How to Prepare Your HELIX for a GIG - Tips and Ideas

[@tiago2336]

11:19 timestamp is Waves from Guthrie, nice 😅🤘 Keep on rockin bro

[@jakollee]

Man, that fast lick at about 1:23 was flawless!

[@stevelamm2366]

Thanks much for this! I'm using the Helix almost every Sunday at church for 4-5 different songs. Frankly, it's like being in a cover band because our repertoire is pretty big and the songs can be very different. Fortunately, the venue is the same, so EQ has not had to change once I figured out what sounded best. At first, I was using too many different amps, effect types, etc. Of late I've narrowed down my amp/cab choices and my favorite effect blocks to simplify things and get better at tweaking those favorites. I still find it helpful to have separate presets for each song with snapshots for lead, rhythm, etc., that I can save and then recall to when that song comes back into the schedule. My present challenge is to learn how to change effects blocks on the fly.

[@sjsphotog]

Pedal edit mode

[@fisch723]

I use 2 expression pedals (in addition to the built in one). EXP 2 is dedicated to being a volume pedal, EXP 3 controls the amounts of delay so I can dial it in on the fly as needed and it’s not just on/off - no need to snapshot different amounts, tho I do for an initial amount. EXP is anything specific to a patch. In my go to patch it controls the amount of chorus on my clean sounds and the amount of gain on the lead sounds. It give a lot of flexibility within one patch.

[@sjsphotog]

Understanding how to use the "Pedal Edit" mode so you can adjust all your settings while STANDING UP instead of having to bend/ kneel during a gig would be a very valuable skill to have to how to do it if you need to edit something WHILE playing a song.

[@musicmanlfp890]

Used my new Helix live 3 times now and not only are the sounds great, but so many useful variations on how to set it up in different venues, situations. And it can be done all during sound check pretty easily if need be. More nice playing too as always, John!

[@seankelly7274]

Nice little nod to guthrie!! 👊🏻

[@timothyeads1657]

Great orchestrations and educational video John. This is great advice!

[@hanovergreen4091]

Please Sir, we want some more live video at your next gig!!! Best Regards!

[@timothyeads1657]

DEFINITELY!

[@sjsphotog]

Yes please. John i hope you are recording the board Feed from your shows to hopefully release a full live cd one day? Or FLAC hi res tracks onbandcamp??

[@deekod1967]

Brilliantly useful video thanks John, bought all your helix presets recently ~ they are amazing 👏👏

[@robertshamansky1912]

I’m seriously considering selling off my analog gear and buying a Helix Floor to go with my Stomp. This is really useful advice on gigging with a Helix. I’d be interested in more info on monitoring yourself at a gig too!

[@FabrizioPeretti]

Oh god what a track!

[@jetset9561]

Awesome John thank you so much.

[@marshallderrick793]

Great video with great advice!

[@iresentdoingthis1550]

Really great information and tasty playing as usual. fingers crossed we can all gig sooner rather than later. Artists using the Helix Live: King Crimson, Steve Howe ( Yes) Smashing Pumpkins, Tina Guo ( Hans Zimmer Cellist Wonder Woman)Black Stone Cherry, Billy Sheehan ( Mr Big / Niacin / ) Richie Castellano ( Blue Oyster Cult ) Jinjer, Jen Majura of Evanescence, Chris Buck, Rhett Shull, Peter Hook ( New Order / Joy Division ) uses the HX Stomp Metallica / Tool, Minus The Bear & Mike Campbell ( Tom Petty / Fleetwood Mac ) use the M-Series Pedals

[@sjsphotog]

Bumbkefoot (Sons of Apollo) uses an LT.

[@theericbeaty]

I had a weird issue when copying your 2027 Gig preset and tweaking the settings to my liking: when I tried swelling the volume pedal, the 1A output was still showing signal, so I couldn’t get the guitar completely silent. But on your preset, the 1A output doesn’t show a signal. How do I mute the output for future preset building? I ended up putting an extra volume block on path 1A as a workaround, but this takes up an extra slot on my signal path. Thanks.

[@VioletMaryVideos]

Hi John - I love the idea of having a clean path and a dirty path. that's really cool. How do you mute the one and engage the other using snapshots? I've tried to discern it from your presets and can't find the answer.

[@johnnathancordy]

I would use Ch Vol on the amp. So on the clean snapshot, the Ch Vol of the dirty amp goes to 0, then on the dirty snapshotsz the Ch Vol of the clean amps go to 0

[@stevelamm2366]

@@johnnathancordy So, you can then employ a different amp/cab block for lead or rhythm if you wish.

[@sjsphotog]

You can add a gain/vol block on the end of each chain and then using a sbapshot have clean vol be 100% when on clean and 0% on dirty sound. Assign the same footswitch to toggle that on/off each mode or what JNC said above

[@ari-el3919]

Oh, this is sick. Are you riffing on Paramore?

[@johnnathancordy]

Absolutely

[@nikki435]

yes sir need this

[@Ghazwan-rb2ov]

Can i levelling the volume from the output block with out effect on my preset?

[@sjsphotog]

Yes

[@jimmylinssen851]

Your last note in the intro jam had some kind of fuzz sound, but the rest did not. How did you do this?

[@guipaguipa]

nice tanks

[@NJSonye]

I’m trying to understand this concept with the Stomp. I’ve not relied on HX edit so I could edit on stage or heat of battle. I’m most interested in using the Stomp live with my amp.

[@Deep_Jimpact]

Ripped jeans or jorts?

[@john808welk]

I can't believe you have a quad cortex and are still using this piece of junk. So much fizzy high end and such non-touchable screens. I'm not even playing it and I can tell the feel sucks. My keyboard even gets less tactile at the thought of the helix. I'm surprised you can even play on time with all that latency. Who do you think you are anyway putting out content like this for free when you could stuff it behind 4 self amortizing paywalls that compound semi-annually. Now make me a super reverb QC video or I'm going to have Papa Vertex build me an ungrounded quadruple tiered pedalboard that threatens to significantly drain my bank account along with my quality of life.

[@sjsphotog]

Learn how to use the Helix instead of complaining. If it wasn't good, real pros wouldn't use this live on stage. Btw what real touring bands do YOU play in?? Just wondering. SMH.