QC vs Helix

dk_ace said:
Well, it came directly from L6 engineers who studied it so I don’t think it’s nonsense. You can believe what you want though.

D
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Orvillain said:
Got a quote? Or is this just more half-memory half-truth nonsense?
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Probably referring to this:
Screenshot_20241227_084452_Chrome.jpg


 
TheTrueZoltan! said:
I like many of Neural's amp models, but basically they are like fast food. It tastes intense and good at first bite, but if you keep eating it you eventually realize that all the fat, sugar and other flavor enhancers have turned it into a caricature of natural food, and you ruin your sense of taste in the long run. Neural plugins, for example, have this deep, extended bass and a generally mix-ready sound characteristic that just feels so good when you play the first chord. But over time you realize - especially in comparison to real amps, but also to more realistic models from other manufacturers - that something is wrong and feels strange. The bass, which was so great at first, suddenly sounds as if the guitar is being underlaid with an octaver the whole time. And you just can't get rid of it.
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Lysander said:
It's the exact same with the models on the QC - there's a reason why NDSP products are so popular with the low-tune, chugga chugga community.

And no, it's not the IRs. I actually quite enjoyed the IR block and the stock cabs.
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This was exactly what I didn’t like about the QC models when I tried one.

I was trying to dial in a Vox and ended up with EQ blocks on either side of the amp trying to dial out that EQ that seems to be baked into every model.

To me it sounded great for high gain chug, but it was really annoying on everything else
 
Mongillo19 said:
Are these engineers or randoms?
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thebishopgame is Igor Stolarsky, senior embedded engineer at Line 6 and musician/producer. The guy knows his shit.

He has a couple videos matching Helix to be indistinguishable from NDSP's Gojira plugin, relying on the same EQ tweaks mentioned on that post.

 
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Right, so devils avocado like... that thread was started by someone effectively saying "I wanna buy a Helix, but I don't think it sounds as good as Neural for amps" and ol' Mighty Bishop comes in and goes "Yeah, stick an EQ after the amp and you'll get there"

... that's what this hoopla is about? A bloody EQ.

Okay.
QC supposedly does a fair amount of filtering to their models which are not found in the real amps.
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Fundamentally, nobody can know this for sure. Not Line6, not Fractal, nobody. Only Neural know, because they modelled the amps. But even different versions of the same amp can sound quite different from one another, even with the same tubes, same bias values, and the same cab. There are always differences, coz this is electrons flying around a vacuum.

I'll reposition my statement to be, while it might not be nonsense, if it is true, then it really isn't that important. It isn't really that much different to a Mark V having a post-distortion graphic EQ, and everyone loving it because it makes the amp as a whole sound better than a Peavey Valveking.

And I don't hate Helix's amp modelling at all. But I also don't think there are any negatives to speak of when it comes to the QC amp modelling. It is good. End of story. To me, the differences in amp modelling just come down to taste. There's no quality difference. I'd say Fractal edges them both in terms of quality and depth of tweaking though.
 
Orvillain said:
Fundamentally, nobody can know this for sure. Not Line6, not Fractal, nobody. Only Neural know, because they modelled the amps.
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But you can, because they're modelling real amps. There are behaviors that should be the same for all models, regardless of manufacturer.

The nuances about how a AC-30 is modelled are irrelevant here; if you run a test signal to it and measure a shelf EQ at the output that shouldn't be there, well, there you go.

Agree with you that ultimately this all means zilch though: if it sounds good, it is good. But the entire "QC models are way more natural" claim should be taken with a grain of salt. I don't think there're massive sonic difference across major modeler brands out there these days.
 
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Lysander said:
But you can, because they're modelling real amps. There are behaviors that should be the same for all models, regardless of manufacturer.
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But they're not all modelling the same amp. They have different ones.

We already know that two amps of the same era can still sound different side-by-side, even when accounting for all electronic differences. It has been observed a lot, and has become a kind of received wisdom at this point. Are the differences huge? Not often, but they are there.

So why would you ever expect an SLO (for example) to sound the same across each modelling platform???

Seems like a silly expectation to me.

The Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier is the obvious model to point out here. I think @MirrorProfiles even did a shootout comparison between a real one, and a whole butt-ton of modellers, and none of them sounded like his real amp, iirc. Does that mean the modellers are bad? No it doesn't. It just means that they're not modelling his specific individual amp.
 
Maybe I am naive. Probably. But today when I went to a store and plugged the guitar in the Fender Deluxe it sounded like a Deluxe right away. And I also didn’t have to be in doubt about if it sounded like a deluxe .. because it was a fender deluxe standing in the room.

after I cleaned myself up and made sure I left no stains, I realized I would like to have that same experience with choosing an amp on the Helix and I am not sure if that’s the case or not :)

Especially with most people saying that you really need to tweak to make it sound good.
 
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Orvillain said:
But they're not all modelling the same amp. They have different ones.
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Doesn't matter. I'm not talking about getting the exact same output out of different modelers, because you're right: you can get significant variance across components for different amps of the same model/brand. But we don't care about that to determine "is there an EQ block here that shouldn't be", because that depends on the topology.

Meaning, turning the knobs on different AC-30 models might not get you the exact sound, but should get you the same behavior. And that's totally measurable.
 
Lysander said:
Doesn't matter. I'm not talking about getting the exact same output out of different modelers, because you're right: you can get significant variance across components for different amps of the same model/brand. But we don't care about that to determine "is there an EQ block here that shouldn't be", because it depends on the topology.

Meaning, turning the knobs on different AC-30 models might not get you the exact sound, but should get you the same behavior. And that's totally measurable.
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But no one here is claiming that the behaviour on the QC is not accurate. Even Igor didn't claim that. He just said they put an EQ on the output of the amp. But that wouldn't change your AC30 behaviour. It would just accentuate certain frequencies over others.

It absolutely does matter that each company has different amplifiers and they aren't all modelling the exact specific amplifier. Because any differences in the final output of an amp model, could totally be accounted for in this way, without inventing stories about hidden EQ blocks.

It has not been conclusively proven that this is what Neural do, and the only way you can prove it is to look at the code, and observe the truth of the matter. Everything else - Igor's comments included - is just conjecture.
 
I don’t hear a tone of boomy lows , my ears hear an open sound and they did a great job on the Low end attack
It sounds aggressive and clear , listen to




Helix latest


If you listen to NDSP it’s more open way less fuzzy and more articulate on the attack
This is LT as well who is a great player

Just listen to the difference
IMO there is nothing wrong w NDSP modelling
 
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