gunpointmetal

I've been in that boat ever since I started to get into recording and going to school for audio engineering. Guitar cabs are really, for the most part, poorly designed speaker systems. The are very directional, very susceptible to room variation, and quite limited in frequency reproduction. I very much prefer to hear a "complete" tone through FOH, my backline, and my IEM. Guitar cabs were my biggest beef until I started going FRFR and direct. Get it sounding good in the rehearsal space...sounds like crap in a small venue. Get it sounding good in a small venue...sounds like crap in a bigger room. And it was rarely a small adjustment to fix it whereas now I pretty much just bump the bass knob on my monitor from 0 to -2 and I'm good to go on stage, while still sending a pristine, unadjusted tone to my IEM and the FOH.

That's why I don't mess with my FOH/IEM feed. I have that dialed in at a good level through equipment that I trust and I think that I' m sending the engineer the best possible version of my tone, that he can adjust at the board if needed. There have definitely been times where due to stage construction or placement, room shape, room construction, sound absorption/lack of where my on-stage monitor sounds extra boomy out in the room, or maybe there's some reflections causing a high frequency to get spiky and I'd like my tone to stay out of the way of FOH for my "room" sound coming off the stage.

I agree, but I see a lot of posts (most recently someone asking how to "quickly" dual-cabs mono) that make it seem like people need an immediate "build-a-patch" solution, so I'm curious if people are actually editing the patches to adjust for live use. the Global EQ method has working just fine for me, and I think I've even gotten better tones out of shared backlines with my powerblock and Helix setup running "full-range" patches adjusted with the EQ than a lot of the guys we've shared stages with using traditional amps.

For the FRFR guys, how often are you "fixing" your tones for a room and what methods are you employing? For me, I have the XLR set to be unaffected by the global EQ and the master volume, so my FOH tone and my IEM tone (I run mono live, so I send the same tone from both XLR outputs) and then use the global EQ to just do basic low/high adjustments for my on-stage monitor. This also comes in handy if I have to use a supplied backline, as I can boost some of the highs and low mids I'd lose running a tone with an IR into a guitar cab without changing the FOH. Just curious how everyone else handles room adjustments with FRFR because I see a lot of posts in various places about people wanting quick ways to edit patches, but to me it seems like a problem looking for solution if you already have dialed-in tones and just need a touch more of this or that. I can't image a situation where I'd be (or want to be) building a patch up from scratch during a soundcheck or live event.

Oh boy. I read and then I laugh and laugh and laugh....

Try adjusting the sag of the amp model, and not to sound like an lollipop, but try turning down the treble on the EQ if you haven't already. If you haven't, also make sure that you're hitting the power amp with the same level your normal preamp on the amplifier would.

Up until the GT-100 there was only spill over if you had the same reverb/delay in the next patch, and there was actually a gap, it was just shorter. I was heavy Boss GT-X user up til the 100. The only unit I've tried that didn't have an audible delay was the Zoom G7/9 and those DID have a delay but depending on the patch it was sub-7ms and nearly undetectable. I'd say the modeling fidelity alone makes dealing with snapshots versus patch changes worth it.

I'm pretty sure they DO have a beta tester program, as evidenced by DI suggesting several people on TGP were having their beta privileges revoked for talking too much beyond the NDAs they signed. It might not be a huge amount of people though, and having a public beta is a good way to end up with an overflow of CS inquiries when someone doesn't get it loaded right, or it corrupts their favorite patches or something.

Yep, get comfortable with Snapshots. If you need different FX in each song, change presets between songs. With presets the device has to virtually dump your whole setup and load a whole new one. Snapshots are actually way more fun (for me anyways) because you can do stuff where you take a parameter like delay time, and assign two different values in different snapshots, then when you switch you get cool noises like if you turned the knob on the pedal.

Well, after several battery door replacements and continuous dropouts live, I think I'm done with the G30. Anyone try one of those new Sennheiser compact units? Thinking maybe something I can plug in without needing a pedalboard for the Helix. Following.

I get that, but if you want more blocks, more switches, and smaller than the full floor, the LT is it (hopefully, at least until everything is under one engine and then they can add as much hardware as they want, I guess). Headrush makes the thing you're talking about, its called the Gigboard, but its no Helix IMO.

That's the LT homie. What you want is the Headrush gigboard with Helix guts, lol. I think L6 has enough SKUs in the Helix family.

Well, now I see why DI doesn't post here as often. "Why thing no do thing nobody ever said thing do?" "Why no list of things thing no do compared to completely different thing?" "Why no fix/add thing specific to my use?" Act like because you spent $1500 you're on some special list of people who deserve to be exactly pleased all the time.

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.