Hi there!
I wanted to share this topic, see if anyone has run into the same issue and maybe can provide some help.
Here is what I want to achieve: while rehearsing with my band I record everything in multi-tracks including both my guitar dry and wet signals, so I can work on my presets back at home.
I use Helix floor live, and Native for reamping at home, both in 3.7 versions.
My problem is that when I compare my recorded wet signal, with the dry one going thru Native with the same preset, I do not get the same sound! I was expecting some volume level differences but here I am speaking more of gain/hot/drive differences (or whatever you want to call it...), affecting the tone.
I investigated a bit, trying to keep it as simple as possible.
Here is my set-up:
- Helix Floor: wet signal goes out of the 1/4'' output set as "Line", dry signal goes thru a Fx Send block (first in the chain) set also as "Line" (to keep it consistent). Every parameter that may affect the I/O gain is set to 0dB. No global EQ, main Vol button is set to Max.
- Dry and wet outputs go straight in a XR18 mixer. This is my audio interface, connected to my laptop via USB. For recording, I use Reaper. Signals out of the XR18 to Reaper are picked up at the "Analog input" level, meaning before any processing (preamp, EQ, ...) from XR18. And in Reaper, any gain, leveling, etc is set at 0dB (again here, I try to minimize the number of parameters involved).
First I check my recording by using an empty preset on the Helix floor (except for the Fx Send block): signals recorded from both Send and Main output are the same.
I could not get perfect cancellation using phase inverter for the simple reason that there is a slight delay, Send output is getting to the Mixer before the Main output. But waveforms are the same.
Then I add an Amp+Cab block to my Helix preset, for example Line6 Aristocrat with Default settings.
For the comparison in Reaper I apply a Native plugin on my Dry signal recording: same preset ("Amp+Cab" block only) and I/O levels set to 0dB.
This is where I get confused: the signal recorded from the Helix Main output seems to be "hotter" than the one coming out of Native. The only way I manage to get both signals closer to each other is to increase the Input level in Native (to feed the Amp block with more gain) and to decrease the Output level in Native (to balance the output volume level).
I tried different types of Amp blocks: with cleaner tones it's less obvious but this is definitively not a problem of volume balance, the output tone changes depending on the input level entering the Amp block.
What do you think, am I doing something wrong? If not, this might have something to do with the way Native plugin is calibrated. Is there a standard rule to deal with Input/Output levels in Native so that it behaves the same as the Helix floor?
Note: my set-up may sound a bit odd, I know reamping works well when you use Helix floor as your main Audio interface and the dedicated USB 7/8 output. But I do not see why it should not work my way too...
Thanks in advance for any comments !