rbum

THX for this idea and link. Quite amazing how it works. Although it's not the solution for my "problem" , because it is the sound of the reverb in a huge room / cave or whatever.

With clear sounds this might be usable and gives an interesting background sound. With distortion sounds there is a big difference between the original sound of the stroke and the reverbed sound, which becomes more a noise than a sound.

Play a power cord with distortion sound on a guitar with very good sustain and hold it - that is what I need, but lasting longer.  EXH freeze delivers more the long reverb of the cord when you  don't hold the sustain on the guitar.

I often use Helix with guitars that have mag pickups and piezo systems as well. I usually have one path for the electric sound and one for the acoustic sound, which works great. I can switch from clear rhythm or picking in the verse to fat rock sound in the chorus or to solo sounds- whatever.

In the chorus of some songs it would sound good, to mix both sounds, to get a fat distorted "background" with the nice rhythm strokes of the acoustic over it. Like you have it with TWO PLAYERS in most power ballads. Being the only guitar player in the band, it works as long as the song can take a distortion rhythm sound in the chorus along with the acoustic strokes - that means: in up-tempo songs.

What I could not achieve, is a fat electric sound of a power chord that is lasting and then play acoustic rhythm sounds over it. As one uses usually more than one cord in a song, it must be possible to end the lasting sound while changing to the next chord - which should be lasting again. Just imagine two players perform it, then the idea get's clear, I hope.

I tried things like a looong reverb, with no pre-delay and near to 100% mix in path A, and acoustic rhythm sounds in path B but the sound I get out of A is a reverbed sound and not a lasting original sound. I just want to play that chord, stop playing on guitar, but the sound should last in Helix until I stop it by lowering the volume or changing the snapshot, the mix or whatever. With that sound available, I could then play over it with acoustic sound.

Anyone have an idea, trick or effect in Helix, which might help here?

18 hours ago, SymphonicDischord said:

 

Not necessarily, you could always drop an FX send block set to line level right before your cab/IR block and then you could feed that into the PC. 

Yes, right, in case when cab/IR is the last block before "out"  that would make sense. At the moment "cab" is in the middle of my chain in most presets: 
comp + modulation + distortion + amp + cab/IR + modulation stereo + volume + delay stereo + reverb stereo.   I would think moving the cab/IR to the end of this chain would kill the stereo effects for the FOH/PA? comp + modulation + distortion + amp + modulation stereo + volume + delay stereo + reverb stereo + FX send + cab/IR.

At least for mono chains, if there is a free block available, it could be a simple solution for this problem.

On 6/19/2018 at 7:08 PM, phil_m said:

 

There are several things in your review that confuse me, but this one especially... If you have the PC in Flat mode in the FRFR voicing, the signal coming out of the XLR out should basically match the signal coming into it. There should be no speaker modeling applied to it.

 

One thing to check in regards to the Flat preset is to make sure it's actually in the FRFR voicing. Several people on TGP mentioned that the factory preset labeled FLAT was actually using the LF Flat voicing which has the high frequency compression driver turned off. If that's the case, you would want to edit that preset to change it to FRFR voicing for acoustic guitars.

Sorry to confuse you... it's not easy to write about these experiences in another language...

But you did get it right: "If you have the PC in Flat mode in the FRFR voicing, the signal coming out of the XLR out should basically match the signal coming into it. There should be no speaker modeling applied to it."   It SHOULD, but I found no way to get out of the PC XLR with NO modeling. And so did others. It's because the signal is splitted going INTO the PC:   The signal goes  A:  to the speaker of the PC ( FRFR or any other preset) and B: to the XLR of the PC. And at this point there is no way to choose NO cab or No mic in the presets. You can choose a different cab for the PC speaker and the XLR out - which is interesting, but could lead to a different sound on stage and in the audience...

I started presets from scratch and at the end of the chain to XLR you have to decide which cab you choose - no way to get out flat. 

This - and some other decisions line6 made on the PC - confused me too...

On 6/19/2018 at 6:58 PM, steelstringer said:

 

Thanks for your review. I am on the fence right now about buying the Powercab Plus to complement my Helix. Your quote above is the aspect that I am the most confused about. I currently run my Helix XLR out to a mixer, which is connected to 2 powered speakers (Yamaha DXR series). It sounds amazing, but it isn't portable if I want to go jam on a whim. I do use the stock cabs, as well. But, if I understand the point of the Powercab, one could run it in FRFR mode and leave your presets alone (with those cabs on). Now, if you want to use the speaker modeling on the PC, you should probably bypass the cabs on the Helix because you would not want to run stock cab emulations into speaker emulations on the PC.

 

So, your quote above makes it seem like you wanted to run Helix cabs and the speaker emulations simultaneously, which, if I understand the PC, would not sound right.  Any further feedback on this topic would be great from PC owners.  

Yes, you are right in both aspects: if you run the Helix out XLR to a mixer to powered speaker, you would usually use the preset cabs or some impulse responses - at least for distorted sounds. You could use these setup and feed it into the PC in FRFR mode (for exmple with the line6 link) but then you loose the idea of the PC, to give the sound a more "amp in the room" feeling, it seems one loses some kind of direct response and dynamic compared to using only the amps of the Helix and then use the cabs of the PC.  For me FRFR was not the best sound to use the PC. In your setup you use the PC INSTEAD of the mixer + powered speaker. So you could bypass the Helix cabs and take the advatages of the cab sounds of the PC. But if you have like 20 songs with different configuration, you would have to bypass the caps in every song and path before starting to play ....  And beforehand you should use the seperated amp + cab in Helix (and not the amp-cab combination presets).  Depending on how often you change between your setups and how many presets you use, this could be very annoying. Sure, you could create two different setlist cab OFF and Cab ON- but every changed parameter in one setlist's preset would need to be done in the other setlist as well.

In my setup I cannot bypass the Helix cabs, because my Helix XLR still goes out to the PA, the PC is only my stage monitoring. Bypassing the cabs would kill the sound for the main stage ... So I would have to make different paths in Helix, one for the PA (with Helix cabs ON) one for the monitor PC (with Helix Cabs OFF) - that is not working because I would run out of paths and processor power in many songs.

Well I have both L3m and L2m and tested it 3 weeks in comparison with a power cab  plus...   If you just look at the E-Guitar sound, the power cab does pretty well in delivering a guitar amps sound (depending which preset and other possibilities you choose). Here the preset of the stagescource is not comparable for me (never used it).

For acoustic sound it's completely different. The high frequencies sound to "hard" for me and there is a lack of bottom or volume (I don't know the exact term in english ..)  it just sounds not natural or dynamic.

My complete impression about the power cab plus you find here:

To my knowledge REAL wireless in ear monitor system don't exist at this time. Regardless the price, they all still have a wire from the earphones to the body pack. Real wireless bluetooth does exist already: just the earphone which connects to a bluetooth source (Sony, Apple, B&O...) .  But none with aptX Low Latency ...

For a long time I was looking for a speaker or amp that could reproduce both: good E-guitar sounds and authentic acoustic sounds and whose high frequency cone or compression driver could be switched off by midi or even amp switching out of Helix or other modelers. For regardless how I tried to get distorted E-guitar sounds out of the used boxes (and I tried many): as long as the high frequency cone (or whatever the speaker uses) is involved, for me there was something "unreal" in these tones. I have an old Peavy Keyboard amp with a tweeter that could be switched off manually, and "voila": that made the big difference. But the amp was too heavy and switching off the tweeter in the middle of a song or remotely was not possible. So I use stagescource L2 and L3 instead, but I take the 1/4" inputs and reduce the high frequencies with the EQ.   As Line6 introduced the power cab plus this seemed to be a really good idea to get the best of both worlds, programmable!

When the power cab plus arrived, I was surprised about the size (it looks small for a 12" ) and the weight (nice to handle). What I did not like from the start was the position of the interface (knobs and screen) at the back edge of the top. When pushed backwards in monitor position, you cannot see anything: not the screen nor the color of the knobs !  And if you want to change something you have to move the cab or bend over (with your guitar hanging at your side...)  Standing upright on the floor like an amp the sound is directly "at your feet" and you have to step back some meters/ inches to get the real sound impression. When taken up on a stand to guitarlevel for me again the interface is not easy to see or reach. Why not put them in front ?

The sound impression is very different, depending what you use: the clean and distorted E-guitar sounds (using amp modeling of Helix and the speaker modeling of power cab) give real good results - for me the best I have heard from FRFR speakers so far. And they deliver a good feeling of response while playing. But it's still the sound of ONE 12" speaker, not 2  x 12" or more, so for a real rock sound in a Band without using a PA it might not be "fat" enough. You can choose different speaker models and they do sound differently with every amp models - just find the ones that transport your personal sound.

Using acoustic guitars, such as Ibanez, Ovation or Godin and PRS with piezo outputs, the power cab plus does not sound authentic in my ears. The high frequencies are to hard and there is a lack of bottom or volume, regardless how loud you play. The sound is not comparable to the sound of the stagescource which can deliver real good and dynamic acoustic tones. And there is no real EQ that could make a change. There are possibilities to control the level of high frequencies, but not the frequency or range. So this was disappointing because otherwise it could be a very helpful box for acoustic musicians as well!

To change presets via a controller you need to use midi at the moment, which is ok. As midi with Helix can be tricky, it would be much smarter to have a solution via line6 link, which is said to be coming. Obviously at the moment it is not possible to get out the XLR to PA without a speaker simulation (no FRFR) - which ruins the acoustic sounds !!!

There are some things more to think about before including the power cab into your setup. If you use the cab simulations of Helix before going into the PA (that would be the normal way, if you don't use mics), you cannot use the speaker modeling of the Power Cab (which sounds best for me) - unless you build different paths for both outputs in your Helix’s presets. If you use stereo sounds, you'll need two Power Cabs to get this stereo signal from the Power Cab to the PA (via XLR or mics). If you want to send acoustic sounds out of the XLR to the PA, this does not work...

In my Power Cab Plus the second input - which is said to be permanent FRFR - was a copy of the first one: everything I chose for input one would influence input two. So there was no way to use it as monitor or aux input. This may be a software or cable failure. But even in FRFR position the sound was not neutral in my ears. I fed mp3 songs via XLR from the PA and it sounded "boxed", while on PA (tried Stagescource L3m and L2m) it sounded good.

So for me, this really good idea does not work because of the (poor) acoustic sound and some restrictions in the way I would have to use the Power Cab in my  rig / live equipment (if I don't buy two units). Some restrictions may be fixed in oncoming updates, but for the moment I returned the quite pricy cab within a 30 days money back policy > thanks to Thomann for this opportunity!

You may try transmitters AND headphones that both use the  aptX Low Latency Codec . They say, the latency is below 40ms  https://www.aptx.com/aptx-low-latency   There is also a database with all products that use aptX Low Latency.  But I doubt, that it is reliable enough for using live - let alone the bluetooth connection which should not be interrupted by anything in it's way. That's maybe why you don't see any professional with bluetooth inear (which are available already) until now.  Wait a year or two: I'd bet it's going that way.

18 hours ago, Starcruiser said:

Thanks,

Let me see if I understand this:

In Snapshot 1 i go into Command Center and say that "instant 1" is Change Prog 1

In Snapshot 3 i change that so that "Instant 1" is Change Prog 3.

 

Now when using this:

Snapshot 1-> MIDI ChangeProg 1

Snapshot 2-> MIDI ChangeProg 1

Snapshot 3-> MIDI ChangeProg 3

 

Correct?

 

My only concern then is that I wanted to have the option of sending a Note and thats not available as "instant" messages. Next update? ;-)

 

 Well , there are different midi messages:  I used only cc messages, not  pc (program change) messages. It depends on what your receiving machine needs to do what you want ...
As far as I know the pc messages are send everytime you change a present (unless you deactivate this option in globals), but can also be send with snapshots.  For notes I guess you'll need  cc messages with value... 

Yes it is possible to send different midi messages with every snapshot, but it' s a bit tricky though. Like everything in snapshots it's also in command center with midi: every change in one snapshot will be repeated in the following ones unless you change it again. For midi that means, that a cc message with value 0- 66  will be send (again !) with every following snapshot until you change that value to 67 -127.  If you need more multiple cc messages in differnet channels, you have to set the values right in every snapshot you use, which can be complicated. Also sometimes there seems to be a bug and the values change from - for example- 127 to 125 while saving, which can make a difference depending on what you want to achieve.

If you set it right, you can - for example - start recording a sequence in an external looper in one snapshot, stop the recording in the next snapshot and start to play the loop in another one, which is pretty cool because the Helix looper is of no use for live music as long as you use snaphots in my opinion.

In the past some of the these programmed midi messages got lost / confused by some firmware updates, where there might have been major changes in the midi functions. Didn't manage to "repair" all my settings afterwards because of the time needed to fix it.

Many users looking for a decent sound found a way by using the Gobal EQ to cut off the low and hight frequenzies. You can choose which output the EQ is working on (XLR, 1"4, or both - and it always works on the phones output)  But to my knowledge and experience, the global EQ does NOT affect the L6 Link!  Which makes it impossible to do something "global"  using this Link and the sound will be very harsh (to my ears at least).

If you dont' need the additional inputs at the LT3, you can use them and send the signal via one of the normal outputs from Helix to LT3 and try to create "your" sound by using the Global EQ in Helix + the EQ on the LT3. This worked very well for me. Plus you can adjust the sound depending on the location you play or depending if you use the LT3 as your monitor or for the audience sound.

Just to add to this thread. I can confirm that the Belkin USB 2.0 to Ethernet adapter works great on the M20d mixer. Model F4U047. Connected to my router and had no issue seeing the mixer on my iPad.

When you say "my router"  do I understand right, you mean not airport express but another "normal" router? I tried he Belkin with a german "Fritzbox"  but it won't connect to M20d. Is there something in the konfiguration of the router that is nessecary for this function? I will use it only to get the iPad connected to M20d.

That seems to be a good idea!  But when I import the renamed file (metromone.hlx) it appears with the name "Paul Strat"  and has a clean sound and several effectblocks, but nothing to do with a metronome... very strange!  Any idea what went wrong ?

Regards, Ralph

Make sure, you have switched of +48 power in the input row where you plugged in the xlr from Helix. Does not work together properly. ..

amsdenj, you may be right in general - but I experienced some different behaviour in my setup. All my guitars have (active) piezos and - so I was told - rather high gain pickups. As I run them seperated into Helix (piezos: return 1, pickups: guitar in) but together out to Pa & Stagescource L2t, I have experienced that the 1M brings exactly too much high frequencies from the pickups (for my taste) when distortion is used. Plus the piezos of the RPS are "weak" compared to the pickups, so I would have to rise their level dramatically and lower the pickups in every preset I use them together ... so it was easier to fix this by reducing the guitar-z level (and for me it was good when it was a global value before 2.01). However this worked good for more than a year.

Anyway, something changed with this update and the only question I would like to have an answer to is: does changing the guitar-z values has any effect that can be heard in your Helix or is it so subtile that it does not matter?  Maybe my unit did behave "wrong" before the update by reacting very active to changes of this values between 10k and 1M .... ?

No, it WAS global, but that changed in 2.00 to "per preset / snapshot"  and default "auto". But it did not work properly, showing the wrong values. This was an admitted bug and was fixed with 2.01.

But now in 2.12 in my Helix, if I change the value, it seems to have NO effect on the impedance - at least I can hear no difference. Maybe someone can just check this by changing the value from the default "auto" (which is 1M Ohm in most cases) to 10k Ohm.  The sound should become less aggressiv or distorted if you try it with a high gain amp.

For most usres this may be without any use or relevance but because I use some guitars with "hot" pickups like PRS P22 and some with single coils or Godin xtSA & a GR55 in the same song I have to adjust the impedance to get equal volume levels.  And at the moment it's like the block is without function...

Ob boy! After the update to 2.12 it seems a bug from 2.00 returned ?!  

Usally I have my "guitar in-z"  set to 10k.  This value is SHOWN when a preset is selected. So far so good. But now it is WHITE,  as if I would change it during snapshots, which was not the case in 2.10.  AND as soon as I go to another snapshot, the shown value changes to "Auto"  - though the sound does not seem to change...

Returning to the first (or any other) snapshot, the value continues to be shown as "Auto" - it does not affect the sound.

I tried to upgrade my presets to the latest format with  Power on while holding 10 + 11  but the unit says "rebuilding all presets"  instead of " upgrading all presets..."

At the moment I cannot even judge, if the shown value is the used value....  it seems as if changing guitar in-z  has no effect whatsover on the real input - the sound does not change at all!

Some else finds the same behaviour ?

if you "loose" the balanced signal anyway, did you consider using the earphone out (which IS stereo) and a good shielded stereo cable to go into your mixer?

I take the earphone out signal to a stereo DI-Box which can merge it to mono and use the balanced mono xlr out to feed my stage monitor. works perfect and the way to the (active) stage monitor IS balanced and quiet. Even has the earphone-volume knob seperatly.

Another idea would be to use the mono 1/4" outs of helix to go into two seperate inputs of your mixer. In my enviroment I got to much noise everytime I tried to use unbalanced connections. Biggest problem was the usb between helix and Laptop... so I ended up with some Di-Box solutions bewteen helix and PA / Looper / Amp...

I tried the IRs that are often mentioned for piezo, but I don't like them in most cases. Maybe they are intended to be used with single-coil guitars, or for straight folk picking, but for me, they "ruin" the good piezo sounds of the Godin or PRS. I guess, it depends a lot on what kind of sound your are looking for. So for me it's like this:

I use a PRS P22 und two Godin guitars with piezos and I was looking for nice full percussive sounds for strumming in the back of "power ballads" or nice clear picking sounds in the verses ... but I use real rock sounds in the same patches as well, sometimes blending the sounds into another ... so for me this can only be achived with a fullrange speaker (I use line6 stagesource- but with cutting the harsh sound of the mags) or with two different outputs in an acoustic and a "normal" guitar speaker.

To have control over the bright sounds of the acoustic parts and the E-guitar sounds I found this way for me:
 

1. use both jacks, one for the mags, one for the piezo - doing this you get complete seperated sounds - no blending inside the guitar

2. use AUX or Return INPUT in Helix for piezo sound and the guitar input for mags

3. create different paths for piezo and mag inputs

4. use different outputs for the paths (I use 1/4 for piezo and xlr for mag), if you want a mixed output (additional) you get it from phones out (even with seperate volume)

5. use global EQ on xlr to cut lows at about 60hz and highs at about 6.7 hz  on the mags to your taste if you use Fullrange.

In the patches I use a dymanic compressor and then sometimes a studio preamp or a bass preamp for the piezo path. The amps and cabs don't work for real acoustice sounds. The input of  my PRS P22 is only half as loud compared to the Godins, so I need to use some gain to get a full sound at all. Sometines I don`t use a preamp at all and raise the level in the following blocks.

In all patches I use a chorus (some of them have a "tone"  knob, which is very helpfull to make the acoustic sound softer),   a short delay and a smal room or chamber, to start with. Sometimes a 10-channel eq before the delay. This way I get a wide range of acoustic sounds which I put in some templates and copy to my setlists when I start to create a new sound for a song.

Blending these sounds together with clear or distored E-guitar sounds is very easy possible using the different output blocks of the paths. The variety on very nice sound you get is impressive and using snapshots makes it so easy to go from acoustic picking over clear floating E-guitar sounds to high gain solo parts in a songs or a split second, if needed. But sure, it takes some time to tweak the patches...

One last thing: be aware, that all sounds are very different at "living-room-level" or at live-performance-level.  So the piezo sounds can get very hight and too bright, when you pump up the volume of the speakers / Helix - better try this at live level before you think, you are done.

Thanks for these very helpful videos! You explained what caused me often to say "how come ? that sounded great at home..."     Good idea to have Hi- and Low-Volume banks. Will be a lot of work to optimize my patches but could be worth it.

I will run it thru a single TRS cable

If that works, it's great! I have 3 Piezo-equiped guitars, where the mixed output cannot be splitted... (so I use the different outputs with two cables)

I want to run the helix to a L2m with the L6 link. Is this possible?

Yes, but it may depend on the way you like your mag sound through the L6 Link. The Link sound cannot be altered with the global eq and is very harsh for my taste. If you choose mono xlr or 1/4  for output, you could use global eq for easy adopting to different locations. Also with one cable.

If you really want acoustic piezo sound (with no effects) you can take the splitted signal directly to the line-input of the L2m  and use the Cinch inputs for the mag signals from the helix.

If you don't need the Helix xlr for FOH, there is another option, to have much more fexibilty and profit from the Helix:
Like DarellM5 suggested, use the guitar in (mag) and aux in (piezo), then use path 1A and 2A for the different signals. Then route the mag-path to xlr output and piezo-path to the 1/4 outputs. Connect the xlr mono output to the xlr input (L2m) and the 1/4 signal to the cinch input. So you have complete splitted control on both sounds which is often handy. And with snapshots or presets you can easily switch the outputs on or off or use them together in different levels. Sure you need one more cable than with the L6 Link.

If you need xlr, you can also use headphone out for the connection to the cinch-input (just select in globals, which output is heard in headphones)

I use this routing for monitorsound with a L2t, which gives even more opertunities.

No technical risk, as far as I know, but you won't get both sides which can be very irritating when you use stereo effects like delay.

I use a two channel DI box between earphone output and stage monitor, which converts the two channels to one mono signal. You need to use a Y- adapter to split the stereo earphone jack into two mono jacks for the DI box inputs though.

I used to have a volume pedal in this signal chain to control the monitor, but with Helix 's separate volume knobs, I don't need it anymore.

The Helix manual reads: Two StageSource speakers or DT amps can also be connected in series via L6 LINK and your stereo Helix signal is intelligently split, with the left channel going to the first StageSource/DT and the right channel to the second.

So maybe the system is only prepared for 2 speakers (used as stage speakers, not as monitor)

But as there are so many outputs on Helix, it's easy to take the xlr mono (or earphone) out and feed it to the L3t / L2t. Doing this would give you also a seperate control over volume directly with the Helix knobs which could be handy while playing.

btw, I found the L3t to large as monitor and they deliver much more bass (which is no good for stagefloors) ,  so I took the L3t as stage speakers and use the smaler L2t as monitor. They are just the size of the Helix + a ext. Volume pedal, and even on smal stages no problem.

just EQ'ing the piezo signal. I did try some of the free IRs, but for me again they did not help the overall sound. I mainly use studio preamp and bass amps to give the signal more gain, volume ... and sure the different chorus or flanger fx can make the sound softer, wider. No need for caps at the moment.

But still just beginning and trying new variations like parallel acoustic paths with different amps, eq etc.   Mixing distorted rock guitars beneath clear acoustic sounds ...  As we don't do cover songs but our own songs, there's plenty of "room" for creating new sounds. I might post some in customtone in a few weeks during holiday.