rd2rk

"Home theater speakers color your sound the most, but are totally OK for just practicing at home." Is what I actually said. Try it, you might like it! If you have a really cheap home theater setup, it likely won't sound as good as a top shelf setup, but you won't know till you try. I have a Sony bookshelf system, 6" speakers and a 10" sub, sounds pretty good in close quarters. In my bigger room I use 6" Rokit monitors w/o sub, would kill my neighbors (apartment) if I cranked them. Much of what a system sounds like depends on the environment it's used in and the levels expected of it.

FRFR means Full Range Flat Response. Most speakers, PA, monitor or home theater, are Full Range. Flat Response means that the speakers don't color the sound, that is, no part of the frequency spectrum is enhanced or attenuated. What goes in is what comes out. ALL speakers color the sound in one way or another. 1 - What's your favorite color? 2 - How much can you spend? Home theater speakers color your sound the most, but are totally OK for just practicing at home. Computer monitor speakers usually sound like crap, they just aren't designed for this. For home use with most accurate reproduction of your Helix, get proper mixing monitors. Go to a GC and try several to see what your favorite color is in your price range. For live use, your options are nearly unlimited, but the idea is that you want your sound to be close to what your audience will be hearing, so most people go for a PA type powered speaker. Alto makes a very affordable ($250-$350) range - TS210 (what I use) and TS212. Yamaha, JBL and QSC also make pricier but very popular units. Again, go to GC and try them out.

Turned out that Sonar is simply incompatible with MMC. You should try Support for your applications, though my experience with NI (for Guitar Rig) was not encouraging, Maschine is one of their mainline products, so support for that might be better. I've heard that Propellorhead also has less than stellar support, and my experience trying to use Re-wire seems to support that. You would probably have better luck trying to get help through the respective forums. As I wound up using standard Note messages to control the transport functions in Sonar and Ableton Live, you may be able to do that in Reason and Maschine. A quick look at their respective user guides indicates that Maschine uses Notes to select scenes, and that Reason uses CCs to control it's devices. I don't use either program, so your best bet, if you can't find solutions in their user guides, would be their forums. BTW - Ableton Live uses the same Notes for the transport functions as Sonar - STOP=Note A6/093;Start/Play=A#6/094;Record=B6/095 Here's a screenshot of my Preferences in LIVE EDIT: Image removed to reclaim Attachment Allotment

I run my guitar into an aby box, one side to the Helix, one side to my 2nd gen Focusrite 18i20 set to Instrument. Helix goes to one channel of my Alto TS210, Focusrite to the other channel. To record the Helix direct, I send the mono XLR to the Focusrite too. Native should eliminate that need, unless I need to switch presets or turn fx on/off on the fly, and if they incorporate midi in Native (like all the other sims I use), I won't need to do that. To A/B is as simple as pressing a button. I can't discern ANY difference in sound quality between the Helix hardware and Native. Either thru the Alto or my Rokit monitors. It's anything BUT muddy. Nor can I DETECT the additional 3.6ms that the Helix driver adds over the focusrite (16.7 vs 13.1). As mentioned, I use a 2nd gen Focusrite 18i20 USB into a 7th gen i7 HP laptop with 16gb, Sonar Platinum DAW. If you can't afford a UAD or RME, and you don't need the extra routing options (the 18i20 has all I need and more), stick with your Focusrite, it's terrific bang for the buck. At the same time, Helix is perfectly acceptable as an interface for us commoners. As for the muddiness, look elsewhere, it's not the Focusrite. BTW - the 2nd gen Focusrites addressed the Instrument input problems that previous versions had.

Like, around 10x the size of 3sigma and Ownhammer. You may have hit on the problem right there!

My tests were run using the IRs within Helix. I'm sure that if I run into the PC, any of the IR loaders I have would work, but the whole point of owning the Helix is for simple take-it-out-and-play use. Fact is, most of the computer amp sims I use sound better than the Helix (to my ears), and without near as much tweaking. Not that I don't get good sounds out of the Helix, but the learning curve is much steeper. However, the Helix goes out to jam while the computer stays home. Strangely (or not), once I start playing with the Helix in a live mix, it sounds great! When I started looking into this, I first loaded up TH3, which I hadn't used in a while. I always forget how good TH3 sounds, and how flexible it is. It's pretty, too! :) I use an FX only TH3 preset in front of S-Gear for some really nice sounds. That also allows me to use MIDI from an FCB1010-UNO pedalboard to turn things on/off. So, just to be thorough, I loaded up Native and tried the Diezel IRs. No joy. Baffling how a simple wav file works everywhere except in Helix land.

OK, very strange. I loaded the 6505 IR into a new preset with the PV Panama (seemed appropriate). Nothing. Pulled it down into a split and BANG! It won't work in a straight line, but in the bottom of a split, bingo! Then I put the Soldano IR in the top and assigned a switch to toggle them, both work. BUT....Can't tell the difference between them! AND...If you turn them both on at once, NOTHING! If you bypass both, you get the harsh sounding amp-without-cab tone. Listening to all three configurations (amp only, top on, bottom on) consecutively, it sounds more like the amp sound thru identical filters but not really cab IRs. Thinking it was my old R'n'R ears playing tricks on me, I set up a similar test with S-Gear, using the STEALER amp. Both 6505 and Soldano versions sound GREAT (thanks for turning me on to these), but VERY different! Conclusion: these IRs don't really work with Helix. I'm going to try posting in the GuitarAmpModeling forum that I got these from and see if anybody has any ideas, maybe the author? I'll get back if I hear anything.

This is where it lives online: http://www.guitarampmodeling.com/viewtopic.php?t=3373 You'll need to register first. I'll try it out after lunch.

Here's what I see in TH3's IR selection. You mentioned alternative DL sites? EDIT: Image removed to reclaim Attachment allotment

I couldn't find it in TH3 (v3.4.2 64bit). Looked in ProgramData/Overloud/TH3/IR. Is there someplace else it could be hiding? Other DL locations?

Sure seems like mostly MAC folks having problems. Maybe Native doesn't play well with MACs?

About mics - http://www.redwirez.com/bigbox.jsp

Disconnect the other interface when using the Helix via USB, and connect your speakers to the Helix. That fixed it for me.

Sounds like you may have fried your Helix.....

Yes, Native is 64bit only.

I just tested this again, only difference being that yesterday I had run Native in Live, then closed Live, disconnected, then re-ran Live with Native, worked fine. Today, I hadn't run Native, but I had rebooted. I disconnected, THEN ran Live with Native and got the Login message (after Live crashed on the first attempt). I logged in and Authorized the computer (again), and got the OK screen, Native ran fine. I closed Live, disconnected, then re-opened Live with Native. All is good again. I then closed Live, opened a new project in Sonar, and inserted Native. All is good. I then rebooted. BOTH DAWs ran Native again, even without the connection, and even after rebooting. So, it seems that you are correct, the demo version requires a connection, but if you open Native and authorize, you can disconnect and it'll still work, at least for a while? I dunno, temporary cookie with an expiration date/time? I'm about to drop coin on the license, so we'll see tomorrow if there's a problem there.

I'm not seeing this problem. Native (demo version) working fine w/o internet connection.

After playing some more (with clean presets), I had to go back up to 128. CPU now around 18%. But it wasn't just Native making noise, it was overall.

i7 HP Envy Laptop,Win10,16GB,SSD - Focusrite 18i20 latest drivers - 256/48 down to 64/48 no pops or clicks Ableton Live 9 Intro project with SGear,TH3,DPRO,EZKEYS,EZDrummer. Added Native, CPU doubled from 8% to 16% (at 126/48). Dropped to 64/48, CPU at 20% A/B with corresponding Helix Floor presets, I can't tell the difference. I've only tried a couple, but so far, so good.

Sunnyhaair - never mind, VST2 works fine in Live 9 ajaseniero - are you using the latest version of Live 9 (9.7.3)? bobruz - it's working in Sonar Platinum

Sunnyhaair - where in Preferences did you find the AU box?

We're good. Actually, I agree with you that it's much to-do about nothing. I sure can't tell the difference between loading an ir at 48/16 and loading the same ir at 96/24 and letting Helix convert . Considering what I've read and other contributions made to this discussion since it started, I believe that I can now say with absolute certainty that it is definitely better to know than not to know, even if what I now think I know is that no one REALLY knows!

Will, I've posted enough on this forum that you know I'm not a troll. As well I know that you're not one. I'm sorry if I sounded grumpy (would a smiley have made it better? :)), and I acknowledged your good intentions. So why are you attacking me? I get that you're not interested in the answer to the question, but I am, as is (I assume) the OP. Why not just step out and let someone who knows answer the question?

Thanks for telling us how to think, but we already know that you don't know. How would you know that there's something to know that isn't worth knowing?

aleclee - just re-read your reply - sounds pretty close to definitive. Can anybody confirm?