Line 6 Helix Emulating the Boss OC-5 (lowest note of the chord shifts down an octave)

[McJazzer]

Might be a bit of a long shot but is anyone else using the Helix on here? I've been a big user of the Boss OC-3's polyphonic mode since I was Gilad Hekselman using it a few years back at Chris' Jazz Cafe in Philadelphia. It's good fun for writing solo arrangements or when you need to back up a horn player by yourself. You can set a cutoff range so that anything below a certain note on your guitar will automatically shift down and octave but the rest of the chord remains at pitch - kind of like a LoFi Charlie Hunter thing. Last year the OC-5 was released (which has true lowest note recognition) and I bought one of those too.

Anyway, I got to thinking that it'd be nice to have to carry one less thing to the gig and so I spent some time figuring out how to recreate this effect in the Line 6 Helix. It came out really well and honestly the pitch shifted tone sounds more realistic and tracks more reliably than the Boss effects.

Timsetamps:
0:41 - Overview
1:41 - How to set up the split crossover
2:16 - Settings for the Pitch block
3:00 - Amp block and other guitar effects
4:04 - Playing technique & how to get the best results with this preset
7:26 - Ambient/Cinematic music with this preset


Check out

if you haven't yet and want to really hear how someone can use this effect.

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

How does the OC-5 handle these?

1. You are simply playing chords -- it drops the bass note an octave, right?
3. You sprinkle in a run on the treble strings -- does it leave that alone? Or do you have to tap dance on the pedal?
3. Bossa style you are doing bass-then-chord:
5xxxxx
xx555x
5xxxxx
xx555x
What happens? Does it drop the A but not the G?

Thanks!

[McJazzer]

So the OC-5 has two modes you can use it in:
1 - true lowest note recognition. No matter what you're playing, it'll shift your lowest note down the octave. It tracks great but you can see the issue for when you go up high or to play lead fills. To answer your question - yes, the OC-5 will track single note lines even high up on the guitar. You'd need to turn it off briefly. I wish there were a way to use lowest note recognition but still set a cutoff frequency - kind of like a hybrid between the two modes.
2 - crossover (this is how the OC-3 works). You set the crossover point and everything up to that point will be shifted down the octave. In this mode you have to be careful with the chord voicings you choose to use so that you never have two notes playing in that range.

And to answer your final question. In lowest note recognition mode it'll shift the bass note, and then the lowest note of the upper part of the chord you're playing. For this situation you'll want to use the crossover mode instead. Lowest note recognition works great for swing styles where you're playing every quarter note and comping at the same time, not alternating.

I did a video comparing the OC-3 and OC-5 modes that I posted here a few months ago. Maybe it'll help if my writing above wasn't clear.

[JaxJaxon]

How you doing Alex. I have a thought about useing the pedal what if you run it in stereo and have a Parametric EQ on each side to help with the cross over so that you wont need to worry about the way you play a chord each side would only push the frequencies you have the Parametric EQ set for, do you think that would work.

[McJazzer]

Hi Jax - things have been great on my end. Hope all has been well with you.
From what you're describing, it sounds like you'd still have the issue of the pedal being confused since you're pumping it with confusing information. The pedal would have a hard time tracking. I think the way to do what you're describing would be to split your signal into two paths and with a parametric EQ, do the split yourself so that the pedal is being fed a less complex signal. That's essentially what's already happening inside the pedal though so I can't say that you'd notice much of an improvement.
Something interesting to try would be taking one of those submarine-looking pickups and placing it only under your bottom two strings and sending that output through the OC-3.