Axxxeman

Well, that would not concern me, it would only concern these two musicians, who WANT the FOH mix. With my individual monitor mix no fader move would affect my monitor mix, it would stay as it was at sound check.

That would be, because obviously noone even thought about this possibility ... :-o You are absolutely right, in the EV FOH (it could be this one: https://www.thomann.de/de/zlx_band_bundle.htm) should be at least one XLR output per unit, which should be able to be used as input for FOH mix monitors. This would leave the mixers monitor paths open to two individual mixes. That absolutely sounds like the solution. Thanks a lot!

Your solution would be exactly, what I would be looking for. Monitor path 1 is the FOH mix. This is the one, our bassist and sound engineer, is controlling the sound during a gig with, always ready to make corrections. Drummer has this one, as well. Monitor path 2 is for the keyboarder who is not only one of the lead singers, but his keyboard playing relies heavily on hearing himself well. He has the older rights, because all guitarists so far used some real amps, myself included. So, that seems to be the end of the line for an additional, guitar-heavy monitor path. So far, I can only choose between the keyboard mix or the FOH mix - which already includes the guitar signal, although quite often not loud enough. Of course I will look into the mixer's documentation to see, if there might be any chance for a third monitor mix, but I am not too optimistic about it.

Well, no, a sidefill signal with a louder guitar definitely will not do, because noone else but me is supposed to hear the louder guitar. I need it louder, because I cannot hear myself in the mix sometimes, for instance, when the keyboarder is playing a solo or has a dominant part. I already thought about having an individual monitor mix without the guitar signal and I sure will have a look into it. But I am afraid, that the board will not have capacities for yet another individual monitor mix ... we have three lead singers in the band, each one has "his" mix. If this would be possible, it would, of course, help a great deal.

Well, I do sympathize with this solution a lot, especially, because it seems to be the only way, to get a decent (guitar) feedback, when needed. Nore the bassist, nor anyone else in the band should hear my special helix output as they get all the guitar signal, they need, in the monitor mix, which is exactly identical to the FOH mix. Still the problem would remain, that at my (narrow) position, the DBR12 might be overpowering the wedge output of our common monitor mix. We'll see, the wedge still hat not arrived, loads of stuff is stuck in China or on sea, due to corona ... So far, many thanks for sharing your experience!

Hi folks! Having changed from tube amp to the Helix as my main "amp" now, I have a very specific question on monitoring the Helix output. I might want to add, that my band's PA is a good, compact Dynacord PA with EV FOH speakers. Most event stages in my home city are quite small, so it is optimized to save space. For this reason we have only 3 wedges, one for the keys, one for the drums and guitar (this is me) and bass have to rely on the third one. The Helix is going by XLR stereo directly into the PA. Sometimes I unfortunately cannot hear myself well in the mix, so I ordered a Yamaha DBR12 to use it as a Helix signal monitor (Helix 1/4" mono out --> DI-box --> DBR12). I am afraid, that, getting the direct blast from the Helix then, I might not be able to hear my share of the FOH mix from the wedge, I have to share with the bassist (who usually is the man on the mixer, as well). So I thought of the DBR12's second signal path. I could feed it with the monitor mix and mixing down both signal paths (from the Helix and FOH) in a way that the Helix is just slightly louder than the guitar in the FOH mix. So I could - theoretically - be in the clean. But! There is an identlical signal in both signal paths, which is my guitar. Would that lead to problems that the guitar signal could be phasing out? If so, how could I avoid this problem? Getting an individual monitor mix without guitar in it, is, unfortunately, out of reach ... Equally difficult would be a modified signal for the 1/4" output with a delay of a few ms, because on a few presets I use all of the Helix' processor power or signal paths (especially on those, where I use acoustic guitar simulator and electric guitar sound at the same time). What are your experiences? Will the phasing problem occur? If so, how could I solve it?

It is more complicated than this. Different guitars like a LP or a Strat, it understands that they have different sounds. I did not refer to that. I refer to very similar guitars, such as a Fender Strat and an Ibanez Strat. Alone the different pickups alter the sound in a way that a preset, programmed for one of the two, might not work with the replacement guitar.

There is ONE issue you have to take care about, when you want explicit stereo effects like stereo reverb or ping pong delay etc.: Never, really NEVER, put any mono block AFTER your stereo FX! You should always start with all the mono blocks in your signal chain such as wahwah, amp etc. and put the stereo effects to the end. When you, for example, program a stereo delay and put after that one a mono compressor ("what the heck should a compressor be a stereo effect??") then your whole signal chain will be, well, mono. So, you MUST, and there is no exception to this rule, use stereo versions on all the blocks after your first stereo effect. Even the volume pedal MUST be dialed in in its stereo version, NOT its mono version. Same goes for the final compressor ("that's, why you need a stereo compression ...") or any other thing you might need. It is logical in itself, but most users tend to forget about this.

Thank you for all your inputs. Indeed they helped me to get along on the path. I do now have a decent sound on FOH ... decent, not yet optimal, though, but I will eventually get there. I made myself a to-do-list where I checked every single aspect, from the input PAD to the output settings. Well, the biggest failure topic was ... myself. It started in the first band, in which I was using the Helix, together with a Marshall halfstack, where I wanted two of the four possible signal paths of the Helix to go directly into FOH, while two paths where reserved for FX-ing and MIDI-controlling the amp (which worked perfectly fine). My problem was that the band's PA dated from the 70ies and I could not get the Helix to sound properly on that one. So started to fiddle around with the HELIX' general EQ to balance the sound, but never succeeded to make it sound great. After this I completely forgot this general EQ and I did not think of turning it off, when feeding other, modern PAs with the signal. So the signal was designed to sound crap on those. Now, having it disengaged, it sounds at least decent. What's missing now, is, to make it sound really good. That's, where Fletcher Munson comes in. I have always thought, that the meaning of FRFR would be, that you could simply ignore Fletcher Munson, because the FRFR speaker will sound the same at different volumes. I see now, that I was completely wrong on this. So, yes, programming at home with headphones did not bring on optimal sounds. As soon as winter is over (we have to heat our rehearsal room with a wood in an old stove from the 40ies and that's some nasty business ... :-D ). I will start to reprogram every single preset / snapshot in stage volume with the help of a backing track and looper. Furthermore I have realized, that the guitar makes a bigger difference than I would have expected. What sounds great with Strat A can actually can sound crap with Strat B. So I will have to chose ONE special guitar for each preset and then use this preset only with this guitar and program an alternative for the replacement guitar. This way I hope to finally get exactly, what I want, in the rehearsal room and on stage.

Not yet. IF I can get a decent sound from Helix on FOH, I planned to use this output for a FRFR monitor box, so I really would not like to feed the FOH from there. But for testing I could try it, of course. But I also have XLR adapters to use with line-in, when there was no other way to avoid phantom power on two of those PAs (most drummers use some condensator mics ...). Would this work, too? I can de-assign the volume knob from XLR alright, thanks for the hint.

Many thanks for taking your time to answer this. - I always check that phantom power is off at my channels, first thing ever. - Mic level. Okay, this sounds like a good thing to start with - There is no input clipping as far as the mixing console's settings and clipping LED are concerned. General volume of Helix is set on 2/3. Still, clipping is audible, but I have no idea, at which point it is striking in ... - flat ... no boosts or FX are set on my channels, but setting all EQs to "flat" will result in even worse sounds. - the sound of the PAs were good. Voices and keys sound perfect. Only Helix does not. - I tried even to program a new setting in band rehearsal, together with my band mates at actual live volume. I even cannot find a single amp model which would sound good from the start. So there is a problem elsewhere in the Helix and I fail to locate it.

Oh boy. I'm in a mess. I have been trying to plug in my HELIX in three different FOHs of three different bands now ... and it ALWAYS sounded like perfect lollipop. I always had to kick out the Helix and go by classical tube amp in the end, I never succeeded to get a decent sound, no matter, if those sounds were of my own programming or factory presets or even Jason Sadites presets. And the PAs were very different from each other, there was one huge one from the late 70ies, one compact one from the 90ies and one very new Dynacord powermixer. The problems were very different, but could in no case be solved, no matter, what I tried. On one PA (70ies) the Helix sounded damp, no dynamics, like some badly adjusted, old transistor amp, and on the Dynacord it sounds dull with some strange frequencies and some clipping, although input gain is set very low and there is no clipping on my headphones or studio monitors at home. I have no FRFR yet and I won't buy one, unless I am convinced, that going with a HELIX into FOH really will get me a great sound and not laughter from my band mates. But I am far from being convinced after all my bad experiences. Friend of mine has a Kemper, just plugs in, sounds great from the start. Forget Fletcher Munson, it just works! Furthermore, on no PA did I get adequate pressure like with my tube amps. Only volume ... Did I buy the wrong gadget??? Or am I just too stupid to check out, how this connection can be performed satisfactorily? I found out some problems such as phantom power and how to avoid them, but no overall solutions. So I would be VERY thankful for some instuctions on how to dial in the perfect XLR output signal. I know that the problem IS HELIX based, because the keyboard sound as they should. A Kemper sounds as it should. But not the Helix. There are so many possibilities that maybe I just lack the correct combination of settings to get it done ... So, if anyone could help me with a list of settings (such as: Should the XLR output better be on MIC or LINE? I tried both, but there is obviously more to think about ...). How need the global settings be set? How to balance frequencies on the mixing console on one hand and on general EQ on the other hand? How should I set the large global volume wheel? I love the Helix, it is quite easy to use and gets me the results, I want, when doing recording (USB connection), but live ... as I said, it's a mess and a drag.

Wow, sounds promising, I will give it a try, as soon as I'll have the helix connected to my computer again. Thanks so much!

Well, a multi-output signal is no option at the moment. But I will try a low pass filter, combined with an EQ to see whether that can get me anywhere. Thanks!

Well, I am no expert, but I heard that it is possible to set an EQ in a way that a standard recording is turned into a karaoke version by just filtering out the voices' frequencies. If this is possible, filtering out deep notes should be possible, too, shouldn't it? I just have no idea how to set an EQ like this ...