How would Helix be used with below gear in a solo gig?

[FunkenBlues]

Hello tone and  and MIDI gurus.

 

I believe this is my very first post on this forum and after reading  a few threads, I realized there  are some of the smartest musicians who understand and embrace technology. on this forum than most of the forums I have been on. Way cool.  

 

 

So here's my story and this is going to get technically complicated in a minutes so I warned you.

 

I am 54 year old and been playing guitar since I was 14. I was a semi pro gigging on weekends. Playing mostly heavy blues, hard rock, funk etc.  I played a Les Paul into a wah into mesa boogie for 30 years.  I had a 24 track  analog studio for you old timers called the Roland Vs-24 which was a stand alone external 24 track recorder with a boatload of high end rack mounted gear.   I sold studio in 2008, all my guitars, CDS and quit gigging & playing music. 

 

 

End of 2012, had major horrific accident, fall of a stage, pronounced dead fro 2 minutes, resuscitate, 19 days in hospital, broke 15 ribs clavicle, fractured skull just to give you idea of pain. I was lucky and had a traumatic brain injury . Yes, I said lucky because that is what lead me back to guitar because Drs wanted me to start using noodle again.

 

 

Drs asked if I had any hobbies, I said yes....chess & guitar,   Picked up nylon string to practice Bach & played 3000 plus games on chess.com. It was 90% chess and 10% guitar, the passion came back so badly, I now have 5 guitars, an Ableton studio, many controllers,, soft synths, and picked up my first Moog Sub 37 which is wicked bad.

 

So her is my confusion as to best way to make everything I am about have a smooth workflow so no tap dancing on stage.            

 

I am going to be using a looper and will have 5 separate audio outputs from various devices needing to be looped and output from looper sent to PA. I will also need a PA recommendation we can discuss later,

 

Here are 5 outputs:

 

1,) Apple Laptop.  I play MIDI guitar and trigger soft synths in Ableton using the Fishman Triple Play (FTP) wireless midi controller  using my two Godin guitars with built in  (FTP).  I also have a Taylor T5Z and was going to mount an external FTP oh her, 

 

2.) Tc-Helicon Voice Live 3 Extreme (VL3E).    This was purchased for vocals, acoustic guitar thinking be perfect for Taylor, plus it comes with a 3 part looper which has some unique features,

 

3.) Analog output from Godin guitar humbuckers or Taylor system.  This was originally going to go direct into VL3E . That may change if I pick up Helix.

 

4.) Two dynamic vocal mics so no phantom power needed. 

 

5.) Roland Handsonics percussion unit. 

 

6.) I am thinking Helix would complete this setup beautifully,because of the heavy tomes it produces and by putting it in front  of VL3E, I can nor use looper for heavy rock tones

 

7.) Moog Sub 37

 

 

This seems like a lot of gear but the footprint is very small.  Moog 37  very small footprint, small table for laptop, handsonics, Push 2, APC 40 MK2. Ipad etc.   I do not need all these controllers at every gig.

 

I will be playing blues, funk, from spacey Bach into Hendrix, Ambient, etc.    

 

NO TWO GIGS WILL EVER BE THE SAME AND SOUND SO DIFFERENT FROM EACH OTHER.

 

 

My last two questions is if I buy the Helix, am I really missing out on cool features/sounds by not also buying the Variax? .  I was planning on buying one more guitar and since I already have a Tele, I was going to get  a JEM with a Floyd  but would happily buy a Variax if those of you in the know tell me I would be nuts to buy a Helix without Variax. 

 

This was a long thread and I am sorry for those of you who had to read the entire thread, and at the same time very humbled and grateful, for those of you who did. 

 

I  live off social security disability and live with mom so while I had the chance, I built my studio. I am a paycheck to paycheck person now so I need to make extremely smart buying decisions.and can no longer have luxury of mistakes when buying gear.  

 

Thanks again for explaining what additional equipment like a mixer I may need to make this setup easy to configure       

 

Forgot to mention if I do get the Variax, than the FTP MIDI pickup is going on Variax, not Taylor.    I will have so may tones to choose from this is going to be a blast.   

 

Anyone with any experience who can shed some light on what I am trying to accomplish will be so greatly appreciated.  .

 

 

[HonestOpinion]

Hello tone and  and MIDI gurus.

 

I believe this is my very first post on this forum and after reading  a few threads, I realized there  are some of the smartest musicians who understand and embrace technology. on this forum than most of the forums I have been on. Way cool.  

 

 

So here's my story and this is going to get technically complicated in a minutes so I warned you.

 

I am 54 year old and been playing guitar since I was 14. I was a semi pro gigging on weekends. Playing mostly heavy blues, hard rock, funk etc.  I played a Les Paul into a wah into mesa boogie for 30 years.  I had a 24 track  analog studio for you old timers called the Roland Vs-24 which was a stand alone external 24 track recorder with a boatload of high end rack mounted gear.   I sold studio in 2008, all my guitars, CDS and quit gigging & playing music. 

 

 

End of 2012, had major horrific accident, fall of a stage, pronounced dead fro 2 minutes, resuscitate, 19 days in hospital, broke 15 ribs clavicle, fractured skull just to give you idea of pain. I was lucky and had a traumatic brain injury . Yes, I said lucky because that is what lead me back to guitar because Drs wanted me to start using noodle again.

 

 

Drs asked if I had any hobbies, I said yes....chess & guitar,   Picked up nylon string to practice Bach & played 3000 plus games on chess.com. It was 90% chess and 10% guitar, the passion came back so badly, I now have 5 guitars, an Ableton studio, many controllers,, soft synths, and picked up my first Moog Sub 37 which is wicked bad.

 

So her is my confusion as to best way to make everything I am about have a smooth workflow so no tap dancing on stage.            

 

I am going to be using a looper and will have 5 separate audio outputs from various devices needing to be looped and output from looper sent to PA. I will also need a PA recommendation we can discuss later,

 

Here are 5 outputs:

 

1,) Apple Laptop.  I play MIDI guitar and trigger soft synths in Ableton using the Fishman Triple Play (FTP) wireless midi controller  using my two Godin guitars with built in  (FTP).  I also have a Taylor T5Z and was going to mount an external FTP oh her, 

 

2.) Tc-Helicon Voice Live 3 Extreme (VL3E).    This was purchased for vocals, acoustic guitar thinking be perfect for Taylor, plus it comes with a 3 part looper which has some unique features,

 

3.) Analog output from Godin guitar humbuckers or Taylor system.  This was originally going to go direct into VL3E . That may change if I pick up Helix.

 

4.) Two dynamic vocal mics so no phantom power needed. 

 

5.) Roland Handsonics percussion unit. 

 

6.) I am thinking Helix would complete this setup beautifully,because of the heavy tomes it produces and by putting it in front  of VL3E, I can nor use looper for heavy rock tones

 

7.) Moog Sub 37

 

 

This seems like a lot of gear but the footprint is very small.  Moog 37  very small footprint, small table for laptop, handsonics, Push 2, APC 40 MK2. Ipad etc.   I do not need all these controllers at every gig.

 

I will be playing blues, funk, from spacey Bach into Hendrix, Ambient, etc.    

 

NO TWO GIGS WILL EVER BE THE SAME AND SOUND SO DIFFERENT FROM EACH OTHER.

 

 

My last two questions is if I buy the Helix, am I really missing out on cool features/sounds by not also buying the Variax? .  I was planning on buying one more guitar and since I already have a Tele, I was going to get  a JEM with a Floyd  but would happily buy a Variax if those of you in the know tell me I would be nuts to buy a Helix without Variax. 

 

This was a long thread and I am sorry for those of you who had to read the entire thread, and at the same time very humbled and grateful, for those of you who did. 

 

I  live off social security disability and live with mom so while I had the chance, I built my studio. I am a paycheck to paycheck person now so I need to make extremely smart buying decisions.and can no longer have luxury of mistakes when buying gear.  

 

Thanks again for explaining what additional equipment like a mixer I may need to make this setup easy to configure       

 

Forgot to mention if I do get the Variax, than the FTP MIDI pickup is going on Variax, not Taylor.    I will have so may tones to choose from this is going to be a blast.   

 

Anyone with any experience who can shed some light on what I am trying to accomplish will be so greatly appreciated.  .

 

Wow, first off what an incredible story. Glad you made it through and you certainly picked a great way to heal. I also love chess and Bach and they will definitely stimulate cognitive function. I think some other folks can weigh in on other elements of your setup but I would recommend a Variax especially if you get one without the piezo 'plink' problem that many have complained about. It is not the best made guitar but it will suffice (I dig mine) and it brings a world of additional fun to a Helix setup with the ability to control Helix parameters from the guitar as well as giving you multiple guitar models and more importantly multiple alternate tunings. I would highly recommend getting one from a retailer that allows returns or exchanges and giving it a try. Given your incredibly moving recovery story I would try speaking directly to a representative at GC, Sweetwater or maybe even Line6 and seeing if perhaps they can either give you a major discount or perhaps even a free guitar as a tax write-off to a worthy cause. Good luck and good healing to you!

[soundog]

I play solo and have similar equipment, and tried using a Helix in a similar fashion (mixer/sound processor/looper). My findings and suggestions:

 

- Variax. you don't really need a Variax (you can get all the guitar tones you need with your current guitars), although you may want one if you use alternative tunings, which the Variax does nicely. Or if you need some of the esoteric guitars (sitar, resonator, banjo, etc).

 

- Looping. you need an external (separate) looper. The looper in the Helix is not, in my opinion, useful for live looping unless your looping needs are very basic. For one, you can't do more that a single loop, and for two its a pain to tap dance in and out of the Helix looper during a live performance. Instead, buy a Boomerang or Pigtronix or one of the new Electro Harmonix loopers.

 

- Mixer. the best mixer for what your needs, in my opinion, would be a compact MIDI mixer—specifically the Akai MidiMix. You could use it to control volume and presets on the Helix via MIDI, as well as all of your laptop applications (eg midi guitar, etc), your Roland drums, etc. The main reason I like this mixer for what you would be doing is that it has a "send all" button that will send the current position of every fader and knob with one button press. That way, if you change presets on the Helix you can press "send all" to re-establish every fader setting. Otherwise, you will go nuts trying to keep levels consistent between presets. With this sort of mixer setup, you would be controlling the output of all of your outputs (Helix, Handsonic, etc) via MIDI, and running the stereo or mono out of your Helix into your powered PA speaker(s).

 

Another mixer option to investigate is a Behringer X-Air, which plenty of analog ins and outs, but can be controlled wirelessly from a tablet or MIDI controller. In this case, you would feed all of your analog outputs into the mixer, and the output to your powered PA speaker(s).

 

Before you commit, draw some diagrams on paper of all of the ins an outs you need, and plan out how your routing would work along with the Helix and a mixer. This will save you a lot of headaches later on!

 

- Helix inputs. You will probably have enough, although I'm not sure why you need two microphones. If you don't have enough inputs, you can always swap out an input or two when needed between songs. But I don't think you can play more instruments at one time than the Helix has inputs — it's really versatile when it comes to ins, outs, and send/returns.

 

Good luck. Keep us posted on your progress. This forum if full of very helpful folks — its one of the best I've encountered.