DunedinDragon

I get this all the time with my Yamaha DXR12. I have a two outlet strip that I use for both the Helix and the DXR12. I wouldn't call it a loud hum, but it's definitely there if the Helix is off. It's never affected anything in a year and a half, so I haven't bothered with it. My guess is it has something to do with ground inequality within the switch if one of the units is turned off. It does the same thing at home with both units plugged into the same power strip.

You do realize there's more to an IR than just what speaker it is, right? There's the mic, the placement of the mic, or even the various mixes provided by Celestion that really determine a LOT about what those combinations you point out will sound like. Not to mention, of course, the type of guitar you're using or rig setup one is using. So I'm not sure how good the feedback is going to be on this. I've personally used the Plexi Bright with both of those type of setups in the past on some higher gain rock tunes, but I've recently replaced most of my Greenback and Vintage 30's with Redbacks which I find to be much more well behaved using my FRFR setup with a DXR12.

Yeah...sounds more or less like a plexi bright to me as well. But it definitely has some room ambience in it. You could maybe play around with a short single echo combined with 12" mic distance and a fair amount of early reflections on a stock 4x12 cab and see what you get.

It's so odd that this subject should just happen to come up this week. I just happened to be working on a Brad Paisley-sh sound which introduced me to the Dr Z amp in combination with my Telecaster....and WOW!!!! I had no idea I had that sound hidden inside my Helix!!! Now THIS is some serious fun!!!!

Celestions are certainly capable of producing some pretty harsh tones as shown from the frequency response graph above of a Celestion Creamback 12 inch. The dropoff starts between 15kHz and 16kHz. And that's a pretty forgiving high frequency dropoff profile as compared to say a Celestion Heritage G12-65. So with the wrong kind of mic and placement it's more than capable of clearing your sinuses. Fortunately most sound men know how to get the best of them through correct mic and mic placement. In the Helix world, that's up to you.

These issues really aren't about understanding the steps to doing things, it's about understanding the concepts that drive your choices. That's where the big disconnects have been for a lot of folks. Particularly when it comes to live performance. The Helix varies from a traditional rig in that you're responsible for defining aspects of your signal chain that have been traditionally managed by sound personnel. Many of those concepts are truly outside the experience of many musicians. It's not that the concepts are hard to understand, just foreign to their experience. Without an understanding of such things it's easy to choose a method to address a problem that isn't optimal or could lead to limitations in the future.

1) Although there are no doubt quite a few using FRFR monitors or direct to the board applications, the variety of setups is pretty wide including those you mentioned as well as others such as separate power amps and speakers. Even most 4cm applications will still use modeling aspects but without the included cabinets. 2), 3), 4) and 5) What exactly should they EQ to the cabinets to? A Telecaster, a Strat, a Les Paul or an Archtop? What style of music? Metal, Jazz, Blues, Gospel? The way it's done is that amps are modeled separately from cabinets. The amps are accurate representations of the electronic interactions, the cabinets are accurate representations of speaker, cabinet, mic, mic placement, and room interactions. And what style of FRFR or PA output should they EQ to? I personally use a Yamaha DXR12 and there have been cases in which I haven't needed to EQ the cabinets at all depending on the style of music, the guitar I'm using, and the amp I'm using. Instead I've simply selected a cabinet, a mic, it's placement, and the amount of room interaction I want and it sounds great. That wouldn't likely be the case if they were "pre-EQ'ing" as you suggest. I will grant that it might have been somewhat easier and intuitive for me were the stock cabinets modeled using mic placements consisting of distances of the mic from the speaker cap to the outer cone as that's what I'm used to. But you get the same effect moving the mic further away from the speaker, and applying the early reflection parameter. In fact the early reflection parameter simulates to some degree the effect of an off-axis mic. I think much of what happens here is exactly as jbuhajla noted, that not everyone is familiar with live or studio mic'ing techniques, therefore EQ can be a quick workaround for them until they get more experienced with such things. But I don't think it's prudent to do something that hampers those that do use these techniques as they very often end up producing much more realistic representations of real world cabinets and mics. Even people that opt to use IRs run into the same thing as you would run into with the stock cabinets. The difference being that most IR's tend to be shot with a variety of different mics at different placement locations between the cap and the outer cone of the speaker. But, again, they all produce the same effect. I grant that this is very likely all new stuff to many people that get into the Helix, especially if you're using less advanced modelers without the cabinet modeling details. For me, a lot of what I'm paying for is accurate real-world modeling so that the same interactions I might take in selecting a mic and it's placement will parallel the things I would do in the real world. What I do fault Line 6 for, as well as other advanced modeling systems, is not providing a more comprehensive tutoring system to help those that have never dealt with such things better grasp them. Of course, I'm not sure even that would make that much difference given how few users actually read through the manual they do provide.

Yes. I have yet to run into an IR vendor I wasn't able to import IRs from.

Mine works fine on both of my Windows 10 machines as well as on a small Windows 8 tablet. You may have a bad USB cable, but also it's not uncommon for some PC manufacturers to have USB ports that are actually hubs rather than direct ports. That could have an effect so you might try using a different cable as well as a different port.

I have to admit I was mystified as well about why Line 6 would allow their stock presets, or any normal preset, to sound so harsh when I first started using the POD HD500X. I learned most of he "secrets" about low and high cuts on the HD500X so I wasn't caught by surprise with the Helix. Over time, however, I've come to appreciate the approach. First, you have to remember it's mostly those of us using FRFR monitors that tend to experience the brunt of this harshness. Those that go with 4cm arrangements or power amp and cabinet arrangements don't really cite this as an issue. In those cases the Helix is delivering a pure amp signal which is processed in a more traditional way into a traditional cabinet, therefore the full range signal is exactly what an amp would deliver. But even using an FRFR monitor I've come to appreciate it more and more primarily for the options it allows me when I use certain guitars or play certain styles. There are some presets in which I don't even touch high or low cuts. Most often this is with my Gretsch hollow body when I finger pick, or using an electronic piano. In those cases with the right cabinet or IR I get a great sound with all the proper overtones and harmonics which would be diminished with high or low cuts. Even with things like old style jazz I rarely make much in the way of high and low cuts depending on the cabinet, mic and mic'ing technique used. So I guess it all depends on your usage. For a lot of folks, particularly those that play mostly in the rock genre, it can be a hassle if you're using an FRFR monitor. But that's not everybody.

As mentioned previously the issue of high cuts and low cuts on the Helix when using FRFR speakers has been around since day one, and is the same even on the POD HD500X. It's important to understand where this issue comes from so you can make the right decision about how you want to address it. The nature of FRFR speakers is that they are designed to not favor any particular area of the frequency spectrum...thus the "flat response" reference. This is not the way guitar cabinets are built. They are designed to specifically favor a fairly limited range of lows and mids. That being said, it doesn't mean you won't still hear the harshness from a traditional guitar cabinet depending on how you mic the cabinet. Were you to use a wider range mic such as a Royer R-121 and place it directly over the cap of the speaker you would hear the same type of harshness when listened to through most FOH PA speakers even though you wouldn't hear it on stage. That's why people seldom mic a cabinet that way. Instead they tend to place the mic further out in the cone and/or further away from the speaker to get a closer match to what your ear hears most predominantly on stage. The Helix does a pretty good job of accurately modeling such things, so the issue should first be addressed at the cabinet and mic configuration in order to be accurate. Because the stock cabinets only allow you to position the distance of the mic from the speaker rather than the position of the mic between the cap and the edge many people turn to using IRs, many of which have different versions that reflect this positioning. However, in addition to positioning between the cap and cone edge there are other ways this harshness can also be addressed such as using different mics and moving them further away from the speaker. The Helix stock cabs allow you to do this, but when you do this you should also address the early reflections in order to accurately model what happens in the real world. Early reflections simply mean the mic is picking up extra ambient sound from the room which also tends to mitigate harshness and is a more accurate representation of what your ear hears from a real cabinet. So moving the mic further from the speaker and increasing early reflections on a Helix stock cabinet can do a lot toward reducing the harshness. To get the sound of a cab even closer to what a human ear is hearing when mic'd through a PA system, professional productions and studios very often use combinations of microphones and microphone placements which can be accomplished with Helix stock cabinets by using dual cabinet blocks rather than single cabinet blocks, and through IRs many of which provide mixes which do much the same thing. I bring this up because the general approach of using high and low cuts may be an easier way of approaching this situation, but it's more synthetic than the organic approach of first setting up the cabinet, mic and mic placement. You may still need a certain amount of high or low cuts, but the sound will be much more natural and consistent with the real world. It's also important to realize that the guitar, pickups, amp, cabinet, type of mic, and mic placement all play a part in this. That's probably the key reason for NOT using global EQ because once you move to a different amp, cabinet, and mic in a new preset or snapshot, that global EQ may be taking away more than you would normally want in that configuration. I know this has been a long explanation, but it's really the reason for the way I tend to approach these things in my patches. I first select the amp and cabinet/IR configuration including mic(s) and mic placement. Only then do I address the high and low cuts on the cabinet. There are situations in fact that I end up using no high or low cuts depending on the guitar, the amp, the cab and mic placements. It may seem like more work but it's more like the real world and reduces the chance that you'll cut out some of the higher harmonics of the tone and makes you really use your ears rather than your eyes to adjust the sound. Once you get used to it and gain some knowledge about different mics and placements t's not that big of a process and goes pretty quickly.

You'd have to change to stomp/snap mode to have access to stomps. You'd still be able to cycle up or down with your preset buttons. But you can assign multiple settings to a single stomp just like a snapshot and designate it momentary.

It's not likely you'll be able to simulate the opening since that's two guitar tracks together. One track is more of a mid scooped power chord while the other is more fender-y and played on the higher strings. You might come close using two amps in parallel but I'm not sure you'll get the fullness of the chords being played.

Unfortunately comparing a 2x12 guitar cabinet to a pro level speaker system is like comparing a go-kart to a Porsche. There's a LOT more that goes into these type of speakers that what goes into your typical guitar cabinet which mostly consists of 2 speakers, some wiring and a cabinet. These, along with studio reference monitors, are designed to be very precise acoustic systems for accurately reproducing and (in the case of stage speakers) projecting sound. As Rewolf and jbuhajla point at, there's quite a range of options, but you generally get what you pay for in this type of pro gear. I guess I wasn't terribly shocked by the prices as I've been around professional audio stage systems for quite a while. But you have to bear in mind what you're getting is an acoustically neutral enclosure that contains a significantly powered (1000w+) class D amp along with a limiter and some DSP processing (similar to what's in the Helix) for maintaining an even response across the entire frequency range so that it's capable of accurately reproducing sound from ANY form of instrument or voice...not just guitar. I use a Yamaha DXR12 which is priced roughly between a full solid state or tube amp and weighs about 50 lbs. I didn't buy it with any delusion that it would be easier to move around than an amp. But on the other hand my band has three more DXR12's that we use for stage monitors and it's not uncommon at all to see DXR12s used as FOH speakers for many full bands or DJs. So that really helps put it all in perspective. I'm certainly not saying you need to be at that end of the spectrum. There are many people here that are perfectly happy with Alto 210s which are half the price and half the weight. But I would encourage you to pay attention to what other folks are using here rather than deviate too far afield from it in search of a lower price. That's how you can find yourself very discouraged.

Welcome to Helix world.... One thing that may help in your understanding that may sound strange at first, but really helped me get a better feel for how to deal with the Helix is to think of the Helix unit as a virtual recording studio rather than just a pedal board/modeler that you're plugged into. The reason I say this is that the paradigm you're working with is far more similar to the way you'd set things up in a studio for a recording session...choosing which amp, which speaker set, they way it's mic'd, and where you're placing effects in the effects chain and how you're switching the routing. The goal you're shooting for is to produce a polished studio sound for a live environment.

In my experience this is less about frequency range than it is about technique, although frequency range plays a part...but it's a minor part in comparison. One of the key components of this is alluded to in the movie "The History of the Eagles". Being a multi-guitar group they really set the standard for such things. At one point in the movie they're in rehearsal talking about what they're each doing on the song and they make a reference to one person taking the high part and the one person taking the low part. How this generally translates is where on the fretboard you're playing. Often it relates to one person playing open chords while the other plays barre chords higher up on the fretboard. Over the years I've played in far more multi-guitar groups than anything else and I can say it really takes a while for two guitarists to learn how to play complementary guitars rather than competing guitars. As a lead guitar player I try to play less and let the rhythm player take most of the burden of maintaining the ongoing chord strumming. I focus more on accents, fills, and color chords. It's not unusual at all for me to use a jazz variation of a chord even in a more rock or country song just to give it a fuller feel as long as it doesn't detract from the main sound. I also do a LOT of chord muting and various individual string picking techniques against his rhythm strumming. In our situation that tends to mean the rhythm player plays a lot more barre chords than I do. If I'm playing a barre chord it's played in a manner more similar to a power chord or accent. Generally he plays with more treble than I do which also helps differentiate the two. I guess the most important discovery for me in playing in multi-guitar bands is to be careful with how much dirt or distortion you're both using. Two guitars using overdriven tones can quickly become overwhelming and muddy.

This is exactly the problem I was referring to. I use a dedicated stage monitor for exactly this reason. Vocals and vocalists can be problematic if you share monitors with them and the instruments. Generally speaking those vocals need to stand out even more on stage than they do in the general mix in order for the vocalists to hear each other correctly, especially if you have multiple vocalists (we have 3 dedicated vocalist plus three others playing instruments). In order to get the shared instruments in the monitors to the level where the musicians can hear them on stage you start interfering with the vocalists ability to hear themselves. Then you start getting into increasing the volume on the vocal monitor channels inevitably leading to feedback issues. We try to keep things very simple. All of our monitors are Yamaha DXR12s including my own dedicated monitor attached to the Helix. Our band stage monitors are dedicated exclusively to the vocalists and the harmonica. The bass and rhythm guitar have their own amps and I have a dedicated DXR12. I occasionally play keyboard and that is routed through the Helix to the DXR12 as well. On some songs we also need an additional acoustic guitar and that also gets routed through my Helix and the DXR12. That DXR12 is positioned behind me in the same fashion as a traditional amp so the sound of all the instruments are always coming from that backline. On larger stages that use outside sound companies, they do mix in the instruments into the main monitor mix, but that is only to help fill out the sound on stage so we can all hear each other not to take the place of our own amps or dedicated monitors. In the case where we use an electronic drum kit we do the same thing and route it to the back of the stage through it's own FRFR monitor (Mackie Thump). This setup is used for gigging as well as rehearsal and it keeps our stage sound very consistent with a conventional backline setup and allows us to accurately manage the stage mix regardless of the size of the event.

Here's my take on it which is probably not a very popular one. There's nothing precluding anyone from building their own patches on the Helix except for a lack of knowledge and skills. Everything is there in the presets, the documentation, and in hints and directions on this and numerous YouTube videos to help anyone that has the initiative to accomplish whatever kind of tone they want by themselves. In the year and a half I've owned my Helix I've probably built well over a hundred patches. I have no special insight or ability. I just buckled down and learned how to do it and now it only takes a few minutes for me to craft a custom preset to fit my needs specifically. If people want to pay for someone else's time and effort in learning how to build patches, well...that's the price one pays if you don't have the initiative or desire to learn how to do it. The only reason someone can ever profit from it is if there are people like that out there. If not, they won't make anything. It's the free market at work.....

I'm not sure that's always the case. Part of the problem you have in sharing the PA monitor system is you're sharing it with other things like vocals. That's a pretty significant difference from having a dedicated monitor with nothing in it but your guitar. Especially if your vocalist is depending on the same monitor. That's one of the reasons so many of us tend to use dedicated monitors so we're not having to compete with other things in the monitor mix.

I like my car....but I wish it could fly!!! ;)

I'd suggest next time use the "special" customer service support line at 1-800-Prima-Donna..... ;)

I have no experience with Guitarpro powertabs so I can only speculate. Assuming that you have your output speakers attached to the Helix and the Helix connected USB to the computer as the sound device there's nothing more you can do with the Helix to enable it to work with any PC program. The PC program may not be written to sense the change in the default output sound device so you may have to take some action in the program to point it to the Helix as the output device.

I'm assuming you extracted all the Ownhammer files into their own directory and those are the one's you're selecting when you load an IR into the IR list, right? I've never heard of any IR not loading unless it's the wrong format.

It's clear something in the OS is having problems with loading/managing device drivers. It could be the USB or it could be some problem with memory or memory management or memory infractions caused by interactions with something else you have loaded. Either way it's a problem specific to your PC's setup as what you're experiencing isn't a common problem at all. I'd start by looking at the Windows event log when something like this happens and that might give you a first clue as to where to look. You might also look at the event log to see if there are any errors or warnings when you turn on the Helix and the devices get loaded.

I have 5 different guitars I commonly use when performing live. A Les Paul, a Strat, a Tele, a Gretsch hollow body, and a Takamine acoustic. The main purpose for using these various guitars is to be able to accurately address the various tonal differences in different music styles which really rely on certain types of guitars which you really can't accomplish just through modeling. For example, certain styles of rock really depend on the Les Paul sound, and the same would be true for the Strat or even the Tele. Beyond that only a Tele can really give you the modern country twang sound and certain types of popular blues, punk or funk really relies heavily on single coil Strats or Teles for the most part. Likewise getting a clean, full jazz sound, or rockabilly as well as a full finger-picked Chet Atkins sound demands a Gretsch for authenticity. That being the case I've found it easier to simply have individual patches per song, with a given song patch targeted at a specific guitar. For me this works out very well as our shows are all pre-determined, but it might not work out as well for bar gigs. I do have a general set of patches I use if I go to a jam night or need to fill in for someone, but they follow the same general structure of genre driven guitar styles for the most part. The problem is that can become pretty confusing if you try to get too detailed such as a Joe Walsh rock sound versus a Brian May rock sound, so I've found I have to accept some trade-offs otherwise it gets overwhelming. I've considered a Variax as an answer to some of this from time to time, but I'm concerned about having a single neck setup with a single type of action since I use various finger and pick techniques such as chicken pickin' and full Chet Atkins or James Taylor style finger picking. One of these days when I get some time I really need to get my hands on one and see how well it might work for me. It would probably simplify my life.