astroturf

My Helix in in the repair facility now. My old marshal and Cab was mic'd for practice with a 57, not an ear bleeding tone to be found. You are correct, I, and a few others have little experience at this level. If we are the minority, ignore our comments, if we aren't, then truly good UI is developing for the novice user as well as giving the advanced users room to play.

The idea of having the cabs setup already is good. I almost sold the Helix after getting an FRFR and I tried my PA, Friedman, L3T and the Atomic. The whole band complained about the harsh tones. It's poor UI. There should be an easy button for the non engineers that gets things going and for the advanced users, they can work from that foundation. I eventually made it to the forums and read threads like these and got workable tones. My user experience would have been better if it was like the old POD days where it sounded great with headphones and then it was tweaking your actual amp/cab to get close.

I ran it from the Helix 1/4 out to the rear left/mono input. I didn't use stereo.

I had my powerblock running into a vintage marshal cab using only pre-amps and it sounded great. I switched to running FRFR (Atomic for gigs, Friedmann in house, and an L3T I plan to sell). However, I can say, I have been thinking of going back to the cab / powerblock combination and dispensing with the FRFR solutions. They just never quite sound as good though you do get quantity...

Correct, if I have two cabs then both are output L+R rather than a different cab to each.

I have the L3T, Atomic and Friedman. I have to agree, the Line 6 equipment sounds... Harsh on the highs. The atomic sounds slightly better with a much better form factor. The Friedman sounds deep and not as harsh, but it is heavy. I am going to sell the L3T and keep the Friedman and the CLR. Putting both together creates an incredible tone that neither alone can create (all my patches are mono so it isn't a stereo effect unless Helix does something different when L+R are plugged in).

Thank you both for the explanations. It seems to get the sound I want with the flexibility of modeling I have a whole lot more to learn then plug in and tweak a few knobs.

Thank you... I found the OP incredibly useful...

I find a meter is a quick way to get the patches in the same ballpark, and then use my perceived listening volume to get them into the same dugout.

Those are 1920 so your OS may not need to scale at all like it would with high res smaller monitors...

Their app doesn't support scaling. I submitted a ticket because Helix Edit is the 'only' application I cannot use on a laptop with a 3200x resolution. The response to my ticket was: Hi, I'm sorry about the trouble with Helix editor. Unfortunately it does not scale up properly with some larger graphics cards. We hope to have a fix for this in future releases. Thanks,

If you go the Lenovo route, I would add that a high resolution yoga makes Helix Edit unusable. The font is super small and nearly impossible to read. I submitted a ticket that the app should support scaling for large resolutions. The response to my ticket was: Hi, I'm sorry about the trouble with Helix editor. Unfortunately it does not scale up properly with some larger graphics cards. We hope to have a fix for this in future releases. Thanks,

I have an L3T and if I don't put on a filter at ~6k the entire band complains of the harshness and it makes your ear's bleed. I personally think if something is modelling an amp and cab it should cut out what the cab doesn't produce automatically. Lastly, it just doesn't sound very good. Going through a FR amp to a cab sounds great, but terribly limiting, going through headphones sounds like butter as well but doesn't help much live...

Thank you, you are correct, I meant cut! I would have to politely disagree with 'this is just the nature of the beast'. If they are simulating cab + mic setup the frequency should be set to mimic the actual cab without having to look up the cab's frequency response. The reason I went from Class D + Cabinet to FRFR was to use different cabs. However, I can go from that setup (granted I only have 5 cabs as my sample size) to the FRFR and the sound needs a lot of adjustment to even come close, setting HPF/LPF, eq adjustments. I can go Helix + Class D + Cab + Mic -> PA XLR and my ears have yet to bleed. I'll admit my expectations maybe off. I have been playing for over a decade exclusively on various Line 6 Pod + Various Amps + Various Cabs but assumed I could replicate what can be heard with headphones with an FRFR and reduce gig baggage. Maybe I can with some more tweaking. Unfortunately, I like playing more than tweaking so my ultimate answer maybe to limit my options and go back to Class D + Cab. I started with the LINK and it was harsh. I then read it needs a special cable and the AES setting. So, I got one and set the setting. Little difference. So, I went to XLR. While the output was not nearly as loud as it was when using LINK it was much less harsh but still ear piercing. I have also tried the L3T on the floor and standing up, towels draped over the tweeter. Tried the various settings (except I have not tried the cab sim on it). It sounds OK now, but not what I was expecting. Though, I am going to try the Helix direct into my PA next to rule out a crappy L3T.

I am using the L3T and found that setting the global eq high pass filter to 6000 and using the XLR instead of the L6 Link helps with the harshness. One poster mentioned that covering the tweeter helps. I can confirm it does help but at these prices, seems a bit ridiculous to have to use a mechanical solution. I am going to order a CLR Neo as soon as they have them and see how that does, I'll post results if anyone is interested. Either way I plan to abandon the StageSource and if the CLR doesn't work, the Helix as well.