Round 2 of the faux dumble rumble. I'd forgotten how good the Grammatico can sound when dialled in, so thought it would be fun to see how close I could get it and the UA Enigmatic. I had a better time with the UA app in this one, but still too many paper cuts wit the user experience to be more than a gimmick, and the fact you can't see what preset settings are after saving is maddening! The tone however, is pretty awesome, wondering if/when we'll see the Enigmatic as a UA plugin. Anyway, thanks for watching! 🐝
Appreciate you David. Great topic! Timely too; presently going deep on the Grammatico on the Helix Floor. Respect too for looking into the UA Enigmatic. Greatest time ever for guitarists! Subscribed.
The value proposition of the HX Stomp is off the charts. I got mine almost 4 years ago, and it is an all-in-one hardware solution for me. The learning curve is very steep, but it's worth putting in the time. The Grammatico has loads of Parameters to help achieve an awesome Dumble tone, and you did a good job. 👍 On an aside, I recently had some interesting tone results by turning up the level a few dBs on my Presets' "Output Node" of my HX Stomp. Being at the end of the Signal Chain, it affects the cumulative signal of all the Blocks in a positive way that I haven't been able to replicate in any other way. Increasing the level on the equivalent of the Output Node in "Helix Native" sounds like it just turns up the volume without affecting the tone. I've emailed John Cordy about my surprising results with adjusting the level of the Output Node of the hardware unit. I know "louder is better" and have adjusted the Volume Dial on my HX Stomp to volume match. The Stomp can sometimes sound "too clean" and in my recent experience, the Output Node can help it sound more organic by smoothing out the highs and thickening the overall sound.
Cheers picksalot, and thanks for your thoughts, that's interesting I often find the louder I take modelling the harsher the highs seem to get. But yea, I'll try it out. Ta'
you're the first person i have seen to use FauxDS. well done. can't believe Cordy didn't think of this first. i guess he is too buy joking about knobs.
Hey, I have both. Clean tones on the Enigmatic require the the overdrive to be off. Lots of folks making these videos keep it on. The OD knob needs to go all of the way to the left. In terms of the comparison, I like UA’s cabs better than IRs. I also like the feel of playing the enigmatic over the stomp. The power supply settings help there. Also, when I play in rock mode I like using that skyline mode. what I think never is compared is how does the stomp keep up with different sounds from the enigmatic. You can match them in some places but not all. Lots of noodling with the hx stomp to try to make it compete.
Yep I know about setting the clean on the UA. I still find it quite lacking as compared to the Fm3 clean. Agreed, the UA cabs are somewhat better than the stomps, but the feel I've managed to dial in pretty similar tbh, and yea getting the right power supply in the amp type was key to matching that. I'm not entirely sure I agree it takes that much noodling to make it compete. I also found both the UA and stomp to be trickier to dial in when disengaging the PAB and using the tone stack. thanks for your input and watching :)
Another great insight. Yes, never played a Dumble, almost certainly never will but have got some great sounds from the Stomp GSG thanks to john Cordy and your good self taking me though it over the years. Currently my go to amp block in there unless I want really clean.
Thanks! Agreed, it's a great really good model and showed just how committed l6 are to improving. I think the litigator with pedals is still my go-to for the stomp as I've found the clean a little easier to dial in than the gsg. What do you use for clean?
@@DavidBeebee yes the Litigator is a great choice also...present in several of my presets. For really clean I go either to the Jazz Chorus model as it really is clean (an amp I actually have experience of)...not as pure but also good at cleans for me is the Cali Texas Ch1 which I think is a Mesa Boogie. But even 7 or so years into Helix and Stomp playing I still find new sounds from amps I've barely touched before.....just a great platform.
Line 6 always sounds trebly and has that digital spark - and this is not a good thing at all. UA sounds like an amp. Its also a lot smoother. Helix/Line 6 is getting worse and worse. I don't see why you guys keep making it seem like the Line 6 products are still there. We all know they are not anymore. Line 6 is great with utility, not with tones... UA is the other way around. It really is night and day IMO brother. The UA is a much better sound. Also, feel-wise Line 6 is absolutely awful, you feel like you are playing to a computer. That doesn't happen with UA. I have both. Had Helix for 4 years now. Never liked it much, but was practical, now it's huge, unpractical and sounds not so good and dynamic/organic playing feel and even sound artifacts are not the thing for Line 6.
L6 don't do themselves any favours with the presets or stock block settings, however when dialled in I really don't think it's night and day difference. I guess we're all diferent, I've just downloaded the UAFX plugin versions to try and 'out the box' really not digging the sounds or feel, but like most gear these days, I'm sure its great when tweaked. The feel of the helix is also hugely affected by the input-z setting. Before changing this to always be 1M I was getting a terrible 'rubbery slippage' feel, which may be what you're referring to. anyway,s thanks for watching and giving your thoughts!
Pretty much, I think the big dividing line in the sand with the more recent stuff is how good it sounds out the box without the twiddling n tweaking. Fractal is most definitely king of the hill here, but even with this, L6 has improved somewhat with some of the recent amp models. Thinking of the new jcm800 in particular.
@@DavidBeebee Agreed on the 800 for sure - that's become my favorite amp model in the Helix hands down! IMO the newer stuff like the UA pedals tend to be a more curated experience, but not necessarily leaps and bounds better. If you just want conventionally-good tones quickly and easily, it's great IME the Helix is just as 'accurate' as the best digital stuff out there. but Line 6 has taken a 'warts and all' approach to modeling (outside of their idealized original amps, which are excellent) and given so many options for tone shaping, so it's possible to get sounds that are 'bad' if you don't know what you're doing. But on the other side of this coin, you actually also have a much wider range of possible tones as a result. Addressing the OP commenter, I kinda hate this notion of the 'digital fizz' thing people talk about, because if you mic a real amp with an SM57, it's actually quite strident usually and the Helix reflects that very well. Most great amps have quite an open top end that actually a lot of modelers don't quite get right, but Helix does better than most at achieving that 'air'. This high end that exists in a lot of amps people read into as "digital" or "harsh" in a modeling environment, even though amps create those frequencies, too. So I think a lot of modeling companies actually artificially smooth that stuff out since guitarists sometimes don't know how to manage it (even if there are literally dozens of ways to dial it out with the various EQs, filters, amp controls, cab controls, etc) To each their own, but it's wild to me that people dog on the Line 6 stuff still. But for all of the reasons I mentioned above, I also get that, more so than something like the UA pedals, you get as good of results as you're capable of dialing in. Not everyone has spent time in studios mic'ing cabinets and hearing themselves on the other side of the glass through monitors in an actual band mix. And IME the Helix nails that experience
@@jakestewartmusic brother, I have IRs from York Audio, OwnHammer, MLSounds. I've played guitar professionally for over 15 year. I play Jazz, Fusion, Rock, Funk, Metal, Classical, Flamenco, Brazillian, and every other genre. I have hundreds of presets, not only made by me, but also bought from a variety of people. Do you really wanna imply that I sound bad? Or my presets? I have real amplifiers that I mic in my studio and I've recorded guitars in professional studios, hearing my miced guitar on a band mix. Who do you think you are to question others like that? Have you ever even tried a real amp? From what you say it seems like you never did, and you just speak from what you heard on the internet and/or somewhere else. I've mic'ed my amps for recordings plenty of times, with different mics and positions and tried all that before I start speaking. I feel like you only had Helix as an experience and nothing else and you are defending it as if it was your son. Chill out, it's just a machine. Also, you were kinda rude for no reason. And it doesn't seem you know much about what L6 is good or bad at. You should go inform yourself.
Round 2 of the faux dumble rumble. I'd forgotten how good the Grammatico can sound when dialled in, so thought it would be fun to see how close I could get it and the UA Enigmatic. I had a better time with the UA app in this one, but still too many paper cuts wit the user experience to be more than a gimmick, and the fact you can't see what preset settings are after saving is maddening! The tone however, is pretty awesome, wondering if/when we'll see the Enigmatic as a UA plugin. Anyway, thanks for watching! 🐝
Lovely intro tune, Beebs!
thank you sir!
Appreciate you David. Great topic! Timely too; presently going deep on the Grammatico on the Helix Floor. Respect too for looking into the UA Enigmatic. Greatest time ever for guitarists! Subscribed.
Thanks for the kind words! Glad the video is helpful. Cheers 🎸🙏🏻😄
The value proposition of the HX Stomp is off the charts. I got mine almost 4 years ago, and it is an all-in-one hardware solution for me. The learning curve is very steep, but it's worth putting in the time. The Grammatico has loads of Parameters to help achieve an awesome Dumble tone, and you did a good job. 👍
On an aside, I recently had some interesting tone results by turning up the level a few dBs on my Presets' "Output Node" of my HX Stomp. Being at the end of the Signal Chain, it affects the cumulative signal of all the Blocks in a positive way that I haven't been able to replicate in any other way.
Increasing the level on the equivalent of the Output Node in "Helix Native" sounds like it just turns up the volume without affecting the tone.
I've emailed John Cordy about my surprising results with adjusting the level of the Output Node of the hardware unit. I know "louder is better" and have adjusted the Volume Dial on my HX Stomp to volume match. The Stomp can sometimes sound "too clean" and in my recent experience, the Output Node can help it sound more organic by smoothing out the highs and thickening the overall sound.
Cheers picksalot, and thanks for your thoughts, that's interesting I often find the louder I take modelling the harsher the highs seem to get. But yea, I'll try it out. Ta'
you're the first person i have seen to use FauxDS. well done. can't believe Cordy didn't think of this first. i guess he is too buy joking about knobs.
omg fauxllow up. it gets even better.
haha yesss, if just 1 person responds to my stupid puns it makes it all worth it! 😂 thanks for watching!
Hey, I have both. Clean tones on the Enigmatic require the the overdrive to be off. Lots of folks making these videos keep it on. The OD knob needs to go all of the way to the left. In terms of the comparison, I like UA’s cabs better than IRs. I also like the feel of playing the enigmatic over the stomp. The power supply settings help there. Also, when I play in rock mode I like using that skyline mode.
what I think never is compared is how does the stomp keep up with different sounds from the enigmatic. You can match them in some places but not all. Lots of noodling with the hx stomp to try to make it compete.
Yep I know about setting the clean on the UA. I still find it quite lacking as compared to the Fm3 clean. Agreed, the UA cabs are somewhat better than the stomps, but the feel I've managed to dial in pretty similar tbh, and yea getting the right power supply in the amp type was key to matching that.
I'm not entirely sure I agree it takes that much noodling to make it compete. I also found both the UA and stomp to be trickier to dial in when disengaging the PAB and using the tone stack.
thanks for your input and watching :)
Another great insight.
Yes, never played a Dumble, almost certainly never will but have got some great sounds from the Stomp GSG thanks to john Cordy and your good self taking me though it over the years. Currently my go to amp block in there unless I want really clean.
Thanks! Agreed, it's a great really good model and showed just how committed l6 are to improving. I think the litigator with pedals is still my go-to for the stomp as I've found the clean a little easier to dial in than the gsg. What do you use for clean?
@@DavidBeebee yes the Litigator is a great choice also...present in several of my presets. For really clean I go either to the Jazz Chorus model as it really is clean (an amp I actually have experience of)...not as pure but also good at cleans for me is the Cali Texas Ch1 which I think is a Mesa Boogie.
But even 7 or so years into Helix and Stomp playing I still find new sounds from amps I've barely touched before.....just a great platform.
Excellent video ❤
Thank you very much!
Good stuff, Dave ❤
Thanks! :)
To my taste…I preferred the Enigmatic tones.
I really enjoy them, it feels good to play too.
hmm I'm following along on helix native but don't have a GSG. Only 3 variations of an LG. must need to update
Nevermind Im just blind. I found it
hah, nice one, yea the ordering of the models is a bit weird I must say!
Line 6 always sounds trebly and has that digital spark - and this is not a good thing at all. UA sounds like an amp. Its also a lot smoother. Helix/Line 6 is getting worse and worse. I don't see why you guys keep making it seem like the Line 6 products are still there. We all know they are not anymore.
Line 6 is great with utility, not with tones... UA is the other way around.
It really is night and day IMO brother. The UA is a much better sound. Also, feel-wise Line 6 is absolutely awful, you feel like you are playing to a computer. That doesn't happen with UA. I have both. Had Helix for 4 years now. Never liked it much, but was practical, now it's huge, unpractical and sounds not so good and dynamic/organic playing feel and even sound artifacts are not the thing for Line 6.
L6 don't do themselves any favours with the presets or stock block settings, however when dialled in I really don't think it's night and day difference. I guess we're all diferent, I've just downloaded the UAFX plugin versions to try and 'out the box' really not digging the sounds or feel, but like most gear these days, I'm sure its great when tweaked.
The feel of the helix is also hugely affected by the input-z setting. Before changing this to always be 1M I was getting a terrible 'rubbery slippage' feel, which may be what you're referring to.
anyway,s thanks for watching and giving your thoughts!
IME the Helix sounds as good (or bad) as the user dialing it in
Pretty much, I think the big dividing line in the sand with the more recent stuff is how good it sounds out the box without the twiddling n tweaking. Fractal is most definitely king of the hill here, but even with this, L6 has improved somewhat with some of the recent amp models. Thinking of the new jcm800 in particular.
@@DavidBeebee Agreed on the 800 for sure - that's become my favorite amp model in the Helix hands down! IMO the newer stuff like the UA pedals tend to be a more curated experience, but not necessarily leaps and bounds better. If you just want conventionally-good tones quickly and easily, it's great
IME the Helix is just as 'accurate' as the best digital stuff out there. but Line 6 has taken a 'warts and all' approach to modeling (outside of their idealized original amps, which are excellent) and given so many options for tone shaping, so it's possible to get sounds that are 'bad' if you don't know what you're doing. But on the other side of this coin, you actually also have a much wider range of possible tones as a result.
Addressing the OP commenter, I kinda hate this notion of the 'digital fizz' thing people talk about, because if you mic a real amp with an SM57, it's actually quite strident usually and the Helix reflects that very well. Most great amps have quite an open top end that actually a lot of modelers don't quite get right, but Helix does better than most at achieving that 'air'. This high end that exists in a lot of amps people read into as "digital" or "harsh" in a modeling environment, even though amps create those frequencies, too. So I think a lot of modeling companies actually artificially smooth that stuff out since guitarists sometimes don't know how to manage it (even if there are literally dozens of ways to dial it out with the various EQs, filters, amp controls, cab controls, etc)
To each their own, but it's wild to me that people dog on the Line 6 stuff still. But for all of the reasons I mentioned above, I also get that, more so than something like the UA pedals, you get as good of results as you're capable of dialing in. Not everyone has spent time in studios mic'ing cabinets and hearing themselves on the other side of the glass through monitors in an actual band mix. And IME the Helix nails that experience
@@jakestewartmusic brother, I have IRs from York Audio, OwnHammer, MLSounds. I've played guitar professionally for over 15 year. I play Jazz, Fusion, Rock, Funk, Metal, Classical, Flamenco, Brazillian, and every other genre. I have hundreds of presets, not only made by me, but also bought from a variety of people. Do you really wanna imply that I sound bad? Or my presets?
I have real amplifiers that I mic in my studio and I've recorded guitars in professional studios, hearing my miced guitar on a band mix. Who do you think you are to question others like that?
Have you ever even tried a real amp? From what you say it seems like you never did, and you just speak from what you heard on the internet and/or somewhere else.
I've mic'ed my amps for recordings plenty of times, with different mics and positions and tried all that before I start speaking. I feel like you only had Helix as an experience and nothing else and you are defending it as if it was your son. Chill out, it's just a machine. Also, you were kinda rude for no reason. And it doesn't seem you know much about what L6 is good or bad at. You should go inform yourself.