sozeg

I’m on here in the hope of finding a solution as my helix floor has just developed same fault. I’m thinking it’s a wear an tear fault with age then as I’ve had mine from when it was first released. I tend to do a lot of patch creation and tweaking using the hardware rather than hs edit. I reckon it’s just gave up with use.

17 hours ago, cruisinon2 said:

 

It's not about Helix...it's about physics, and the way sound bounces around a room. The device(s) making the noise are irrelevant. 

 

And no, there's no point in using stereo FX blocks if you're feeding a summed mono signal to FOH, you'd just be chewing up extra DSP. Especially the delays...dual or pingpong delays summed to mono are a useless mess. 

 

No idea what's in Alex Lifeson's rig, but I seriously doubt his sound guy is sending a hard L/R, true stereo guitar feed out to a stadium crowd... and if he is, it's because he's running a sound system that costs more $ than most of us will make in a lifetime, and everything is positioned "just right".

6 hours ago, DunedinDragon said:

 

Most of the problems with live stereo have nothing to do with the Helix and far more to do with the placement of FOH speakers, the arrangement of the room, the ambience in the room, the "liveness" of the room, the location of people in the audience, etc.  There are simply just too many variables for stereo to be effective in most common environments with standard FOH setups except for maybe a select few in the audience.  Most often it just adds to the noise level and obscures the clarity of what's being played.  If you want to, however, you can invest in 3 or 4 flown stacks of line arrays perfectly positioned for every venue to get the same results as Alex...  ;)

This is Alex Lifesons rig that I was trying to simulate on Helix as best I can...

Wow - its an overwhelming no for stereo then! Well my set up is a clean amp left and dirty amp right panned 24 each side, into two separate channels of the PA and those are panned hard left and right. As people on here have said though, Im probably almost mono anyway with that little panning. I think I might post a photo of my patch to give a better idea but am wondering now is there any benefit of running two separate paths on helix to separate outs at end of path (hope that makes sense) i.e the two lines don't combine they go separate to the outputs at the edge of the screen. If running mono is that still okay to do. Sorry if that's a daft question...Also if I'm just using the left xlr (as that sums to mono) will there be  adrop in volume as Im no longer going through two channels on PA?

This is my Rush tribute band. We don’t play a lot of the early stuff but I use helix and sometimes variax for 2 hour rush sets. I’ve had problems getting the guitar to cut through at gigs but have recently change my patches to a baseline stereo patch and I switch in and out pedals for different songs. So, still a patch pervsong but it’s essentially the same just with different snapshots programmed and sometimes different pedals.

Very interesting topic. Been going straight to foh with iem’s for about 5 years, first hd500x now helix. I love the set up but find when listening back to recordings my guitar just doesn’t cut through. Rarely do I get the guitar cutting through. I’ve been questioning my set up as I run stereo but not in a mad spacey sound way just two amps with stereo delays and reverbs. Everyone I ask says don’t run stereo but I don’t think that is the problem.

Can I ask then is there any point in using stereo reverbs, chorus and delay if you are running mono? Should all the effects not all be mono?

Hmmm....thanks for the responses. A lot of folks online etc say to avoid stereo but that dames such a shame. Surely with the power of the helix it could be controlled? I had thought that by only panning 24 each side but then panning the output channels hard left and right would be cool? Tried it in rehearsal tonight and it sounded pretty good, maybe it’s better mono though as I never tried that. 

Alex Lifeson rig is stereo without sounding totally separated and certainly no phasing. I’ll persevere but appreciate the comments.

I’ve been going out stereo with xlr’s for a good while but never felt I had the sound and spread I wanted. Im now using two amps with two separate outs with one amp panned 24 left and the other 24 right, using stereo reverbs and delays. It now sounds great through headphones and my daw. What’s the best way to treat this in rehearsals and a gig in terms of the pa mixer? 

Should i pan an each channel hard left and right at the mixer or both in the centre and the helix panning will sort it?

Any help or tips with stereo out to pa with two different amps would be great, thanks.

So after the update everything is there but some of my patches with fairly complex snapshots have gone to pot. I have a few that have acoustic on one snapshot, electric on another, a different electric with custom tuning on another. These are all wrong and it’s as if Helix won’t let me change them manually as the menu options are greyed out. Any ideas.

Great stuff. Thanks very much for sharing. Really unique insight into the pit of a massive show. Please continue to add more in the future.

Cheers for the tip about trimming the top case padding on the Gator case. I cant seem to open the photo though - any chance you could post as a pdf or something?

Great, thanks. I've ordered the same board and it's due to be delivered tomorrow

Scotch 3M EXTREME FASTENERS (velcro) from Home Depot 1"x3" (25,4mmx76,2mm). One strip each side. Kept feet ON. Just enough clearance to push down and engage and hangs upside down no problem. Very solid. Easy option if you ever need to pull it off of the board, too. Hope that helps.

 

Sorry to bug you again....did you remove the foam blocks in order to cut them or just cut them as they are sitting in the case?

Scotch 3M EXTREME FASTENERS (velcro) from Home Depot 1"x3" (25,4mmx76,2mm). One strip each side. Kept feet ON. Just enough clearance to push down and engage and hangs upside down no problem. Very solid. Easy option if you ever need to pull it off of the board, too. Hope that helps.

Great, thanks. I've ordered the same board and it's due to be delivered tomorrow.

Gator G-Tour Pedalboard LGW is dead on. Solid build with wheels and removable pedal riser. Can't imagine much better.

Cut the supplied foam with scissors and added some velcro for good measure, 5 min setup.

Room for cables underneath.

I'm 5'7" with t-rex arms, and it rolls great upright for me.

https://goo.gl/photos/2tvVFB13hRYibmxf9

Hi, did you use Velcro on the bottom of the helix? If so did you have to remove the feet from it?

Thanks

+1 Great review on the Gator G-Tour LGW case!  I also purchased this one, very happy with it and feel a lot better knowing my Helix is well protected. You are right, the fit feels like it could damage the knobs when the tray is left in the case. The tray was actually one of the most compelling features of this case to me. The tray keeps the bottom of the Helix up off carpeted floors for better cooling and less risk of exposure to spills or wet spots,  the tray handles and slightly extra height help protect if from other people's feet. I carry the tray separately to the gig right now. I am going to use the height added by the tray (as it sits in the case) or slightly less as the guide for how much foam to cut out, as the fit is pretty snug without the tray. Going to err on the side of cutting out less rather than more, easier to cut twice than glue foam back in (although I know any self-respecting carpenter would tell me to "measure twice, cut once"). This seems to be a really solidly constructed case and the modification for the tray appears to be extremely simple as you only have to trim the four braces you referred to rather than a large square of foam.

How did you get on with trimming the foam on this case? I've just ordered one. Do you have any photos of how much you cut off? Thanks

Nice case blues overdrive! Thanks for the links as well. I take it you can't shut the case when the pedal ups are in it?

I know there are several posts about hard cases for the pod but most of them give links to stores or manufacturers. Any chance people could share some pics of their pod in the various different flight cases? I'm thinking about the Thomann one which looks great but I would like to see others that have a bit more room for an expression pedal etc.

Thanks

Great idea. Defo interested.

Here's a link to my Rush tribute band Clockwork Angels. I play a jtv 69 into a pod hd500 straight into the pa. I use in ear monitors, and I've just recently upgraded to a 500x.

http://youtu.be/hLwwuW0xfo4

David,

I recently upgraded from the 500 to 500x and I had a similar thought/feeling about it. For me this was a pleasant surprise though as it was a kind of satisfaction that upgrading was worth it. I don't know all the technical details like others on this post  but I do know that my patches form the 500 sounded better when I loaded them onto the 500x. AQs I say though, I'm really happy about this. The sounds were "fuller" I wouldn't like to say they had more bass or anything - they just sounded richer, fuller and there seemed to be a better response from my JTV-69. I know all the scientists on teh site will say thats not possible but to my ears it is better.

Also I seemed to really battle with the 500 to get sounds I wanted and just put this down to thats what you need to do to get a good sound. On the 500x I seem to be able to create patches I like a lot quicker - they just sound good pretty fast. Even the presets are better and I found that with some minor tweaking of a few of the presets I got the sounds I want.

I too intend to keep my 500 for backup, although I'm finding now for a lot of my new patches I'm using two amps and a stack of effects so the 500 won't be able to cope with that. Still a similar patch as a back-up is better than nothing if the 500x fails at a gig.

The new switches are good but like you I didn't have any issue with the old ones. So, I intend not to analyse it all too much and just feel good in the fact that my new purchase sounds great and seems easier to use.

All sounds good, what about lighting of switches on a dark stage? Surely the red LEDs of the 500x win against the FBv?

Thanks for the info guys. I'm thinking of upgrading to 500x and toyed with the idea of getting a pro. I use in ear monitors and thought I could maybe get a rack with the pod and my iem transmitter all set up in then rack case ready to go. I like the look of the pod 500x though and quite fancy the new foot switches etc. the FBv board doesn't look as good but from the sounds of it does everything the same.

Hi,

Is the HDPro X definitely compatible with the FBV shortboard? If so do the A,B,C,D pedals carry out the same function as the F1,F2,F3,F4 on a normal 500x? It looks to me like you lose the looper controls? Does anyone use this set up and can they comment on how good/bad it is compared to the functionality of the controls on a 500x board.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks

The Hiway model is terribly under 'powered' (for lack of a better term). Have you tried using a different model that has more inherent volume to it?

I could change amp however I need to be able to switch between clean and heavy on that song. I suppose I could create a different clean patch but I always find you get a bit of a pop or click when you change patches mid song. A dual amp patch would be a good solution but I wouldn't have enough Dsp as the song has loads of compression and chorus. I could try dropping a distortion pedal and maybe go to just one chorus pedal and try for two amps. Sounds like I need the 500x!!