donkelley

Hi, I just wanted to post a thread that explains the actual reason why FRFR, PA, and studio monitor speakers typically still require treble cut to avoid sounding fizzy with distortion or overdrive on a guitar tone. THE COMMON PROBLEM I've read through some of the threads on this topic, and while I saw one person post the correct explanation (Without getting the credit or kudos he deserved for it, from what I saw), most people state the problem is that the user is not understanding the difference between guitar speakers and FRFR speakers. I believe users aren't that naive - and many good comparisons exist where users get great sound from helix (without virtual cab) into power amp into real cab, or other ... simpler..... modeller brand (with only virtual cab) directly into FRFR. However most of those "it's simple - guitar speakers have less treble, so you need to cut treble on FRFR" explanations go on to incorrectly state that the problem is that guitar cabs cut the treble a lot because they aren't flat, where as FRFR speakers are, at least in theory, outputting a flat response - therefore putting out much more volume at high frequencies than guitar cabs do. I mean, yes, that is true ... but NO that is not the problem. Again, the scenario is that we ALREADY have a virtual cab or IR in our signal chain - so shouldn't the high frequencies already be cut? Shouldn't the FRFR speaker just output exactly what that virtual cab sounds like, with the already good sounding treble cut baked into the virtual cab since it's a copy of a real cab??? (The end user, and you here, are asking this.... :-) ) Folks state that you need to think like a recording or mixing engineer, not like a guitarist - which is absolutely correct. But stating that with FRFR speakers you need to cut treble because it is brighter than a guitar cab is not logical, nor correct, since the scenarios being discussed invariably have either a virtual guitar cab already in the signal chain, or a cab IR. Since we have a virtual cab in a block, we already HAVE that high cut, so the statement is not correct - not in the simple way most folks tell it on this forum, at least. There is more to it.... The common problem from nearly everybody using a helix is with the end users who are experiencing fizz through FRFR, and questioning why, considering they are using a virtual cab or cab IR which is emulating the sound of the cab. WHAT A VIRTUAL CAB OR IR IS ACTUALLY REPRODUCING The simple description of the problem is that it's NOT emulating the sound of the cab FROM a position that a guitarist would be playing and listening to the tone. The facts of why the virtual cab, or many of the cab IRs available, are NOT sufficient to sound like a cab in a room are with how the virtual cab or cab IR were miked up: - In a virtual cab, and in many cab IRS, the cab was, more or less, close miked, in one mix position, on one part of one cone. That is how many cabs are miked in the studio and live... but is NOT how you get the sound you hear as a guitarist when playing through your amp. IT IS a MUCH brighter tone, and much LESS COMPLEX than the sound of a real cab in a room. The virtual cabs or many of the cab IRs are miked this way for various reasons - technical reasons (CAB IR files aren't really designed to handle the long recording of room reflections and short plate reverb that your cab in a room would require)..... and removing early reflections as much as possible by close miking in a dead room allows you, the player, to configure the rest of the tone after the close miked speaker on the cab - you can eq to mimick various rooms, you can add room or plate verb for the same reason.... etc. You might think... "Ok, so because the guitar cab is close miked, it is much brighter and fizzier, right? like how if I put my ear to it and play quietly with a distortion pedal, it sounds bad.... that's your point? So Why can't I just put my FRFR speaker where my guitar cab would normally go and play and have it sound the same, since it's playing back the exact sound of a guitar speaker in that location, and the room and angle should take care of everything else?" Well, folks, that is an EXCELLENT grasp on the close miked speaker sound, yes it's much brighter and fizzier, but it is missing a couple of important points about the "amp in the room" sound when playing through an FRFR or PA. 1) the FRFR or PA probably has FAR better high frequency dispersion than your guitar speaker, up high, and you always hear the on axis tone (IE: the virtual cab sounds like a close miked speaker, so you get that sound everwhere in front of the FRFR without it changing with direction or distance in the way a real guitar cab does). So where every you stand, relative to your FRFR speaker, it's like having your guitar cab aimed right at, and next to, your ears. 2) the close miked virtual cab response or IR response is on one part of the cone and miked from one direction... it is one aspect of the tone. Dust cap, edge, OR middle of cone, on axis OR off axis, at a specific distance. 3) No matter how bright each guitar speaker on it's own sounds, in a cab with more than one speaker there remains much less high frequency sound once you're a certain distance away from it - due to physics of how multiple speaker outputs work together for dispersion, etc. The real sound from the cab as you hear it is a mix of many radically different tones coming from various parts of the guitar speaker. Guitar speakers are not rigid cones, normally, and the dust cap, edge, middle of the cone, and other areas can truly sound quite different, as can on axis versus off axis tones. This is why some of the best CAB IR libraries include multi miked files... it's sort of a pre-mixed cab IR that actually sound sound much more like the blend you get from a real cab when you play back through an FRFR or PA. A guitar cab with more than one speaker is extra difficult to reproduce when single miked as a cab IR or virtual cab - because the tone in the room is a wild, chaotic mix of the multitude of EQs and tones you get from the cab, all interestingly blended together. So, a MIX engineer in a studio will be accustomed to taking that fizzy close miked amp recording and EQing it accordingly to make it sound great through studio monitors, which are truly FRFR (and likely the only TRULY FRFR speakers you will ever encounter, since they are typically EQed to be as neutral, or flat as possible, in that control room. AT least ONE set of their monitors should be like that, anyhow, in a big studio. They probably mix on something like NS7s though, or other similarly bright and revealing speakers, which also reminds the engineer to cut back on high frequencies and remove the fizz. So yes, think like an engineer, but for the right reasons, and with a little tiny bit more of the full picture than you had before. Saying that guitar cabs aren't as bright as FRFR as a reason to cut treble is simply wrong, since we all know we're placing a virtual guitar cab that, one would ASSUME, must have that same high cut in our signal path. It's actually because our virtual cabs, and some cab IRs, contain much more high frequencies than you actually hear from the real cab when standing and playing... and an FRFR or PA speaker will not result in the same high cut in a room as the actual cab would, due to physical design differences between the transducers and the layout of the speakers. Basically, the original cab IR or virtual cab was probably not setup as a mic in a room standing where a guitarist stands while playing.... it is probably a MUCH brighter recording that isn't anything like how you normally hear your cab... but is great for a studio MIX engineer to work with. SO YOU STILL NEED TREBLE CUT, EVEN WITH A VIRTUAL CAB, or with MANY IRs (but maybe not all IRs) Rest assured - if you have a virtual cab, you still need treble cut (at the very least) after a helix virtual cab or many of the cab IRs you can buy to sound anything like a real cab when you connect your helix directly to a TRUE FRFR cab or to a PA... and honestly you probably need a bit of plate reverb and possibly some low end cut also to really get you there. But what DOES a virtual cab or cab IR do for you? it gets you the true EQ of that cab, in a common, popular recorded microphone position for studio use. Just cut 8kHz, more or less, and up from there, ... probably rather dramatically, and it will start to sound similar to a good cab.....but use your ears, choose eq how you like it. Or, look for an IR library that is a producer blend of mic positions and /or room sound in one cab IR - and you will probably find that you love that sound. Another minor footnote - FRFR cabs you can buy for modelers are not particularly flat response or full range, but they are MUCH more so than most guitar cabs. A PA is often hotter in the highs than a real FRFR speaker is. A REAL FRFR can likely only be found in some recording studios, and even then might not be the speakers chosen by the engineer to work with... for reasons I won't get into here.

Why? Isn't there a way to run the return in parallel? If not, then yes, I agree. IF it can be run in parallel mode, though, then you could control output TO the return with a volume block before it (or similar), both in your 2nd path, and leave the rest of the signal blending with it so, whether or not you allow signal to go to the return, you still get your sound coming through the 1st path. You would have to set your reverb or delay pedals within the fx return (The actual pedals) to be full effect, no source, for it to work properly... otherwise your volume would increase when you sent signal to the fx return since the fx return would also contain the initial sound of your instrument and it would sum with the 1st path (which doesn't leave your helix box)... assuming your pedals don't invert polarity, in which case it'll nullify and make it horrible sounding or nearly silent, depending on phase accuracy.

Yea, that's how it's done in recording studios and live... on a mixer, you leave the return up and the fx in the loop and just control the amount from each track that gets the delay/verb with the send on that track, and when you turn the send all the way off the trails continue and the original continues without effect. Can something like that be done in helix instead? I would think so, just how it is now, right? just change what the button controls?

OMG I love that! I looks really similar to the product I used, but of course mine looked like metal with black surfaces. And.... your version would be fire proof! Global warming and all that... this might become relevant ;-)

They are NOT substandard. Look at the design schematic. It's a very clever design ... but not one that should exist around phantom power... which, again, this should not receive. Yes I think it should be a defeatable circuit, the one that line6 added which is causing you so much stress... so those of you who forget to turn off 48v phantom on your mixers don't suffer from any degredation of your tone until you realize the cause of the problem, which is often as easy to fix as hitting a switch on the board. But it is not a quality issue - it is an EXTRA FEATURE that line6 added to improve performance in literally all other situations besides having 48v mistakenly supplied to it. You really need to choose your words more carefully - quality implies cheapness. It actually costs Line6 more to do the design they did, and they did it to improve the product, not because it was a cheap part or to cheap out on design. Do we all agree with their decision? Nope - but that does not imply or suggest a quality issue. It is, literally, a design choice by the engineers, who (for anyone who works as an engineer will understand), would have been presented with a problem to solve and solved it.

But... they are NOT severely crippled. They work perfectly in their designed use. Again - please show me a live sound engineer who runs 48v phantom power on all of the xlr cables attached to devices not owned by himself or his company. It's a dumb thing for a sound engineer to do, and should not enter into this discussion as a valid criticism of a product that should not receive 48v on it's xlr outputs. It is not a condensor mic or a phantom-powered DI (both of which are rare in live sound). It is the equivalent of an SM58, of which there are a gazillion in live sound use, and they connect it identically.

Oh, by the way, I do have a suggestion for people trying to see the displays on units in the sun. I used to tour and when I did I had a road case for my pedals that has these metal angled side pieces that blocked the sun, and feet and beer, from hitting my board. It was great - probably some DIY thing could be fashioned like that, as long as it's heavy enough to not fly away when playing outdoors... (like, don't use cardboard).

ya know what? no, no I haven't. thank you, it's free to try, right?

So anyway - the physics of speakers is very well understood. dispersion wise, any multi-speaker cab, or multiple cabs, with speakers outputting the same frequency range of the same signal, will result in beaming (directionality).... the longer the cross sectional area in any one direction, the lower the frequency the beaming starts in that cross section (and it continues into high frequencies). So a 212 cab has some very serious beaming of midrange frequencies on one direction since the total distance of the moving speaker from outside of one speaker to furthest outside limit of the other speaker is probably going to be like 24 or 25 inches (end to end, and often 2 speakers have 3 or 4 inches between them), and beams in the other direction (90 degrees or 270 degrees from the first sample) much less so since the cross section is roughly 11 inches (most 12" speakers are not 12" moving diameter). 412? bad in both directions. pa speaker with one main speaker doing most of the output, crossing to a horn at high frequencies? even at all frequencies covered by the main (10", for example) speaker... and better dispersion up high because of the improvements in using properly designed tweeter. 10 speaker has good disperion into higher frequencies than a 12" speaker does. IF you can get one that is very sensitive and has super high power handling and is built strongly and sounds even over it's range... ....then a PA speaker that is 10" with horn, and with a loud power amp, can easily be as loud as a 412 guitar cab. Power handling is in the design - not the size of the cone. Efficiency sort-of also in design, but larger cone and more surface area do make a speaker louder... and 4 speakers is louder than 1 or 2.... so the cab has to work much less to make that same level of sound - but the 110 pa speaker may well be able to do it. There are plenty that can't do it - and bass (guitar or drum or keys) output at high level is WAY harder to achieve and might blow up a 110.... for guitar, there are some amazing 110s, like the headrush frfr. Major brand, 1000 to 2000 watts (peak) amp, high efficiency speakers?? It's a no brainer - it should be outstanding. Bi-amped speakers have used weak amps for tweeter and big amps for woofers for several decades, actually... but some designs do benefit from having the same output power for each since there are some INCREDIBLY high efficiency PA 10", 12" and 15" speakers out there now, where in the old days the tweeter horn was always way more sensitive than the woofer and needed less power... these days, the power output isn't so dramatic. Yes, without low frequencies there is for sure a difference, but there are readily available 2 channel super high power amps these days that make biamping with the same power output for tweeter and woofer a good cost decision, while it never hurst the marketing material to sum the outputs and say "look, we have 3 killowatt speakers!"... when in fact it's a tweeter amp that peaks at 1500 watts max but would fry the tweeter if it ever did that much output, so its output level is cut to match properly. Marketing drivel, eh? it's annoying - you gotta read between the lines. Still, I'd say that would make a pretty outstanding FRFR speaker. NOTE: nearly all FRFR speakers are NOT flat response... listen to some videos where they compare FRFR speakers - they all sound dramatically different. It shouldn't be that way, but it is. They're just flatter than guitar cabs, is all. So you may have to use global eq after to get your tones to match what you're used to, by probably cutting some highs, some presence area, and possibly cutting lows a bit too. Global EQ is best for matching your FRFR's quirks to how you think it should sound... (like compared to line out into recording studio board through very truly FRFR studio monitors in a treated room that has had frequency analysis and correction done to it).

Well, clearly you should sell your Helix Time to dump that lemon, where every potential future-issue or rare problem anyone has ever mentioned on this forum has happened to you and your friends, and move to (axe/headrush/kemper/zoom) and find out what a (difficult-UI/hard-to-dial-tones-plus-frustrating-touchscreen-ui/severely-limited-amp-controls-plus-limited-fx-and-routing/limited-processing-plus-old-models-plus-limited-routing-and-switching) feels like..... Maybe that's what you're looking for. EVERY of these excellent modelling products has limitations. Every one of them. EVERY one of them can be used to create great music, if you know the product and learn how to push, or work around, it's limitations.

Thanks. Again, not my point.... figured it was a DIY thing. These don't sell for much money any more after all. But L&M is a good place to start I guess. Doesn't cost money to find out what repairs would cost :-) Thanks

They have been mentioned already, but I STRONGLY would like to see the following stomps added: - Digitech Frequout (what a pedal!) - Digitech Trio (or plus, and honestly it could probably be a less than complete version... as long as it gets you there) - literally Any TRULY POLYPHONIC-TRACKING HARMONY/PITCH/SYNTH module(s). - A more feature-laden looper. In a product this complete, to have a looper that is no better than my $40 Ammoon mini looper pedal is just sad, although it's nice to have multiple buttons. To be a proper performance/oriented looper, it MUST have a track save/playback option, and it MUST have 2 or 3 phrases that can be switched between, and at least 2 tracks. That's hardly rocket science these days - it's available software, heck there is even open source software that does it. If this requires 2 or even more spots in my virtual helix pedal chain, so be it. As long as there is an option for a proper, performance oriented looper, then it's a sacrifice/choice the end user can make if desired.

k. Figured with an old device, generally I ask in a user forum since folks get these things replaced or sometimes do their own replacement of modules. I use a helix - just figured if it's something others have encountered, shorting out the input jack, if maybe it's a simple component to repair. I do a lot of electronics work. I wonder what would count as an official Line 6 service center here in small town Canada? Cheers

This is truly one of the most important things any helix owner should download. It should be linked from the product page on line6.com! I know it can't be, but it SHOULD be. It would have saved me a ton of time early on if I'd had this. Is there like a "EVERYONE NEEDS THESE ITEMS TO USE A HELIX" section somewhere? It should go there LoL

I'm a helix LT user, but still have my old xt live here. My old XT live died a while back when I used a guitar input cable that turned out to be shorted out internally. so something broke and it shows an error when you start it up. Is there an economical way to repair an old xt live? like, assuming it's the input board circuitry, can that just be replaced, and are parts available anywhere and at reasonable costs? I won't spend a hundred bucks repairing a board that is worth 125 used now or whatever... but if it's half that, it would be worth my while.

I never understood the "necro thread" stuff unless someone had a "should I buy this before Tuesday" topic. This thread about the input pad is very important, and has great information that was relevant 4 years and is just a relevant today. So for sake of organizing information, it SHOULD be commented on in the future with information helpful to others. Firstly, thanks to the line6 staff guy who told us how it works in a related thread: ~~~~Digital Igloo said: "Helix's Guitar Input has a digitally-controlled analog pad before A/D conversion. FWIW, the impedance circuit is the same." Knowing that, it has just saved me a ton of trouble on my basses. I play bass and guitar through this (and will play electric violin and cello through it too). One of my basses is pretty high output active, and it happens to sound better with it's on board bass control boosted - and voila, we're talking very high output now. So I enabled the pad and voila - it solves my biggest issue. However I change axes all the time, and they are not all the same output. So I'm going to back through teh presets I've created for guitar and for bass and adjust things for pad=Always On. It's the only way I'll be able to use this with my various instruments. I might even throw and extra stomp into the start of my main custom bass patch just to toggle a 5db boost (or whatever works for me) to bring up my quieter ibanez bass or a quieter passive bass when needed. I'm really trying to avoid having another pedal in front of the helix, just because pedals stress me out (which is why I just got this and am moving away from my 18 or so pedals). So my next helix project is initiated - I'll update here if I have any issues, but I do fully recommend the pad if you're a bassist with active basses or if you have high output guitars but sometimes like to play clean with them... at least it's worth trying, since it's free. That's the greatest thing about the helix - every product, nearly, is right here at your fingertips to try out! It's a music store at your fingers, but you already own them all, and you never have to look for patch cords, velcro, and more space LoL