I give up ... I bought a Helix
After spending more than the cost of a new Helix on effects pedals, I finally give in and buy a lightly used Line 6 Helix Floor, and wow, why did I wait this long to pull the trigger?
While I was not ignorant of modeling technology and Line 6, having owned a POD xt, I really resisted buying a current generation of the Line 6 technology, preferring to build my signal chain with discrete pedals, learning to stack tone components, and how having modulation in front of overdrive or vice versa sound different, yet both being “good” is a worthy endeavor.
In the process, I picked up a variety of overdrives, distortion, chorus, modulation, delays and a really good plate reverb pedal, all used in my pedal board.
Yet, the allure of a high-end modeler was strong. And then I began watching Youtube videos of the better modeler/profiler solutions, and what they could bring to my tone, and the itch grew.
Last Saturday I was browsing Reverb, for Helix systems, and I found an open box “demo” unit that was about $300 off retail. Still, it was a lot of money, but it was definitely less than I have spent in the last 2 years on pedals. I pushed the “buy” button, and closed the deal.
It arrived on Friday, at about 3:00, close enough that I could check out of work for the day (I had sent my first email before 5 AM, so it wasn’t that early) to plug it in.
On my desk, as I didn’t have long enough cables to connect to my Presonus studio monitors.
Yes, it was awkward as it was crowding my computer keyboard, but sacrifices must be made.
For the greater good.
Anyhow, as it was a floor model, there were a couple of presets set up, and I played with them. They were OK, and showed very clearly the use of snapshots to create tone profiles within a preset. (This was something I gleaned from my Youtube watching).
Then I set about to do some new preset development. I won’t go into too much detail, but suffice it to say that there is an amazing amount of flexibility, and using the HX Edit program, attached to my computer, it is trivial to add any of a multitude of models for discrete signal processing blocks (aka effects pedals) and they are broken into logical categories. Things like distortion, dynamics, modulation, etc makes it easy to find a category, then experiment with the individual models, and to tweak the settings.
Don’t like the distortion? You can change it, with a click.
Of course, you can do all this editing on the Helix itself, using the knobs, joystick, and push buttons. I am not likely to muck around on the unit itself, but if you are a performing artist, on stage, you can tweak the settings in situ. Cool.
Do I have to create everything from scratch?
That is a great question, and the answer is, hell no! Line 6 is a very tech savvy company, and they have a large audience of music geeks that build, tweak, and optimize signal chains to mimic or replicate many of the iconic tones that your favorite artists have recorded (or played live) over the years, and the CustomTone area on their website allows you to search for and download presets that give you a starting point.
If you want to have the tone of Gary Moore in his “Still Got the Blues”, download and import, and BAM it is there. Or the Eddie van Halen “Brown” sound? Yep. Or the early 80’s Iron Maiden vintage sound. There it is.
And I have just scratched the surface of what this can do. A truly epic piece of kit.
Output options
As it is designed to be used by performing artists, it has a plethora of outputs. A pair of XLR balanced outputs, a pair of 1/4” outs that can go into an amp. If you have pedals that are not modeled, or are your favorites, there are a few effects send/receive loops to add them in, there is an XLR in for a microphone, and when it is plugged into your computer, it acts as an 8 channel audio interface, replacing the el cheapo I used to have on my desk.
For now, I am running them into my Presonus (budget) studio monitors, and it sounds OK. Definitely the weakest link. I will try plugging it into my amp (the Orange Rocker 15), but the real solution is to upgrade my studio monitors from these bargains that I bought like 7 years ago to a pair of powered monitors. That will be fodder for a future post.
Final thoughts
Again, I have been futzing around with this for less than 2 days and already I am in love with it. The Line 6 Helix Floor provides an unequalled degree of performance, flexibility, convenience, and utility in a package that while not cheap, delivers an outsized value. Many people shun modelers, and it seems that there is a segment of the market that is moving towards profiling amps, but the robustness of the Line 6 offer, the power of the HX DSP’s (made by National Semiconductor if my foggy memory serves) coupled with the incredible community that shares their experience and settings makes this a no brainer.
Do I regret spending more on pedals in the last two years than on this unit? No, that really helped me understand the interplay between different tone blocks, and how to craft a unique sound. The Helix just unlocks the potential without having to have an infinite pedal board, with the combinatorial variations that entails.
Nope, no regrets. Now, back to the tweaking and build out of a few presets that are me. There will be more posts as I go down the rabbit hole.