jman64

In regards to the sound guys, many of the local venues around here have their own sound system, and operator. Some of them are very good, some less so. However getting on the wrong side of any of these sound men makes it likely you don't get called to play there again. in my area there are far more bands looking for gigs than there are venues looking for bands. So if you want to play out at all regularly you keep the venue and the sound guy happy. To be fair there are some places where the sound guys like and appreciate the Helix. For the gigs where we hire our own sound guy we have a great one that we deal with and have no issues. My goal is to create and run a rig ( and patches) that can either be mic'd or sent to FOH. So when I pull out the Helix, and the sound guy rolls his eyes I can at least give him options. I do understand that that requires multiple paths per patch with a no cab path, and a stock cab or IR path. I guess you could also just run the no cab signal on an FX send but either could work. I know that there is going always be some difference between going to a guitar cabinet, and going DI to FOH but I'd like to work on limiting it as much as I can, and still being somewhat versatile. I do think the JBL EON's color'd my tone a little and weren't as transparent as you would want. On the other hand I liked the portability of that rig, and the lack of large heavy to haul around cabinets.

I have been a Helix user now for a few years, and I have been very happy with the device. Awhile back I had some of my gear stolen out of a storage unit which included my Helix, my FRFR speakers and some other random gear. As I haven't been playing out recently I hadn't been in a rush to rebuild my rig. However now I'm to the point where I am starting to think about it. I've been thinking about what I want to do different to potentially address the one issue I ran into at times. My old rig was pretty straight forward. Guitar into digitech drop to Helix, and out to JBL EON 615's. In general I got great tones, and had the flexibility I need for the range of cover tunes I was playing. However there were times at gigs when I would hear myself in the rooms mix, and it would be pretty different than what I had coming out of my stage speaker. Usually it would be on the thin sounding side. Now I think a lot of that problem was that I was creating patches listening through the JBL EON615s which had more low end than a typical guitar cab, and I would EQ too much low end out of my patches. I also ran into a fair amount of sound guys that really wanted to mic a cab instead of taking a direct line, and I have a feeling may have been annoyed as they dialed me into the mix. Now as I plan to rebuild, I'm thinking that I want a rig that uses a more traditional speaker cab, so at the very least I can go direct or be mic'd. Which would also make the tones I create hopefully closer to to me in a live mix. I'm thinking there are 2 or 3 ways I can go. 1 being into a powercab, or a Friedman ASC, or a MIssion Gemini 2. Two being getting a regular 2x12 cab, and running something like a Seymour Duncan powerstage. Or finally getting a regular amp and cab and running the Helix in 4CM with it. My concern with option one is how well can you mic systems like the powerstage or Friedman. Do they tend to be more like a normal FRFR speaker that you wouldn't usually mic or are they close enough to a traditional cab that they can be mic'd without issue?

This looks to be a fantastic update! Some where down the lone throw in a polyphonic pitch shifter like the Digitech Drop and you will have covered every thing I could ask for.

For me it's finding a comfort level. At most of the venues we play, the drummer is on a small riser which puts his cymbals right at about my ear level. Now depending on the space, he will sometimes put some gel packs on his cymbals to keep them in check, but it still is loud most of the time. Personally I like to feel my sound some in addition to hearing it. Call me crazy but it inspires me a little when I'm playing. So I'm balancing my volume against the drums, and making sure I've got solid coverage on my side of the stage. I rarely have a problem hearing the bass, and I ask for the other guitar player to be in my monitor slightly, as I rarely can hear him on the other side of the stage. One other trick I use to help me cut through the mix, is that I run into a BBE Sonic Maximizer pedal. I've had this since I was playing through my tube amp, and I've found it to really sweeten my tone. With the Helix, I need to run it with lesser amounts of process, and low end then my amp, but I still use a little, and it gives me a little edge to cut through the mix.

I run a JBL EON 615 on stage set behind me on the floor as a wedge, and it gives me plenty of volume to keep up with our loud stage sound.

I play through a JBL EON 615 speaker, and it has plenty of volume to get up over the drums ( and our drummer hits hard) and cut through even with the other guitarist (100w Marshall 1/2 stack) and the bass which is through an 8x10 ( I think) ampeg cabinet. No idea on the bass watts, but loud for sure. Our practice and stage volume tends to be right there balanced with the drums and the 615 has no trouble in the volume range, and has headroom to spare.

Extreme, Decadence Dance, Nuno Bettencourt.

So I got this response in email today. Looks like a new update is on the way, hopefully with fixes. "Hello jman64. Your Line 6 Support Ticket was updated with the following message: Hi, Thanks for your patience with this bug. We have a fix and it will be released soon with a new firmware release. Will - Line 6 Support You can reply directly to this email and your response will be added to your ticket. If you have a file to send us, it must be attached via your ticket. To view your ticket, click here: http://line6.com/account/tickets/edit/289703 If you do not reply to the ticket within 14 days, it will automatically be closed. If it closes, you can open the ticket again by replying to it within 90 days. - Line 6 Customer Service"

Another email from them, "Hello jman64. Your Line 6 Support Ticket was updated with the following message: Hi, I want to check something, can you please roll your Helix back to v2.01 and re import your saved bundle/presets. Let me know if those are corrupted in any way." The problem is that I can't re import any of the presets I've made since updating to 2.10, so this request is basically asking me to wipe everything I've done so far in 2.10, and go back to 2.01 to see if those work. With a show coming up this weekend, this doesn't seem practical for me.

Got this response today from Line 6, "Hi, I'm sorry about the trouble with your Helix. This is most likely a bug that we're currently looking into. I'll keep this ticket open and let you know when I have an update. Thanks, Will - Line 6 Support"

That makes sense also. Thanks, Jay

That's a great tip. I didn't think about splitting the volume control up.

It very well could have been. I'm just trying to make sure of my process and that I'm keeping things where they need to be on my end.

Last night I played my first gig with the Helix running through a FRFR speaker setup. ( Did one prior with my amp in 4cm). I've created my patches to all be pretty closely volume matched. They may be a tad bit louder than the factory presets, but nothing drastic. When going through sound check the sound man said my rigged sounded great, but that on some palm mutes he thought I was getting some digital clipping. He asked me to turn my main volume down on the Helix, which I did and he claimed the clipping was gone. From my understanding of how the Helix works I wouldn't expect the main volume to cause clipping internally, only if the signal was too hot and over driving whatever pre amp it was fed into. I've been setting the Helix's main volume to between noon and 1 o'clock on the dial. When I turned it down to around 11 o'clock the sound guys was happy but it altered my signal to my stage speaker enough ( JBL EON 615) to where I struggled to get the volume I needed to hear well on stage. Time was tight so I didn't have much chance to do anything but try to turn up the gain on the speaker, which wasn't as much as I needed. So I struggled through the set trying to hear myself. People I knew in the crowd said I sounded great out front, so that was a relief. So my questions are, is there any good way to first tell if your patches are too hot and causing clipping besides trusting your ears? And secondly does the main volume dial effect this? Jay

Yes I did, a couple times actually. Jay