Is The Line 6 Helix TOO Accurate? - Silent Stage Podcast w/ Richie Castellano
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- Опубліковано 20 кві 2024
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In this clip from The Silent Stage Podcast, my guest Richie Castellano and I discuss the accuracy of the Helix and cover Richies ideal signal flow as a producer.
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The key that opened the Helix for me was when I decided to treat it like an actual rig--one amp left, 2nd amp right, hard pan with everything on the backside of the amp in stereo. I found the 2 best amps that I can get the tone i hear in my head with, found the right speaker cabs, found the right mic setup, dialed it all in....and that is my tone. I just use variations based off that rather than try to make every sound possible on the Helix & wind up with no recognizable tone.
I abso-fackin-LOOTELY do not use factory presets. I go in and start from scratch and built my tone from the ground up, making use of snapshots, which are literally the best thing ever. Do that right & you can equal the best high end amps with channel switching and custom pedalboards. It's seamless.
Another thing i did with Helix that everyone is gonna probably rag my silly ass over, is I got a 2020 Helix and have not got one update nor do I use anything (other than an A.R.T. _Xtreme_ distortion pedal that I just run straight into the guitar in on Helix as i would hit the front end of a tube amp. Sounds sick.
Please note that i am not trying to say HEY YOU SHOULD NEVER GET UPDATES OR IMPROVE YOUR HELIX; that would just be silly. I just made a conscious decision for myself that i would use Helix the way that i do. At some point i will likely get another Helix with all the updates and use that new one to experiment with. The question for me was, "can i use this Helix just like I would if I had a big 2-amps-in-stereo-with-pedals-and cabs rig, onstage & in the studio?
Answer: Fckyeaaa I can!
*Edit. One more thing. I do not care how close to 100% accuracy _any_ modeler comes to the amp(s) it is modeling. What i care about is if I can get a huge, rippin tone that is unique to me, that sounds to _me_ like the baddest tube amp ever. The Helix gives that to me but it forces me to be like a sonic sculptor; I take a big, undifferentiated block of sound potential and carve away everything that is not my tone. Yeah, it's a process, but it is very rewarding when i hear that tone emerge.
Ritchie has been by go-to for learning how to program my Helix!
Me too°
Richie is one of my favorite people... Helix is what you make it.❤ Thank you, Steve.
Well done, Steve. Looking forward to your future conversations too.
Richie is a monster guitar player, great stuff.
Hes the best! Great guy
I used to watch his Sunday shows all the time. He's got some great originals. I once got him to crack up while he was playing "She Used To Be Hot".
@@leehanson1416 those are so good!
As usual Steve, you're on target. The key to making any modeler sound good is CUT (low and high) . CUT way more than you think and then add a little back.
This will be fun- two of my favorite players/YT creators talking to each other. I came to understand what Richie was saying, that before Helix the modelers were "sweetened", pre-tweaked to make it harder to make bad sounds. There are TONS of bad sounds in the Helix, all the warts haven't been sanded off of the equipment it models. For instance, originally the high and low cuts on the cabinets were set to zero, and many of the complaints of "digital artifacts" were actually that the cabs needed the high cut to smooth out the high end, just the same way a studio producer would smooth out the signal going to tape. Of course, those cuts are very dependent on what reproduction method you hook the Helix up to, and there is no "one size fits all" cab cuts. You really have to think about the Helix being a parts bin and toolbox, and you have to learn what tools work on what parts and what parts work together well.
Interesting.
How many times I've watched videos on YT where a Kemper is being compared to the ToneX and QC in an A/B test and there's a major discussion about how one is 5% more accurate when all controls are left at 12 o'clock...as if it's illegal to tweak the gain and EQ knobs on the units after the Profiling process.
Knowing full well every mic'd amp recording goes through various EQ adjustments and tweaking in your DAW before it can be called finished.
Great chat. At the 1min mark, that is the crux. People wouldn't know how to get the sound in their head with real world gear. Modeling is the whole chain from tip to tail
Absolutely! Thanks Jimmy
When does the first full episode drop?
It's taken me a while to learn how to dial in my HX Stomp, but I feel very comfortable with it now. Everything became easier when I started using the knobs on the unit itself, instead of HX Edit to dial in. It became as easy as using any dedicated Pedal.
Good stuff. I think the missing that it's a studio produced sound that people are thinking they're getting is where people miss or fall down. You basically want the produced sound to head to the PA or DAW. I like that too because it's like recording for me. I'm definitely a make decisions and print person.
I agree. Know your gear.
Where can we find the full episode?
It's coming soon! Putting out a few of these teasers first as I edit
I like the Helix hardware and UI, but I wouldn't exactly use the word accurate in the same sentence as Helix. Imo, kemper, quad cortex, and fractal definitely get closer to the real deal. Can't beat the ease of use of the helix though.
Well well!
Indeed
Gear acquasition syndrome. Thank you. I can tell my girlfriend thats what I have, you never know she might go for it! :)
Helix is great, but the presets suck. I think it would behoove Line 6 to make better presets.
No arguments there. That's covered in the episode !
I’ve been playing for a while and from personal experience would say I rarely run across an effects unit whose presets don’t suck. They’re set up to impress on the retail sales floor, not be of any real use.
@@orcsong Fractal's presets are amazing. The problem is that trying to edit them (or create your own) w/o the desktop editor is wayyyy to complicated. I switched from an FM9 Turbo to a Stomp XL just for ease of editing, even though it doesn't sound and feel quite as good.
Great Stuff 👍 🎙🎛🎸🎶🤟
First like!
Thank you my friend!
4:05 ✅
60th like. ;)
Is it going to be a proper podcast, or just the videos?
Both! Audio will be on all platforms as well as the full length vid here on youtube
@@SteveSterlacci Great stuff, much prefer podcasts so I can ADHD do multiple things at once 🙂
its unclear whether the power amp modeling in helix takes into account the fact that most people will be using it with a different speaker than than the one mated to the power amp during the modeling. the impedance curve in tube amps follows closely the resonance of the speaker so this is important. fractal has done a much better job imo of implementing the je ne sais quoi of that speaker/power amp combination. The models have a realism that is lacking in the helix esp w the stock cabs.