DunedinDragon

As cruisinon2 states, you may need to reset your idea of what you're looking for. When people talk about trying to achieve the "amp in the room" sound, they're talking about a sound that's never in the history of mankind ever been heard on a record, on the radio, on YouTube or in a live concert setting. It's only been heard on stage, or at home, or in a music store standing next to an amp. But as soon as that sound gets recorded or mic'd up to be played to a live audience, it changes into what everyone else is familiar with, which is a recorded amp. If you can reset yourself to thinking about matching a normal recorded tone that you would hear on YouTube or any other medium, your more likely to begin to hear the potential. This is why the Helix and other modelers have been so broadly embraced. Not because I can emulate the sound I heard from Joe Walsh's amp, but I can emulate Joe Walsh's sound on the Eagle's recording of "One Of These Nights" or "Hotel California". That being the case you can begin to understand exactly how important it is to get not just the amp right, but also the cabinet, the type of mics, and combination of mics and mic placements. Those things play a MAJOR factor in achieving the sound you hear on recordings or in live concerts. I'd suggest as a starting point using a dual cab setup in your patch with one cabinet using an 421 dynamic mic and the other cab using a 121 ribbon mic and play around with different distance parameters on each of the mics to see how it affects the sound. The final stage after getting these things right is to adjust the high and low cuts, that's most easily accomplished with a parametric equalizer that applies to both cabinets and their mics.

Glad this all worked out for you. Just for reference, I've found you can clean up a lot of boominess on some patches depending on the amp and cab by using the PEQ and taking a smallish notch out of the 450 - 500Hz range maybe around -2db or -2.5db, width of the notch to taste. Takes out the muddiness and leaves a pretty crisp lower range. This is typically in conjunction with a low cut.

Actually it sounds like you fat footed the 2 preset buttons and hit them both at the same time. Pressing the Mode button would restore it.

It would probably help to know how he dialed them in, i.e. what amp/speakers, what mic's used and how they were placed. That would probably tell you everything you needed to know to get the sound.

Just be sure to check the EQ on the main outputs on the mixer. You may have removed all the EQ on your channel, but it's entirely possible to apply EQ to the entire output for the purposes of correcting for the sound of the room and such. That may be what's throwing you off.

Yeah, the only difference between the X32 and XAir 18 is just that the XAir has less channels and no direct interface other than tablets. Should all be the same EQ and effects. I use something similar which is a QSC Touchmix 30. On my channel I just gain stage it and leave it's EQ flat on the channel and no effects, compression, or gates as that's already taken care of in the Helix. The one thing I'm not sure of with the Behringers is if they, similar to the QSC, allow for EQ optimization presets for different types of speakers which basically allows you to select global presets for your brand of main speakers. As I said, we have that but I don't implement it because I haven't really seen any reasonable advantage to it other than to play havoc with the tones coming in from our instruments. Generally speaking everything we have is direct in to the mixing board, so I'd just rather pass that stuff straight through to the speakers so it matches the sound on the stage and concentrate on EQ'ing the things that really benefit from it like vocals, harmonicas, congas, acoustic guitars, etc. That kind of thing probably has more benefit for bands that use mic's to capture the sound of their amps to send it to the mixer. For me it's just a nuisance. Good luck with all of it..

Sounds like you guys will have a pretty nice setup and everything seems to be matched up pretty well settings-wise. The only thing that may be coming into the picture here as far as a mismatch between your ELX and the DSR mains could be some bass coupling effect you might be getting on your monitor if it's placed in the wedge position on the floor. That would cause your on stage sound to have more low end than what's being produced out of the DSR mains possibly resulting in the mains appearing to be brighter than your stage sound. This is especially true on hollow stages, but will be there to some degree or another if your wedge is on the floor. I don't have this problem since I mount my stage monitor on a half height pole behind me. But if you want to keep yours on the floor you might want to invest in an isolation pad to place your monitor on. These are pretty inexpensive. I used to use a Auralex Gramma pad for my monitor when placed it on the ground. Other than that you might do a A/B test between the ELX and the DSR115 (both on poles or ground isolated) coming direct out of the Helix and see if there are any differences, but I'd bet they're going to be very close. This would at least help to identify whether the difference is in the speaker or the mixer.

Honestly, I am SOOOOOOOOO proud of myself that I avoided even looking at this discussion for as long as I have. I mean, being the sarcastic demon I am I could have had an absolute BLAST with this thread, but I'm slowly learning to conserve my snide remarks so I have plenty of them for when I REALLY need them...although I have to admit the OP has made this is one quite tempting..... At any rate, I think you guys are doing a fine job on your own. Carry on........

Really??? You think there's any noticeable differences there? Pretty much all sound the same listening on my Yamaha HS7 studio speakers, but then I'm not really a much of a cork sniffer when it comes to speaker minutiae. I doubt you, a single audience member or any of your bandmates could pick out which setting you're using on a consistent basis in a double blind test...and that's the REAL test.

Ahhhhh...ELX 115P!! Much clearer now and definitely should be the standard by which you measure the tops. I'll be interested in hearing what fronts/tops you're using and if you're also using a sub out front. If you get a chance let me know what contour settings you're using on the ELX. I'm assuming as a wedge you have them set for flat and no sub. Also if you get the info from the other guitar player on the tops ask him what DSP contour settings you;re using on them if applicable. That might fill in all the blanks.

Interesting. It's been a while since I was on an analog board but I kind of remember they were sometimes more mid-heavy which I had attributed to the difference in the preamps which were older and not quite as good as newer digital ones. That could be what you're experiencing, but I'm still leaning toward a difference in the main speakers. If you get a chance let me know the make and model of your mains and maybe I can give you some insight on them.

Yeah..that really helps to fill in the picture. Generally speaking most powered speakers these days are pretty much equal in terms of frequency response profiles, but that really depends on which generation of speaker you have for your mains. Your EV (again assuming it's ZLX-P series) should be very close to any of the current generation of speakers, but that may not be the case if your 15" powered speakers are the older style with tone controls rather than DSP contouring such as is on the ZLX. If your mains are the older style I'd personally use the ZLX as my standard and try to tune the mains to have as close to the same response as is possible with the ZLX as that's more likely to have a genuinely flatter response. One time saver might be to plug your Helix directly into one of the one of the mains (without the mixer) and see what differences there might be. You need to bear in mind that if you're using the ZLX as a floor wedge you'll have more bass response due to bass coupling with the floor if you don't have the DSP setting on the ZLX set to the 'Monitor' DSP contouring configuration. If you normally run powered subs which are connected to your main speakers you should have a hi-pass setting on the sub so that it only passes through frequencies above a certain limit to your mains. Normally this will be 100 to maybe 125 HZ. This will isolate your guitar signal so it's only in the mains and not the sub. If you don't have such a thing, you can also set the hi-pass on your mixer channel to help isolate it from the bass frequencies and you should probably do that not only with the guitar but also with the vocal channels. It just helps with clarity in the mains. Those are just some tips of things to look for that occurred to me right off the bat. Generally speaking the mixer itself isn't likely to be coloring your signals unless you specifically take actions to do it in some way. But it may also be that your older analog board wasn't as efficient and precise in processing the incoming signals as is this new board, so you could see some differences there. Generally it will pass the channels signals through to the speakers in the same way it receives it, so I would look primarily at the main speakers to isolate how they differ from the response of your ZLX and make corrections either directly on the mains or on the mixing board so it matches up with the response of the ZLX since that's definitely more likely to be state of the art when it comes to flat response speakers.

First off, speaking as a soundman myself, there's literally no reason he should be doing any adjustments to your presets other than gain staging them, unless the main speaker setup is something really odd such as a set of passive speakers with a centralized amp that is just a plain jane amp with crossover and isn't really very sophisticated, or he somehow has his speakers tuned incorrectly. I'm not sure what you mean by your new PA being brighter/stiff? Did you get new speakers as part of the new system, and if so are they DSP contoured and possibly not contoured correctly based on their placement and usage? If in fact the whole system is brighter/stiffer he shouldn't be adjusting it channel by channel. That's a rookie mistake as that's a global function and should be applied across all channels equally as it would affect them all equally so it should be applied post channel fader and pre master fader. Assuming you're using a EV ZLX-P series speaker and have it's DSP contour settings correct for it's usage and placement, any decent system should sound pretty close to the same unless there's a problem at the board or front mains. Which is pretty likely if it's a new system and he's not familiar with how it should be configured. Especially likely if he's coming from an analog mixer to a digital mixer such as the Behringer X32. Two completely different worlds.

Have you opened a support ticket with Line 6? That's probably your best bet.

Absolutely. You should easily be able to deal with clubs with a seating capacity of 100 to 150 folks or even more depending on the venue. The reality is most of the time you only really need enough volume to fill the front anyway since people that sit in the rear tend to do so in order to be able to talk. That's especially true if you have subs since you'll be able to isolate all those very low frequencies from the kicks, tom toms, and bass from the vocals and rest of the instruments coming through the mains. I hear a lot of great things about the QSC KS112 subs. I'm very pleased with the KW181's that we use but they are a BEAST to move around. If you're in the market anyway I'd encourage you to look at the QSC Touchmix series of mixers also. Super nice digital mixer with all the bells and whistles, but a very manageable size with WiFi networking using tablets so you can manage the monitor mix from the stage.

In my opinion the QSC K series and the Yamaha DXR series are almost indistinguishable between themselves. The QSC has a bit of an advantage in flexibility due to it's expanded DSP contouring options which would probably make it my choice for a PA system. That's coming from someone that owns 6 DXR12's by the way. But I also own a PA system which consists of QSC main speakers (KLA12's) and subs (KW181) as well as a QSC mixing board (Touchmix 30 Pro), but I use DXR12s as my stage monitors, so there's no problem integrating them in that regard. Where I get confused in your description is how you intend to deploy your PA system. You mention buying another DXR12 and two QSC K12.2 speakers. Are you intending to deploy the K12.2's as mains and using your existing DXR12 plus the new one for the band's stage monitors? If so I can assure you that makes for an awesome setup, but I assume in that situation you would send your Helix signal to the mixing board and no longer have a dedicated stage monitor for the Helix? I'd just like a bit more info on how you might deploy two QSC K12.2's and two DXR12's. As far as using two different speakers for the Helix, I'm not sure I'd see any particular advantage to having two different speakers, but I could see some potential problems in getting them setup correctly to work smoothly together. To me you'll have much more success getting a smooth stereo field using two of the same speakers simply because they could be configured to work the same way. I'm not sure if you'd find any advantage to moving down to lower priced speakers, although there are some in the next lower tier that are very good. There's no doubt in my mind that you get what you pay for when it comes to these type of powered speakers. I commonly use EV ZLX-12P's as side fill stage monitors as well as a QSC CP8 as a dedicated speaker for my Helix when playing in more intimate setup such as jamming with other people or at smaller open mic nights and in some cases as a dedicated vocal monitor for our drummer in a regular band setup. They're both great speakers as I'm sure the Yamaha DBR series is, but they're not quite in the same class of performance as the QSC K.2 or Yamaha DXR series. Where they tend to differ the most is when you're forced to run them at higher volume level as their internal limiters kick in pretty quickly and they lose their clarity and articulation.

First, I want to emphasize something about the whole global EQ thing. If you read the manual you'll note that Line 6 warns about using global EQ only for making corrections in the acoustics of the room and there's a very important reason for that. But I want to put a couple of things in perspective for you first. A key value of the Helix or any modeler is its ability to completely transform your sound from song to song, different genres, or in the middle of a song. This is something new to people who have used traditional amps. Typically you have an amp and it stays within a certain range of tone all the time. Pedals can help transform the tone, but it will always have the base tone of the amp at it's core. That's not the case with the Helix. You can move from a heavy rock sound with a Marshall amp, to a very clean bluesy sound with a Roland JC120, to a more country or americana sound using a Fender twin, to a crunchy Pete Townshend sound with a Hi-Watt. However using high cuts will vary depending on the amp model used, the cabinet used, and the mic or microphone mix used. So using global EQ gets in the way of doing that correctly because it applies across whatever amp, cab, or mic is being used. That's why it's important to keep such things within the patch itself so it can change, if necessary, right along with your base tone. Another key difference in moving from a traditional amp to a modeler is that the paradigm being used on a modeler is one more closely associated with that of a recording studio than a live performance. You've probably read stories about how famous groups with famous records record one track with a certain setup of amps and cabinets and a completely different setup for the next song. That's more in line with how a Helix signal chain works than traditional live setups where you simply plug in and play the same rig all night. You don't change your amp or your cabinet or your mic'ing approach from one song to the next, but in the Helix you can which is extraordinarily powerful in achieving a wide range of tones even within a genre or style. That doesn't mean you HAVE to make those changes, but you can if you need to. However, just like in a studio the more you understand how all of these things affect your tone, the more control you have over your tone. Things like Fletcher Munson are always in play whether you play a traditional amp or a modeler. They're more prominent on a modeler because you're listening to your sound through a particular mic placed in a particular location on your cabinet. You'll hear the same things on a traditional amp and cabinet if you place your ear in the same place you would a mic on your speaker cabinet. And if you're playing live through a PA, THAT is what your audience is hearing, which is NOT what you hear standing next to your amp on stage. That's why the first step in getting your tone right is being sensitive to what cabinet or mix of cabinets you're using, what mic or mix of mics you're using, and the placement and mix of those mics. Using a Shure SM-57 with a distance of 1" is a much harsher sound than using a Royer R121 ribbon mic at a 6" distance. Combining those two mics can give you a middle ground between harsh and dark. That's where you start when getting your tone where you want it. Any additional corrections using EQ can be done after that using a parametric or graphic eq to fine tune the sound. With all of that in mind I'd refer you to Jason Sadites exceptional series of videos on YouTube to see how he applies all of these elements to dial in a variety of tones.

If they show in your IR list then you simply add an IR block of either 1024 or 2048 size. Then with that block selected you can use the left most dial under the display screen to select which IR you want applied from the list.

I personally place it behind me on a half height speaker stand like this one: Speaker Stand I suppose an amp stand might work as well as long as the speaker is mounted vertically. The reason this is important is because most powered speakers of this type have a very wide horizontal sound cone angle and a relatively tight vertical sound cone angle. This allows it to project further because it doesn't waste sound energy projecting into ceilings and floors. The wide horizontal sound cone allows it to fill the stage better.

Yep...sounds like a configuration issue in Protools. Somewhere you have to tell Protools which channel to record of the several channels being provided from the USB output. If you've read the manual you know there are several channels such as dry channels and wet channels. Tell Protools which one you want armed to the track you're recording.

I took it, but it was kind of pointless. I didn't really see any value for myself. But I took it anyway since they probably want to know the type of people that simply aren't going to be customers for it.

I can't say I use auto swell that often, but when I have it didn't seem that daunting at all. There's not much in what you said to diagnose why it might be different for you. I will say getting it to sound right requires the right playing technique in order to get the effect to respond appropriately, but it all seemed quite natural to me.

I understand the problem. My house was built in 1940. I ended up doing a massive renovation and had it re-wired. The problem is that any house that old wasn't run with grounded lines to the wall sockets. In most cases they replaced the wall sockets with 3 prong outlets, but the grounding prong isn't connected to anything. To make matters worse in many cases, such as my house, the electrical service itself had no grounding to the earth. You can easily check this with an outlet tester which is very cheap. The implications of this is that if you live in an area with lightning strikes or potential surges, it will totally fry any digital electronics because the surge has no place to go...which these days is pretty much all electronics in your house. It's certainly worth checking just to be safe.

Your description makes it sound like there's some form of grounding problem in the outlets. Alternatively there may be some form of interference on the circuit which may not even come from that room, but is just on the same circuit. You might want to try putting everything on a power conditioner just to be safe.

What does it matter? The only reason to introduce a new Helix platform would be if there were more extensive capabilities hardware wise than what's there is now. If that's the case you can expect it will have a much higher price as well. And would you honestly want to be one of the first to jump into a new,, untested platform, or would you wait and see how well it performs and is accepted? Given they're just now beginning to get the Helix core consistent between all the platforms it would seem to me to be counter-productive to introduce a whole new platform and sabotage the existing platform just as it's ready to really grow as a consistent and easily managed set of hardware and software offerings.