gunpointmetal

I've never seen a sound guy on a modern board gain stage solely by ear. They either have real meters, or at the very least a clip meter, as well meter/clip indicators at the outputs, probably a frequency analyzer, and they use a combination of meters, ears, and common sense. And meters on their compressors, gates, etc etc etc. I can see where DI is coming from with thinking people will get into trouble with it and complain but. . . and as far as Well its a brave new world where a lot of "musicians" (that term should always be applied loosely on a guitarist forum) who are also recording/FOH engineers, working with custom IEM set-ups, work with uneducated sound guys in less than ideal situations etc etc etc where all that "measurebating" comes in handy (get it, handy, because 'bating). Dialing everything by ear is why I usually can't stand on a guitarist side of the stage at a lot of shows. If that guy had a frequency analyzer and a db meter he might not have dialed is amp to sound awesome where his microphone is set up and like hot dog lollipop everywhere else.

output meters might not be a great idea, but a "clip meter" as an insert between blocks would be cool....

S/PDIF is digital, so you'd need some way to convert it to analog to use the tuner.

Well thanks, now I've got a boner for something that doesn't even exist yet.

TL;DR - there are no hard/fast rules for this stuff when it comes to live. Volume, proximity , speaker system all play a role. Your best bet is going to be to dial everything in at as close to live volume as possible with the band. The louder you're running the guitar, the safer it is to have a low-cut that high. I usually err on the side of leaving a little extra I can cut at the board if need be. If you're doing your own sound I highly recommend at least one member of the band be wireless so they can walk out in front of the system while you're line checking an a few times throughout the night to check and see if anything needs to be adjusted.

That's really strange. My full Helix has some issues with the low E/A strings on my 9-string, but that's always a uniform 5th off, and attributable to the low pitch with guitar string tension. Definitely time to get it checked out.

The only good thing about the cassette revival is we've made a killing selling old dual-cassette decks on line the last few years. Cassettes are/were awful and I know a whole bunch of underground music snobs who have MASSIVE collections, but can't listen to them anywhere because, ya know, dead technology.

Either that or troll level 10,000

You made your point, and it was countered with reason. No need to take it personally. I only quoted your original post to point out that not everyone in every gear/guitar forum is strictly here to "shut up and play guitar". Some people are recording engineers (professional or hobby), some people are ACTUAL electronics engineers, some people just like having the information.

Again, nobody said that. I'm saying that if someone's response to a topic is a genuine "Who cares?" why would they feel the need to generate response? And if they are interested in the topic, they'd generate a response other than "Who cares?" or "This doesn't matter." Conversations are good. Declaring a topic of conversation as unnecessary for no other reason than a person doesn't have an interest, is a pointless and "look at me not caring" move.

I wasn't saying that what was you're saying, its just another example of a situation where people who don't care or have a use for the information argue that it's not necessary. And that's fine, don't need it? Don't use it. There's a lot of "this technical mumbo jumbo gets in the way of makin' music" whereas my point was that it only does so if you allow it to. Much like people who find constant arguments on social media about stuff they seemingly don't care about, yet take the time to comment negatively in regards to. Don't need it, don't use it, ignore the topic completely.

I agree and disagree. More and more people in music are wearing both the studio engineer and composer/performer hats, and a lot of this stuff is of interest to that engineer brain. I know I geek out just as much on the minutiae of IR length, reverb decay, envelope slopes, etc as I do about where in the upper mids my "grind" in distorted rhythm tones sits, so I think this is a fun conversation to have. I just have to remember that none of that stuff matters when I'm actually playing. My personal opinion in the IR arena is that I don't want to hear any, or at least as little as possible, of the room the IR was captured in. I want the sound of the speaker in the box, then I want to be able to control any type of ambient sound that comes after that. Especially for live use. Maybe in the studio having that extra length that gets some of the "vibe" of the room might be nice, but for my uses (mostly hard rock/metal/death metal/core styles), I'd rather have a "room" buss to send everything through as glue instead of trying to deal with several different "rooms" in a mix. 100% More information only ever hurts people who don't know when to apply it. It's the same conversation that is always regurgitated about music theory. Of course you CAN write a good song or piece of music without knowing what you're doing, but if having the extra information is somehow hindering your creative process, I'm going to assume that you were not very creative in first place. This technical information, like music theory, is only necessary when its applied in situations that may require it, or to solve a problem.

Yeah. I agree! Rum, or maybe just a general "Adult Beverage Hardware Solution". I kinda like a nice juicy NEIPA when I'm jamming and writing patches.

And then you got the guys who take everything personally, lol. I get it, I'm definitely not uptight about when/how I get my updates (as long as they stay free, that is), but I personally preferred it when L6 didn't announce anything and just dropped stuff when it was finished, so there wouldn't be these threads in the first place, or at least they wouldn't go on so long. I love my Helix, I loved it the way it was when I bought it on from the GC preorder (even though GC was crappy about honoring the preorder instead of shipping all their first units to their "Platinum Stores" for off-the-floor sale), and I've appreciated all the little updates that have come along. The tuner was about the only one so far that's really had anything to do with my use, but I still appreciate it. It's one of those things where, should you choose to jump into the conversation, you're already playing a loser's game no matter which side you're on. If its seriously angering people from either side of the conversation, maybe those people need to take a few days off the internet, lol. At least its not some dude who already knows the Helix sounds like crap and then posts videos of obviously doctored studio tones and then won't take anyone's advice and then deletes the thread.

C'mon man! ONE OF US! ONE OF US! We all float down here. Or something. Doesn't matter what gear forum you end up on, there will always be the guys who suck the manufacturer wang to no end. If its any consolation its worse on TGP, and there's other brand ball lickers that just wanna fight about whose digital amp sims have the nicer booty and whatnot.