rwandering

Thanks for your help with this. My settings are the same as yours except for one major difference -- I'm trying this with a speaker model, not Flat. When I go Flat, I don't redline. There is no monitoring going back to the PC. I've captured the waveforms below. This is kind of meaningless in that I don't expect the XLR out and USB to be at the same levels, but the XLR output is usable, the USB isn't. Does using the Vintage speaker model make a difference? This is how it is set for me (this is just the default). And with full disclosure, I am increasing the level from the Helix to the PC. This is so I get some of the yellow LED when strumming the guitar. From what I've read that's what you need to do to get the best sound out of the PC. This was all just intended as a test, but when I'm doing recording while playing through the PC, I'd rather record that emulation than use a separate speaker cab from the Helix. Of course, different blocks and gain staging will of course impact the desirable level to the PC. Assuming you can reproduce this with a speaker model -- still a question of course -- my conclusion is that the PC isn't designed to sound its best *and* record through USB at the same time. Perhaps if I turn down the levels to the PC I'll get less desirable sound out of it but get a good USB level (assuming the speaker and mic modeling are linear). I'll have to test lowering the volume, but my hope was that I could follow the advice on the yellow LED and record. If you have other thoughts about this, they are much appreciated. Thanks again!

Thanks for the suggestions. Playing with the Input 2 mode only makes a difference this if I set it to USB, in which case I get no signal. The USB Mode of Normal/Processed makes no difference. I guess the question is: should I expect the USB output to be usable if I follow the guidance on the input signal (i.e., targeting that the LED gets to yellow)? I just did a simple test comparing the XLR output (using line level and no gain in my interface) to the USB output (with the USB in Processed mode). At -12 DB on the XLR output I get a 0 DB on the USB. At this point, I'm guessing this is intended behavior, but I can't for the life of me figure out why it would be desirable.

I picked up a used PC112+ the other day and have been playing around with it. This plus the Helix creates a crazy number of permutations! I tried to record the USB output to compare the speaker emulation out of the cabinet with the emulated output. The weird thing is that the USB output is redlining. Where I am only getting an occasionally yellow LED on the PC, I am getting frequent digital clipping from the USB. I have tried both normal and processed output, no difference. I then connected an XLR cable from the PC to my audio interface (and set for mic level output), and I'm seeing a more moderate signal. This is the firmware 2.00.1, but it seems like a firmware defect to me. Anybody else have this experience? Am I doing something wrong (I hope)?