Indianrock2020

Tried it again later in the day and it worked so just a fluke

Yes I was logged in.

My laptop is authorized per license manager and both my Helix Floor and HXedit are at 2.82 I logged into my Line 6 account from HX Edit. Earlier this morning I was able to load it into Helix Native on my other authorized laptop. If nobody has the magic fix here I guess I'll open a support ticket since I already spoke with the patch creator ( Jason Sadites )

Our PA is strictly mono and I run direct from Helix to PA out of the left/mono XLR output. So I decided to review my patches and found I often had the last block as a stereo LA Studio comp, which was often preceded with a stereo legacy reverb. The newer reverbs can be switched to mono. This isn't likely to cause a problem since the output is summing to mono, but I have heard of some stereo effects producing something unexpected when summed. Someone also mentioned that the summing process added 3 decibels --- if that is happening when I play live but not reflected over USB to my DAW, it would be nice to know.

Gunpointmetal -- exactly. Our volunteer sound techs ( 300-seat church ) don't really do any EQ, but I did set up high-pass filter on everything for them, mainly to get everything except bass guitar and kick out of the sub-125 hz range. Somebody said this on another forum I think he's on target: "Imagine that all the people are beanbag chairs. Beanbag chairs in a room, soaking up all the slap and brightness from your sound. They're basically room treatment that paid money to be there. Tune your sound to be too bright for the empty room, but good when it's full of meatbags."

Good idea but still there is the problem of checking it in an empty room without your band playing. Then possibly add to that an acoustically poor room and/or mediocre PA setup. I always play in the same venue but I've found that playing out in the room on a wireless when nobody is there just doesn't represent what the patch really sounds like in a mix. My mates give me good feedback when they're not playing ( sitting out in the crowd) which leads me to think the patches are fine.

Thanks for the feedback. We run Helix direct to PA and use IEMs for monitoring -- no amps allowed. I know that checking FOH from the stage is a bad idea -- I guess more than anything because you're not hearing (directly) what those speakers are sending to the crowd --- you're getting mostly reflections. Our six FOH speakers are up in a high ceiling, angled out and back, in a room that is roughly 68 deep ( stage front to back wall) and 90 feet wide. I don't think this is an "acoustically smart" room at all, so even walking the empty room on wireless and listening to FOH I guess I'm not surprised that what is acceptable with a room full of people and band, and is also good checked every which way at home, sounds a little unusual empty.

I know that checking your tone from the stage, trying to listen to the main speakers (FOH) is a mistake. Even walking the empty room on a wireless unit, playing and listening, may be a mistake unless you take into account that the band and dozens/hundreds of singing bodies will make a huge difference. But what is it exactly that makes this sort of testing unsatisfying or even discouraging? From the stage is it simply that you're just hearing reflections since you're not in line with any speaker? Out in the room, is it just that your reverbs and delays sound odd when your guitar is the only sound? I get good feedback from our other guitarists when they're sitting in the crowd and everything is running full tilt.

thanks Datacommando, that makes sense. What about the second question?

Have you ever noticed when you're playing swell /ambient stuff and you have effects like the Adriatic swell followed by the glitz reverb and as you play whole notes you're getting an even level but every once in a while with what seems to be the same amount of pick energy the volume jumps . Could the LA Studio compressor at the end of the path contribute to this? Have you experienced this and found a way to even it out? I have the latest firmware. May try bypassing the compressor at the end of the patch when using the ambient/swell snapshot. Second Question: what are the advantages of running some ambient effects in parallel --- say delay on the main DSP path and reverb in parallel. I understand that if the main path has no ambient effects, you can just adjust the Mix parameter rather than pulling something down into a parallel path. ( I run all mono )

How much DSP is used by a stereo return block? I'm guessing very low like a gain block. Not shown here: https://benvesco.com/store/helix-dsp-allocations/

Thanks for all the great information. I think I switched from 1/4 inch instrument level through a DI Box to XLR Line was because also play in a small band with no PA where I run straight into an Alto TS212 powered speaker. Didn't want to keep flipping the XLR out from Line to Mic and back again. Line seemed to work better for the powered speaker. Since there appears to be little difference in audio quality I'll probably just go back to using the Helix 1/4 outputs in the Presonus StudioLive Mixer venue.

Yes it is easy to get lost. I've been using a DAW or more often, the Orban Loudness Meter running on my laptop, to get patch levels all around -20db and that has worked well -- sound techs are happy with that. I do need to figure out why the Helix global level was set at +12 db but as I said, I think it was part of plan to avoid having radical gain bumps within patch blocks. Hopefully I can get that Global level closer to zero. Doesn't appear to be any great reason to stick with the XLR so back to 1/4 out at Instrument via DI Box. That also avoids the risk of somebody turning phantom power on.

If I can get all affected parties to the venue early some day ( church ) we need to test the two guitar rigs and get that single channel dialed in. The alternative is to move one of us to a spare channel, more complicated but possible. Starting next week I'm going to return to 1/4 out at instrument like I used to do and then see where the global EQ level needs to be so the channel trim for me matches the other guy's output. Currently the channel trim is 9 o'clock for me and about 12 noon for the other guy Mixer Channel 7 Trim

Correction I've been sending XLR at "LINE level, not MIC. I also have one thing adjusted in global EQ and that's a plus 12 db level bump. The reason I do that is so that I don't have to do too much boosting in patch blocks which seems to occasionally cause what I call "peaking clicks." Our mixer doesn't allow aux monitor sends to go before channel trim so the "sound tech problem" ( which becomes a problem for the musicians ) is that adjusting channel trim after sound check affects everybody's IEM mixes --- in my case this can result in air guitar or way too much loudness in my ears.