The Guitar Thread

[Blastronaut 1344]

I used to really like playing about mic placement on vst plugins like Guitar Rig. Always found it near impossible to physically mic up a speaker you're in the same room as and get a feel for how different mic placements change things when you're not isolated from the source. Was a great "oh fuck right, that's how it works, I get it now" kinda moment. Shame it didn't help me with the original issue but probably only because im a dozy cunt. 

 

As an aside, the Plumes is a pretty interesting take on the TS. Having all the clean boost headroom of the Klon in a Tubescreamer is a great idea. I forget what the other tweaks were, I think the mid-hump was a centered around a slightly lower frequency but I'm sure the others were less trivial.

 

 

[Gemmill 46008]

Aye I nearly bought a Plumes once so I'm looking forward to having a mess about with this. 

[Blastronaut 1344]

1 hour ago, Gemmill said:

Aye I nearly bought a Plumes once so I'm looking forward to having a mess about with this. 

 

If you crank the gain/drive knob it's probably firmly in TS territory. Back off the gain and use it as boost and its bordering on the Klon/TS hybrid everyone's always wanted but never bothered to ask for.

 

No idea how boss went about emulating the extra headroom from the charge pump for the digital patch, but I'll trust they haven't just half-arsed it. 

 

Out of curiosity, is there a Klon patch on this thing?

Edited November 3, 2022 by Blastronaut

[Gemmill 46008]

42 minutes ago, Blastronaut said:

 

If you crank the gain/drive knob it's probably firmly in TS territory. Back off the gain and use it as boost and its bordering on the Klon/TS hybrid everyone's always wanted but never bothered to ask for.

 

No idea how boss went about emulating the extra headroom from the charge pump for the digital patch, but I'll trust they haven't just half-arsed it. 

 

Out of curiosity, is there a Klon patch on this thing?

 

 

 

It's got 3 different modes to be faffing with too (this is from the original pedal documentation, but I'm guessing they'll have modelled this too).

 

And aye the Klon on it is pretty good. It's called Minotaur - as in Centaur, geddit?

[Tom 14013]

Looking forward to the update! I had a lot of big ideas about what to do with the Helix but I've honestly been addicted to the default firmware and the tones already on there. 
 

I haven't bothered with the sonic exploration it was intended for yet...but I'm having so much fun with the default sounds, looping them and mixing the them up etc. 
 

Absolutely a 10/10 purchase so far and I've barely scratched the surface  

[Blastronaut 1344]

13 hours ago, Gemmill said:

 

 

 

It's got 3 different modes to be faffing with too (this is from the original pedal documentation, but I'm guessing they'll have modelled this too).

 

And aye the Klon on it is pretty good. It's called Minotaur - as in Centaur, geddit?

 

Right fuck it I've been holding this in since last night but can't let it slide. Hate seeing the word "transparent" used to describe guitar effects at the best of times but on a fucking overdrive pedal? Unforgivable.

 

Could've said Mode 3 gives a bit more clarity over mode 1, I'd have let that slide. But if its transparent, what fucking use is it? 

 

Thats EQD off my "good guys" lists. Dicks.

 

 

[Monkeys Fist 43060]

[Gemmill 46008]

Transparent overdrive is a bit of a buzzword these days isn't it? I take it to just mean that it doesn't change the EQ but I don't know if that's right or not. 

[Blastronaut 1344]

13 minutes ago, Gemmill said:

Transparent overdrive is a bit of a buzzword these days isn't it? I take it to just mean that it doesn't change the EQ but I don't know if that's right or not. 

 

Aye I think that's what folk usually take it to mean, but it's thrown about so much it's pretty much meaningless, especially here. Clipping diodes literally chop off the peaks of the waveform. Asymmetric just means it clips one side of the wave less than the other. Trying describe something like that as transparent is poor form.

 

@Monkeys Fist this is me after sleeping on it to try and calm down.

 

 

 

 

[Tom 14013]

Still haven't upgraded the firmware on the Helix but put a couple of patches together and bloody hell it's good.

 

Youll probably get bored of me posting it's a 10/10 piece of kit mind. Such good fun  

[Gemmill 46008]

I'll never get bored of it.

 

YouTube reckons the latest update is the most important one yet cos of the change to the cabinets. I'm scared to do anything with them. 

[Tom 14013]

I'm learning more and more as I go but I've still barely scratched the surface. The sounds are absolutely incredible a lot of the time and I'm mixing them with an external looper so the dynamic range can be crazy. 
 

It's already performed the task of a lot of the pedals I was looking at...which is crazy. It just does so much for the money. 
 

I set myself up a Marshall stack with an 808 and a transistor tape delay and it sounds absolutely awesome!

[Gemmill 46008]

Aye I love the transistor tape delay. 

 

Totally agree as well that it basically gives you access to almost every effect you could want bar some of the really fancy glitchy loop stuff that Chase Bliss do. But even then, that John Cordy lad has done some dead clever presets to try and replicate what they do. 

 

The bloke whose video I've pasted below is a good watch. He started out just dead enthusiastic about the Helix, to the point that Line 6 asked him to create some of their factory presets (the ones that start JS). 

 

This video is him comparing an actual Plumes pedal with the new Helix model. It's pretty fucking close. 

 

 

 

[Tom 14013]

Got myself a new MacBook and was hoping it would solve my firmware update issue...the fucker only has those weird new USB

things on it

 

Ah well it was an insurance job, I suppose I'll have to get an adapter 

[Gemmill 46008]

Watch the instructions for this update. Its a massive one and there's some weird thing where partway through it gives you an error message - if you've read the instructions you know it's coming cos they tell you that it's nowt to worry about. If you haven't read the instructions you'll think you've fucked your unit.

 

[Tom 14013]

Oh god

 

I've got some kind on USB adapter coming tomorrow so hopefully that'll do it. 
 

tempted to wait till Monday when I'm not watching football/having some beers after reading that!!

[Blastronaut 1344]

Is there patches on this for any old germanium based fuzz pedals? I'm curious how the clean-up is on stuff like MK1 Tonebender, 60's Fuzz Face and all that ancient stuff. 

 

Honestly not trying to pick holes in it, the tech is more than capable of getting it right, just curious if it's there yet. If there's convincing MK1 and Zonk Machine patches I'll need to start looking for a new side gig.

[Gemmill 46008]

23 minutes ago, Blastronaut said:

Is there patches on this for any old germanium based fuzz pedals? I'm curious how the clean-up is on stuff like MK1 Tonebender, 60's Fuzz Face and all that ancient stuff. 

 

Honestly not trying to pick holes in it, the tech is more than capable of getting it right, just curious if it's there yet. If there's convincing MK1 and Zonk Machine patches I'll need to start looking for a new side gig.

 

These are all the fuzz models on it:

 

Arbiter® FuzzFace®

Jordan Boss Tone fuzz

1973 Electro-Harmonix® Ram's Head Big Muff Pi

Electro-Harmonix® Big Muff π®

Euthymia ICBM fuzz

Z.Vex Fuzz Factory

Tycobrahe® Octavia 

Garbage's modded BOSS® FZ-2

Subdecay Harmonic Antagonizer

Maestro® Fuzz Tone

Vox® Tone Bender

 

Honestly I'm not the man to ask about fuzz pedals, Tom might offer an opinion.

 

I've watched plenty youtube stuff with people raving about certain models though. The Fuzz Factory in particular springs to mind. 

[Blastronaut 1344]

6 minutes ago, Gemmill said:

 

These are all the fuzz models on it:

 

Arbiter® FuzzFace®

Jordan Boss Tone fuzz

1973 Electro-Harmonix® Ram's Head Big Muff Pi

Electro-Harmonix® Big Muff π®

Euthymia ICBM fuzz

Z.Vex Fuzz Factory

Tycobrahe® Octavia 

Garbage's modded BOSS® FZ-2

Subdecay Harmonic Antagonizer

Maestro® Fuzz Tone

Vox® Tone Bender

 

Honestly I'm not the man to ask about fuzz pedals, Tom might offer an opinion.

 

I've watched plenty youtube stuff with people raving about certain models though. The Fuzz Factory in particular springs to mind. 

 

Vox Tonebender should seal the deal, it's basically a germanium Fuzz Face and roughly the same circuit that Solasound cheekily snuck into pedals between the MK1 and MK2 when they were struggling meet demand (unofficially dubbed the MK1.5).

 

If either you or @Tom get the chance, I'd be really interested to hear how that patch responds to you rolling back the volume control on your guitar just slightly. If it's on the money then dialing back your guitar volume knob from 10 to 9 will give you a much cleaner sound. If it doesn't, they've half arsed it.  

[Tom 14013]

The fuzz sounds ive used so far have been absolutely exceptional and they don't respond differently to the originals unless you want them to - I.e the optimum fuzz factory for me would have a noise Gate so it doesn't respond unless you hit the guitar.

 

However I don't know what the fuzz pedals are on my helix bar the fuzz factory - so I don't know how to match them up with the above list as of yet. 
 

There's some kind of x 2 distortion/boost mode on there which is one of my go to's - which is insane fuzz but also sounds like a valve amp on 11 and reacts like it too. 
 

Im really enjoying using an external looper to mash up all the tones/textures on the helix though - you can get some really cool compositions almost like listening to a record.

 

Buy a helix man!

[Gemmill 46008]

There's some weird craic with fuzz and the Helix btw. There's an impedance circuit and the default setting for it on the Helix is "First" which means that the first pedal in your signal chain determines your impedance setting. 

 

Because fuzz likes low impedance, if the first pedal in your chain is a fuzz, your impedance will be set low regardless of whether the fuzz is engaged or not. 

 

People used to complain that if you stuck a fuzz at the front of your chain on a helix it fucked your sound when you bypassed the fuzz cos the impedance remained low. 

 

So! They added a setting for "First enabled". So now if your fuzz is bypassed, it looks to the next pedal in your chain - which generally means your signal impedance goes back up to a more "normal" level. 

 

So aye. Check that setting and put it on first enabled. I never use Fuzz but I've watched hundreds of "tips and tricks" type videos and this one's always on there. 

 

I've probably completely mangled this explanation. Blastronaut? Have I fucked it? 

[Gemmill 46008]

 

 

My main man Cordy demonstrating the difference at the start of this video. And yet somehow explaining it evn worse than me.

 

[Blastronaut 1344]

30 minutes ago, Gemmill said:

 

I've probably completely mangled this explanation. Blastronaut? Have I fucked it? 

 

I've got no idea how they've implemented this on the Helix. Tbh I think the input impedance issue with fuzz pedals is overblown and mostly only applies to stuff based on the Fuzz Face (so loads of stuff really, from the Fulltone 69 to the Vox Tonebender) since that circuit really relies on being able to load your guitars pickups, which it can't do properly if it's not first in the chain. It still "works" if it's later in the chain, it just sounds different and doesn't respond the same way to adjusting the volume control on your guitar. 

 

You can probably see how well the feature works by playing with that Vox Tonebender patch Tom mentioned and playing with the "first enabled" thing. Difference should be night and day. 

 

> So now if your fuzz is bypassed, it looks to the next pedal in your chain - which generally means your signal impedance goes back up to a more "normal" level. 

 

The issue is that most pedals have a high input impedance and a low output impedance. In a chain you generally want the output impedance of a pedal to be lower than the input impedance of the pedal after it. The low input impedance of the FF can fuck this if it isn't first. 

 

In digital stuff though, I've not got a fucking clue. Im not even sure how a low input impedance could "load" guitar pickups in a digital pedal. I'd have thought the first thing the guitar see's will always be an Analogue/Digital converter. 

[Blastronaut 1344]

Tl;dr I dolunno. You're the one with the Helix, man.

[Gemmill 46008]

Honestly I'm clueless about this stuff.  I watch youtube videos by people who probably know as little as me but are just very confident in their delivery. 

 

Cheers for the explanation though - when I see that Cordy bloke demo it at the start of that video, I can hear a massive difference.  But most of the time when people go on about "tone suck" and all the rest of it, I cannot fucking hear a difference.