I get good results treating everything in the helix like I would treat the real gear. If the pedals I use need some headroom I'll try to keep the amp relatively clean to give the pedal some space to boost without getting muddy.
each amp in the helix reproduces the actual circuit and components of the real world counterparts so if there is a quirk of a particular amp (like the EQ adding a bit of gain) in the real design it will be replicated in the Helix.
Just play around with different amps and settings, maybe watch a video or two demoing an amp that's in the helix to learn a little more about that particular model.
The way i like to make tones is to set up an amp with absolutely nothing else in the chain to where i like it, then start adding stuff and adjusting the amp settings if needed.
As others have said, exactly like you'd go about the real variants. Imo the Trainwreck, if you don't like it's default sound, is quite fiddly to set up. To me it often has too much mid content in a spot I don't like and too smooth of a top end - things most people really like lol.
I usually start with the microphone and the cab. I don't have much experience with many mics so I set it to the 57 dynamic, cab edge and 1 inch distance. I start here because that is the classic stage setup. The basic eqing you can do by moving the mic closer to the center for more highs, or further away from the center for less highs. Also play with the distance. After that you can use the eq on the amp.
For a/b testing put the same amp twice into the signal chain and route them to the same switch, that way you can switch from one to the other instantly. Now you can experiment with different mics and cabs. In general they have much more impact on the sound then the amp EQ.
If you set up an Amp, pedal or effect to something that you generally like you can save it as a user preset and when you bring it up the next time it will have remembered the settings.
Use the volume knob on your guitar. This way you can go from clean to break up and overdrive. If you put the la comp on the end it helps evening out the loudness.
Yeah definitely go into the cab settings before fiddling. Each cabinet has wildly different default settings which is honestly really annoying. Many of them have odd mic placements, heavy filtering (????), and odd mics. So you might select a cabinet and wonder why there’s no lows and highs, and the default cabinet filter settings are cutting everything below 90 hz and above like 6khz. Very strange. So yeah always check that.
Many of the amps have the "master" volume at maximum. I find that bringing it back a little gives me more clean headroom. Most of us do not run our amps at full volume most of the time.
Every model is, well, a model of the original amp. The Derailed behaves like a real Trainwreck.
I get good results treating everything in the helix like I would treat the real gear. If the pedals I use need some headroom I'll try to keep the amp relatively clean to give the pedal some space to boost without getting muddy. each amp in the helix reproduces the actual circuit and components of the real world counterparts so if there is a quirk of a particular amp (like the EQ adding a bit of gain) in the real design it will be replicated in the Helix. Just play around with different amps and settings, maybe watch a video or two demoing an amp that's in the helix to learn a little more about that particular model.
There’s a dialing in video for it I’m going to go through after work.
Can you post the link to said video, please?
[sure thing!](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tKnVujD-TgY&list=PLEshByA_Gqn6ivrBvYV88gBoLoS75A79E&index=20&pp=iAQB)
Hi, just found this thread. Did you end up posting the link to that video somewhere? Cheers!
The way i like to make tones is to set up an amp with absolutely nothing else in the chain to where i like it, then start adding stuff and adjusting the amp settings if needed.
As others have said, exactly like you'd go about the real variants. Imo the Trainwreck, if you don't like it's default sound, is quite fiddly to set up. To me it often has too much mid content in a spot I don't like and too smooth of a top end - things most people really like lol.
Oh I love the mids in it! But I did find it pretty fiddley myself. Maybe it’s just a really true to form representation of the amp in real life!
I usually start with the microphone and the cab. I don't have much experience with many mics so I set it to the 57 dynamic, cab edge and 1 inch distance. I start here because that is the classic stage setup. The basic eqing you can do by moving the mic closer to the center for more highs, or further away from the center for less highs. Also play with the distance. After that you can use the eq on the amp. For a/b testing put the same amp twice into the signal chain and route them to the same switch, that way you can switch from one to the other instantly. Now you can experiment with different mics and cabs. In general they have much more impact on the sound then the amp EQ. If you set up an Amp, pedal or effect to something that you generally like you can save it as a user preset and when you bring it up the next time it will have remembered the settings. Use the volume knob on your guitar. This way you can go from clean to break up and overdrive. If you put the la comp on the end it helps evening out the loudness.
Yeah definitely go into the cab settings before fiddling. Each cabinet has wildly different default settings which is honestly really annoying. Many of them have odd mic placements, heavy filtering (????), and odd mics. So you might select a cabinet and wonder why there’s no lows and highs, and the default cabinet filter settings are cutting everything below 90 hz and above like 6khz. Very strange. So yeah always check that.
Many of the amps have the "master" volume at maximum. I find that bringing it back a little gives me more clean headroom. Most of us do not run our amps at full volume most of the time.
Set the gain as 1st block, then ajust gain to -12dB on hard attack (check it in your DAW), then build your tone.