gunpointmetal

Mine usually stay at or near that -18dB mark, sometimes if I have a tone with a drastic EQ settings I'll need to turn them up or down just a little. If things are that quiet, you should probably just turn the output volume up with the IRs at the stock setting until you can hear all those differences. As noted turning up that IR level doesn't change the tone, it just changes how you perceive it due to volume. All things equal, as long as your output meter is still flashing green you can do whatever you want internally with the levels, though.

Damn I checked out of this thread months ago (too soon apparently). People still get mad about owning what are basically computers that don't do what they want (and didn't when they bought it) instead of just buying a computer that does what they want? That's wild.

Sounds like more of an "event" band thing than what we do. We're all-originals instrumental-post-mathcore band that usually plays ~ 30 minute sets with 3-4 other bands on a bill.

Mind if I ask what venue? I'm Wisco based and my drummer is starting to get ants in his pants about playing shows, but we're in Dane county and there is nothing happening around here.

I haven't tried it, but you may be able to export a preset without saving it first, if you're worried about overwriting a factory preset. Adjust stuff, export preset, then select another preset without saving it to the LT? I have no idea if that works, as I've never tried it.

The CNTRL+Click thing makes sense. I'm having a hard time seeing a time when one would want to adjust ALL parameters the same degree at the same time.

From the Manual.

You'll have to check your USB routing in Helix. It's possible you've routed audio to USB tracks and bypassed the physical outputs of the Helix.

If you connect your headphones or speakers to the Helix you should be able to monitor at the very least the clean channel while you're recording. I'm not sure if you can monitor the other USB sends from the Helix, but at least that way you'd have one sound that was not delayed by the software.

Just trying to clarify: You'd like to monitor the DI signal going into the computer on USB 7 along with the Clean/Saturated channels via the Helix outputs while you're tracking?

I really like reading Eric's posts just because he always sounds so stoked about whats just around the corner. I feel like he probably reads some forums on the can in the AM then giggles like a kid all the way to work, lol.

@qwerty42 pretty much nailed it. A big part of mixing/mastering is making sure that a mix sounds big and full at any volume, guitar on its own it would be very hard to manage that. As @cruisinon2 said, album guitar tones rarely sound as good on their own. There are also lots of little tricks used like side-chain EQ'ing, compression, using different tracks for parts where the guitar is on its own versus in with the rest of the band, that make everything SEEM consistent and "big" without that being the case. Metal and dense music especially. I remember for a long time people would complain they couldn't hear bass in metal, but they could definitely tell it wasn't there when it was removed.

I think you're over-thinking the suggestion a little bit. The quoted thing regard EQ is suggesting that a driven tube power amp will change the EQ slightly to have a low-mid scoop compared to a solid-state amplifier that doesn't change the tone at all. There's no real reason to do the EQ suggestion unless you're having an issues with the tone. A slight EQ cut is not going to dramatically change the tone, nor is it going to be accurate to every tube power amp one might come across. Use your ears and dial it in till it sounds good. My original post was directed towards the OP where he mentioned stock settings on an amp model, then having to do crazy EQ stuff after the cab IR to get it sound good. My suggestion would be to treat the amp model like a real amp that you're changing cabs with. If you have a Marshall dialed in for a Marshall cab w/75w speakers, you can't just transfer those settings over to a Mesa cab and have it sound as good/the same.

Think of it this way: You wouldn't just take your amp head from one cab to another and expect the same settings to work exactly. If you grab a different cab/IR you should expect to adjust the amp controls for the cabinet. I've only used a handful of OH ir's, but turning the virtual amp dials got me 90% of where I wanted to be, which is about as good as any cab/IR that I've tried except for ML Soundlabs. ML stuff sounds "right" to me for the most part.

If Line 6 doesn't have something for you, check for another update in Windows. v2004 JUST came available for my laptop within the last few weeks, and probably within 24 hours of it being out, there was a patch update for my hardware specifically. I didn't have any issues with Helix, but my other interface (Behringer XR18) driver wouldn't load until Lenovo released their update to the update. I can't imagine a Surface Book 3 would have hardware/software issues that wouldn't be addressed ASAP.