Helix Drives sounding Bad? Get Better DRIVE and FUZZ Tones from HX Effects in Front of a Real Amp
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ค. 2024
- For my Presets visit: johnnathancordy.gumroad.com/ Like many of you, sometimes, when I plug in the HX Stomp or HX Effects into the front of a clean Amp, pull up a Fuzz pedal and next thing you know, my ears are bleeding. This video is intending to explore ways that you can get more pleasing and useable drive tones from your HX Effects, but the same kind of thing will apply for HX Stomp and Helix users using a Real Amp too.
I've decided to make it possible to grab both my Helix/HX Stomp bundles (the expression bundle with freeze presets has always been separate) together for £5 - www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr... - I will then email you a link to both bundles!
You can get my EXPRESSION patches in this bundle using this link - I will then send out the patches! www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr...
Try my patches (60-70+) for Helix or HX Stomp in this bundle for £3 using this link - I will then send out the patches! www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr...
Try my patches for Pod GO for £3 using this link - I will then send out the patches! www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr...
/ johnnathancordy get my backing tracks here
www.buymeacoffee.com/johnnath... - if you like what I do and
only if you wanted, you could buy me a coffee!
00:00 Intro
3:17 HX Effects into a VOX AC15 how will it sound
4:06 The problem
5:40 An EQ Block could help
6:35 A tubescreamer could help even more
7:50 In depth and out of focus look at how I arrived here - เพลง
Ok - so hopefully this might help a couple folks out - I feel like if you just plug your HX Effects/HX Stomp in front of your real Amp, you might be surprised by some of the sounds that come out....Certain amp/pedal combinations sound pretty whack - Fuzz in particular is pretty interesting. In this video I'm using the HX Effects in front of my Vox AC15 and I felt like these two methods improved the results considerably!
My wife will hate you, but you won a subscriber. The lack of impedance circuit on the HXFX kills me same as the FM3. Thank you sir, I´m not selling my HX effects :)
What if you want to use reverb and delay?
I mean isnt using 4cm in front of the loop the same thing as going through front of the amp
Someone mentioned you on Andy Wood's streaming last night. He would like to have you on his channel. 🤘
Awesome shout out! 👍
As a Doom/Stoner Metal player, I've recently fallen in love with the Timmy in the HX Stomp after fuzz pedals (real and virtual) as a way to tame highs and bring in more mids. It absolutely slays with my real-world Fuzz Face and Hizumitas. I used to use a Klon to this effect but the Timmy is so much more versatile.
Thanks and keep the HXFX videos coming. You get such great tones from the amp and cab options from the Helix line but I would love to see what you can do for HXFX without the amp options--just like in this video. I just picked up HXFX patches from you and am really digging into how you build out a digital board on HXFX. You have a different approach to EQ and Reverb than me--which is great because it is showing me a new way of building tone with the tools I already have. I am trying really hard to live with what I have instead of always buying more gear, but sometimes I get stuck with what I have always done, which is why I picked up your presents, something I have never done before. Keep it coming. You got a great ear for dialing in tone. You're a sick guitar player. Thanks for doing what you do.
You nailed it two times here. Different music from the usual ambient solos and helix with real amp. Thank you!
I’ve got the Helix Floor unit and love it but I’ve been on the search for a head and cab combo and was wanting to run the HX FX in front of it. This video came at the perfect time!! Great job man
In general, I have had some difficulties getting any of the HX sounds to work without some help. This video is very helpful, thanks John. Because I have yet to find a modeled amp/cab that can compete with a real amp (I've tried, I really have), I am for now sticking with amps. And as such, I have found that my ideal usage is to combine the HX Effects with a few pedals I really like, and, using the four cable method, include the amplifier's preamp as part of the pedal chain.
I'm using the HX Effects as the control center of the rig, primarily for EQ, compression, basic drives (I LOVE stacking drives! A little goes a LONG way), some MIDI control, and other non-stereo or modulation effects, like maybe tremolo or octave, or whatever the patch calls for. Then I run the output of all that (coming from the HX Effects) into a series of stereo modulation pedals (chorus, delay, reverb) to my two amps. I use a couple Fender Deville 4x10s, pre-amp set really clean.
Lordy.
Without much volume, I can get huge tones, from clean, airy/spacey, to really driven chunky rock (not metal, in my case, though). Yes, I have a Helix too, but I like several of my pedals more than what I can get out of Helix alone, so...the HX Effects does what I need, without carrying around several pedals AND the rather large Helix. My HX Effects rig fits on an average size board.
Final Note: I have found that Helix is awesome for recording using the amp modeling and various pedal options. But the minute I run it through a PA system for live sound, I find it lags well behind the output from an actual amplifier. Thinner, less impactful, less immediate, somehow more "digital" sounding...wondering if anybody else has seen or heard/noticed this problem. Not knocking Line 6, I am fairly certain any modeling tool would have the same issue.
My 2 cents (using a Variax into Helix LT). I found that engaging the guitar pad, and dropping the signal again (between -6 and -9db in a block) yielded much better results through subsequent gain stages.
Also find I usually need less gain than first expected. And on the amp model a high cut can really help. As can careful use of the amps gain/volume knobs (again I air on the low side and max the master volume).
There are a couple things I’d say… First, I think an AC15 can be hard to get right. I used one for a few years a while back, and thought it was OK, but then heard a live recording of it, and thought the mic’ed tone came off as so harsh, I basically decided to sell it right then. I find most Fender combos just easier to deal with, but then again, sometimes the stock speakers in Fenders naturally sound harsh, too. I’ve had very good luck with the Eminence Cannabis Rex… It just naturally tames a lot of this harshness.
I also think that having a really clean amp as the base for an overdrive in and of itself leads to harshness. I tend to dial in more with a little breakup, where if I roll the volume back on guitar, it gets cleans, but then kicking in an OD pushes the amp more. A lot of pedals just weren’t really designed to sound good into a clean amp.
Lastly, I think there’s always the Fletcher Munson Effect where a tone sounds OK at low volume but then when you have chance to turn it up, it turns in ice picks…
I run a blues junior, and I agree about the speakers. I replaced mine with a Texas heat. It sounds WAY better.
I wish people understood that F-M effect. Low volume is one thing and high volume is a completely different beast.
I always would dial in a warmer tone during practices and jams, and I think my buddy would always question that but, live people would always tell him to turn down the highs or if he got mic’d they would just lower his volume and highs through the PA 😂
@@williamsporing1500I’ve been thinking about swapping my Jensen for something else. Maybe a Greenback. Will have to check out the Texas Heat. Good with overdrive?
The helix sounds great at low volumes or direct in but you have to tweak it for loud volumes. When I use FR cab with helix I do a hi cut at the end of the chain and turn treble almost all the way down.
But it’s the same with with tube amps and pedals. You can have everything setup and sounding good and then when you turn it up or jam with other instruments you need to adjust.
Interesting, I've actually stopped using my big board for rehearsals and gigs and am just using the stomp. I haven't really had these issues, but I've been using a Supro Black Magik amp which has a more mid focused sound.
Thanks for putting this together.
I run a helix stomp into a quilter interblock 45 power amp, and then into a 2x12 EVH cab. I’ve been playing with using the helix as a clean amp pedal platform. When I run a Friedman be-od deluxe and Abasi pathos into the helix they sound suuuper trebly compared to a real amp.
Any advice?
I don't own one of these yet, but someone mentioned in a demo video that you can set input/output impedance in the ins/outs settings on this device. Can anyone confirm? Would that help with the issue you're discussing? Thanks.
I create tracks all day... and used to use Pod Farm 2 to go thru hundreds of cool presets looking for inspiration for the next part I was tracking. There were so many cool fx chains (and song/artist styles) people made to download free, so there were hundreds of tones/sounds I would have never dialed in that I could use. Now I'd like to add something on my studio pedalboard ...to add that kind of variety of pre-made flavors I could use for my recordings. Does the HX Effect allow me to load up a bunch of presets like that... and do they still offer a forum to find & download for HX Effects? I use a Kemper for most amp tones now so that part is not needed. Thanks!
Amazing bro! Is the preset on your everything folder or somewhere else? Sounds sick, i got ur bundles, enjoying the other presets awesome as well, cheers
Yeh I'll stick it into the general bundle today!
Did the EQ go
After the fuzz in the chain?
Nice chops brother!
I run my hx effects straight into my blues junior. It does just about everything I want it to do.
I just wish line 6 would toss in a couple of amp sims in the next update
How much time do you spend creating presets?
Firstly, thanks John for demonstrating how insanely bright, thin, harsh, and awful the HX tones can sound. This was exactly my experience when I first got my HX Stomp, particularly when using a guitar with Single Coil pickups.
Solutions I learned that work quickly are to switch the HX Cab mic to something with a darker tone. The Ribbon Mics usually work well. The same thing can be done with changing the Speaker type, number, and size.
Another thing that works really well, but that guitarists are loath to do because it introduces a significant amount of unpredictability, is to use the Tone Control on your guitar. This can work extremely well because tone controls tend to roll of treble frequencies really fast, and that's what is needed in this kind of situation.
Creating an EQ for each Preset or Effect can be very time consuming.
My preferred solution would be a "System wide" solution instead of a Preset specific one. This is where the Global EQ might work, IF we could save about a dozen EQ "Profiles" for different guitars and Amp setups. Thanks
I believe that you can copy a pedal settings onto another board if you use the computer software (which is way easier to build boards on anyway)
@@williampeeters2742 I've had an HX Stomp for about 1.7 years now. I recently found out that many "Guitar Cab Speakers," including Classics like the Celestion, have shocking steep high frequency cutoffs around 4-5kHz! The Celestion G12M Greenback has a Frequency Range Spec of 75Hz - 5,000kHz (based on the Chart at Celestion), and a steep High Cut dropping the volume from about 107dB down to about 77dB in a nearly straight line slope in the range from around 3.5kHz to 7kHz. I'm not sure if I calculated this right, but I think that is 30dB decrease in one octave!
The Stomp Cabs have a high cut "default setting" at 8kHz. Depending on your use: Live, Studio, Headphones, etc. those settings could be good or bad. In general, I find the stock Presets to be way too bright. Lowering the High Cut is a good way to remedy that. Knowing this information has made it a lot easier for me to dial in Presets appropriately so they sound good through Monitoring Headphones, and feel more like a real Amp.
Bit late but ive been thinking about the HX effects recently and simplifyung my board. Do you do EQ pre or post fuzz out of interest?
I haven't done a swedish chain saw since the 70s.
Not quite understanding of why Line 6 did not add in the impedance curve to their drive blocks? Have tried almost all of the drives that are current and really they all have that fizzy funky thing going on that does not sound very real. Sounds digital not analog. While you might try and get rid of some of that with a eq block, might be better just to go to a decent external drive pedal using the loop block. Have not tried it yet but do not understand why some think those drive blocks are really that great sounding on their own.
John,
I do have a request for a small change that would really help me. Your voice comes out at a much lower volume than the guitars. It sounds as if you're in a closet. Being a Yank, I already have a hard time understanding what you're saying. The result is I need to hike the volume way up while you're talking, then back down quickly to avoid being blown out by guitar. Something like a lapel mic would really help! Thanks!
Allan
I just bought a Marshal JCM 800 SC combo and I will be damned if I can’t figure out the best way to hook up my pod go to get the best use out of it. In front ,effect loop,4 cable,bypass preamp!use pod go preamps,don’t use preamps,etc. Thanks for your videos.
Hey Frankie! Is that this one? th-cam.com/video/_sdOGJjtvz8/w-d-xo.html I might try to hook it up and see what gives!
@@johnnathancordy Yes,
if "In depth and out of focus" doesn't become a series or something imma start an insurrection
Chainsaw is for black metal not for solo.And not for blues.Chuga Chuga thing.
Of course - the point was that it demonstrates perfectly what people might find tricky in front of a clean amp