amsdenj

This is exactly what I do. I tend to play most of the night on one patch that's configured to do what I need. I use amp drive, and two distortion blocks to setup clean, drive, overdrive and distortion tones, just like you would with a pedalboard got gain stage into a clean amp. I use four snapshots in the patch, one for standard guitar, another for Open-G tuning (slide), another for acoustic guitar, and the last for a Leslie in a parallel path. The acoustic snapshot turns off the amp and IR blocks, and changes the EQ setting in the block at the end of my signal chain. Works great with a Variax JTV-69S. I have another built for purpose acoustic patch, and use this for songs that focus on acoustic or use a different open tuning. However, my normal guitar patch works great with my Variax for switching between acoustic and electric within a song.

My gigging setup is pretty simple - don't have a photo. I use two JBL EON610's placed behind me where a traditional backline would be. I run the Helix 1/4" outputs into the 610's and run full stereo. I use a Variax JTV-69S most of the time and a Strat Deluxe and my Les Paul as backup (never thought it would come to that, but I like that Variax in a lot of ways - go figure). For FOH, I take the Helix XLR outputs directly into two channels of an SD16 digital snake head into an X32-Core. The X32-Core is in a four-rack space that sits on top of my two 610s, with the computer on top of that. So my guitar and the whole PA takes up the same space as a relatively small traditional guitar amp. I have nothing going into Helix except an A/B switch to switch between the Strat and Les Paul, the Variax goes in through VDI. My backup rig is MainStage with S-Gear and a bunch of plugins from various sources for front of the amp effects. I drive this with an Apogee GiO and use pretty much the same effects and amp setup as with Helix. Frankly S-Gear is the real deal. I'd be tempted to gig with this all the time, but Helix has a lot more options, especially with a Variax. I didn't want to use a computer based solution because of complexity and reliability. But since we've been using an X32-Core and an old 2011 MacBook Pro 13" (my son's old college computer) to run the PA, I've become less concerned about computer reliability. A good MacBook Pro with X32Edit wirelessly into X32-Core is a very nice PA option. I use IEMs (GorillaEars) out of two SD16 outputs into a headphone amp. My mix is pretty specific because I have problems with my ears and need to keep levels very low. I mostly rely on bleed for drums and bass, and feed just a bit of keys, vocals and my guitar into the IEMs. Takes some getting use to, but my ears won't tolerate anything else. All that great tone potential and I don't get to hear it! Take care of your ears, you'll really regret it if you don't. Don't be in denial. That never works.

Interesting article, but I think it misses a lot of key points. A great example of missing the point is Gibson's attempt at automated tuners. Making the easy problem easier with a complex, expensive, battery powered and difficult to maintain solution isn't going to result in improved revenues. Not sure how the executives missed that. But I think there's much more to this than guitar heros, better products and more marketing. I think the root is based in culture. When I was in college and BB King, Mike Bloomfield, Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix were just starting (late 60's), there was also a lot going on culturally - sexual revolution, Viet Nam, women's rights/liberation, civil rights, the draft lottery, computers, etc. There was a lot happening to write music about, and music brought people together to promote and adapt to some much needed social change. I'm not putting a value judgment on this, but the Trump era is certainly different. A lot happened to get us where we are. Today's generation has to be a lot more focused on how to make a living and start a family - because its getting harder than it was. It now takes two incomes to achieve a standard of living that use to be possible with one. And we have the perfect storm of globalization (i.e., cheap labor), women in the workforce (i.e., doubling the workforce) and increased productivity through automation that has eliminated many good job opportunities. The middle class is diminishing as the class structure bifricates into a relatively small number of rich people and everyone else. Again, I'm not putting a value judgment on that - it just is what it is. Also there's the Internet, with an overwhelming amount of content. Is there that much room for more? Watching YouTube videos of 7 year olds playing Pink Floyd can be a bit intimidating. The guitar is physically a difficult instrument to play well, especially cheap guitars setup poorly, something many beginners experience. Watching a few YouTube videos of BandGeek can easily convenience a beginner that this is unattainable and something only for the experts. Then there's the evolution of Rock - it use to be simple, but it isn't anymore. Even home recordings are pretty complex mixes of content played by a very large number of talented people. The level of effort required to rise up above the noise floor is overwhelming. In order to be noticed, young people have to find something else, there's just no room for them in the guitar world anymore. And finally, its nearly impossible to make enough money as a guitarist to sustain yourself, let alone a family. I use to gig a lot during and right after college. Then I took many years off to raise a family and peruse a career in software development. I'm now nearing retirement age and have enough free time and money that I'm not back to gigging regularly again. The odd thing is, I don't make that much more per gig today than I did 40 years ago. While everything else when up, gigging income struggled to stay aligned. Clubs don't want to pay for bands. Private parties don't want to pay any attention to in-house musicians. This is a reflection of what society values, and is perhaps the result of an oversupply of increasingly complex content that is harder to connect with than the music of the past. Anyway, some stuff to think about.

Wonderful response, thanks. For a good explanation of Clang Tone, see: https://l6test.wordpress.com/tag/clang-tone/.

I'd certainly expect the piezo pickups to pickup lots of things with really high gain settings. But I haven't noticed anything unusual with clean or mid-gain settings. I'd suggest making sure there's no rocking in the tremolo arm by tightening the set screw. This should limit the noise introduced by the bar. Then use a noise gate to take care of the rest.

The more I use this instrument, them more I like it. I did a good setup and got the action just where I like it. James Tyler has designed a nice playable and reasonable looking instrument. The bridge is well designed and functions very well. The nut on mine is cut too wide on the high E and its causing some problems. I'll probably have to replace that nut eventually. But that's not unusual on any production guitar. The models are kind of growing on me. At first I thought they lacked the richness of the real instruments. But now I'm thinking they're just different, like any instrument would be different. And differences are great. Who want's everything to sound the same?! Anyway, my JVT-69S has become my main gigging instrument, my very nice Strat Deluxe sits on the stand unused, and I don't take my 50 year old Les Paul to gigs anymore.

I've used the same Line6 VDI cable for many years. I do have a spare, but don't carry it with me. If it failed, I'd just use a regular 1/4" cable.

One more option, take the stage monitor offered by the sound provider and turn it around and place it behind you to act as a stage amp. This will blend better with the other stage amps at the front of the stage, and will have no effect on FOH sound. To compensate for lack of IEM,s I'd use professional ear plugs to protect your ears and keep the stage volume at a level you are use to and won't be overly loud and confusing. My band has a mix of IEM for me (guitar), keys and bass. But we also have acoustic drums (loud!) and the other guitar player uses a traditional stage amp and vocal monitor. So its a hybrid presentation. What we did to work around this is take the add a bass amp for stage fill, and I turn my monitor cabinet around and put it behind me as a stage fill/backing amp. I would prefer to eliminate the stage amps altogether, but everyone has to agree with that and be willing to use the IEMs. That can be a lot to ask, especially of front men in close club situations where they need to interact with the audience. But even if we could eliminate all the stage amps, we'd still have the drums to deal with. Then you end up having to use floor monitors pointing out to provide a stage presence for people close to the band - the dancers. Life is full of compromises.

Keep in mind that our perception is that louder is better even when it isn't - its an evolution thing. That's why you don't mix at loud levels (as well as to protect your ears). Something that sounds good at low levels will almost always sound better at higher levels. But the reverse is not true: something that sounds good loud won't necessarily sound good at low levels. Something similar happens with headphones. Something that sounds good on speakers will likely sound good in headphones. But something that sounds good in headphones won't necessarily sound good on speakers. This is why its risky to mix with headphones without a lot of good references and post-mix verification on other systems.

Agreed. But just because something is common doesn't make it right (Argumentum ad Populum I think). Protect your ears, and do what you can to avoid contributing to negative outcomes for those around you. That doesn't mean you have to solve it, just try to do your part. Helix helps here because we can get the tones we need without being quite so loud. Yes we need to be loud, that's part of the power of music and is built into our evolution. But we can be smart too and exercise reasonable limits when we can.

Perception isn't the only thing that matters. So does the health of your ears. Sustained exposure to loud sounds definitely permanently damages your ears and those of your audience. A dB meter is useful for understanding the sound pressure levels you and your audience are being exposed to. That's useful and valuable information, and isn't subjective.

Also consider gain staging your blocks. Generally each block should be more or less unity gain. Test it by bypassing the block on/off and make sure the level doesn't change too much. This will ensure the levels from input to output are in their preferred operating range (or sweet spot) and there won't be any possibility of a block clipping in unintended ways. If you need boost blocks, start by cutting the level in the normal mode, and then remove the cut to create the boost. Same with EQ: generally prefer cutting what you don't want over boosting what you do want. The EQ will sound more natural and there's less chance of clipping. Finally, a lot of Helix blocks are intended to see a guitar level input, they're designed to be in front of the amp. You can put them after the amp, but you'll need extra care to make sure the amp isn't overloading a device that was intended for much lower level inputs.

I've had similar problems with other speakers. You might want to crimp the connectors a bit so they are tighter.

You have to assign each string you want to retune to the snapshot controller. And you have to make sure the alt tuning is set to custom not don't force. The Variax model is an independent parameter and can be set with or without changing the tuning. Of course the Variax switch has to be engaged on the guitar for this to work.

I don't know if its the case with these particular amps, but some high gain amps choose to limit the range of the amp's tone controls. This is because having a lot of bass and treble along with a lot of distortion can lead to mud and fizz. Limiting the range of the tone controls can help avoid this issue while also getting more gain out of a limited number of gain stages. Tone controls have to cut in order to provide boost.

Sounds like they're not being saved. Check the manual for how to save the tunings. I do it with Helix so don't remember on the guitar.

Yes, I have similar problems with Helix and various Variax guitars. I believe the issue is with the seating of the VDI cable. I suspect if its not solid, there are Ethernet errors that seem to impact the tunings more than the models. That seems strange, but if I make sure the VDI cable is well seated, it seems to clear up the problems.

This continues to imply to me its a physical problem with how the piezo is seated in the bridge piece. It is possible that the shipping to/from Line6 resulted in environmental shifts that allowed the pickup to seat a bit better or different. That might account for the missing plink. I have a Variax Standard that had plink, but it worked itself out and doesn't anymore. Seemed to happen after a number of ver hot and humid outside gigs last summer and a lot of hours on the guitar. I have a new JTV-69S that never had any problems. That has become my may gigging guitar. I love how it plays and sounds.

I would have agreed a year two ago that Laptops and live gigs have risks. But our band is using an X32-Core with an old MacBook Pro to run our PA. Not one problem in a year. That's my backup for Helix - I can plug directly into a High-Z input of an SD16 and immediately use a channel in the X32-Core that is patched into Logic Pro X running in the Laptop with S-Gear. It sounds so good I'm tempted to use it all the time. S-Gear is magic. But it took some time, study and skills to set all that up to make it reliable. Its a lot easier with Helix to pretty much plug and play. The biggest improvement over past setups is the X32-Core and the SD16's. These are gig hardened devices. The computer just connects to the X32-Core with USB, That's reliable enough. There's no USB cables on the floor to trip on. That's the biggest issue with laptop setups - lack of gig hardened devices, connectors and cables.

I'm not sure the hybrid approach of audio interface with DSP and mobile device is the way to go. That would essentially repeat the history of computer audio interfaces in the past. The Yamaha DS2416 was an audio interface with DSP for effects. In its day it was useful because it offloaded expensive effects processing from slow computers so that DAWs could handle more tracks. But that's the past. A multi-core laptop today has more than enough power to process all these tracks and plugins. There's no need to offload the processing into hardware anymore. For example, my band rehearses using a Focuswrite 8 channel interface into a MacBook Pro running Logic Pro X - the whole band. Two electric guitars, both using a combination of Logic's pedalboard and S-Gear, bass using Kassa bass amp, three MIDI keyboards (Hammond organ/Leslie, Piano, Sampler, etc.) and Logic's Drummer driven by Roland MIDI drums (not using audio from the Roland drum controller, just MIDI), and 5 vocals. All the tracks have compression, EQ and other plugins as needed. There's no latency and we can record at the press of a button. Now an iPad isn't a MacBook Pro, but that's a pretty capable processor too, and only getting faster. The flexibility of software choice, price and update capability is compelling over the rigidity of a hardware or hybrid based solution. If you aren't that excited about Bias-FX, give Yonac TonePort a try. I'm finding I like it a bit better than Bias-FX in some ways. For example, the Bias-FX UniVibe is unusable. But the one in TonePort rivals Helix in its quality. As we know, this is a hard effect to get right, and indicates an underlying development capability of those who do get it right. TonePort also has multi-channel amps which provide a lot of flexibility for building patches.

Operational stability and more streamlined update would be top on my list of improvements. With more streamlined update, we could perhaps have more frequent and smaller release updates. This would include better (name-based, not indexed based) IR management. I've had Helix hang on me twice during a live performance over the last year. That's not too bad, and likely similar to issues with other gigging options. But better stability would be welcome.

Very nice thread, thanks for starting this @DunedinDragon. Just a few quick points to add. A small FRFR, say one or two 10's with horns like many of us use will never sound or feel like a 4x12 cabinet. Its just physics. But that said, most of us can't use that 4x12 anyway because we're playing small clubs or churches were we're often space and stage volume limited. We can however use Helix to make the best of that situation and deliver quality to our listeners, not focus on ourselves. Another issue is that if you're protecting your ears, and you should be, you're using ear plugs or IEMs so you're not going to hear that amp in the room anyway. Neither is your audience except for a few well placed audience members who are also risking damage to their ears. We should be kind to our audience! So too much focus on amp in the room isn't really going to help you that much in the gig or recording session. But perhaps the most important thing is that "amp in the room" is often too focused on the tone of the specific instrument, sometimes at the expense of the band as a whole. When doing mixing, we're trying to carve out space for all the different tracks in a way that contributes to the overall song. We rarely solo a specific instrument to do compression, EQ, reverb, delay, etc. because its how the track fits into the context of the song and everything else that's going on that's important. For example, we often use high and low pass filters on guitars that make them sound thin and dark when soloed. But they sound great in the mix because they are no longer competing with other instruments that fill in those frequencies in a manner that better suites the song. This is one of the reasons that patches made at home by yourself don't translate well to a live band situation. Now if you're Matt Schofield, Robben Ford, Waren Haynes, Oz Noy, Eric Clapton, etc. and you're the focus of the band, then by all means focus on your tone and don't use a Helix. For most of us, this is just not what we should be optimizing.

Its the cables that don't work, swap for either of two Line6 VDI cables (25') and it works fine. Again, I never got an explaination of why those cables worked for Variax 300 and PODXT/Live, but not other Variax guitars and Line6 processors.

There are often recommended starting points for most guitars that will make them pretty playable for a broad range of styles and personal techniques. These aren't all that different from guitar to guitar if the tuning is standard and the scale and fretboard radius are similar. So for a JVT-69(S) for example, you could start with Fender's recommended factory settings for a Strat. What to do next is the hard part. It starts with the player and the songs (as does a lot of thing having to do with music). Players can be categorized into different dimensions on a scale. Some of the dimensions might be hard/soft picking style, pick used (hard/round vs soft/sharp), pick hand position neck/bridge, pick angle (forward/neutral/back/varying), rake vs. alternate picking style, etc. All these effect how the action should be setup. Generally heavier, rounder picks, with heavier pick attack will require higher action because there's more string vibration and therefore more potential for fret buzz. Next is the songs. If you're playing blues with a lot of bends, jazz with a lot of complex chords, fast scales and arpeggios, or high speed/precise metal, you might prefer different action. Generally faster, more complex chords and scales benefit from lower action while lots of expressive bending and hand vibrato for blues might need higher action and more string bite into your finger. So the questions might be 1) how to make adjustments to get neck relief and string height to a particular point and 2) how to adjust from there to fit the range of playing styles and preferences. If you have pretty large frets, then bending might not depend that much on string height. So maybe this approach will work. Setup the guitar to typical factory specs and make sure there are no issues with the truss rod not being able to control neck relief, and the neck angle is sufficiently correct that the bridge saddles and bridge height are within a reasonable range. This is especially important for the JVT-69 bridge which should be set flat, and the bridge height determines how much you can raise the strings with the tremolo bar. Then lower the strings until the fret buzz becomes pretty noticeable and unacceptable - you've got the strings a low as you can go. Now raise the strings up a little at a time, checking by playing, until the fret buzz becomes acceptable. Be sure to check string bends because fret buzz will get worse when you bend a string, especially on a neck with a low fretboard radius. This will give you the lowest action with acceptable fret buzz for you with your pick and playing style. Then play a while and adjust from there. If the guitar plays too hard, lower the action and try to lighten your picking style to control fret buzz. If the guitar feels too soft and you don't feel like you can really dig in without the strings fretting out, raise the action a little. There's also the play between neck relief vs string height. Neck relief provides a pocket in which the strings can vibrate without hitting the frets. The higher the string guage and the harder it is plucked, the greater that pocket needs to be. You can use a flat neck with higher string height, or more relief possibly with lower string height. These will feel different and the fret buzz might be different. It might take some experimentation to see what works best for you.

My short ones have Neutrick shell on both ends, and work fine for Variax 300. But they've never worked with Variax 700 Acoustic, Variax Standard or JVT-69S. And yes, I do still have four Variax instruments. My Variax 700 Acoustic wouldn't work with these cables on anything. As I recall, the Variax 300 would work using these cables with a PODXT/Live, but not an HD500X. So it seems something changed in the processors. I don't have the PODXT/Live or HD500X any more, but the cables don't work with Helix either. I've never gotten an adequate answer as to why.