ncockerill

Most Helix users who came from an HD series modeler would say the Helix is miles better in every way – sound, flexibility, programmability, etc. That’s not to say it would be miles better for you and your current setup, particularly if you are very happy now. Tone is subjective. It would likely take a little time integrating the Helix to your satisfaction, but I don’t have any doubt you could achieve as good (if not significantly better) tones. As others suggested, Sweetwater gives a 30-day return window. You’d know if the “juice was worth the squeeze†in that timeframe. Personally, I was an early adopter of the Helix – when it was backordered for months – and I’ve never had a moment’s regret. It’s insanely good, and the interface is unmatched. Reiterate: What've you got to lose?

I just bought them a couple of days ago. Everything was included in the download, even the extra Floyd patches and IRs he made a couple of months after his initial release. He is also super responsive, as noted by bradlake.

Fremen -- just purchased the 175-pack and it is as advertised. Just terrific tones -- ready for use. Can't wait for your next release. Would love to see even more snapshot-enabled presets for us live players. With a few mild tweaks, your 4-snapshot JCM-800 preset is the patch I live on for 75% of my gigs. And your U2 and Floyd patches are the best I've ever heard.

I know you can turn the flashing ring around the Tap Tempo button on/off. But is there a way to change its color from the default RED to some other color. If not, I'm returning this piece of crap. (LMAO - over my dead body). :lol:

Regarding EQ ---- "hearing yourself" in the context of a band mix vs. just your guitar is tricky. I don't exactly love my main guitar sound when I hear it from front of house (I have a wireless rig). It can sound a bit too mid-rangy and bordering on harsh. But then, when the band joins in, it sounds absolutely fantastic. It's a trade-off that's well worth it. I have a different set of presets for quieter rehearsals and at home practice.

Just a Girl by No Doubt

Reporting back after last night’s gig. Huge thanks to SiWatts69, Silverhead and Rewolf for the advice. I followed all of your guidance, and very happy to say that we had ZERO sound issues last night. No squeaks, squeals, hums, or gremlins. All accounts were that things sounded great. Our sound man had a family commitment and could not come, and I was left to do the setup, sound check, and mix by myself. As advised, I started from scratch with a brand new Setup (completed the night before with untweaked presets). We got our equipment set up in plenty of time, and had the club owner cut the house music for twenty minutes or so while I trimmed everything, then set levels, and finally took a few recordings of the whole band performing various songs from our setlist. Got things dialed in at gig volume with an iPad at front of house and we were all set for the night. Outside of the tiniest tweak to one vocal mic level in between sets, no other changes required. Ditched the L3s sub – no need for it in this small venue and the L3t’s had plenty of bass to fill the room. I do think that helped a lot. While I still have lots to learn, the process is definitely repeatable, and feeling much more confident. No more cutting corners or compromising. Do it right, and it sounds right. Thanks again, guys.

SiWatts69 – you read my mind. I definitely think we need a “clean slate†approach. I’ll rebuild the stage with standard presets and start from there. Undoubtedly I have tinkered way too much with our previous Setup and introduced plenty of Gremlins for sure. Our sound guy is a great guy, a family friend, who graciously donates his time to help the band. His only compensation being he’s on the band’s bar tab. We are typically set up and (poorly) sound checked before his arrival. I think it’s clear now that I’ve been handing him a board to manage that’s a bit of a mess. Oddly enough, the response from the venues/patrons regarding our sound has been overwhelmingly positive (they typically don’t listen as critically as we musicians do). All things considered, he’s done a fantastic job of fighting through issues due to my poor setup. I need to fix that for him, and the band. I’ll let you know how the next gig goes.

ReWolf48 – thanks for joining in. It’s actually a great question. I don’t have the board fired up right now, but it is something I intend to check. I believe that I did set a low cut (high pass) filter on the vocal mics --- somewhere around 100Hz. But it is certainly possible that I missed this in my latest Setup. In general, is there a low cut value range you suggest (we are all male vocals, none with low range/baritone voices)?

Once again, huge thanks to SiWatts69 and SilverHead for all of the insight and education. I am humbled by your willingness to help a fellow musician; it’s what makes the Line 6 Community so great. We have a gig in 2 weeks, and I am going to religiously follow all the advice given. It’s a small venue, so I’ll ditch the sub, and setup very early to leave time for a proper sound check at full volume. I’m not so naïve to think that everything will be perfect now, but I am confident that your direction has set me on the proper course.

Agreed. I think my inexperience here is the culprit. I thought that the trim control was used to detect and set the level of an input signal into the mixer --- and had NOTHING to do with ultimately how loud we turned up the mains. That is, I thought since most of our inputs are direct from digital sources (electronic drums and guitar processors) -- these can be set consistently from show to show (e.g. I always set my output volume from the Helix at 1 o'clock -- I assumed this would result in a near identical input trim level from show to show). I mean, I am sending the same level on that channel every night, right? But where the issue really lies is in the vocal mics. That's where we are hearing the low rumbly feedback from. Wondering --- should we Auto-trim the vocal mics one at a time while the whole band is playing at gig volume, or will that not matter? The mixer doesn't set the Trim relative to the other channels, right? Personally, I think we should ditch the L3s for most of our shows. We play relatively small bars and I suspect that sub is doing more harm than good. Christ -- am I making any sense? LOL

Awesome feedback and suggestions. Thanks so much for your time.

Gain knobs are at the 12 o’clock position. And for the L3s, I typically keep it just below 12 o’clock in the hopes of somehow eliminating some of the rumble that could be a cause. Only the drummer’s mic is getting reverb from the board. We set reverb/FX levels on the TC Helicon VoiceLive devices for the other 3 vocals. No need to apply additional reverb/FX to those channel strips. Same for the guitar processors – we use the “bass modeler†or “guitar modeler†presets in the M20d which are pretty flat with no FX added. Mics are SM58 and TC Helicon MP75. I suspect your suggestion that our “sound†guy is tying himself in knots is true. He’s over his head, but in fairness, so am I. And there’s little I can do from the stage. We start each evening with our basic Setup, created from the previous night’s rehearsal. Important to note that our rehearsals are “silent†--- we are not running mains at all and rehearse through in-ears exclusively. Yes, I know, not ideal – but 3 young kids at home means I can’t be rattling the house all night. I think we’ll need to do a better job at sound check. We typically don’t like to do long, loud sound checks while many patrons are still eating, talking, etc. Generally we keep it brief and relatively quiet as to not disturb; just enough to know our mix is pretty good and everything is “liveâ€. The problems start when the mains are turned up to actual gig level (and we are not a band that plays overly loud – we’ve actually been asked to turn it up by venue owners!).

Thx SiWatts69 for the reply. The three guitar processors are all direct to the M20d (via a snake) and the Roland drum kit is direct to the M20d (not to the snake – the mixer is typically next to the kit). No DI boxes in use. No “active†guitars, if you are referring to active pickups. Three mics go to TC Helicon VoiceLive boxes, then to the snake to M20d. The drummer’s mic is straight to the M20d (again because the mixer is next to the kit). Yeah, we hear the low hum in our in-ears as well. We will typically use “Auto-trim†at line/sound check, and I believe trim-tracking is on for all channels. Our sound man describes the mics as “very hotâ€. He’s basically tinkering with mic trim and level settings throughout the show on those nights when things are misbehaving, and often resorts to just muting certain mics on songs where any particular person isn’t singing. He insists that the source of the hum/feedback is definitely in the vocal mics, because when he mutes mics, all sounds great. I sometimes wonder if the bass from those giant L3S subs are somehow getting back into our mics? Again, thanks for any advice. I know diagnosing sound issues on a web forum is mostly speculation.

Could use some advice from some folks more experienced in live sound than myself. I am a guitar player, and my 4-piece band utilizes the Stagescape M20d with Stagesource L3t and L3s speakers via L6 link. We have a friend running FoH sound for us via an iPad. He is not a sound man by trade, but generally does a good job based on what we hear from audiences and club owners. Ours is an interesting setup --- I’ll need to explain as it’s important to understand this for any diagnosis. My guitar, the bass guitar, and the rhythm guitar all run direct from our various guitar processors into the M20d. Similarly, our drummer’s electronic Roland kit runs direct to the M20d. So, there are NO amps of any kind on stage. So that we can hear ourselves onstage, each of us has a small Roland CM-30 Cube Monitor fed from the M20d monitor outs, and we use wired in ear monitors into the headphone jacks of those Roland CM-30s. Really sounds great in our heads. The external speakers of the CM-30’s are muted. Each of us have a vocal mic direct to the M20d. At a few shows, we’ve been experiencing (low hum, not squealing) feedback from the vocal mics, and I just can’t understand it. The Stagesource speakers are well in front of the mic line, so that’s not it. And there are no amps/monitors on stage producing sound, so that’s not the culprit either. But our sound man has a hard time getting our vocal channels to a good level when the overall main volume increases. At a lower volume sound check, things are great. When we start the show, and he starts inching up the mains to gig volume, he just can’t seem to get the vocal mics loud enough without the hum beginning. Any thoughts?

38 Special Hold on Loosely Don Barnes

All true. I consider 1AM an early night when I am getting my Helix on.

Thanks!!! OMG -- I've used that exact procedure a lot to swap footswitch assignments on individual effect blocks, but it never dawned on me to try it with snapshots. It works, And I.......am a dummy.

Hey folks!!! Just downloaded a great patch. Only problem for me is how the Snapshots are assigned to the footswitches. Quick explanation. I have a very specific way I build all my presets. That is, I use 4 snapshots (numbered 1-4) across the bottom row of footswitches (and then stomps on the upper row). They are always set up like this: Snapshot 1 --> Clean Snapshot 2 --> BreakUp Snapshot 3 --> Crunch Snapshot 4 --> Lead So, my snapshots get more aggressive with more gain, delay, etc from left to right. This new patch I downloaded is really great, but it’s actually built in reverse of my standard logic. That is: Snapshot 1 --> Lead Snapshot 2 --> Crunch Snapshot 3 --> BreakUp Snapshot 4 --> Clean How can I reassign (essentially re-order) the snapshots in this new patch to fit my paradigm? Some way to use unused snapshots 5-8 as a placeholder during reassignment?

"All Hells Breakin' Loose" -- Kiss

Make mine 12:30 and I agree!!!!!

I often regret (and kick myself) for selling my Rockman XP100 years ago. For those who never saw one, it looks like this. The handle served as a means of attaching the two halves of the amps/cabs, which could be separated. Sounded fantastic. I'm a dumbass for selling.

As Verne-Bunsen articulated well --- there are so many options for creating a lead boost and it really depends on what you are trying to accomplish. I generally use a gain block and EQ block with mid-boost after the amp. Usually I'll assign these to a snapshot in the patch called "Lead". Then I configure my Mission expression pedal (in EXP 3) to apply some additional amp gain and delay as I move it forward from heel to toe. Gives me great control. Have fun experimenting!

Just a thought --- have you checked the input block? Gating can be applied there as well. Are you using the Global EQ -- and if so, are there some "abnormal" low-cut/hi-cut settings applied there? Not in front of my Helix at the moment, so just thinking out loud. :)

Zooey --- this is definitely fun to play with, and thanks for taking the time. As with anything "new" -- an initial reaction is that it is a bit complicated, but nearly anything with so many configurable options is likely to be. Personally, I like that sort of flexibility - and once you figure out how it can work for you -- it's all good. But I would suspect that many Helix users would have a tough time with this to begin. Would you be the guy manning the forum for all the "I can't get this to work the way I want it to" posts? :P In all seriousness -- I too think the Mode switch could be used as a configurable loop of some sort.