Line 6 Helix, 6 cable setup!

I’m sharing my current Line 6 Helix rig rundown. I’ve tweaked factory presets, started my own from scratch, messed with IRs, etc. I run completely amuck when I’m working with originals.

I’m in 3 cover band projects right now, and I’ve fallen in love with the tone I’m getting from this current setup.

BRACE YOURSELVES FOR SOME READING, THIS IS A LONG ONE!

First, quick background: As much as I thoroughly adore some of the tones I’ve gotten out of the Helix’s amp/IR combinations, nothing has given me the sound of my favorite of my amps here at home. Marshall is just… “me”.

With that said, I’m basically running the follow hardware:

• Helix floor —> Marshall MG250DFX w/guitars:
• Peavey Wolfgang guitars, Epiphone LP Pro III (with coil splitters.)

I know many of you might find this “6-cable hookup” rather messy and not your personal preference. I definitely understand the beautiful feeling of showing up to a gig with a Helix, 2 cables, and running direct to the board. However, for what I’m doing this is really working beautifully, I don’t mind the cables.

I have 2 effects chains setup on the Helix separate from each other: One for pre, one for post.

The PRE chain is as follows:

Guitar input into the Helix—>Noise gate —>kinky compressor —>kinky boost —>output through 1/4 inch ports.

The POST chain is as follows:

Return (as an input) —>noise gate —>low/high cut —>volume pedal (set to gain boost for leads) —> double take —>Sent (as an output)

Clearly I’m partial to the “kinky” series of effects, but that’s just what I like with my amp right now. I kick them in for leads, not used on rhythm.

The guitar inputs into chain 1 and runs through the first set of blocks out directly into the amp’s input. The send/return on the amp feeds the post effects chain.

Now, to be clear, the Marshall is a stereo cabinet, it has a stereo fx return on it. I use the Double Take at the end of my entire 2-chain setup to separate the signal between the amp’s speakers. This layers the tone a bit, fattening it up. Settings are very fussy, too much of this or that and it can sound like a chorus pedal.

When I kick in my leads, the compressor and boost (both Kinky) turn on, the Double Take turns off, and the volume block boosts my post-gain by about 4db. So leads are not using the stereo Double Take effect. I use mono for leads, and back to stereo for rhythm.

I use this for a base patch, and I have a separate patch for each and every song. To some that might seem like overkill, but my guy over at SweetWater agrees with me, it’s a great way to go. I love snapshots, but I don’t use them for this setup. I simple tweak each song patch to suit the song. Some might night more or less of the noise gate, more or less of the compressor, etc. The compressor is too much on my clean channel, but quite perfect on my dirty channel. So I tweak it accordingly from song to song. Most of my leads use the stereo delay set with 1/8 and 1/4 delays running over each other.

Simply put, with 2 separate chains for pre and post going into and out of my amp I get to use the amp’s natural clean and dirty tone (which I love), and I’ll use the amp’s onboard chorus when necessary, too. All other pre and post effects for songs like Living on a Prayer, artists like The Killers, and anything else that really requires some effects blocks other than basic tone fit beautifully into each pre and post chain.

In case you didn’t catch the 6 cables:

• 1 into the guitar input on the Helix.
• 1 out of the Helix 1/4 inch to the input of my amp.
• 2 from the Helix send ports (2 for stereo) into the L/R stereo returns on the amp.
• 1 from the amp’s send port back to the Helix return port.
• 1 stereo TRS cable from the Helix ext. amp port to the amp’s footswitch port to control the amp’s clean/dirty channels from the Helix.

If you’ve never used the Helix command center, programming the Helix to control your amp’s channels is not only easy, it’s amazingly useful; I use it to trigger clean and dirty along with effects by stacking controls on a single stomp button, or… automatically choosing clean or dirty when the patch is initiated.

I’ll work on a Vlog for YouTube this weekend. Any questions?

More from Niko @ The Blogging Musician (Including a wealth of info and tips on Line 6 products).

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