Axe-Fx III vs Helix

Stratman68 said:
I'll never understand why people feel the need to turn every knob, just because it's there? When new folks have asked 99.9% of the advice given is you do not need to go deep to get great sounds.
Just human nature I guess..................
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Simple, until you start turning those deep knobs you never know what interesting things you may learn. Because while most of the time you just want to play, sometimes you just want to experiment and find out if you can improve your tone.
 
I started with Helix and then very quickly came across to Fractal - my observations:

1. The Helix can absolutely be made to sound good and realistic - but the key point here is 'made to', what I found was I had to employ 'tricks' (effects in places I wouldn't naturally have them), knobs set in 'unnatural' positions etc. Took away the intuitiveness for me, and I found it was all to easy to end up with something artificial sounding, flat, overly compressed etc.
2. When I went AX8 (followed by III, followed by FM3) that went away, I could have a more real world signal flow, the knobs were set where I was used to putting them and everything felt more intuitive to me

Sure the Fractal world has a learning curve, but it's a natural one - for example I've really learnt a lot about what to look for in an IR this past year, that's enhanced what I do for sure and I'm much quicker now, but that's a different thing entirely
 
peteri said:
I started with Helix and then very quickly came across to Fractal - my observations:

1. The Helix can absolutely be made to sound good and realistic - but the key point here is 'made to', what I found was I had to employ 'tricks' (effects in places I wouldn't naturally have them), knobs set in 'unnatural' positions etc. Took away the intuitiveness for me, and I found it was all to easy to end up with something artificial sounding, flat, overly compressed etc.
2. When I went AX8 (followed by III, followed by FM3) that went away, I could have a more real world signal flow, the knobs were set where I was used to putting them and everything felt more intuitive to me

Sure the Fractal world has a learning curve, but it's a natural one - for example I've really learnt a lot about what to look for in an IR this past year, that's enhanced what I do for sure and I'm much quicker now, but that's a different thing entirely
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+1 - when I see the "if a setting sounds good, then it's right" comment I often think of this. If you have to spin the knobs in all kinds of unnatural/non-intuitive ways to get a good sound then something is not right.
 
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Budda said:
There's no such thing as an unnatural knob position. Knobs have a range and every part of it is natural.

Dialling in with eyes over ears is the wrong way to go about it, always has been.
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In the context of my comment above, "unnatural" refers to having settings far off from what they would be on the real world modelled device in order for the user to get in the ballpark of the sound expected.

In this sense the Axefx is very much dialed in with both the eyes and ears given its dedication to modelled settings precision. Other modeller brands often do not have this type of precision
 
Budda said:
It still just proves dial in with your ears not your eyes.
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Sorry this is being deliberately argumentative in my mind

It's a completely fair criticism - many of us have owned the amps and pedals modelled, and it's a fair comment to say you have to throw that experience away (which I felt I did). It also makes it longer to dial in a sound, when you're (say) increasing the mids where on the amp itself you'd reduce them.

This is important because, whether you dial in with eyes, ears, fingers or toes - you're using the experience you've built up over the years
 
steadystate said:
Ok. Prompted by this reply, I decided to give Helix Native another honest shot. Maybe my memory isn't what it used to be, so I reinstalled it. I focused solely on the amp models and cabs and compared them to the Axe III.

It sounds and feels as bad as I remembered. The attack has no definition. It's mush with none of the complex character of the Axe. The sustain portion is no better; flat and one-dimensional. Poor note separation and zero swirl. It reminds me of my old BOSS GX-700. I A/B'd the Plexi models (Hell's Glockenspiels for example) and I literally laughed out loud at the chasm between the two products. Same for the Mesa Mark IV models. No amount of tweaking can save it. Yes, it can be used, and yes, a lot of people might not notice, especially non-guitarists listening to a mix. But actually playing through it....different leagues. I appreciate the Axe more than ever now.
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I honestly cannot replicate your results or I cannot hear what you are hearing here. Whenever I compared the two myself, with the same IR I could barely tell any difference and they felt the exact same in my picking and playing. But if the AXE FX makes you happy, consider yourself lucky thagt you found a device to fulfil your needs!
 
People hear differently. Just as people see/taste/feel/smell differently. Some people have 20/20 vision (or better) while others, like myself, can't read the newspaper without glasses. Some people can smell a daisy at 1000 yards while others can't smell a skunk at 10.

It therefore stands to reason that some people will hear/feel things that others don't.

I, personally, and hyper-sensitive to the fine details of amp modeling and can pick out the differences between products in seconds.
 
FractalAudio said:
People hear differently. Just as people see/taste/feel/smell differently. Some people have 20/20 vision (or better) while others, like myself, can't read the newspaper without glasses. Some people can smell a daisy at 1000 yards while others can't smell a skunk at 10.

It therefore stands to reason that some people will hear/feel things that others don't.

I, personally, and hyper-sensitive to the fine details of amp modeling and can pick out the differences between products in seconds.
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Are you able to pick them out even by just listening to samples or only when playing in first person?

Personally I'm often able to do it while playing but rarely from samples, where the connection fingers-ears is missing
 
DLC86 said:
Are you able to pick them out even by just listening to samples or only when playing in first person?

Personally I'm often able to do it while playing but rarely from samples, where the connection fingers-ears is missing
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It's trivially easy in person (for me). With clips it's a bit harder although I can pick out a Kemper fairly easily due to it's sonic signature.

The other thing with clips is most of them are just massive amounts of gain which isn't where you hear the stuff that separates algorithm quality.
 
steadystate said:
I just confirmed that they run identical algorithms. Yikes.
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I have heard that the quality of your interface is pretty important when using a plugin like Helix Native. The Helix hardware might sound better than the plugin depending on the interface that you are using.
 
I agree and I can almost always pick out a kemper. There’s a certain sound to it, which some like and that’s ok :)
 
Jarick said:
I owned the Helix twice for a total of about two years. Actually the Helix and the LT. Over that time I also owned the AX8, Kemper, and tried the Atomic Ampli-fire and the Headrush Gigboard. Happy to give an unbiased review.

Short answer is that the Helix is a fun, powerful, easy to use device that is incredibly well designed and supported, but ultimately does not sound or feel as good as the Fractal. The amp modeling tends to sound and feel flat and two dimensional, lacking low end punch, and not cleaning up well with guitar volume. The cab modeling is also really bad, making the amps even thinner and more nasally (stick with impulses). Effects are generally good but tend to be more colorful stomp style than rich/lush rack quality (and the reverbs are still weak). They've done a great job adding new models and supporting the product, but the pace of updates has slowed substantially over the last year. Native is a really cool piece of software though which is identical in sound to the hardware unit and makes for easy re-amping.

But for me, as much as I liked the idea of the Helix and had some success with it, I mostly felt frustrated and limited. The AX8 had pros and cons to it as well, and I briefly tried the Kemper but didn't get along with it. When I got the Axe III, I felt like I didn't have to compromise on nearly as many things. I don't gig so I don't have to deal with carrying around a rack or anything, so at home it works great.

I've been through the Helix stuff twice and I still have Native...I won't bother with it unless they do a significant modeling overhaul (like Fractal will do periodically), although everything I've heard is that they don't really operate that way.
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I have ownd a Helix and as for low end punch I always ran 2 cab ir's with one using a sm57 and the other with a 121 or a 141 mike and that punch sounded damn good to me so you must not had yours set up right to get it. I could not het it just running one cab I had to run 2 cab ir's
 
Sigh - here we go with another Helix vs Fractal non-argument.

I have both - a Helix Rack with foot control, and an AxeFx3 with FC-12. Both play into the same pair of Line 6 PowerCab Pluses, in Flat mode.

Bottom line - both SOUND great, both FEEL great, but they feel and sound slightly different. I use them for different sounds, different styles (purely in a studio setting, I should point out). I don't prefer one over the other - I just think they're both superb but different. Same as all my real amps - they are all different from one another, but with a bit of effort, I can make my Blackstar sound almost identical to my 1980-ish MusicMan 212 HD130 and vice versa, for example.

But the bottom line is that:

1. I don't have golden ears any more
2. I enjoy playing both Helix and the AxeFx3
3. I use multiple different guitars - and THEY also have differences.
4. The sound I get on recording gets tweaked in the mastering anyway
5. The audience - live or those listening to the recordings - don't give a crap about one vs the other.
6. In a live gig setting, any and all subtle differences between units are completely negated due to the room acoustics, the drummer, bass, and keyboard players, the FOH mix, and the audience talking/singing/dancing/clapping (often on the 1 and 3!!)

So really, the Helix and the AxeFx are just two tools that mean more to the owners (most of whom have a proprietary confirmation bias as to which is better) and both sound great, play great, and are the same as having different amps, pedals, guitars, and anything else in the chain.

Love 'em both for what they can do, compared to the old days of humping around 3 or 4 different amps to a gig or recording session, or worse still, having to rely on hired backline gear that isn't even yours.
 
Even if they both supposedly sound identical, which they don't, the feel is very different

Additionally I have never gotten compliments on my tone when playing live with line 6 stuff, but I have gotten rave compliments and non stop questions with my fractal

EVERY
Single
Gig

So you would think the audience doesn't know the difference, and maybe they don't - but they can definitely detect something is different, and that's why there will ALWAYS be a fractal in my rig
 
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