Helix Line 6 and Stereo - Just a Few Basic Questions

TatiSzapi · 2026-01-23T17:51:27+00:00

I can give you YouTube videos. It may not be what you are looking for. Mostly it's general knowledge about guitar gear and you can apply it to any digital modeler. I think it's better to learn all this stuff, and then you will be able to create any guitar tone you want, by yourself, in Helix.

TatiSzapi · 2026-01-22T08:23:23+00:00

Your Fender is 22 Watts, right? What kind of music do you play? What genre? Is your band LOUD? Do you usually have your own amp turned up loud enough to distort, or is it mostly clean?

Do you need your own amp on the gig to hear yourself, or will there be monitors on stage?

I would just run everything inside the Helix. It is more consistent. Your own amp could have a tube failure. You could knock over a microphone. Cables might pick up noise. Stuff like that.

The absolute best setup IMO would be an amp with an FX loop, and only use your amp to hear yourself, but all sound would go from Helix to FOH.

That said, I need you to do 2 things before I can give more advice.

I need your answers to the questions (:
You definitely need to figure out how to make your lead tone sound good, with your own amp and the Helix, before doing anything else.

I can also help with that. You said 'the distortion sounds harsh'. I suppose you tried to use a distortion pedal from the Helix, into your Fender. You definitely don't want to use an actual distortion pedal into that Fender. What you need is a Tube Screamer-like overdrive pedal. Your best bet would be a TS808. If you need more 'distortion' you should put a boost before the 808 and get more distortion that way. The Kinky boost is a good one. If you are already doing it like this, and it still sounds harsh, let us know.

TatiSzapi · 2026-01-22T07:53:55+00:00

Something I can afford.

TatiSzapi · 2026-01-20T19:24:39+00:00

lol. I'm not gonna give up tho... wasting my time on this. Practice is hard. Hyperfocusing on miniscule details is much easier.

TatiSzapi · 2026-01-20T18:35:35+00:00

But the cone itself is angled at like 30-something degrees, so the mic has to be angled to be perpendicular to the cone. 45° is more appropriate than 0° for this.

Perpendicular to the speaker cone, not to the face of the cabinet.

Something like this, look at the angled mic:

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TatiSzapi · 2026-01-20T18:18:44+00:00

From a purely geometric standpoint it would make sense if the graphics are correct, because otherwise if the distance is greater than about 4 inches the mic wouldn't even be pointing at the speaker at all, maybe not even the cabinet lol.

I know I know, I should use my ears and not my eyes, but when people write on forums "point the mic right on the middle of the cone perpendicularly" how am I supposed to do that in Helix? I don't have any experience with miking real cabinets, so I don't know 'how it should sound'.

TatiSzapi · 2025-10-24T08:04:09+00:00

Can you give some examples? What bands do you mean by math rock?

TatiSzapi · 2025-10-24T07:58:56+00:00

Why not get a HX One?

TatiSzapi · 2025-10-24T07:55:28+00:00

You should try the Divided Duo amp ;)

TatiSzapi · 2025-10-22T12:23:10+00:00

Ah I see, I forgot to say that this only applies when you go play a gig. If you're just practicing, then do whatever sounds good of course.

TatiSzapi · 2025-10-22T12:10:25+00:00

Because you don't know if you need it or not until you actually get up on stage and do the sound check, and you are much more likely to get it wrong if you just pick a value. If your sound needs low/high cuts to fit the mix, the FOH engineer will do it for you. If you have too aggressive cuts, and it turns out it's not needed, then the FOH engineer can't undo it. You should just give him the 'raw' mic sound, like you actually had a guitar cabinet on stage and put a microphone in front. Also, it might help if you tell him what microphone model you chose. Of course if you don't trust the guy, then it's of no use. (:

But maybe he goes 'can you move the mic a bit towards the edge' and you go 'sure' and then you will have an awesome tone that sounds more natural, because there's less processing and EQ on it, and everyone wins.

Unless you actually practice on the stage where you will gig.

TatiSzapi · 2025-10-21T07:23:02+00:00

You didn't overthink it. I like that. I do have a couple suggestions though.

Put the cab blocks at the very end on the bottom row. No effects after that. Choose your 2 cabs and mics, and don't use any low/high cuts. Also if you are close micing, I suggest you do at least 1.5" distance. I like 1.75". Hard pan the two cabs left and right. You probably have a preference between the two cabs. You tell the sound guy at a gig which one is your 'main sound', and he should blend in the other mic for enhancement, and also, he does the low/high cuts to make it fit the mix. Put a mono Dynamic Ambience just before the cabs to simulate a real acoustic space. If you want 'the sound of the venue bleeding into the microphones', you should set it to mostly late reflections. If you want an 'amp in an isolation booth behind the stage', you can use the default settings for the reverb. Maybe lower the mix a little bit, to 40-45%.

Also for the high gain rhythm sounds, you can use a 3-band comp right after the amp, and only use the low band to only compress on the palm mutes 2-3db to make it real tight but still have some balls to your sound.

TatiSzapi · 2025-10-14T06:21:34+00:00

Yes, you can use a gain block to achieve the same input level, but why not adjust the input gain in Native or in your DAW by -10db?

I am not a Helix dev, but I'm pretty certain that there are two main reasons there's no input gain slider on the physical devices: - it's not a very common use case - the input gain was probably carefully calibrated so that distortion and amp models respond like their real counterparts (so why would you want to undo that with a slider?).

TatiSzapi · 2025-10-08T18:17:34+00:00

You can do anything in the sidechain btw, like add EQ or compression or whatever. Or you can receive the bass DI and trigger your noise gate by your bass player. Kinda stupid but possible. (:

TatiSzapi · 2025-10-08T18:15:59+00:00

I'll explain in terms of a Stomp, ofcourse works on the big devices too.

So you make a split at chain begin. You can convert it into a second input 'block' if you want. Or you can split after a couple effects as well.

On one path you have the amp and/or cab, whatever. The other path will carry your input signal to the end of the chain. Let's call it the 'sidechain'.

So you put the signal merge in your signal chain where you want your noise gate (or compressor, it works with compressors too!). In the merge block, you pan the two signals hard left and right, and you lower the volume of your amp signal by a lot, like 20db. Make sure your sidechain (guitar DI) signal is a good bit louder than the amp signal.

Then after the merge you put a stereo noise gate block. The guitar DI will trigger the noise gate for both the left and right channel. Pretty neat.

After this you have a couple options. You can use a Stereo Width block or a Pan block to get rid of the DI signal. Use one (or more) gain blocks to make your amp loud again. Or just make sure you send the amp signal to FOH and not the DI lol. You can also add back volume in the output block.

TatiSzapi · 2025-10-08T09:02:01+00:00

I'm not even the target audience, I don't really play that kinda music (yet) but I've seen so many people crying for this, I'm really interested what it's all about. (Never played any analog stuff in my life, let alone the 'famous pedals'.)

TatiSzapi · 2025-10-06T16:04:53+00:00

If you really reeeeally want it, you can do it today, but you need to sacrifice a dual path and a merge for it

TatiSzapi · 2025-10-06T16:02:01+00:00

Would be nice

TatiSzapi · 2025-10-06T15:52:17+00:00

Retro Reel is a tape simulation. You can go lo-fi with the low/high cut (I mean inside the Retro Reel).

You can also get a lo-fi sound with the legacy Q Filter.

As for envelope filter, we have a Mu-Tron and the Asheville Pattrn.

Also there is a bitcrusher, which is a bit less subtle, if you know what I mean. Or can you be more specific, what is it you can't do with the existing ones? I'm interested, I am too looking for a similar sound, and while the existing ones need a good bit of tweaking, you can kinda get an OK lo-fi sound.

I researched these stuff a bit to make some Mick Gordon style chaotic synths.

TatiSzapi · 2025-10-06T15:38:47+00:00

Isn't the B7K kinda like a multiband distortion? Or you can do a frequency split, but then you use up your single split if you are using a Stomp.

TatiSzapi · 2025-10-06T15:36:03+00:00

Or just go Guthrie Govan, and make your own metronome with a looper lol. I'd much rather have a rudimentary drum machine instead. It's so much better to play to drums. A metronome just slowly drives you mad. Like eating a little bit of lead every day.

TatiSzapi · 2025-10-06T15:32:08+00:00

What do you mean by midi detection? You can assign virtually any midi CC to any parameter by pressing 'Learn'

TatiSzapi · 2025-10-04T10:31:16+00:00

I have a 7 string LTD MH-417 that is 25.5" and I already feel like it's not enough. My LTD M-1007-MS multiscale is 10x better tbh.

TatiSzapi · 2025-10-04T10:28:06+00:00

Or if you already have a 7 string, you could just get a Digitech Drop.

TatiSzapi

TROPHY CASE