DunedinDragon

How much actual SPL volume do you need? We're talking modeling so aside from Fletcher Munson effect, your tone is based on what you dialed into the amp model, not the actual output volume on the Helix. It's the same at any volume.

Did you read the specs? There is no horn, it's a coax speaker. My guess is, that that price range you'd be asking a lot for loading speaker IRs, but who knows.

I can HIGHLY recommend a pair for that price because it's what I use, and that's the Yamaha HS7 speakers. A pair of them would be right at $600 and they are a real pair of workhorses and quite popular. Here's a link to them: Sweetwater HS7 speakers. Once again it comes down to consumer versus pro gear. There are a lot of high quality stereo components and some can be quite expensive, but they are in an entirely different category than pro gear used by musicians. They're made for consumers that listen to music rather than musicians that produce it, and they cater more to sweetening the sound rather than accuracy of production and durability of use. Consumer gear is used to play back fully mastered sounds, pro gear is used to create and master sounds. Needing different gear is certainly not amazing to any of us that have been in the music business for any length of time. I have one hi fi system that I rarely ever use, but an entire room full of pro music gear that's used every day.

Yeah...kinda like "if it weren't for that darn car I wouldn't have turned the wrong way down that one-way street and gotten in the wreck!!!!!

We could get into a rather long, technical discussion why this doesn't work, but the easiest and best understanding is...because they weren't designed to work together. They were designed for completely different purposes. You can rig them up to connect...but they won't ever work together correctly. You can get low volume quality at home, but you have to use equipment designed to work together. The Helix is pro equipment, so your output needs to be pro equipment...not consumer equipment such as your home stereo system. Go to the music store and get a couple of decent powered studio speakers and hook them up to your outputs on the Helix. You can have as little or as much volume as you want based on how high you turn up the volume knob on the Helix.

Well you may have established a new level of laziness not being able to just scroll through the effects, but oddly enough things like this are in the Pitch/Synth category of effects. You have the simple pitch, dual pitch, and in the pitch legacy effects the Bass Octaver. I find any of the pitch type effects work best for me after the amp and cab, but some put them between the amp and cab. The good news is the Helix is simple enough that you can experiment with the placement to your heart's desire...unless, of course, that's also too much work for you.... ;)

There is nothing you need to do with global settings. The DT-770 Pro 80 ohm does a very good job at representing what's coming out of the Helix. That's what I use when I'm recording.

I use the Twin Harmony quite often and get a very natural sounding dual and triple guitar harmony sound. But I have found it to be most effective for me when placed after the amp and cab section of my patch. I've heard some comments that some folks like it better between the amp and cab, but I've never tried that. You will need to be pretty clear on the music theory points of your song for creating the harmonies in terms of keys and modes.

The Rotary Drum and Rotary Horn in the Legacy section of the Modulation effects provide a very useable leslie effect. Open tunings and capo are more of a Variax solution than an effects solution. To my ear effects that do this never sound very natural.

Yeah, I'm with you on this one. I'm so rarely in a situation in which I'm running out of DSP or available blocks that I much prefer to do all my EQ at one place in my patches.

Mostly it's the path of least resistance. I didn't want to have to mess with the USB, plus I have the Evolution Expansion Pack loaded on the TD-15 which really gives me more than adequate kit options for getting realistic drum captures. I don't always use the TD-15. Sometimes it's just quicker and easier to put together a drum track using the tools included with my Addictive Drums plug-in, but when my drummer is available I'll go with the TD-15 setup. Also I'm not always trying to put together a finished master recording as much as I am more often building demos of original material for the live band to work from in learning them. When we record masters for the band I don't initially record through the Helix, but as a full band recording session at our practice space through a Zoom R16 multitrack recorder with the tracks later transferred into my DAW. Post capture sessions are done by individual band members later through the Helix direct to the DAW at my home studio.

Well that was only one piece of it. How about the cab and mic placements? What have you tried there?

Agreed. I'm getting more and more skeptical of this guy who's appears to be obsessed with this problem, but doesn't follow up on any advise given him. It's pretty clear he WANTS the Helix to fail in spite of the fact that THOUSANDS of us are getting exactly the results we hoped for. I will say there is a third option beyond something wrong with his setup or problems with the unit itself, which is that working with high end advanced modelers may well be beyond his abilities. After all, he started off by insinuating we must all be engineers in order to have gotten the results we're getting.....

THIS^^^^^ Is pretty much how I have my Helix setup for recording. I have my Electric guitar going into the guitar in, Voice microphone into Mic input, Bass and acoustic shared through Aux in, Casio Previa into return 1/2, roland TD-15k electronic drum kit in return 3/4. I have presets setup for each and simply change to the preset for the track I'm recording, arm the track, and hit record. Helix outputs go to my Yamaha HS7's and of course my headphone plugged into the headphone jack. I leave everything plugged in and the only thing I change is moving the 1/4" plug from my bass guitar input to my acoustic guitar input depending on what I'm recording. Far and away the simplest workflow I've ever had in my studio.

You haven't said much about the cab block other than it's the cab block. In my experience this sort of fizz is easily addressed most often with a change in mic and mic positions...or potentially mic mixes. You get the same type of fizz on actual amps if you mic too close over the cap of the speaker. Especially true with harsher sounding mic's like an SM57 or MD409. The 2204 is also a very noisy amp to begin with both in real life and modeled. You can hear the hum fairly clearly with no signal and just on it's default settings. It makes me wonder if what you're hearing is the residual hum that might be blocked out easily by turning on the noise gate.

Actually THIS is the first answer to EQ problems. Not just moving the mic further out, but using a mix of mics and selecting the right kind of cabinet/IR. Settle that problem and the EQ issue becomes MUCH more manageable.

The reason there's no definitive answer is because there's no definitive problem for all users. Some users want an "amp in the room" sound, some could care less about that and want an accurate reflection of what the audience will be hearing through the FOH. Size and weight requirements can be different as well as budgetary concerns. If you can define all of those problems that you're concerned about then you stand a MUCH better chance of getting something that works for you.

Gee...absolutely perfect for that Karaoke night at the local bowling alley bar!!!! But that is what the company is known for....

After 5 years of addressing harshness and boominess starting with my HD500X and continuing on the Helix using my Yamaha DXR12 I've come to some interesting discoveries and solutions that tend to work best for me. First it's important to state that I'm a bit OCD when it comes to my tone as I expect it to be every bit as clear, defined and articulated as a studio recording. Although high cuts can get rid of harshness, they can also reduce clarity and articulation if the cuts are too severe. So before I get started applying high and low cuts I've found I get better results by making sure the cabinet and mic situation gives me the best balance I can get in my tone. For my purposes this means using multiple mic mixes as that tends to give me the most realistic balance of tone and clarity. Often that eliminates the need for high and low cuts in many cases, but it ensures they won't need to be as dramatic and I can retain better harmonics and overtones in the outer reaches of the frequency range. I also never use global EQ for cuts or adjustments because all things change the moment I use a different amp or guitar or cabinet and mic. Although high and low cuts on the cabinets can work, they don't work as well in my opinion as using a parametric EQ at the end of my signal chain in the same way as Jason Sadites demonstrates in his videos. Not only does the steepness of the angle of the cut seem to work better with the parametric EQ, there are many cases in which the harshness is really related to a specific high frequency range in the 6000 to 7000Hz area which can be surgically dialed down using the parametric EQ using a -2 to -3db cut. The same is true for bass boominess which can be surgically dialed down with a fairly wide -2 to -3db cut in the 350Hz range. Of course all of these things change based on the guitar being used, the style of the music, and most importantly the output device. Not all powered speakers are the same, and they certainly differ in response based on their physical placement and the DSP contouring options you may have engaged on them. For myself I have my DXR12 mounted on a mini pole stand that puts it at about chest height. I have no DSP options engaged and do not have the low cuts engaged for working with a subwoofer. I've found this best simulates the response one gets from modern FOH systems that use subwoofers so that what I hear on stage will best reflect what the audience is hearing. When dialing in my patches at home I have my output set to the same level as I use on stage which is roughly around 100 to 110 db SPL as measured by a sound meter at about 5 feet.

LOL....I was going to ask that as well but I didn't want to appear ignorant....LOL

I totally agree. I use EQ (NEVER Global) but only in the final stage for any minor tweaks I might need including high and low cuts if necessary, and never to get rid of digital clipping. If I were to have digital clipping, which I've never had with the Helix, I'd have to closely examine what I was doing in the rest of the signal chain because I would have something seriously messed up. My first response to harshness lies with the cabinet, mic, and mic placement just as it is in the real world.

Well, what I do know is there are over 14,000 happy and productive users in the Helix Users Facebook group alone that seem have no problems getting the tones they want..and new ones coming into that group every day and becoming successful at it. Are there people that are unhappy with the Helix. Absolutely. There are some that never can seem to grasp the concepts or figure out how to get what they want out of it. Some of that could very well be that they don't recognize the Helix (and it's general competitors) are not simple turnkey systems. They are designed to be flexible and be able to integrate into a number of different setups be they in studio recording, live performance, or just tinkering for one's enjoyment. If you want something very straightforward but with more limited flexibility your best bet may be a modeling amp rather than a modeling board. At least there are less variables involved because you're working with a set modeler, amp, and speaker setup that's designed to work together as more of a turnkey system. The fact is I work with a person like that who is the rhythm guitar player in the group. There's absolutely no chance he could ever grasp the concepts involved with the Helix without considerable effort, and knowing him I would never recommend it. However, he does use a Spider V amp very effectively gigging with it weekly. The fact is that most people on here at least appear to have graduated to the Helix from a long line of various modeling devices be they modeling amps, pedalboards, or recording plugins. If you're brand spankin' new to this you will probably need to familiarize yourself with those types of things so you're not flying blind. Most of us, including myself, had already determined what additional equipment we would need to have to build our Helix based system before we bought it, so we weren't surprised at all.

In terms of the PA it really shouldn't matter as long as the sound crew understands they should leave your guitar channel flat which is what I always emphasize to them. We move between high gain songs and clean songs all the time and never have a problem. They absolutely EQ differently on the Helix, but as long as they leave my channel flat everything will come out fine.

The G10 1/4" output simulates a guitar input, so if you go to the aux input you'll have a weak signal...and I mean noticeably weak very definitely affecting your tone. If you want to see the difference, plug your electric guitar into the Aux input and get a feel for what you're losing.

It depends on how you have it positioned. If it's positioned on the floor as a monitor you'll have bass biasing between the speaker and the floor, so you will probably want to use the monitor setting. If you have it elevated either Live or Sub will be the flattest response. Sub will provide a low cut filter probably around 120Hz.