ghprestige

For the most part I got favorable comments about my sound from the 1/4" mono output to DI. The worship leader said that it was not as warm as my tube amp rig but that it really sat well in the mix. He told me to not change a thing! Understand that where I play is a mega church where tube amps rule. The worship leader actually bought one for himself to use when he leads with electric instead of acoustic. I can't say that the 1/4" output sounds any better or worse than the XLR output. With so much hiss coming out of the XLR mono output it is just a sigh of relief when that goes away in our IEM's. One of our custom tube amp builders said he can tell the difference on my high gain sounds. He claims that he can hear a difference in the slew rate between the modeled amp and a tube amp. Not certain what he meant with that statement. The paid sound tech said it sounded good but not as good as my tube amp rig (Sherlock Fathead, the Big Three Strymon pedals, Double Hotcake...+many pedals all midi controlled). He said since I only had a week to tweak the Helix he thought it was possible to equal my tube amp rig! I may start a support ticket about the Hiss problem because the paid sound tech assured me that phantom power was off. I did not see the mixing console with my own eyes to verify that. I may try that in my studio to see what happens there.

I wanted to weigh in on the "Hiss" problem. I used my Helix for church worship. This was the 1st time for live use. I went out mono XLR (set to mic level) direct into the house sound system. I was emphatic about phantom power being turned off for my channel. The extreme Hiss made using the Helix XLR output impossible. I tried pressing the ground lift and that made no difference. The Helix internal phantom power was turned off (not that that would make any difference at all). My main output volume was turned all the way up, but interestingly enough, it did not make any difference where the volume knob was the extreme hiss was the same. Same goes for volume pedal position. With volume pedal heel down or heel up the extreme hiss was the same. The work around was to go 1/4" mono out to DI which completely cured the problem. After rehearsal the paid sound tech and myself spent an hour trouble shooting to only discover #1. Phantom power was off #2. There were no bad cables. #3. There was no problem with the stage snake. #4. There was no bad channel on the mixing board. #5 The only way to get rid of the extreme hiss was to go with 1/4" out into DI. Very disappointing for the first time live experience. The funny thing about this situation is that at home I go stereo XLR out into CH1 & Ch2 of my Yamaha MG16 inexpensive mixing board. There is a small amount of hiss but nothing like what I experienced at church. So, in my case, it doesn't appear that the hiss is caused by phantom power at all. Maybe power is the culprit here. It would be nice for Line 6 to weigh in on this problem.