erniedenov

My first several gigs with Helix have been going direct to the board. In that particular band, we use in-ear monitors. The band leader doesn't want to have amplifiers on stage, presumably to control the volume. It made sense to me to tweak my Helix using the same in-ear monitors I use live with the headphone jack. What I hear on the gigs is very similar to what I hear tweaking at home. But... This past weekend, I played with a band I hadn't worked with before in a club and I used Helix with an FRFR powered speaker (Alto Truesonic TS 212) that I bought recently. In preparation, I did a bit of tweaking at home with the speaker turned up to what I guessed would be close to the volume I'd be using and immediately noticed that the lower and higher frequencies were much more prominent. I wasn't surprised, being aware of the Fletcher-Munson Curve (the theory of how and why we perceive frequencies differently depending on volume). I dialed the bass on my patches back considerably and the treble to a somewhat lesser extent. At the soundcheck, I found I had to dial the bass down even further, which I attribute to the hollow stage we were playing on. I ended up being pretty satisfied with the sound I was getting, though I know it would've been better if I'd had more tweaking time. But now I'm wondering about this: Those patches that I initially made with my in-ears; what do they sound like at the gigs, given that they're going to be louder in FOH? I've never actually heard what it sounds like coming out of there and maybe I've just been blissfully unaware because they sound fine in my in-ear mix. I played with that band (that uses in-ears) the next night and asked the soundman if my sounds were too boomy and bright and he said "no," but I'm not sure I can just take his word for it. I saved the re-tweaked patches using the powered speaker in different banks; do you guys thing I'd be better off using them instead of the original ones I made using my in-ears?

A buddy of mine who is the first call musical theater guitar player in Chicago came over with his Fractal AxeFX II and we did an A/B shootout kind of thing with it and my Helix, using an FRFR powered speaker. We chose the same amp and cab models and set the volumes, tones and drives identically. There were differences, but they were very subtle, like one model would break up at a lower drive setting... things like that. IMO, the Helix held it's own against the Fractal. Of course the Fractal has more models to choose from, but there's more than enough in Helix for me. I don't think my friend is thinking of trading his Fractal, but even he had to admit that Helix's interface was much more user friendly and that the Fractal display doesn't hold a candle to the Helix one. I never even considered being able to afford an AxeFX II, but I have a Helix now and couldn't be happier!

I knew that; just wondering how folks like to set it.

When I step on a wah, the volume is considerably louder than the patch was previously, especially with clean sounds. Any recommended settings for the wahs?

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have saved the preset with the volume pedal in minimum position, since I did all of my programming with the Helix on a table and wasn't using my feet for anything. But I'll give that a try; thanks! (edit) Thinking about it some more, I did make adjustments on the fly at the gig, so I could've very well saved those (re-tweaked) presets with the pedal in heel position. You may have just solved my problem, so here's an upper case THANKS! (later edit) It's definitely working fine now. Grateful!

Hi, I'm new to this forum. Anyway, I got the Helix about a month ago (and love it) and updated to 2.01 a couple of weeks ago. I was able to save the patches I made prior to the update and they seemed to be working fine until I did my first gigs with the Helix this past weekend. A few of those patches appeared to be dead when I switched them on... until I discovered that when I backed the expression pedal to heel position and then to toe position, they would come back to life. This didn't start happening until I'd been playing for more than a half hour. A reboot restored things to normal for another half hour, then it started acting up again. Rather than try to guess what's wrong and what I should do, I thought I'd count on the experience and expertise of this forum's members. A solution would be greatly appreciated!