Helix users - Multiband compressor?

Rex_Rocker

Rex_Rocker

Well-known member
Wondering if anyone is using the MBC to tame some boomy palm-mutes or something.

I kinda want to have a mix-ready tone in the box. I find it very inspiring when I start jamming along to mixed tracks through headphones.

Normally, I add a hint of MBC to my guitar tracks while mixing to tame some boom from the palm-mutes without neutering the fullness of the single note stuff. But the MBC in the Helix seems to act weird. If I set the threshold to 0dB, I should be getting no compression, right? Yet, when I do so, I at least get gain reduction. Everything is quieter as soon as I engage the MBC even with the threshold set to 0 on all bands. So... how does it work, then?

Halp! Thank you

:)
 
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Threshold at 0db in any compressor does not mean no compression. Any peak above 0db will trigger the compression, and with digital bar meters you might never see it on the meter. If the compression is set to a soft-knee type or has any latency or trigger mask or sustain or delay to it, the effect will outlast the peak that triggered it. It becomes more obvious with a high ratio of compression..
 
Yeah, the thing is the compressor on the helix has no meters, so it's up to my ears. So even with the treshold set to 0 on all bands, it's doing something. Even if it's just making things quieter. I just wanted to know if there was maybe something I'm missing that I need to do for the bands other than low-end not to kick in. I don't think there is a way of just turning them off, so my initial approach was just to set them to 0, but they're still doing something. So not sure. Maybe my sound is going over 0 before it hits the compressor, though. But I would hear clipping in that case, then, wouldn't i?
 
Can you set the thresholds to an unusually high level, like +18db? Usually with band compression, you set which bands are active. There's no individual control like that? You don't always hear clipping, particularly if it's a transient peak. In digital conversion there can be peaks as high as +12-18db that only last less than a millisecond. You won't hear it, but the equipment can respond to it.
 
beaubrummels said:
Can you set the thresholds to an unusually high level, like +18db? Usually with band compression, you set which bands are active. There's no individual control like that? You don't always hear clipping, particularly if it's a transient peak. In digital conversion there can be peaks as high as +12-18db that only last less than a millisecond. You won't hear it, but the equipment can respond to it.
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No, the highest they go is 0dB. I'll post a clip of what it's doing tonight.

Yeah, no way of setting them to be inactive. The MBC in the Helix is very rudimentary, it seems.

I normally know how to use MBC in my DAW. I use Ozone for that. But I just kinda wanted to keep everything in-the-box. Not sure it's going to work out.
 
Figured it out. Apparently, the MBC in the Helix is just 3dB quieter even with the threshold set to 0. Just boosted the output 3dB, and we're in business.

Maybe it's in my head, but I still feel there's a little something going in even with the thresholds set to 0 on all bands. Maybe they modeled a hardware MBC, though, so that would make sense that there's a little color in there. It's subtle enough that I don't really care. I'll just work the low band.
 
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