timtheark

I really appreciate the responses. Before reading, I decided to try jamming in my (very cold) basement. No problems at all! So yes, I now believe it to be a grounding issue in my practice room. Bummer. Now that I am aware of the ground switch on the back of the Helix unit, I will give it a shot back in the practice room with that switch enabled to see what happens. At least it doesn't seem to be a problem with the Stick itself! Phew. Thanks again for the insights.

Hoping someone here can help me resolve this issue. I play the Chapman Stick (it's a nickel plasma-coated Railboard, which I suspect may be a factor in all of this ...) with my Helix Floor unit. Often when playing a high gain, distorted preset, I encounter an occasional, subtle buzzing sound. Up until now I have assumed it was an issue with the input jack on the instrument itself, as I would lightly jostle the cable and the buzz would immediately cease. Barely any adjustment at all. I've tried multiple cables and multiple inputs on the unit - the problem happens with all of my guitar cables, and it's present whether I use the Guitar, Aux or a Return input ... though it's most prominent when using the Guitar input. This morning I encountered the buzz again and this time remained extremely still and reached down to adjust the cable at the Helix guitar input instead of the instrument's input jack to see what would happen. To my surprise, the second I touched the cable, the buzzing ceased. I lifted my finger and the buzzing returned. I repeated a number of times. That made me think, alright, this instrument is essentially a 3.5 foot slab of metal - of course it's going to be more susceptible to EMFs and electric currents and whatnot. I guess this is some sort of subtle electrical issue my instrument is necessarily vulnerable to and my house must be pretty noisy (major bummer for recording ...) However, I just encountered the buzzing again, and this time remained extremely still and merely rested my hand on my Helix Floor unit itself. To my surprise, it greatly diminished the sound of the buzzing. So long as I'm making contact with the right side of the unit, the buzzing seems to be significantly reduced. So now I'm starting to think this could be some sort of grounding issue. I recently had an electrician in the house who confirmed the outlets are all grounded, so I don't think my outlets are my problem. Could something be amiss with the Helix unit itself?? I'd take the Stick and the Helix into another house to jam for a bit and see if I encounter the same buzzing problem if not for the COVID situation. Any thoughts are very much appreciated - the buzzing is occasional and subtle, but a real pain in the lollipop when trying to record!

An update: you're 100% correct ... if I normalize from the "File" title row, it works just fine! I've always done it from the "Track" title row and gone Functions > Normalize Region Gain and set to "Individual Regions," "Peak" and -1.0db (which still seems to work properly with the bass and mixed stereo tracks). Guess I've been normalizing incorrectly all this time.

Thanks again for the feedback. Strange ... selecting the other two regions on the other two tracks (screenshot above) and then Function > Normalize Region Gain both normalized them as I would expect. Only that first, clean melody track didn't respond to the same command. I'm asking around on the Stickist.com forum to see what solves other Stick players may have. It seems there are a number of Helix owners over there. I appreciate your help!

I really appreciate your thoughts - I have begun to suspect that the signal would just be weaker for the Returns vs other inputs. I'm thinking I will likely use my split XLR cable and run one side into the Helix's XLR input (allowing me to turn on phantom power), and use a XLR->1/4'' converter to run the remaining side into the guitar input. Not the most elegant solution ... I suppose a preamp pedal like you suggested is also a good solve here. Regarding the normalization issue - yes, it is very strange! Perhaps I am normalizing it incorrectly? I notice that if I crank the waveform zoom REAL hard, I do actually start to see some information. Nonetheless, with the region selected and within the Editor panel > Functions > Normalize Region Gain and set to "Individual Regions," "Peak" and -1.0db ... nothing at all happens to my melody-side take. I can hear it, I can see the tiniest amount of information when I zoom the waveform way in, but normalizing isn't resulting in any changes.

As an update: I just switched my Stick to mono and went into the Helix's XLR input. Within the Helix's Global Settings, I am able to turn on phantom power (the Stick supports this but it isn't necessary) and then turn up the Mic input gain - this worked wonders! Just like how I'm used to recording w/ the Focusrite and its gain knob ... I'm guessing this input gain functionality is unique to a "mic" input and doesn't exist for "instrument" inputs, though? If we had two XLR inputs on the Helix Floor, I would be set - ooph.

Appreciate the suggestions! Looks like they are already set to 'Instrument,' so that's not the culprit. I do hear the clean recording, which is what is strange. It's recording to the correct track and I can hear it, it's just very quiet and the waveform is a flat line. Perhaps this is something to remedy within Logic instead of with the Helix?

I'm sure this has been asked before but I'm having trouble finding an answer I can wrap my head around. Hoping someone here can help me out. I have prior experience recording guitar + bass through a Focusrite Scarlett solo. DAW = Logic Pro. The interface has a gain knob I would turn up or down until I had waveforms in my DAW that were large enough I could clearly see what I was playing, but leaving a safe distance to avoid clipping. Now, I started playing the Chapman Stick and am setting up my Helix Floor as a recording interface. The Stick has a stereo output. In my Helix preset, I set my top chain's input to Return 1 and the bottom chain to Return 2 for the melody and bass sides of the instrument. Each chain has a Y split at the very beginning and these sub-chains (...correct terminology?) sending to USB 3/4 and USB 5/6 (so I am sending two separate clean signals to Logic), while the main chains with compressors, amps, etc output to the Multi out. In Logic, I have three tracks set up - one for USB 3/4 (clean melody), one for USB 5/6 (clean bass), and one for USB 1/2 (melody and bass together w/ all their amps and effects, etc). Monitoring in Logic of all 3 tracks is turned off, so as I am recording, I can only hear the "dirty" signal from the Helix unit itself via headphones plugged into the Helix unit. Hopefully this all makes sense so far? I'm including all this info in case the routing matters at all ... Here's my problem - the clean waveforms are so small for the clean melody track that normalizing them doesn't even do anything. It just looks like a flat line. The bass recordings are also quite small but they can at least be normalized. I was looking into a way to pump up the gain, similar to what I would do with my Focusrite Scarlett solo when recording a guitar or bass, but then started reading about gain staging (which I'm only now familiarizing myself with) and started thinking maybe I should not have been touching that gain knob all along! Anyway, I'm wondering how I should proceed from here? I can hear the recorded melody tracks, they are just quiet and I see a flat line for a wave form. I'm guessing I could add a gain pedal to the otherwise clean melody chain (-> USB 3/4) and turn that up to compensate ... but is that best practice? I want to understand why this is happening, if I have been doing something improperly up until now with the focusrite, and how I should set this up moving forward. I appreciate any help!

Gotcha - I appreciate it!

Hello! Is it at all possible to adjust the gain of the dry signal running from my HX Stomp into my DAW? (inputs 5+6) I understand this could perhaps no longer be considered "dry," since it would be technically affecting the signal ... so maybe not? I've previously used a Focusrite Scarlett Solo which has a big ole' gain knob, which allowed me to dial in a healthy waveform when recording unprocessed guitars into my DAW. Tracking now with my HX Stomp as my interface (which I enjoy, since I can hear the processed/distorted guitars through my headphones with zero latency while sending only the dry signal to my DAW to be processed/distorted further down the line), my guitar waveforms are quite thin. Any suggestions? Thanks!