Line 6 Helix LT/POD HD500x

[tsp17]

Any users out there?  Thoughts on ease of use? Accessible quality tone?  Other options that have an easy learning curve?  I don't have the patience for anything that takes hours to figure out.  Thanks and Happy Holidays to all.

Tad

[holyroller]

Howdy ! I got a brand new line 6 hd240 hc head. I’n the box.450$ There pretty easy to play . Sound incredible for no tubes.

 

[tsp17]

17 hours ago, holyroller said:

Howdy ! I got a brand new line 6 hd240 hc head. I’n the box.450$ There pretty easy to play . Sound incredible for no tubes.

 

Thanks!

[TalismanRich]

A fellow over on the HomeRecording forum posted a demo he did with his Strymon Iridium.   It sounds pretty good.  

He made these notes about the sounds he used.   I've heard a LOT worse coming from someone's tube amp.

1st & 2nd rhythm guitars, played on the Williams Special, a custom strat style short scale with bill lawrence front single coil pickup, panned hard left and right, are straight CHIME setting, with gain slightly pulled back, about 4:00.
on cab 1 (2x12 blues)

3rd rhythm guitar panned slightly off center, played on a usacg strat build, bill lawrence bridge humbucker, low in mix, is the PUNCH model, with 4x12 greenback cab. gain is pulled back to about 4:00.

zero EQ or fX added to the rhythms tracks.

Zero eq added to solo tracks, delay added during mixdown.
*************************
First half of song solos, are played on the Carvin, bridge pickup (duncan custom custom) thru the CHIME model dimed, same 2x12 cab, with various pedals.
**************************
the opener first solo 0:04 is pushed with a barber direct drive SS, and a budda wah.
2nd solo 0:21 is the Chime model dimed.
3rd solo 0:39, is the Chime model pushed with the DDSS and wah.
4th solo 1:06 is the Chime model dimed, pushed with a Fulltone Fatboost III.
5th solo 1:19 this solo is straight chime, played lightly with guitar on full volume, front single coil, thru a fulltone mini deja vibe.
at 1:27, with the deja vibe still on, i turn the Fatboost on, thru 2:30.

**************************
from 2:00 on, is the PUNCH model dimed, played on the USACG Strat.
*************************
at 2:00, i'm on the strat, bridge humbucker, straight PUNCH model, strat on full, but playing very lightly.
at 2:17, i'm on straight punch with wah off and on.
at 2: 38, you can hear me turn on the DDSS, and off with the deja vibe, straight guitar.
at 3:14, to end, guitar into ddss into iridium to end.

[rwinking]

I use a HELIX Rack but not for amp sounds. I use it for all of my FX (4CM) including wah wah. I find it simply amazing. The amp sounds are great, but I still like my tube pre amps. The LT has all of the same things in it but not as many FX sends. The bass player in one of my bands uses the Helix LT for some of his amp sounds and is totally thrilled with it. I could see using a Helix full time at some point but would really have to have a killer engineer and monitoring system.

[tsp17]

thanks all for the feedback.

[barrymclark]

Ease of Use is one of those very relative measuring sticks. To me, the old Pods were relatively easy to use. Once it got into the HD500s and so on, they lost me. They were sounding better and better but I wanted to play and not menu surf.

Then the Strymon Iridium came out. I snapped one up not long after release. It don't get much easier. It sounds as good as anything I've ever heard. ...but the feel is the important part. When I was doing a side by side with the Strymon "chime" or Vox AC30 setting against my actual Vox AC15, I would actually forget that I was playing through the Iridium. How good does it sound in my ears? I don't own the Vox anymore. ...and I thought that amp was great.

Here's me making a quick recording with the Iridium so I could take the recording around with me to listen to through different stereo systems. 

The signal chain is:

H575

Strymon Iridium 

Focusrite Solo

Ableton 10

 

[rwinking]

I agree with you on the Helix ease of use issue. The hardest part is remembering certain things and how to get there. It’s one of those things that if I don’t use it, I lose it. It is somewhat daunting to have 15+ distortions, God knows how many amps and speaker combos, etc. If I were an 18 year old I am sure it would be easier.

[Gitterman]

The Helix is much much easier to get a good tone out of right out of the box. The HD500x has really good tone, but your going to dig to get there. Although, I find it much easier to go to line6 custom tone and download someone else's hard work and tweek to my amps liking. If your going direct to board or your computer, goto Custom tone and find the tone your looking for and just import it.

[tsp17]

On 1/24/2020 at 9:51 AM, Gitterman said:

The Helix is much much easier to get a good tone out of right out of the box. The HD500x has really good tone, but your going to dig to get there. Although, I find it much easier to go to line6 custom tone and download someone else's hard work and tweek to my amps liking. If your going direct to board or your computer, goto Custom tone and find the tone your looking for and just import it.

thanks.  I got one and am enjoying it.  probably just scratching the surface...

[rwinking]

Yeah. I'm three years into the Helix Rack and still scratching the surface. Have you discovered snapshots yet? There are so many new ways to use this thing. Using MIDI to switch outboard amps in one snapshot, use outboard gear and control it via Helix or even being able to hard switch an amp through one pedal board is pretty cool. However, as someone said in this thread or some other thread. I can spend more time tweaking than playing. The tweaking is fun....trying an infinite number of FX, amp/speaker combos, compressors, echos, verbs. etc is cool as hell. However, at some level I miss just being able to have me and my guitar and amp. Truth is though I have not used just a guitar and amp in a long long time once I started using distortions, phasers, etc. back in the 70s..... The plus side of the Helix is almost like having GAS but never having to buy anything as it is all in the box and then every couple of years you get the update with even more amps and FX.

[tsp17]

3 hours ago, rwinking said:

Yeah. I'm three years into the Helix Rack and still scratching the surface. Have you discovered snapshots yet? There are so many new ways to use this thing. Using MIDI to switch outboard amps in one snapshot, use outboard gear and control it via Helix or even being able to hard switch an amp through one pedal board is pretty cool. However, as someone said in this thread or some other thread. I can spend more time tweaking than playing. The tweaking is fun....trying an infinite number of FX, amp/speaker combos, compressors, echos, verbs. etc is cool as hell. However, at some level I miss just being able to have me and my guitar and amp. Truth is though I have not used just a guitar and amp in a long long time once I started using distortions, phasers, etc. back in the 70s..... The plus side of the Helix is almost like having GAS but never having to buy anything as it is all in the box and then every couple of years you get the update with even more amps and FX.

havent gotten facile with snapshots yet.  I'm having great fun with all kinds of presets though headphones at home without bothering anyone.  Going from jazz clean to Hendrix howl without anyone complaining or shutting the door to my studio.  Super useful for practice and recording.  I've only gigged with it once, and so far so good.  Lots to learn!

[Gitterman]

I sold my hd500x for the hxfx. I love having the ability to actually use one of my tube amps and have all the fx's ill ever need running 4cm, plus an IR loader. Im considering mounting a preamp on my board for a very light stripped down (sort of) board direct FOH board. running a mxr Bad Ass OD as a pre, right now, but im thinking Atomic AA6 at the moment, but im not sure yet. May check out the Iridium. 

[rockabilly69]

On 12/11/2019 at 8:41 AM, TalismanRich said:

A fellow over on the HomeRecording forum posted a demo he did with his Strymon Iridium.   It sounds pretty good.  

He made these notes about the sounds he used.   I've heard a LOT worse coming from someone's tube amp.

1st & 2nd rhythm guitars, played on the Williams Special, a custom strat style short scale with bill lawrence front single coil pickup, panned hard left and right, are straight CHIME setting, with gain slightly pulled back, about 4:00.
on cab 1 (2x12 blues)

3rd rhythm guitar panned slightly off center, played on a usacg strat build, bill lawrence bridge humbucker, low in mix, is the PUNCH model, with 4x12 greenback cab. gain is pulled back to about 4:00.

zero EQ or fX added to the rhythms tracks.

Zero eq added to solo tracks, delay added during mixdown.
*************************
First half of song solos, are played on the Carvin, bridge pickup (duncan custom custom) thru the CHIME model dimed, same 2x12 cab, with various pedals.
**************************
the opener first solo 0:04 is pushed with a barber direct drive SS, and a budda wah.
2nd solo 0:21 is the Chime model dimed.
3rd solo 0:39, is the Chime model pushed with the DDSS and wah.
4th solo 1:06 is the Chime model dimed, pushed with a Fulltone Fatboost III.
5th solo 1:19 this solo is straight chime, played lightly with guitar on full volume, front single coil, thru a fulltone mini deja vibe.
at 1:27, with the deja vibe still on, i turn the Fatboost on, thru 2:30.

**************************
from 2:00 on, is the PUNCH model dimed, played on the USACG Strat.
*************************
at 2:00, i'm on the strat, bridge humbucker, straight PUNCH model, strat on full, but playing very lightly.
at 2:17, i'm on straight punch with wah off and on.
at 2: 38, you can hear me turn on the DDSS, and off with the deja vibe, straight guitar.
at 3:14, to end, guitar into ddss into iridium to end.

I’m not a fan of that type of music typically but I really like this song and the way he layered his guitars and the tones he got, and even better yet there were some good melodies going on.

[rockabilly69]

On 2/24/2020 at 8:54 AM, Gitterman said:

I sold my hd500x for the hxfx. I love having the ability to actually use one of my tube amps and have all the fx's ill ever need running 4cm, plus an IR loader. Im considering mounting a preamp on my board for a very light stripped down (sort of) board direct FOH board. running a mxr Bad Ass OD as a pre, right now, but im thinking Atomic AA6 at the moment, but im not sure yet. May check out the Iridium. 

Do you make your own IRs? 

[TalismanRich]

1 hour ago, rockabilly69 said:

I’m not a fan of that type of music typically but I really like this song and the way he layered his guitars and the tones he got, and even better yet there were some good melodies going on.

I thought that this one was a really good demo for the Strymon.   It covered a lot of bases.

Robert is pretty diverse in his work.  Acoustic to hard rockin'.   Most of his stuff is pretty good.   He's from out in the Salt Lake area.   There are quite a few songs posted on Soundcloud as well.   

[rockabilly69]

11 hours ago, TalismanRich said:

I thought that this one was a really good demo for the Strymon.   It covered a lot of bases.

Robert is pretty diverse in his work.  Acoustic to hard rockin'.   Most of his stuff is pretty good.   He's from out in the Salt Lake area.   There are quite a few songs posted on Soundcloud as well.   

I didn't know he was one of my Utah boys! You know what they say, rebelllion in Utah comes with hellfire! Good on em!

[Gitterman]

On 3/14/2020 at 1:37 PM, rockabilly69 said:

Do you make your own IRs? 

No. I just use the free ones from Ownhammer or some other IR maker. there are many out there. Every speaker combo you could dream of.