Bright version too (I'd avoid the Essex A30 for this sound though, as the top boost channel it models is not really right for this imo)

Returning to the Brit P75 Nrm got me closest though. WorshipTutorials were definitely right about that. There are some differences, but you can get into the ballpark pretty quickly. Like I suspected before, I'd suggest starting with a "flat" EQ setting (Bass at 0, Mids at 10, and Treble at 0), a high Master setting, and a low Drive setting, and going from there (focusing mostly on Treble probably).

But tl;dr here were my exact settings for Brit P75 Nrm (again, attempting to match V=3, T=5, B=5, Bright=Off on the Benson):
Drive = 2.0
Bass = 0.6
Mid = 10.0
Treble = 10.0 (this one really surprised me tbh)
Presence = 4.0
Master = 8.0
Sag = 5.0 (default)
Hum= 5.0 (default)
Ripple = 0.0
Bias = 6.6 (default)
Bias X = 5.0 (default)

This alone is pretty close, and depending on how much you care, and probably what IR you are using, you could stop here, but I did think it needed a little more tweaking, and I added two more EQ blocks in the end:

...a Parametric EQ before the amp block:
LoFreq = 250Hz
Low Q = 1.4
LoGain = -1.6dB

MidFreq = 775Hz
Mid Q = 0.7
MidGain = -2.1dB

HiFreq = 10.9kHz
High Q = 0.7
HiGain = +2.4dB

...and a Low and High Cut block after the amp block:
Low Cut = 80Hz
Hi Cut = 14.0kHz

Some explanation of the settings above:
The Parametric EQ is mainly shaping the mid range a little, making things sound a little more open, but without giving a strong "mid scoop" sound (which the Benson doesn't have). The high boost adds some brightness in that the Brit P75 Nrm is missing in comparison to the Benson, and might be surprising since that 10kHz and up area is a problem area for guitar, but keep in mind that it gets shaped by the amp block and then the speaker / IR after, so it's much different from a post EQ.

The low cut of the Low and High Cut is shaping the bass a little (obviously haha). The Benson has a bass falloff starting below 80 or 90Hz, and I found that adding this cut is really essential to getting the right sound. Also, I preferred the low cut after the amp (hence why I didn't just do it in the Parametric EQ block).

Re: the high cut, I noticed the Benson amp model always starts rolling off the highs around there (with no cab or anything, and with oversampling maxed out). This might be an anti-aliasing thing and not something the real amp does, I'm not sure, but it made a difference listening to the amp direct, so I added it in. That said, it is probably unnecessary in real world scenarios since those frequencies will usually be chopped off anyway.

Anyway, I'm pretty happy with those settings. Does it sound exactly the same? No, there are some little differences, you don't have the full treble range of the Benson (though maybe try the Brit P75 Brit block for that, or the A30 Fawns if you're not as picky about the rest of the sound and just want the brighter settings), and the bass controls do not behave in the same way. But if you want the basic sound that you can then tweak like any other amp, I think this gets you very, very close. And again, try running it through a G12H30 speaker or IR (if you don't have an IR, the 4x12 Greenback 30 and 2x12 Match H30 cabs both have G12H30s)

* (along with the Benson Chimera model sounding good, so does the Benson Preamp model in here... I may have to check out that actual pedal. I thought it was just good for fuzzy stuff, but it reminds me a lot of the BD-2 where it can do that, but sounds great at lower gain settings too.

Also, the cab section of the Mixwave plugin was nice too. It was pretty hard to make it sound bad (maybe unrealistically). I don't think I'll be buying it, but I'd recommend checking this plugin out if you're interested in this sort of sound in plugin form)
 
synthpenguin said:
Following up on this in case anyone comes across this and is looking for a Benson Monarch / Chimera type sound in the Helix without relying on tone match IRs or anything like that ~

. . .
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I don't think anyone else here really cares but me haha, but posting an update mainly to document it for anyone looking to do the same thing who might come across this ~

For fun, I decided to buy the WorshipTutorials Benson Monarch tone match preset. Even though the core of this preset is really the IR, I won't really divulge anything about it except that 1. despite what I thought (?) I heard them say in the video, it actually uses the Princeton and AC15 models (for the US and UK voices, respectively), and not the Park model, and 2. it sounds really nice! Especially the US voice preset.

The main downside for me with these tone match presets is that they obviously rely on the IRs, so you can't really send the sound into a power amp and cab like I do with my Helix a lot. My initial approach lets you disable or change out the cab / IR block, so I prefer that just for that reason.

With that in mind, I did some A/B testing against my patch above, and I've gotta say... they're pretty close haha. There is a little difference in the mid range, but some of this could also be the speaker and mic aspect of the WT IR... and actually I don't love the difference, because the WT one can be a little "quacky" in a way I don't really hear in any demoes of the Benson or remember from the Mixwave plugin trial. Still, you can get there with a boost around 600 to 700hz if you want to.

The WT one also has a lot less low end. Again, this could be a speaker / mic thing because I felt I got the low end mostly right when A/Bing against the Mixwave plugin, I don't know, but raising the low cut on your cab / IR to around 120hz gets you closer, so that's what I'm doing for now. I did end up disabling that Low and High Cut block too, by the way.

And speaking of IRs, before I was using the Helix 2x12 Match H30 and 4x12 Greenback 30 cabs (mainly the former), both of which have G-12H30 speakers in them, but I decided to grab the York Audio MRSH 412 Blackjack IRs. Those IRs are also of a cab with Celestion G12H30s, though 1970s ones (not sure how / if those differ from the creamback anniversary ones the Bensons used to use..?), and they sound great. So I'm using them now (mainly mixes 09 and 10 at the moment).

Something else I discovered while using the WT preset is that I really preferred how it took drives and boosts. This is just down to how well the Princeton / US Princess model does with that. It's been one of my favorite amp models for a while for that reason, and I prefer it to how the Park 75 / Brit P75 Nrm falls in on itself. This inspired me to try the US Princess again, and with lots of A/Bing (again) and a little knowledge of how the tone stacks work, I got it sounding very close.

The US Princess settings I ended up with were:
Drive = 3.5
Bass = 0.2
Mid = 10.0
Treble = 1.0
Presence = 1.0
Master = 10.0
Sag = 5.0 (default)
Hum= 5.0 (default)
Ripple = 5.0 (default)
Bias = 5.2 (default)
Bias X = 5.0 (default)

This sounds more or less the same as the P75 settings I gave before when clean, but I love how this drives waaaay better. I'm not sure which is more accurate to the Benson, but I prefer this. It also has the added benefit of leaving you room to boost the treble. The Benson Chimera and Monarch are fairly dark amps (from what I've seen, this is basically the most common complaint), so I guess cranking up the treble is not as true to those amps as leaving it in that more neutral 0.0 to 1.0 territory, but ya know, it's nice to be able to.

So yeah, anyway, I'm sure the WT one is more accurate (obviously) by nature of how it was made and of it using an IR vs basic EQ boosts and cuts, but this sounds close enough for most purposes, I think, so I'd recommend trying this approach first. And those York IRs are great for this, but the 2x12 Match H30 cab with a couple mics sounds really good too (I like the 30 Dynamic and 160 Ribbon combo, or a combo like the 84 Cond and 121 Ribbon).
 
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