Andertons Helix Vid

    I heard the Helix last week in Guitar Guitar in Birmingham, Paul Hindmarsh was playing it so it did sound pretty awesome but I'm sure he could make anything sound great! I wasn't concentrating on listening to him as I had the headphones on trying out a KPA but it sounded real ballsy for sure! Probably playing through the line 6 stagesource.

    Honestly, I don't care what the Helix sounds like....because, when they offer the 1st firmware update, it will sound different and I'd have to re-tweak all of my patches - wash-rinse-repeat with every new firmware.


    Nope, not ever again.


    The same reason that the AXII is a non-starter.

    Quote from burningyen

    I spent some quality time with the Helix last night. There are pluses and minus compared to the Kemper. Here's what I found (all of this is obviously IMHO, to my ears, through my headphones, etc.):

    • Overall, the quality of the basic amp tones is equivalent to the Kemper. The models I focused on last night were the Dr. Z Route 66, AC30 Fawn and Roland JC120. I didn't feel I was giving up anything with the Helix (you can hear for yourself at http://www.soundcloud.com/burningyen). And for me, the process of turning an idea into a finished patch is faster with the Helix than it is with the Kemper. Of course, a lot of that is due to the incredible variety of profiles available for the Kemper. With the Kemper, if you want a JTM 45 sound, you first have to figure out which JTM 45 profile to use. With the Helix, the choice is already made for you. The Helix does require some effort in terms of testing different mics (16) and distances (1"-12", there's no parameter for on/off axis), and I find that significant high cut is needed for almost every model. But that process is faster than finding profiles. I will say, though, that there are a few extra-special-to-me profiles from TAF and MBritt that I don't think I'm going to be able to replicate on the Helix. And there is no Pure Cab. I was happy with my tones through my headphones but will have to wait to see whether that holds up at band volume.
    • The quality of the FX is mixed. The wahs, distortions, delays and modulations are equivalent to the Kemper's to my ears. (I haven't dug into the fuzzes yet.) The Pitch Whammy (transpose) effect is glitchier than the Kemper's (as you can hear in the U2 clips on my soundcloud). The Twin Harmony effect in the Helix pales in comparison to the Kemper's Harmonic Pitch. No user scales, no Pure Tuning. The compression and reverb sound quality is equivalent, but I like the subcategories on the Helix a lot better than the presets on the Kemper.
    • It's probably unfair to compare workflow when I've spent 3 years with my Kemper and only a few hours with the Helix. I found the Helix UI easy to navigate (lightyears better than the POD HD500 UI!) but still not quite as easy as the Kemper's. For example, to add or swap an effect on a Kemper, you click the FX slot button, turn the Type knob to the effect you want, and (with Autoload on) you can go straight to tweaking. On the Helix, you need to push the joystick knob (JK) a few times to move the cursor to the desired slot, press to select the slot, push or spin the JK to scroll down the menu of FX categories (Distortion, Dynamics, EQ, Delay, etc.), push the JK right to go to the Mono/Stereo submenu, push or spin the JK to choose Mono or Stereo, push it right again to go to the FX submenu (Digital Delay, Multitap 3, etc.), push or spin the JK to scroll to the effect you want, push the JK to select it, and then you can start tweaking. On the other hand, selecting amp models on the Helix is a little easier since the selection is clearly much more limited compared to the Kemper, and there aren't any submenus to navigate. With both units getting to the deeper dive parameters is simple, so no difference there. And with both units, with more power comes more complexity.
    • The capacitative footswitches are awesome. Setting up the switches for FX is super easy.
    • Somehow the Helix' 14.6 lbs feels a lot heavier than the Kemper lunchbox' 11 lbs, maybe because of the larger size. The size of it was kind of daunting at first. But it's well-designed. The curved sides make it very easy to pick up. And when you take into account the weight of the expression pedal and footswitch I use with my Kemper, the weight difference is only about a pound.

    So there you have it. Biggest question marks right now are whether I can dial up Gilmourish sounds I can live with, how everything sounds at band volume, and whether reliability issues get resolved. I've seen some reports of freezing up and don't think I'll be gigging with the Helix just yet.


    Hope that helps.


    Thanks for sharing!


    Playing loud in real gig is the most important thing with this kind of device to have the whole portrait. I know that you play in a very good Pink Floyd cover band, will you be able to live without FXs spillover? There is no spillover in Helix and it could take long before they implement it...

    Quote from Pick909

    I know that you play in a very good Pink Floyd cover band, will you be able to live without FXs spillover? There is no spillover in Helix and it could take long before they implement it...


    My Floyd tribute folded a while ago (I now have a new band). But I think I can live without spillover for now. In a single patch you can have 2 separate amp models in 2 totally different signal chains with different sets of FX and use a footswitch to toggle between those signal chains. So it's essentially like having 2 separate patches, and when you switch away from the signal chain with delay in it the delay will continue to sound. So, basically spillover.

    Quote from burningyen


    My Floyd tribute folded a while ago (I now have a new band). But I think I can live without spillover for now. In a single patch you can have 2 separate amp models in 2 totally different signal chains with different sets of FX and use a footswitch to toggle between those signal chains. So it's essentially like having 2 separate patches, and when you switch away from the signal chain with delay in it the delay will continue to sound. So, basically spillover.


    Acceptable workaround I admit! :)

    In this thread the poster has compared and put up Kemper and Helix profiles. At first he told us what they were, then he put some up as blind tests. It seems that he's used the same IRs for both, just to compare amp sounds. People seem to feel that this doesn't reflect the actual ability of the Kemper, so it appears that he's reamping them with Kemper cabs vs Helix cabs.


    http://www.thegearpage.net/boa…lix-kemper-clips.1629076/


    I do agree that the previous samples were not representative, but I still think that they all sound pretty good. I'm interested to hear the new ones.