Al Krow

Yeah but octave users do it all the time even when the method of creating the octave note differs. Drive pedals and HPFs don't generally suffer from latency or glitching in the way that octave pedals and synth pedals typically do. I guess it's simply about having a common parlance so we have an idea of what we're all referring to. So for the avoidance of doubt when me and everyone else talk about "great tracking" we simply mean that there's v low latency and glitching even when we are playing funkily fast. I'm guessing most of us are not too fussed about how the circuitry gets us there. Although, fair do's Woody, you're approaching this at whole level deeper and respect to you for that, mate.

That's in big part 'cos it has accurate smoothed waveform detection - nah blow that - great tracking(!) Which makes it really usable live.

Haha - that's definitely an electronic engineer speaking! As far as average Joe bassist like me is concerned, when we play a note and hear the effected sound coming out of our cabs without noticeable latency or glitching then that, in simple terms, is "great tracking". Soz Woody - but "accurate smoothed waveform detection" just ain't gonna catch on 😁

Yeah you definitely should - this thing has a ton of options and soundscapes under its bonnet! But it gets pretty quick to dial in when you've done the first few. Also worth making a note of any settings that you particularly like The key to this pedal is definitely the dual filter (that and its incredibly tight tracking!). Several folk on TB mentioned they were finding the settings giving pretty "samey" sounds - bet your bottom $ that's 'cos they are comparing them on identical filter settings. Altering the two filters can significantly change the sound of pretty much all of the 121 presets.

The Quad Cortex does look like a super cool piece of kit! I appreciate not a consideration for you on this, but I do think that pricing and ease of use plays a big part in our effects buying decisions and some pedals, whilst incredible pieces of engineering, don't seem to make it into the mainstream because they are considered overly boutique e.g Chase Bliss. If the QC comes down to Helix LT pricing, it will definitely require Line 6 to up their game. But Fractal and Kemper have left plenty of "space" for Helix and Helix in turn plenty of space for Zoom.

Great choice of bass - congratulations! I recently got a P7 (5 string) and am loving it - it holds it own really well against the other basses that cost several times as much and has a great P bass tone. I particularly like the versatility of the active circuit on the Sires - 3 band EQ, separate tone control and semi-para mids! You will rarely get something so versatile on a bass in this price bracket. Chris and others have mentioned Ampeg tones for the Stones. It's a great tone, regardless. A couple of ways of getting that, outside getting an Ampeg rig, would be a pedal such as the Tech21 VT Bass DI or if you wanted to go budget the a Zoom B14 multifx which has an Ampeg sim, as well as a host of other effects, tuner, drum machine and looper. In fact just get a B14 anyway!

I was asked recently on TB to give some pointers to someone starting out with the SY-1. I've included my post on our main SY-1 thread, in case it's of wider interest / use to fellow BC'ers: Patch ideas for the Boss SY-1: getting started Basic set up Recommend having the SY-1 at the start or close to the start of your signal chain - by all means after your HPF and / or compressor if you are using these. This is to give the synth the cleanest possible signal to latch on to. And, of course, make sure to switch the pedal to bass mode on the rear. I like to set the balance at wet 6/10 and dry 2/10 to keep a touch of clean blend to fatten up the tone, without dominating the synth output. Auditioning the various sound types A good place to start is with the inner (tone) and outer (depth) filters both set at 5/10 i.e. noon and then systematically run through the 9 core sounds with each of the 11 settings to find a few that grab you as being decent / usable. Many of them likely won’t and a fair few will sound quite “samey”– but that’s fine, at the end of the day if we’re planning to use this synth live, we probably only need to get 2 or 3 really good sounds for live use; and the ability of this pedal to track like a deer hunter makes it a killer app for that! So that’s 99 sounds to have a bit of fun working through. The magic sauce is in the filters! When you’ve got a few favourite basic sounds, the magic ingredient is adjusting the filters to open and close these to improve on the base sound. This can massively change the output sound to give you multiple variations for each of the basic 99 settings you’ve just auditioned. Ok you’re starting to get a feel for the versatility of this thing! For example: I quite like the Bass-6 setting. Dialling back the outer filter to 2/10 gives me a really good Bootsy squelchy filter down-sweep and dialling up the inner filter to 7/10 brightens up the tone. I now have something quite different to the base sound with both filters set at 5/10 and certainly, to my ears anyway, a big improvement and a synthy tone that I would be happy using live. But there’s more I’ve left out mention of the two SEQ settings for now, which add a whole further dimension to this pedal. They give us a further 22 settings to take the total initial settings to 121. Then there is the ability to hook this thing up to an expression pedal with a TRS cable. The SY-1 also allows you to include other fx in a parallel loop, to blend in without garbling the synth tone itself. I’ve got a Tech21 Red Ripper fuzz in my SY-1’s loop to thicken up the sound and might then choose to feed into a short delay which can add a cool dynamic to the sound.

But a rehoused FI plus a decent midi cable (the latter is pretty essential right?), does start to add up. I'm guessing you're not going to get much change out of £350 all in, new? So it's really playing at quite a different price point to something like the SY-1. But on the other hand I guess it's relatively easy to get a used FI, which has been out since 2016, whereas the SY-1 has only been out since last July and folk just don't seem to be moving them on, so buying new is still very much the only way to get your hands on one of these.

The competition is already on it: https://neuraldsp.com/quad-cortex Line 6 may be needing to respond sooner than we think!

Do / did any of you Helix owners have a SA Aftershock? I view the AS as being a drive multifx and given there is such a wide range of drive effects on the Helix, I'm thinking the AS is not going to get too much use going forward and it's time to move it on. Just wondering whether any of you held onto your Aftershocks after getting a Helix and are managing to put it to good use?

Lol! My "birdie" has just got back to me and informed me that he was just being sarcastic a la Donald ("No, of course, I never meant for you to inject disinfectant"). I've updated for 2.91. No amp and cab sims for the HX FX alas and Line 6 are clearly sticking to their own marketing. As you were folks...

Excellent little video running through the new comp metering. He gives a pretty decent explanation of: threshold, ratio, attack, release and make up gain plus touching on 'transients', along the way. Done by a pick playing guitarist, so may be of particular interest to pick users.

Blimey! Ok that's going on the "to do!" list for tomorrow then! PS a little birdie has told me that there are some amp sims for the HX Effects in 2.91. If true, clearly Line 6 aren't in total agreement with some of the earlier posts today around it being a cost issue and / or what the HX Effects is for

Haha fair! So, to summarise it took two super experienced BCers: - one, a whole year while hating it, and - the other, never while he owned it to actually work out how to use the thing, and you then got just one really good sound by dialling it exactly right? Well it took me exactly 24 hours to dial in a sound I really like on the VTDI and it's one of half a dozen great aounds. Which is why Tech 21 issued the deluxe version with presets, as they cottoned on to its versatility. Dave - you clearly have the patience of a saint, mate. Which, given that you generally don't do "waiting around", is quite surprising 😂 Lozz - are you saying the Paradriver no longer trumps the BDDI for you?

Most pointless preamp I've ever had the pleasure of using. Now a VT Bass DI on the other hand...

Had the Mk1 and have moved on to the AO900. Not really more complex - you get some additional versatility on the EQ and a few bells and whistles on the rear which you may or may not use - headphone out with independent vol control is one nice touch. Key point is whether you have a preference for the B3K / VMT drive (then a Mk1 will be fine) or prefer the the AO drive (in which case go for the AO 900) or are not a particular fan / positively dislike DG drives or have got your own fav drive pedal => effectively spending your cash on just the power amp, which is excellent, but maybe better spending your coin on something that doesn't have £300 of DG drives built into its front end.

Just picking up on this excellent mini review on this thread so we don't lose it. And which btw I very much agree with. @The GroovyPlucker - be good to get a couple of your favourite settings to try out, and I'll do the same.

Hey - did you find a fix for this?

I trust that it's an essential journey? 😁

Not sure that the tort works on that? 😁 ... and yup the crap description is entirely relevant when it comes to hags... https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hagu

Yes for sure. But to me it's more a marketing ploy than a cost issue - the marginal cost to Yamaha of including a few decent amp and cab sims onto the HX FX, once they have been developed for the rest of the range, would be the square root of zero. And frankly if Zoom can include on their cheap as chips multifxs that kinda demonstrates that cost isn't the driver here. Tbf most of us are pretty content with our amps and cabs, so no biggie and I'm certainly still not tempted to go back to the Stomp given the easier to use live set up on the HX, for my purposes, with the 6 stomp switches and scribble strips / ability to scroll through a bank of patches etc, but it would be a nice to have when rounding off a particular tone on a drive or other effect patch we're creating. However, no one can accuse Line 6 of not being very clear about what they are and are not making available on each of their products!

Speaking of uniformity, be interesting if they put a few decent amp and cab sims in the HX Effects. Seems to me that it's been a purely commercial decision to try to delineate the various pedals in the Helix range. I'm not sure it would particularly impact Stomp sales given its more compact form, but I guess it may mean fewer folk stepping up to the LT other than the fact that it provides all of the key benefits Woody mentioned... Obviously hard to resist something with more knobs that gives you instant rock star appeal.

Brilliant - thanks! I thought I detected a touch of Ampeg / Sansamp + P Bass. @dannybuoy has just got himself a Leeds and is also raving about it, having persuaded me to get a VT Bass DI beforehand - lol! (No regrets btw - the VTDI is an excellent pedal!). You guys mainly do original material? And gig in and around London? If so, be great to come and see you in action post lock down!

Completely agree that an overly polite filter kinda defeats the point! As you note, it does seem to be a completely updated circuit. From the 3Leaf blurb: "The Proton is an optically controlled analog envelope filter. The circuit has been completely redesigned to offer better tone and a more musical response. It has a new detector circuit based on the one in the Chromatron, and the familiar control layout has a greatly expanded range that can get the classic 1970s filter sounds and well beyond. The new range switch allows for much deeper filter sweeps, and the reworked tone knob covers every soundscape from cocked wah to laser beams." Must admit I thought it sounded great on Zach's review.

Interesting - I've had the same issue.