HonestOpinion

As Jopeggio mentioned, if you are using different size IRs or even different amps on each path(some amps use more DSP than others) that could account for the difference in apparent DSP availability. Not sure if it will make a significant difference but I also notice that you have the Output bock on 1A set to go to the Input block on 2A and also have the Output block on 1B set to go to the Input block on 2B. Perhaps that is the routing you needed for this particular preset but you may want to instead try a template like 01D "Super Serial x2" which can be found in the "Templates" setlist for maximizing DSP availability.

Pardon if someone else mentioned it, long thread, but one of the primary advantages to the Helix for an acoustic guitar in my opinion is the existence of the additional high impedance "Aux" input which is my preferred input for acoustic guitar. This input is not present on the HX although I should point out that some users prefer the "Guitar" or notably the return inputs for acoustic guitar on their Helix. Depending on the pickups/preamp in your acoustic guitar you may prefer the sound of the "Aux" input although the standard "Guitar" input or a return on the HX Effects probably works fine (I don't own an HX Effects so no practical experience with that). I don't think there is a huge advantage to the amps/cabs or IRs on the Helix for acoustic guitar. You can use IRs on the HX if you want anyway. I find I can get good sounds out of my acoustic guitar without them although if they added a couple of acoustic amps and cabs to the Helix I would love to try them. As others have pointed out the additional I/O options(e.g. XLR output on the Helix but not the HX Effects), additional effect loops, the ability to easily add a mic and vocal processing, two guitar inputs including "Aux", built in expression pedal, and a $300 discount on Native are all options I like having on the Helix as I play both acoustic and electric guitar and use Native. I don't consider, however, the lack of any of those features to be a showstopper for opting to use the HX Effects solely for acoustic guitar. I see the main advantages of the HX Effects being its lower cost and smaller footprint. You definitely lose out on some functionality and the large Native discount with the HX Effects so you just need to determine if you will use those features on the Helix and if they are worth the additional cost, extra weight, and larger footprint to you.

The ability to either include IRs in a bundle or a "Restore Backup" feature on Native is actually pretty high up on my feature wishlist. Until then if you make fairly frequent use of IRs and add presets on a regular basis, then syching the IRs on your Helix to Native remains a chore. Back to the bad old days of having to prepend sequential numbers in a rename of your IRs.

Unfortunately that might be your answer. Might be worth calling Line6 and discussing it with them, or if you have a guitar shop with a PC+ taking your Helix and cable up and testing it but it sounds like a replacement might be in order. At least based on this poster's similar experience. Good luck!

Cool article and a very interesting approach. Although it is very different it reminds me a bit of what Jason Sadites does with crossover splits. Can't see myself ever using this approach exactly as Craig Anderton does here because I don't think I would have enough DSP for the rest of what I tend to put in a preset but you never know. Some great suggestions overall and I like the ideas at the end of the piece on how to add effects in a novel fashion. Articles like this definitely help give you ideas that you can incorporate into your own presets and it is great to see Craig publishing some new approaches to the Helix. I read his first review on the Helix when it was but a fledgling. Nice to know he is still playing with it.

Is it your onstage monitor mix where you are washed out, your FOH, or both? The first thing I would try is making sure that the PA settings/cables for your guitar are not the problem by swapping cables going to the PA with your other guitarist as well as swapping channels with him on the PA. Once you have established that it is not the PA or the cables causing the issue and assuming that it is not just a matter of playing complementary parts with the other guitarist, another simple test would be to put the 10 band EQ block in your preset and try boosting different bands until your guitar cuts through better. You can use the parametric EQ for this as well but it is a bit trickier. If you find some EQ boosts that are helping with the 10 band EQ you can fine tune those settings with the parametric afterwards. Trying multiple presets is not a bad idea either as different amps/cabs, mics, etc. cut better than others depending on what the band mix is like. Also helps if you have an apples to apples comparison as far as what type of monitors you both use and how your monitors are pointed at the players. If his is at ear level and yours is pointed at your feet that can make a huge difference in how audible your sound will be.Two guitarists playing different types of guitar/pickups e.g. humbuckers, single-coil makes them easier to make out in the mix. Having different EQ curves for the two guitars in the PA can help as well.

Not much info to go on here but I would double check my outputs. If you are running in mono make sure you are coming out of the left XLR or left 1/4 output so that the stereo signal is automatically summed. Also I would double check and make sure your guitar is going into the "Guitar" input and not the "Aux". Swap out all of your cables and guitar if necessary. Last but not least I would check my large volume knob and rock the expression pedal to make sure I am providing enough signal to whatever amp/cab you are using to monitor the LT with.

You are correct, according to the manual you should not have to set the global digital setting to "AES/EBU", it is supposed to auto-sense the L6 Link. I suppose it can't hurt to set it explicitly when testing with the standard XLR cable although I would think that the auto sensing and setting function would be looking at the signal in the cable, not the impedance. Btw, just curious, have you tried setting your preset's Output block to "Multi" instead of "Digital", the "Multi" setting also includes digital output. Shouldn't make a difference and if it does this would indicate a problem but would be one of the tests I would run.

If you have some other standard XLR cables you can try for the above test of the L6 Link I would give them a try. Unless the Helix or PC+ have an unusually low tolerance for a non AES/EBU cable (110 ohm) you should not have been getting poor performance of the magnitude you describe, particularly with a shorter cable. Assuming you tested with a decent XLR cable this is leading me to believe that barring one of these devices being inherently and unusually persnickety about the cable that there is a problem with the Helix or PC+'s firmware or hardware. Not recommending it for other than temporary use but I have done multiple runs for L6 Link with standard XLR cable with zero issues. Has anyone else on the forum with a PC+ tested the L6 Link with a standard XLR cable? If so, did it work properly? Definitely worth swapping out your 110 ohm cable for another 110 ohm, just surprising if the connection is that sensitive to the cabling. If so you are probably going to want a backup 110 ohm cable anyway.

My master volume only controls my 1/4 output which goes to my monitor on stage. This allows me to control my onstage volume from the master volume but sends a consistent and full volume signal via the XLR output to the FOH.

You can check if the problem is your new 110 ohm cable by substituting any working XLR cable you have around. The shorter the better. A regular XLR cable may glitch over time on longer runs but shorter ones will generally do just fine for AES/EBU and long or short should be usable for the duration of a L6 Link test. Not to belabor the obvious but make sure your L6 Link cable is plugged into the L6 Link IN connector on the PC+ and of course the L6 Link output on the Helix.

Exactly! Height, distance, and angle can all be used and sometimes with a relatively small adjustment the sound will gain a lot of clarity and/or volume. Note: I find sometimes just adjusting the EQ to help my guitar cut through the band mix better can spare me from having to crank things up. What sounded too bright when designing a preset in your living room may sound just right sitting in your band's mix.

When the sound waves from one identical sound source (your guitar) are generated from two speakers, for example your monitor wedge and your guitar amp, if they are pointed at each other the sound waves interact/collide in such a way that they cancel out certain frequencies. This can result in a dull sound and make it much harder to hear for example the mids and highs in your guitar output. In the studio you can even intentionally reverse the phase on one of two identical tracks and ALL frequencies can be made to cancel each other making it sound like there is no output whatsoever. Phase cancellation is also related to distance. How far apart your two sound sources are from each other affects at which point in the two frequencies' respective cycles the two speakers interact. So the two sound sources' distance as well as how directly they are pointed at each other can impact the degree of cancellation. https://www.sageaudio.com/blog/pre-mastering-tips/phase-cancellation.php https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/phase-cancellation/

Or just run out direct to the board from the Helix and supplement the Lonestar's volume with the wedge. Again, the OP may want to place the Lonestar at ear level and to the side or angle it enough to reduce phase cancellation that can result from a wedge and guitar amp that are pointed at each other.

By all means find the setup you prefer but I might go for a more low-tech solution and try and get my amp up on an amp stand or leaned back and more in my ears so I could hear it without having to crank it too loud. Also keep in mind that if you have your Lonestar behind you also have your guitar in the mix in your monitor wedge in front of you, you may get some phase cancellation. This could definitely make it more difficult to hear your guitar.

Curious, what was it that didn't suit you with the PowerCab? The PowerCab is a 12" speaker versus the 10" in the L2 and L3. Worth keeping in mind if that is a factor for you. Agree with bsd512, another vote for the L2 for a guitar monitor. I prefer the L2 for monitors and the L3 for mains. The L2 is just easier to transport and setup. It is lighter and more compact, easier to fit on the floor on a crowded stage but still packs plenty of punch. Highly recommend getting the rolling Line6 bags for either one you choose. Makes them infinitely easy to cart around.

LOL, I hear you on the spewing thing. This is why I generally avoid politics and religion on the forum. It starts to require tedious amounts of explanation to make myself clear and it becomes way too easy to offend.

Interesting, that is why I asked for a clarification. Sounds like you know what you are going for. Different strokes for different folks. The very point you make that stereo "sounds significantly different compared to mono" is exactly why many players don't want to have their monitor mix in stereo if that is not what is going to FOH. It makes it harder to judge what the audience is hearing. Btw, I don't necessarily expect the overall mix in my monitors to be the same as the FOH, just the fundamental character of my instrument and signal chain. As you point out I expect volume, EQ, effect levels or certain other qualities in the monitor mix to potentially sound different from the FOH but personally I prefer they not be as profoundly different as a stereo versus mono mix. Yep, if you are the guitarist the guitar will probably be louder in your mix than say the keyboardist's mix which will feature the keyboards more heavily. A vocalist's mix often has less reverb/delay heavy in the monitor so their voice doesn't get lost in the wash or if they are using stage monitors to cut down on the chances of feedback. No reason you can't or shouldn't go for a stereo mix in the IEM's though if that is your preference. It sounds like for your preferred setup either providing a stereo feed to your soundman and letting them send you back the stereo monitor mix or getting a personal mixer and providing yourself with a stereo mix while you send mono to the soundman might be the way to go. I'm curious how many other Helix users here prefer to monitor in stereo even when the house mix is mono, particularly when using IEMs? I'm sure you're not alone on this.

First off, no doubt in my mind now this topic would have been better off posted in the Line6 Lounge area. We are miles away from a Helix discussion. I agree with your point regarding cage rattling and then feigning innocence although there are also certainly plenty of instances where the rattler is somewhat surprised by the magnitude of the response. Steel Panther may not have been anticipating quite this level of fervor, delighted as they may be about the result. I am a believer in "political correctness" when it is used as a tool to help minimize racism, sexism, ageism, and whatever other "isms" plague us or diminish our collective unity and quality of life. Language does matter and sometimes modifying and updating it can make palpable and real changes to thought. However like many tools correctness can be used to improve, fix and repair, or too bludgeon. When political correctness becomes a tool to eliminate free speech, obfuscate the truth, or suppress any nuance or dissension in public dialogue it can start to hit a point of diminishing returns. When conversation becomes a trap to catch someone saying the "wrong thing" and all humor is excised from our speech, dialogue can become a pretty miserable proposition. Seems sometimes like this is all part of the modern social networking paradigm where the most extreme, partisan, knee-jerk, and hostile points of view are rewarded with the most likes. People have been conditioned to pounce, and with a degree of ferocity that is not commensurate with the perceived "offense" as soon as they detect anything that might topple them from their miles high soapbox. I also get your point comparing the "N" word and the "P" word (the editor replaced the word I had here originally with "lollipop"). Certainly the "P" word has been used in a derogatory fashion to indicate cowardice or in a somewhat adolescent fashion to indicate getting sex but it can also be a somewhat neutral colloquialism for a female body part. The "N" word is straight up racist and in my opinion never has any neutral connotations. It had to be "taken back" by African-Americans and the "er" switched out for an "a" just to wrench it back, defuse it and remove the power from those who would still use it to demean and dehumanize. I think the "P" word is much more contextual as in it is NOT ok to use it when you are talking about grabbing it without consent, however in some other contexts it is used benignly with no hostile intent whatsoever. Even if I may personally find them a bit prissy I also understand the perspective of those who find slang offensive in general. However the "N" word is IHMO pretty much never ok to say, particularly if you are not African-American and will always carry with it the heavy baggage of slavery. And that brings me to another point, false equivalency. Not every argument has two sides and even when it does one side may be flat out wrong. Not every comparison is of two equal entities. Magnitude is important! The world is a complicated place full of grey areas, nuance, and complication. Giving equal weight to everything is just a ridiculous way to evaluate things. I think comparing the use of the "N" word to this pedal's name is a false equivalency. Using the "N" word is a much graver and more serious offense. Sure you can make some salient points of comparison but I think the two cases are substantively and substantially different. But hey, what do I know, I am a man and my point of view is admittedly subjective. I think it is our inability to recognize our "inalienable" rights are intersecting and somewhat of a balancing act that is at the heart of our failure to make some critical quality of life changes in this country right now. We have not yet been able to reconcile the fact that while most people understand in their gut that you can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater this does not comport with an absolutist view of our rights. Those discussions also almost always veer into a slippery slope argument which ends up going nowhere. Anyway, as I said, despite the fact that it gave me a chuckle I have no problem with those who take offense at this pedal name although I hardly think it merits a march on Washington. Instead I tried to use the issue in my original post to draw attention to some problems I believe to be of enormous import, issues that profoundly impact women, families, and therefor all of us. These are some of the challenges that really do merit peoples' attention, resources, and initiative to fix. I hate seeing all that energy diverted, including my own, into what I still maintain is a triviality in the grand scheme of things. I think that argument can be made without it devolving into simply being a case of excusing bad behavior by saying "there are worse things in the world". Better to use these relatively inconsequential issues as opportunities to direct our efforts at substantive issues than to blow them out of proportion which is not only counter-productive and alienates people already in our corner but also provides a smoke screen and distraction and diminishes our capacity to deal with real and actual sh*tstorms. I'm also sick to death of circular firing squads where people of overwhelmingly positive intent, common values, and a record of supporting righteous causes are dragged down by some relatively and ultimately inconsequential variance from the "party line". Not saying that is necessarily the case here but this is just the kind of issue that is being used all the time now to take people down whose overarching record is one of contribution and fairness, or maybe in this case just adding a little humor or music to the world.

Given a world that still has female circumcision, honor killing, rampant wage disparity, female infanticide, institutionalized rape(especially in times of war or civil unrest), and myriad other injustices and horrors that beggar imagination this hardly seems worth getting your panties or undies in a wad over. Gotta pick your battles when it comes to the slippery slope argument. It is kinda funny if perhaps in poor taste, dated, or even mildly mysogynistic so I can understand some people getting offended and I have no problem with those who do. Hey, at least this pedal focuses on the female orgasm, something they didn't even think existed until the 50's. I guess what I am trying to say is there are a lot of much more serious issues to get upset about than this that get completely ignored while trivialities get a ton of attention and outrage. I think if this pedal had made its appearance in "Spinal Tap" it might have gotten nothing but a laugh and I would not be surprised, given Steel Panther's similarity to that film/band, if that was mostly the spirit it was intended in. That and generating controversy and PR for the band and making a buck.

I don't use the Aviom but it doesn't look like it has a stereo input(s) that you could run into directly from the Helix. If you truly prefer a stereo mix in the IEMs then I think jws1982's suggestions are on the right track if your soundman doesn't mind you eating up two channels for the stereo sends or possibly three if you are also sending mono. He/she would then have to make sure that the Left & Right sends from the Helix's stereo signal are panned hard left & right and go out to the Aviom without going to the mains if he is using the mono send for mains (or that the panned stereo sends get summed in the mains without using a mono send from the Helix). Seems like a lot of contortions for the sound man who will have to be providing you a stereo monitor mix when everything else is in mono. I do have a question though, what is your motivation here? Is this because you play better when you hear a stereo signal? I am always striving to get my guitar monitoring as close as possible to what people are hearing in the FOH. That way if it sounds good to me on stage, hopefully it sounds good out front as well. You are kind of doing the opposite where your mix on stage in stereo will be markedly different from the mono mix at the FOH. Is this just confusion about the term stereo because you can certainly get a mono mix in both earbuds in the IEMs from the Aviom? If I am getting a mono mix out front then that is what I would prefer to hear in my IEMs (dual mono if you will, mono mix in both ears).

Really cool how you have the song drop out to the snapshot to demonstrate how close it gets to the original. Nice work!

I would not be surprised at all if there was a technical reason it has not been done. It seems like that feature has been requested a lot although if you look at the Ideascale entry for it there is a total of 7 votes so for all I know Line6 may have deprioritized it due to a perceived or perhaps real lack of interest. I think it becomes a more valuable feature since the addition of the Powercab. https://line6.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Global-EQ-on-L6-Link/912758-23508#idea-tab-comments

Thanks for the clarification and now that you mention it, duh, "LF Flat" pretty much implies no "HF" driver. Makes sense. Is there both an "LF Flat" that does not include the HF driver and also a normal "Flat" setting that does? Sorry for all the questions, don't have my own Powercab to refer to but that may change soon. Regardless of any confusion regarding preset names (that my posts or other videos may have helped introduce :-)) it appears that there are modes available that allow the HF driver to be disengaged via MIDI and perhaps coming as well via L6 Link. That is fantastic! Note: One more feature request. If the Helix is going to be adding the ability to change presets on the Powercab via L6 Link I would love to see them also add the ability to have the Global EQ modify the L6 Link signal. With the addition of Powercab preset selection from the Helix I would definitely want to connect via L6 Link. Seems a shame to lose the Global EQ in the process (currently it does not modify the L6 Link signal). I suppose I could always run FOH with Global EQ out of an XLR output but the more videos and literature I see on the PowerCab as well as the details of my setup would direct me to a setup that uses the Powercab's XLR out for FOH and not the one on the Helix.

Just watched the Powercab video below which is an interview with Andy Paredes who is a Line6 rep. According to him, at 6:50 and also about 7:50 in the video, the "Raw" setting you mention does not include the HF driver which is exactly the feature I was hoping they would include. I think the "Flat" settings does include the HF driver, especially since they describe Flat mode going from 70hz-20khz on the Line6 product page. Additionally at 6:10 into the video he claims that the ability to select speaker type is coming via L6 Link, I assume that includes controlling it from the Helix. Wahoo! Was actually a bit surprised to hear that as they don't often share future feature plans. Don't mean to sound like a fanboi but the Powercab appears a really well thought out device with the majority of the most important features my ideal FRFR would have. If they do indeed add the L6 Link speaker selection that would be a great addition although it does already have that functionality via MIDI. The Plus version of the Powercab is looking mighty appealing right now.