DunedinDragon

If you're using an actual guitar cabinet on stage it will never be consistent with the sound of an IR that goes to the FOH because the IR's sound is the result of not just the cabinet, but the mic or mics being used as well as the mic placement on the cabinet.

It could be a dead XLR port on the Helix, but there's not enough here to figure that out. Questions I would have are, did you try both XLR out's (left and right) on the Helix? When you say you bypassed the Helix through DI what did that entail..i.e. you didn't use the Helix at all? Did you try using the 1/4 out into a DI box to the mixer? Did you check your global output configurations? Although that's not likely given that it worked for a whlie then didn't work.

Pretty much all of the powered speakers worth having are going to be in the range of the 550W to 1100W, so any would fit your needs. Some of the more popular ones are the Alto TS210 and EV ZLX12P on the low end, Yamaha DXR10, QSC K10, and Line 6 L3M on the high end. The difference primarily being the flexibility of the DSP built into the speaker for tuning the frequency response curve.

Technically all you need to install is the Helix editor. The updater and device driver are part of that download.

Actually, as I understand it. Snapshots were supposed to be a part of the initial Helix offering as it's a competitive feature to what is on the AxeFx, but they ran out of time. These two features (from the Helix and the Axe) work in a very similar way with the same limitations. That's expected given the design concepts between the two units are so similar as it pertains to signal chain routing and complexity. Technically speaking the feature has always been present on the Helix since day one using multiple assignments (or even toggles) on a footswitch. It's just packaged better with snapshots. In effect no-gap transitioning between significantly different sounds within a song has been in Helix since day one, and I've used it considerably myself in many of my patches. The Headrush is really just a basic repackaging of the Eleven Rack, which is a considerably older technology. That doesn't make it bad as that may be sufficient for many people. But it is what it is.....

If you're going the FRFR route it really doesn't matter what style you're playing. They play whatever you put into the Helix. That's the point of FRFR. What I would recommend is you do some research on the different speakers out there so you can decide what's best for you. Some of the more popular powered speakers are the Alto TS series, EV ZLX series, Yamaha DXR series, QSC K series, or the Line6 stagesource speakers. Any of them will do a fine job of keeping up with the rest of the band.

What you want is the Helix application which can be downloaded in the support area of this website. You have to make sure you match the Helix application version to the firmware version loaded on your device. This allows you to backup, restore, or import new presets on your PC or Mac. Just follow the details in the User's Guide which came on the memory stick shipped with your Helix.

Too heavy for church???? No such thing in a biker church like mine. Here's an example....live recording from a few years ago. Before the Helix, but an HD500X anyway. It just proves the point all church music isn't exactly the same..... http://www.soundclick.com/html5/v3/player.cfm?type=single&songid=12937194&q=hi

Add another holiday to the calendar I say....Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, Helix No Lag Patch Day!!!!! ;)

I think phil_m's response early on in this thread lays it out very clearly what the trade-offs were and why the design decision was to support more complexity in the patches than provide for gapless switching. The key to his response does mirror what you're alluding to in terms of DSP. Specifically he talks about the allocation of DSP resources and the necessity to hold some in reserve in order to achieve gapless transitions via a spillover buffer which would then limit the flexibility and capability in ALL patches. Personally I think any other decision than the one they made would have placed the Helix at risk of just being another POD HD unit rather than one that could effectively compete in the premiere tier of modeling units in the marketplace.

Actually I think there are quite a few, at least among the one's I've tried. Pretty much all of the Vox amps are very faithful reproductions, although the Fawn seems to the best of them as long as you use Blue Alnico speakers. The HiWatt is absolutely SPOT ON. Maybe my favorite amp on the Helix. Certainly the most versatile. The Bassman (Tweed Blues) is the best of the Fenders for authenticity. Followed closely by the Champ. The Roland JC-120 is AMAZINGLY accurate. This is my go to clean amp for my Gretsch guitar. And the Soldano in all the versions is dead-on as well. Probably my 2nd favorite amp. I can't really speak to any of the high gain style amps so much as I've never really owned or used any of them to any great extent. There are a couple I like, but I just can't compare them to the originals.

Ideally if your DAW allows you to direct the click track separately to USB output 3/4 you could bring that in through the second signal chain specifying USB 3/4 as the input and direct that to a send for the drummer. This would mean you would be limited to using only the first signal chain for your guitar and audio of the synths. The normal audio coming in through USB 1/2 will automatically be processed by default through your normal signal chain, although you won't have any control over it's volume level other than what you set from the DAW. That's all theoretical, but the info is covered in the Helix manual on pages 53 - 55. I personally have my own guitar monitor (a Yamaha DXR12) which I connect to my Helix and have it positioned behind me as I would a traditional amp. But there are quite a few people that happily operate with their guitar coming through the full band monitors. I'm not comfortable with that and need a little bit more dedicated sound feed on stage from my guitar to better gauge how I'm mixing on stage with the rest of the band. But everyone's different. Best bet is to try both and see what works best for you. Quite honestly I agree with Lelik on maybe using a small dedicated mixer to deal with the synths and click track rather than using the Helix and limiting your options of what you can do in your Helix signal chains.

I stumbled across something interesting this week. I normally export my patches individually into a directory on my PC. I build my patches based on which one of my guitars will be used on it (Les Paul, Strat, Tele, Gretsch). However I sometimes forget which guitar goes with a given patch so I decided I would start saving each patch (which is normally the name of a song) with a suffix such as -strat, -tele, -lp, or -gretsch. Mind you, I didn't rename the patch itself, I just changed the default name of the patch when the Windows "Save As" dialogue box came up. What I noticed this morning is that if I restore a patch named "MyPatch" but saved as "MyPatch-strat", the name on the Helix is still "MyPatch". I assume that's because I didn't actually rename the patch so the patch name that's stored in the file is the one used by the Helix regardless of the file name under which it was saved. Some might see this as a bug, but for me I was elated...it's a new feature on my Helix I didn't know about!! It's almost like having a hidden memo field for the patch for performance notes. In my case I don't actually need the guitar used on the patch to be displayed on the Helix. I just need to be reminded which one is to be used when I'm loading up the setlist. I guess if my memory gets worse I can always rename the patch with the suffix and it will be displayed for me. But I guess this just goes to show that one man's bug is another man's feature.... :lol:

Personally I just use a phantom power blocker for my XLR out. Simple, cheap, easy.

A lot really depends on the headphones and the studio monitors. If you have smaller studio monitors that may sometimes be the difference. Placement of the studio monitors an also be a factor. Make sure you follow the guidelines that are published in your manual for placement.

What may be happening here is that on a real amp you're used to a certain amount of Sag that causes that levels out the initial bumpdue to the immediate electrical draw of the amp. You might experiment with the Sag value of the amp model and see if that gives you what you're looking for.

We use the Mackie thump 15's for our electronic drum kit (Roland TD-15kv) and they do a pretty decent job on those. We chose them because they do have a nice crisp bass feel to them as that's what they're designed to do. I haven't used them on my Helix at all though.

I use a gain block in the signal chain to bring up the volume.

Actually I'm not sure that's completely true as it depends on what you've done in your signal chain as to whether the signal will be stereo or not. Normally the L/Mono XLR will sum any stereo signal to mono (such as when using a stereo effect), but only if the Right XLR is not being used. If the Right XLR is in use, the signal in the left won't be summed to mono so it would be missing part of the stereo signal. I think I get what you're trying to accomplish in that you want the acoustic and the electric to be on individual channels on the board, and it might work as long as you're careful about creating a mono signal chain. You could always get each signal chain summed to mono using a final gain block I suppose on each of the signal chains. At some point it seems to introduce more complexity and more potential points of failure than is necessary when a $30 direct box would suffice.

I'm not sure you'll be doing yourself any favors using hard left and right for electric and acoustic. It's rare that you can encounter live venues that are very favorable to stereo separation. Typically it works against you because most of the people in the audience aren't positioned correctly to hear the stereo separation evenly. Typically most venues aren't built particularly well for stereo either with all the reflections and dead spots. It's a lot of trouble for not much payoff in my opinion. I don't incorporate acoustic into every patch, but there are occasions when one of the other band members will play acoustic and I'll mix it together with my electric in the Helix which allows me to apply effects and such to the acoustic. In those cases I use to two signal chains. The top signal chain input block is set to 'Guitar' and uses the guitar input. The bottom input block is set to 'Aux' and I plug the acoustic into the Aux input. I then just mix to taste between the two signals and send them both out to the board via the L/Mono XLR out. Very simple and easy and works beautifully. I've even done the same with the Microphone input using it in the second signal chain on a Frank Zappa song that requires a phaser effect on the voice. That works great also.

I actually sold my last tube amp when I went to the Mustang IV. Sold most of my solid state amps when I went to the HD500X, and sold my last solid state amp and all but two pedals when I got the Helix. I still have a couple of pedals left not for any reason other than laziness. I just need to post them up on craigslist, but it hasn't been high on my priority list. I also have a HD ProX I haven't gotten around selling yet either. Again, just laziness. I have two Yamaha DXR12 speakers now, but I use one at home and one for performances. I've yet to encounter any venue I need more than one, but if pressed I could use two. But I've never had to increase the volume on the single DXR12 above the 12 o'clock position. I figure if I get to that point I need to tell everyone else to turn down because our stage volume has gotten out of hand. The only reason to be louder than that is because you're an amateur and can't control your stage volume.

I'm pretty sure ear fatigue is the culprit here. And it doesn't take a whole lot of time to fatigue your ears. This is one of the reasons I'll dial in a preset over the course of several days. Some things just won't be apparent to me unless I hear it with fresh ears.

To me the HiWatt would probably be my choice in that situation, primarily because it's traditionally been known for having more of a pure vanilla base sound that is good at reflecting an accurate representation of any pedals that are used with it. There was a time it was the "go to" amp for just about any purpose be it Doobie Bros, Hank Williams Jr, Aerosmith, Isley Bros. or anything in between. An extraordinarily versatile amp.

Once again, this has nothing to do with Helix. It's how Windows works when presented with a new audio driver. It works this way whether it's a Helix or any other USB audio device that gets plugged in, and it works that way for everyone. Just do as AlexKenivel recommends and disable the Helix device as a playback device in your Windows sound settings. There is NOTHING you can do on the Helix side because the Helix is just doing what every other audio device does when it gets plugged into Windows.

It depends on which unit (Audioquest or Helix) is being used by your computer as he default playback device. If you're on Windows just right-click the speaker icon at the bottom of the screen and select playback devices and set the one you want to be the default. Not a Helix issue. It's an issue with understanding how to run your computer.