DunedinDragon

Absolutely would be the best option. It's also something that you could use in the future if you run into a sound crew that doesn't want to deal with your in-ear monitor system.

I agree with the majority here. As a soundman myself there is no reason on God's green earth he shouldn't be fine with you simply taking the XLR cable from the mic that would normally mic a cabinet and plug it into the Helix. I suspect the organizers who put out the directions didn't know to ask that question so it's not included as an option. However, there's still time left to contact the organizers and make sure that will be fine. Just make sure you have good levels on your XLR out and all should work as planned. The other situation of on-stage monitoring could be something you need to be prepared to have a good standing plan for because not all sound people will be agreeable to dealing with someones in-ear monitor system, so that's likely something you may run into int he future. If I were in that situation I might take along the Roland and keep it hidden as a backup if the soundman can't give you a monitor feed you can live with. Hopefully it's a big enough event that there will be both front and side monitors so you can get your monitor feed as a separate mix from the vocals. I would assume this can all be worked out at soundcheck time (they are having a separate soundcheck with all the bands before the performance, right??). Honestly, given the questions I would have just from the info you've given me here, I'd have a bunch of questions I'd want to settle with the sound crew before you show up to the event.

I would agree with several others here. I tried a demo 3Sigma and it turned me off of IRs for a while until I realized others like OwnHammer and Celestion were a different breed and far more comprehensive. I am in total agreement with what others have said that you should really just focus on the mixed IRs from OwnHammer. In my opinion this is what separates OH from many of the others, and is the key to getting the most out of the IR environment. You have to take into account that what makes a modeler like Helix special is that you're bringing studio quality sound to a live performance. Once HUGE difference in how cabinets are mic'd in the studio and how they're mic'd on stage is in the studio they commonly use different combinations of mic's and placements...in other words a mix. That's generally what you've been listening to on most professional recordings most of your life. Although OH provides the individual mic and mic placements which can come in handy sometimes for tweaking a sound, you'll find the mixes to be far closer from the get-go to closing in on what you've heard on pro recordings. Of note, the ones the are mentioned most often are the mixes containing the MD421 and R121 as those tend to be ones that are combined very often in studios and provide a nice full, natural response. In my case that's pretty much the only combo I use and I don't really worry too much about the rest. You may be different in what you want to hear, but you'll save yourself a lot of time and energy just sticking to the mixes to find what pleases your ear the most.

One of the advantages of IRs is the ability to have mixes of mics on a cabinet if provided by the manufacturer. Most often what sounds best to me is the combination of an R-121 ribbon mic and a MD421 dynamic mic. To my ear that's a perfect blend of fullness with a touch of brashness to cut through the mix.

I think you're misunderstanding what an acoustic IR does. It simply simulates an acoustic guitar cabinet. It doesn't modify the tone of your guitar. Beyond Variax guitar modeling you really can't change the nature of the basic sound of a guitar (other than some acoustic simulator pedals, none of which are really that good). That's determined by the pickups and general electronics and construction. The Variax accomplishes this through the use of the piezo-electric pickups and some fancy DSP processing. You can get close on some guitars depending on your pickups and such, but even the Variax sounds "like" a Gretsch, or a 335, but there are some audible differences if you've played one of those guitars. It's very good, but not exactly the same. But short of buying different guitars, the Variax is by far the best bet for accomplishing what you're asking for.

It really doesn't appear at first glance that there's much you can do here other than go direct into one of the two channels, neither of which appear to simple be a pure power amp. It looks like it's got one clean channel and one dirty channel, but no pure amp channel. I'm not sure exactly what the cream circuit does, but I suspect it's just another variation of amp style. There doesn't seem to be any effects loop circuit. So basically you're limited to just running into one of the two channels. This more or less limits using some of the main features such as the amp models, cabs and IRs, but all of the effects should work fine going into the amp. The External Speaker plug is just an output to a speaker cab for that amp. This may have been a better question to ask before you got the Helix.

What do you mean the signal is gone? What signal?

The problem here is you're running through two very different types of systems that are bound to have different response characteristics. First, the Phonic system is a powered PA system that uses unpowered speakers. This is a fairly dated design and the speakers, although full range, are very much not flat response. In that case there is a simple crossover design between the speaker and horn and no active circuit in the speakers for maintaining a true flat response. The Alto TS210 is a more modern active design that uses a digital logic circuit for determining the way the frequencies will be allocated between the speaker and compression driver. As is the case with most of these designs including very expensive speakers, the digital logic is tuned directly to the response of the speakers in order to provide a flat response. As mentioned above it does provide for two different response systems on the speaker using the contour button. If the contour button is depressed it adds 3dB of response to the very low and high end. Not having the contour depressed would be a more traditional flat response. There is an additional issue with these speakers in that if the speaker is placed on the floor in the monitor position you will tend to get bass coupling in which the low bass frequencies build up and you get a bassier response. By placing these speakers on a pole with the contour button off you will get the flattest response. The problem you will have is that by building your preset on the passive speaker Phonic system you will undoubtedly get a different response that's not as flat as the TS210. It's also important to point out that it also will not likely match the response on a more modern design PA system that you would likely play through on an actual gig as those speakers are much more likely to be closer to the response of the TS210 than that of the Phonic. Your best bet is to use the Alto speaker placed on a pole mount for dialing in your patches as that will most likely match the FOH PA systems you're likely to play through.

The Helix is exactly like your exisiting audio interface because it is an audio interfface once it's plugged into your computer via USB. There's no reason in the world it shouldn't work with your software.

Compression isn't hard to understand, but how it's implemented can be challenging. Compressions just means bringing up low volume sounds and bringing down high volume sounds so that they're all even. In that regard the Red Squeeze is the simplest to use. Just turn up the Sensitivity and it brings the lows and highs closer together. But it can have other sound artifacts such as "pumping" which you might not want. You can control that sometimes using the Mix control. But it may still not sound right to you. The LA Compressor is a bit more discreet and is my compressor of choice 99% of the time. The best way to use this compressor is to first adjust the gain control so that it sounds close to the output you have without the compressor on. Just strum the guitar with the compressor off, then strum it with the compressor on and adjust the gain until you have roughly the same volume level. Typically this ends up being fairly close to 50%. Then you adjust the Peak Reduction to even out the highs and lows. Generally around 80 or 90% is enough to get a good even sound. The Emphasis control determines how much the high notes will trigger the compression. At higher values picking action tends to get more accentuated due to compression. In some cases this is good and in some cases it isn't depending on how clean or dirty your sound is. Mine is normal set between 50 to 80 or 90% depending on what sound I'm going for. The mix control determines the mix between the compressed and non-compressed signals. Generally I have this set pretty close to the setting I have on the Peak Reduction control. The volume control is just that..how many db you want the signal brought up or down. I generally leave this at 0.0 db. Placing the compressor at the beginning of the signal chain makes the compressor stand out more whereas after the amp it's less obvious.

I can only speak to the full Helix, but the only global parameter for the headset is what sources you want the headset to monitor. You might want to download the Helix LT manual and see if there's something different there in the global ins/outs section. A couple of conveniences you may want to consider (other than the headset volume knob) on the full Helix. Even though you have a separate audio interface as most of us did when we got into this it's extraordinarily convenient using the Helix as your audio interface. In my case I leave my mic, bass, guitar, keyboard and headsets all plugged into the Helix. I have separate presets designed for each so when I'm ready to record one of those instruments I just select the appropriate patch and I'm ready to record. If I'm recording voice using headsets I simply turn down the main volume knob and it's ready to go. There are a lot of advantages to the full Helix in that regard.

Exactly!!!! It infers that ONLY HE is blessed with golden ears and knows what a "professional guitar sound" is...and the rest of us are just hacking around and slopping out mediocre crap. I think the general capability of many of the folks that commonly frequent this forum argues against that logic. The reality is, the only thing that stands between anyone and a professional guitar sound is their knowledge and skill in knowing how to use the tools appropriately.

I've played several outdoor events but never in direct sunlight, and I'm in Florida. I've never had the unit get that hot, but I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with my case getting that hot. Just for my peace of mind I might construct some form of shade arrangement over it to protect it from direct sunlight for long periods of time. I can't imagine it would be too good for the displays either.

I'm assuming you're talking about the car stereo JBL1000? That would be a very bad idea I think. First, a lot of us play through PA systems equipped with very powerful subwoofers. In most cases the crossover point on those speakers is well above anything other than kick drum and bass guitar or low register keyboards would send. Actually the last thing in the world I want is more low end. Most of the time people tend to use low cut filters at least around 100 or 120 hz to get rid of boominess. So I doubt you're going to be missing anything. But you aren't going to get the response of your amp because you're not producing the sound of an amp. You're producing the sound of an amp in a studio that's been mic'd and is being listened to from the control room through studio flat response speakers. If that's not what you want then get a FRFR cabinet like a Friedman. Personally I get more than enough clean bass response from my Yamaha HS7's.

Just so you know, I did some research and the module noted as failing in your message (ig4icd32.dll) relates to the OpenGL driver for Intel chips. It's often corrupted when two or more progams want to use different versions of that DLL. Tech support should be able to figure out the best way to fix it.

By ear and by tweaking as far as I know. You may luck out with some presets that have been shared on CustomTone though.

If I were you I'd call Line 6 Customer Tech Support and give them the information Windows gave you. Particularly on the module that failed and the exception code. They may be able to enlighten you on what's happening. They really are very good and there's no charge for their tech support.

That's definitely one of the limitations of the Helix LT not having a Microphone input like it's bigger brother. Without the Mic input you more or less would have to run the Helix into your audio interface to streamline your workflow for recording. Alternatively you could connect an unbalanced line out into a receive port of the Helix so you're using the Tascam simply as a mic input into the Helix then use the Helix as your audio interface. A little bit convoluted, but that would allow you to run the monitors from the Helix as well as use the Helix to process vocals into the DAW.

I'm not sure I understand why it's necessary to set the controller to snapshot if your tweaking parameters a lot. That sounds more like you're just adjusting a preset. Snapshots are only really meant for complex or detailed mass changes in a preset. Or am I missing something?

There are a lot of us around here that struggled with that same decision, coming from the HD500 to the Helix. What I can tell you is that what got me to make the move wasn't the thing that really paid off in the end. And here's what I mean by that. I made the move with the idea that I'd see an improvement in my overall tone. And though that's true, the big benefit was the Helix really opened up the opportunities for me to significantly grow my skills in sound design. Yes, my tones improved. But they dramatically improved not just because of technology, but because the added flexibility of the unit encouraged me to explore and expand on the ideas I'd learned from the HD500 by building better and more robust signal chains and learning to more precisely craft my sound. Was that worth the extra money? I'd say yeah....

I use the Helix both for recording and for live performances. I briefly considered buying a Helix LT to be used as a dedicated recording interface and a backup to my live performance Helix, but dismissed it due to the fact it didn't have all the same inputs as the Helix does, and I'm glad I did. I've been recording for more than 20 years at this point and I've never had a rig that was as quick and easy to use in the studio than the Helix. I leave my mic, keyboard, bass, and guitar all hooked up to the Helix each with their own dedicated preset. All I have to do to record vocals is select that preset from my Helix Editor and I'm ready to record. Same with bass, guitar, or keyboard. It makes the workflow incredibly easy and fast. As far as your 2nd point of matching the sound of your recordings I think that defines the solution. That's precisely what FRFR rigs do. They match the sound of a studio control room more than matching the sound of a live amp. Your recordings are not listened to on an amp, they're listened to on speakers that are more or less FRFR. If you want to precisely match THAT sound, then use FRFR. It may take some tweaking to find the exact same recorded sound using the same type of amp, cab, mic, and mic placement, but you should have all the things you need to precisely match the elements that were involved in your recording either using the stock cabs or IR's and all the same effects.

My understanding (and it may be wrong) was the Headrush was just a repackaging of the Eleven rack. Undoubtedly the Eleven rack wasn't using the current generation of DSP chip.

Actually this makes me wonder what they're using for the processor. Quad-core as in Intel chips like those used in a computer? Do they mention a DSP chip at all? Two very different animals there.

I'm not sure where you've been getting your information about switching fx blocks but to my knowledge there's never been a 4 fx limit on the Helix. Even prior to snapshots functionality you could always assign up to 8 fx blocks to a single stomp button. With snapshots it became even more capable with the ability to control up to 64 blocks. Of course I may not be completely understanding what you're wanting to do, but maybe you should download the current Helix manual which is availble to anyone via the Support section of this site to get a better understanding of the functional limits on such things.

Honestly this is a whole different category of users I hadn't really considered, but you're right. I'm actually astonished in some cases how some users have found themselves trying to work a Helix with so little experience. But we musicians tend to be such gear heads we'll jump in head first to the new cool technology sometimes without really understanding what it really is, or really does. I really hope these type of users have the patience and the drive to master this incredible piece of gear, but I would at least hope they would start by reading the manual!!!! :o