guitargar

I have a Dream Rig with the Helix Floor, JTV 89f and stereo PowerCab 112+. It sounds good in my home studio and on stage at church facing back to me. Unfortunately with the classic rock and pop bands I play in, the sound doesn't translate as well with higher gain patches. I've spent a lot of time trying to match the tube sound, but still the sound can come off a little plastic and boxy. I have the head mentioned above that I plug into a Spider 4x12 cab. The only option I see to plug my Helix into the head is through the power in. I'm assuming then that I can add different pre-amps on the Helix to accommodate different amp models. I just don't want to send too much voltage through the Helix to damage the Spider head. I could try to dial in the modeling in the head, but I've already spent tons of time doing all of that on my Helix. Just need some advice on the best way to approach this. By the way, there is no effects loop on my Spider head. Below was my setup at church until they decided to go totally in-ears with no amps on stage. Thanks.

Thanks to everyone who responded. Great advice. I will do some serious tweaking, experimenting with the advice given. My clean sounds always sound great.

Thanks for your reply. I understand what you're saying concerning the volume/loudness. I have a small 10 by 10 studio/office on the bottom floor, close to the garage of my house. it's actually pretty dead and records well in there. It doesn't take a lot of loudness to be loud. However, in a large room like the auditorium of my church, or a banquet room at the Hilton, the sound doesn't carry and project as well as a tube amp. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot I love about my PowerCabs. If I can get this one issue solved, I will be golden! Take care.

I have the Line 6 dream gig: Helix Floor into 2 PowerCab Pluses. My guitar is the James Tyler 89F Variax. The reason I got this system is to cover all of the variety of song styles in various cover bands I play in. My biggest issue is that I've spent so many hours in my home studio dialing in patches/presets through the PowerCabs only to find that they wimp out in a live setting on stage. They don't project like a tube amp and the tone, especially with distortion comes off very thin. Even when I EQ it in my studio where it sounds full, it doesn't translate well to the stage. What am I doing wrong? I would prefer to make my current set up work. I love how I can use midi to change speakers in the PowerCabs to accommodate my amp models in each preset. There are so many benefits using them, however, the most important one is simple, how it sounds on stage. And right now, that is the underwhelming result. I know Jason Sadites has some very informative videos on settings relating to the Helix and PowerCab. However, nothing has quite worked for me in solving this issue. Any advice is welcome. Thanks so much!

I own 2 112 Plus Powercabs. I also have a James Tyler 89F Variax which I really love. Even though I've dialed in great presets in my studio on my Helix, many of those don't work in a live band environment as well and in many venues those patches get lost in the mix, if I'm not going thru a PA. PowerCabs do have that amp in the room feel, which I do prefer over strictly FRFR monitors. is there any advantage to invest in a Firehawk 1500 and the FBV3 foot controller that would resolve my live sound issue? What I would love to see is a tube amp version of the PowerCab. This would give me the best of both worlds, to have that tube sound option. Thanks so much!

Even though I have the dream rig with the Helix, JTV89F and stereo 112 plus PowerCabs, the only thing lacking in my sound are tubes in the amp. I do have a DT25. It sounds great. Your best amp by far. Which makes me wonder why you didn't keep going in that direction. However, I have an older one and it doesn't play nice with the DT25/50 remote template on the Helix. I'm running the latest Helix firmware 3.5 and I've even used Line Monkey to update the DT25 to its latest firmware version. Yet, after doing that, I still have no controls from the Helix concerning the topology, the tube and class type switching. Basically, the only thing I can do is run a 1/4" cable from the ext amp out into the foot switch input to change between channel A & B. I get some humming on channel B when going directly into the front of the amp input from the line out on the Helix, and that's even with a noise gate in my signal chain. Channel A sounds great. I've tried the 4 cable method utilizing FX loop, but I get some reverb weirdness and extra artifacts noise when changing snapshots with high gain channel B settings, especially when trails are on. In spite of all that, the tube sound is awesome. Even though I really like the PowerCabs and that "in the room feel" on most of the stuff I program, the overtone presence is not there like it is with a tube amp, and the overall sound gets very squashy in live settings when I need to push the amp. It winds up not cutting through as much in the mix. The best solution would be a tube PowerCab!!! Then I could have all of the wonderful benefits of all the programming options, plus that great tube sound! There's no reason why you developers can't offer us the best of both worlds, so we don't have to settle for less than that perfect sound when tubes are in the amp. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who feels this way. Thanks for your time and attention, and, hopefully, this is worthy of your consideration. Take care! Gary L

You can easily change your speaker settings on the PowerCab Plus by using midi. I run two in stereo and it works great. I can even create presets with IRs and access them as well. I programmed a FRFR preset on the PowerCab to accommodate my IRs on the Helix. There is already a Flat preset you can use on the PowerCab (0) if you choose a cab in the Helix. So many great options. Hope that helps.