Link to all EXPANSE Packs HERE: ►►www.heyworshipleader.com/helix-page Link to all ESSENTIALS Packs HERE: ►►www.heyworshipleader.com/essentials-pack-presets

I found the discussion on digital harshness to be very helpful. The exercise of applying an extreme high cut and then rolling it off to a more reasonable level was a great demonstration!

In a past life, I was a luxury car audio specialist. Thanks for the video. The tip to start your Hi-cut down in the bass, and bring it up until the music sounds natural, is a great tip. However, I wouldn't stop at 3k2. The sweet-spot will be higher than 3k2. I would continue up past 4k, and anywhere up to 7kHz for guitar. For most listeners, 3k2 is muffled.

Wow. To my ears I don’t describe it as “fizzy”, but I know exactly the sound you’re describing. I can hear it through my iPhone speakers and have dealt with it on both helix models I have owned. Also, the digital clipping has also been quite elusive to me. Thank you for the great tutorial video.

THIS IS THE VIDEO IVE BEEN WAITING FOR !!!! THANKS DUDE !!!!

Incredible, thank you for the tips!

Excellent Info, thanks!

Thanks for this video. I really needed this information!!!

Finally I found my way to someone explaining to me how to set my gear properly! Thank you! God bless you😀

Wow, this one helped me a LOT! Thank you!

I've been chasing this one for a long time! Great explanation! Can't wait to put it into practice.

that was very helpful. thanks for work.

wow! this is what I was searching for many time!

The way you explained the Digital Harshness was perfect. Thank you for making this video!

Thank you! Going to try this tonight at the gig.

Good information. Yes turning your headroom up helps a lot.

fantastic explaination! Thanks a lot! About the headroom I learnt something new to adjust on my presets

I find using Global EQ to cut low or high end does the same job, and saves using up a block.

J’adore!!!! 😀👍 Very useful and interesting video based on daily facts and applicable to other devices!! Great job and thanks for all these advices!!! 👍👍 Cheers from France! 🍷🍾

Thank you for this explanation, I never understood what was causing the digital clipping until now! Great work!

Very helpful. Thank you

It happens to me! Thank you man! I appreciate your work!

Excellent explanation! I just got a HX Effects and have been experiencing this very thing. Going to give your suggestions a try. Thank you so much!

Thank you SO much for this. I was really struggling with my HX stomp. I had resorted to putting my Sanamp GT2 for amps in front , but you inspired me with your, well researched advice. I A/B'd the 2 and got it just so.

I know it was used as an example but pointing a Dynamic 57 right on the dustcap of the speaker will make anything sound harsh, even with real amps. most of the time, changing the mic or IR will give much better results than a wide cut like this. With that out of the way, there is some aliasing that occurs in the high end of some Helix models more than the others. In my case, mostly with high gain amp models (after founding a balanced mic spot) putting the high cut around 10kHz is enough. Sometimes I use an additional EQ to cut some DBs around the 8kHz area too (PV Panama needs this, for example). Great video, thanks!

To be honest, this is what I expected and was thinking about so recently i'm just astonished you uploaded this at the right timing

Thanks for this great info. It's really well explained. I've struggled with digital harshness/fizziness since I got my Helix an am gradually getting better with my presets by experimenting with high cut levels but still have a way to go (not entirely happy yet). I've found the type of mic and the distance of the mic from the cab can have a fair impact too. Keep up the good work!

This is an awesome vid! Thanks dude, really helpful and perfectly explained!

Lots of great advice here. Thank you so much! God bless.

I hear it. Well done.

Very clear concise and helpful! We’ll done, thank you.

Thanks Jimmy. Very helpful.

Such an eye opening video on the high cut method!

This problem (clipping) has been driving me nuts for so long! GREAT video! Incredibly helpful! Like you said, everyone kept calling it 'fizziness.' !

very helpful. thanks!

Bro, KUDOS!!! The way you explained it felt so dumbed down. It made me realize how inexperienced i am. Thanks for this one man!

Great way of showing examples of each problem 👍

Thank you so much my friend! You have help me out so much

Great explanation! Thanks!

This is so helpful!!! Thank you so much 🙏

This is by far the best/most useful video i have seen on this topic - thank you so much!

Great video!!

Great explanation, thanks, works great on the Pod Go too!

Thank you!!!

Great video I just got my Helix floor and I was having this problem.

Found this very helpful. Can't wait to doctor some of my presets.

Thanks brother I was frustrated about clip and digital noise you save my line 6 before. Trough

Thank you so much for this lesson and for these great insights! It helped me big time! 🙏🙏🙏

thanks so much for this vid. been having this issue a lot since getting my hx stomp!

Great advice ! Finally. Video covering these harsh extremes ! You explained it very well! Sometimes its like you try a super strat and les paul and get this with same preset and sometimes altering your tone knobs on guitar can help but really is better to go to source like you have mentioned opposed to altering instrument.

Super useful thanks Jimmy. I had this issue using drive pedals in front of the stomp. They would cause the digital clipping but got it sorted now!

Woaah this are the answer of my frustation all this years! I keep mistaken the digital clipping with digital harshness, wrong understanding and to be expected wrong treatment You’re really good at explaining things and giving examples, thank you I say again, Thank You!

Awesome! That's a game-changing tutorial. Helped a lot getting rid of klipping when using my HX Stomp. Thx Dude!

Great example dude! I've always had some digital clipping coming out of my Helix LT and I could never fully identify why!

15:19 Thanks for this video. I always had tons of compliments on my tone when I played through a real amp. I always had lots of low end, just a full tone. Since I bought the Helix and started watching videos, they always say make the patches brighter so they cut through, but I miss my old tone. Going back to what works for me, thank you!!!

The solution for the clipping is awesome and thanks for Bringing this awareness that there is a solution. As for reducing high cut on fizziness, well it works too. But the tone at about 12 to 13mins, it just sound so digital, whether fizzy or not doesn't really matter anymore😂. Digital pedal issue and i probably have to live with it.

Thanks man!

I usually get the clipping when I'm using my Samson SR850 headphones, none of which happens when I'm using the Spark Cab FRFR. I'm gonna try this later 🤙

I needed this! I keep forgetting to treat my HX stomp like a modeler and not a amp, I never wanna cut too much and I feel like it’s not the “right” thing to do. But again it’s not a amp! Awesome video!

As far as high cut/low cut is concerned, I think most people should immediately cut 80hz and lower, as well as cutting 8khz and higher. Those low and high frequencies are unusable and only hurt your tone. But people get used to playing that way, specifically the 8k, which they perceive as nice and bright, but as soon as they turn it up to gig volume, it’s ear piercing and horrible. This guys right, we get used to hearing frequencies a certain way, so as soon as you can cut these frequencies, the better. Great video!

I experienced this using the fx loop on the HX stomp. Super annoying and frustrating! Great vid

Hi, I'm writing to you from Italy, I wanted to thank you because in the digital sounds of my pod go I was always looking for something that I couldn't find and seeing this video on igli hicut was enlightening, it was exactly what I was looking for to make the sound more real. Without this video I wouldn't have gone this far into the hicuts. Now the guitar in the mixes is where it belongs

just to give some context on "digital harshness" - the reason why some amp models have an issue with this and some don't is very simple: it's not about the digital part. we're simply never putting our ear right up to the speaker cone and blasting those nasty frequencies straight into our brains. once you start recording anything with a mic, or use IRs and stuff, you're gonna have to deal with these nasty frequencies. a very VERY common mixing thing is giving guitars a high cut, anywhere from 15khz to even 9khz.

I always wondered why IRs seemed more usable and less harsh, but was still trying to get my own dual cab setup to be more usable. I just like the idea of being able recreate and modify my patches without having to buy IRs. After watching the discussion on digital harshness, it all clicked. I played around with both cab and block high cuts and found the same behavior (both my own hearing and the way they roll off). In a matter of a few minutes, I was in love with my tone again and it translated directly to a better tone through powercabs too. Thanks!

Great vid. Unity gain is something that makes a huge difference in sound. I thought I knew how to do it proper but not to long ago, I did more research and did this to our PA . The sound quality was like day and night afterwards. For anyone who doesn't know about Unity gain, I highly suggest taking the time to research it. It definitely opened my eyes or should I say ears lol

good stuff, here...

When applying high cuts to speakers in Helix, I typically look up the specs on the real-world counterpart - typically it is in the 5 to 6K range. So basically if you are running anything above that you are getting something that does not represent the real world.

Great video! For me I find myself always trying to get more overall level from my signal chain. Some HX amp models seem to naturally have less output even when raising the master and channel volume. By trying to compensate for that, This can have a tendency to drive things into that digital clipping territory.

Thanks man, I'm Not a big friend of Just cutting the harshness Off with a hi Cut, but still very, very good Points in the vid. I am so Happy you stated that there are more digital Models than Others, because that's what I've been thinking all the time, being pretty frustrated mostly with Amps at the edge of breakup. Hast anyone ever tried to use a small Tweed, or even worse the colordrive Pedal at the edge of breakup? For a Long Time, i was convinced there was something wrong with my device. In that Case, Not even the lowest HiCut will Work 😉

Love this video especially the part about harshness. Question: do you balance the high cuts with the low cuts?

Just watched this and will be checking it out later. Will let you know how it goes.

great video, digital clipping and harshness well explained! I would add another video for live musicians (and maybe you've already done so) that there's always a difference between building your presets at home, listening to headphones, FRFR boxes or even professional studio monitors, and then going on stage to a big PA. Then also there's room acoustics, empty room during soundcheck vs full room during show, etc. Just a bit of expectation management and understanding the process and compromises to be done. Anyway, as said, great video, thanks for your work!

This is the video I needed. First time using both single pick up and modeler, I was blaming the guitar.

Modelers allow you to do things you wouldn't do with analog pedals, such as placing pedals after the amp. I have some mixed results with this. Also, There are controls on the input and output that can impact fuzziness / grittiness. I used the noise gate on the input all the time. I also try to limit output gain between pedals and use the level setting on the output controls to determine final output level.

To set the overall level of my presets, I like to dial in the sound I like, then pull up my DAW and check the level. I shoot for between -5 and -10db on my clean to lead sounds.

Modellers need a new feature. A high cut that can create a very long slope between two frequencies with two variable amplitudes/levels. One fixed all the way up at 20k and one variable frequency. The sharp roll off of a regular high cut kills all the air/high harmonics of a sound. Maybe even give the option of a logarithmic curve rather than a straight slope, closer to how a real speaker works.

Thanks. I thought my pod go was broken!

Idk if i’d consider it digital harshness, if i have my amp pointed at my head, it’s also harsh.

Just to add, this same problem can happen in the FX loop block. I run out to the Revelation Reverb and I had to back off a lot of volume to clean it up.

Thanks. great info. When you are going into FOH via XLR or 1/4 , do you keep the Volume at 100?

In the start of the video I was like: FUCK YES IT ALWAYS SOUNDS LIKE THAT

Hey there- good stuff. Did I miss what you mentioned you were laying through? Floor vs stomp? What was your output volume knob at? I can clip things if my big knob is wide open on floor. Also, depending on your output at xlr vs 1/4, line level etc.... Good channel- glad to see your sub count climbing. Cheers.

I was about to start blaming my old Charvel guitar's active pickups, and I already knew about digital clipping concepts and overdriving outputs, but this video really cemented it in for me that I shouldn't be afraid to cut some highs in the right spots to tame the clipping AND the fizz. A lot of times I find I already know the solution but something is holding me up from committing to addressing it forthrightly. I know it sounds a bit odd, but your video was more like...permission...of sorts...to really address this. I'm an old-school 80's guy that swore by Marshall tube amplifiers and Boss Tubescreamers for years up until the last couple years when I finally relented to how remarkably no-brainer it is to go digital at this point, now that amp modelling has matured. Most of my musician buddies have come to the same conclusions and decided to save their failing backs by keeping the expensive tube gear at home.

You probably shouldn't think of a High Cut as a tool to reduce "digital fizz": - "Digital fizz" in modelers is the way they simulate crossover distortion of a real amp. Crossover distortion is the "fizzy"/"squirrel" distortion you can hear in the tail of the notes if the power amp is turned high up and you turn down the pre-amp drive, either with amp's drive or guitar's volume knob. You can hear this "fizz" in the intro of Van Halen's "Drop Dead Legs", in which he has guitar's volume knob turned down. - Normally crossover is more drowned in the saturated distortion tone. Also if you play a real amp, it's present there too, but you don't put your ear next to the speaker's cone and some of the harsh frequencies drown in the room you play in. Nobody stands in front of a dimed 100W Marshall's 4x12 to hear this and live through it... :D On a modeler, you get to crank the 100W power amp up and you get everything beautiful and ugly coming out of a FRFR monitors/headphones to dissect with your ears at digestible volume that won't kill you. - Fractal's crossover distortion simulation is a bit more "rounded", natural sounding and less sharp than the one of Line 6. Difference is small though. - Crossover distortion "fizz" lives in the guitar's... fizz frequency range. Which is around 2,5-3,5k. Even if Helix cab's High Cut is a mild slope, you probably shouldn't go as low as 3k with it, because in some cases you might get a tone that loses too much highs. - Better tool to "cut" the piercing crossover fizz is to use a narrow Parametric EQ to "scalpel" out the harshness at around 3k if it's that irritating you in a given amp model. At the same time, "fizz" frequency range is very important for guitar, so overdoing it will also ruin the tone. - Another good method of reducing the crossover distortion for edge of breakup tones might be turning down the power amp, depends how it works on a given amp sim/modeler. - Another good method is changing mic position, changing cab/mic combo, cor using different IR. - Accepting crossover distortion as a natural part of guitar tone can help too ;) - High Cut is a tool that's better for taming the highs above the fizz range. For example if the Treble/Presence knobs of the amp sim affect the gain amount/character like in Marshalls, so you want to keep them high to get that tone, but then you can tame highs a bit with a High Cut.

Luckily, I don’t play loud and I don’t use modulations. Good video.

Very helpful, thank you. Any idea why the mic position option doesnt work on my hx stomp(version 3.5)

So I don't own an HX Anything, but it seems pretty clear to me that that "digital harshness" is the result of running those headroom parameter enabled effects after the Cab IR. If that same delay was placed before the cab and the Headroom was at 0, the effect would work as intended, thus creating a slightly distorted/saturated/overdriven delay, which is the intention of bringing down headroom in the first place. From what I see in the chain of effects, you're running them in a "studio" order, where time based effects are applied after all "dry" effects and gain-staging have been taken care of, like a producer applying plugins to an isolated recording. This works well, provided no "dry" effects-distortion, fuzz, etc- are applied in any way to the time based effects in the form of lower headroom. Which comes to this: That "digital" distortion that you're hearing is not the sound of your system clipping- though that is what digital clipping would sound like if gain-staging was improperly set- rather what you are hearing is what happens when you use any distortion/overdrive phenomenon without a speaker/cab IR. Thats just the way distortion sounds without an amp to tame it.

i gwt this when using the drives mainly

very helpfull, thanks. Btw, i'm far from religious, but tell me, do you play these sounds in your church?

Me: "how do I get a less tinny sounding distortion?" Also me: "someday I'll learn how to use cuts properly" 😂 Solved! You earned a SUB. Thank you so much

thank you for a wonderful video here. i do have 1 question concerning the digital harshness in a live situation. as far as the high cut options, obviously theres one on the cab/ir block, and many eq block options. is it common to use multiple cut options? I have been cutting the cab/ir block around 5-6.5k and then using a parametric eq block at 10-13k. Is utilizing 1 really all thats needed? thanks

Good video. The "digital" fizziness thing seems to be very subjective, and to me is a bit of a misnomer. It's not a digital thing. The real versions of the modeled amps do the same thing, but you don't notice in the real world due to the natural roll off of a typical guitar speaker cone, which usually is pretty steep between 6 and 8K. Send a tube amp output signal to a console without a speaker load for dampening and it will sound like absolute garbage.

Thank you

I wish there were meters for your headroom on the hx. It's not always apparent.

Anyone have suggested global low/high cut settings?

I avoid digital clipping by playing through my 60W SuperSonic and awesome pedalboard.😜

I have same problem bro it’s sounding very bad from last month …I cant found the problem bro

I noticed this once playing live where the audio engineer told me he had to mute my sound due to a kind of over drive he listened to. After re-moduling my amps my sound went much better live but I noticed the sound was still there, I did what you did in this video but without the knowledge of what I was doing, now with the knowledge the sound dissappeared almost 100% (thanks mate); the bass cut also affected it a but, now I have a doubt. When I plugged in my guitar to the headphones output of my HX stomp the sound was full clean but when I went thru the output I noticed this kind of clipping at the end, my output is set to instrument due to the fact that it is less compressed and volume than the line output, what could you reccomend me or why does this happens?

never sounded like this

It would have been enough to lower the master volume