Questions regarding Helix with FRFR setup

[jman64]

Last night I played my first gig with the Helix running through a FRFR speaker setup. ( Did one prior with my amp in 4cm).  I've created my patches to all be pretty closely volume matched. They may be a tad bit louder than the factory presets, but nothing drastic. When going through sound check the sound man said my rigged sounded great, but that on some palm mutes he thought I was getting some digital clipping. He asked me to turn my main volume down on the Helix, which I did and he claimed the clipping was gone.

 

From my understanding of how the Helix works I wouldn't expect the main volume to cause clipping internally, only if the signal was too hot and over driving whatever pre amp it was fed into. I've been setting the Helix's main volume to between noon and 1 o'clock on the dial. When I turned it down to around 11 o'clock the sound guys was happy but it altered my signal to my stage speaker enough ( JBL EON 615) to where I struggled to get the volume I needed to hear well on stage. Time was tight so I didn't have much chance to do anything but try to turn up the gain on the speaker, which wasn't as much as I needed. So I struggled through the set trying to hear myself. People I knew in the crowd said I sounded great out front, so that was a relief.

 

So my questions are, is there any good way to first tell if your patches are too hot and causing clipping besides trusting your ears? And secondly does the main volume dial effect this?

 

Jay

[silverhead]

Perhaps the clipping was on his equipment, not yours? The Main Volume knob should not create clipping when there was none inside the Helix signal chain. But it certainly can create clipping in the outboard gear if the output signal from Helix is too hot for that equipment.

 

Not saying it wasn't from Helix, and there is no good way at the moment to detect internal clipping in Helix other than your ears or other external gear.

[jman64]

It very well could have been. I'm just trying to make sure of my process and that I'm keeping things where they need to be on my end.

[silverhead]

One thing you could try is in global settings - I expect the Ins/Outs subsection. You can specify whether you want the Master Volume knob to affect the 14/", XLR, or other things. You could set it up so that the Master Volume affects the XLR (to FOH) but not the 1/4". That way you could control your stage speaker level independently while reducing the level sent to FOH.

[zooey]

I'd go the other way around, have the big knob control the 1/4" outs for your monitoring, without affecting the XLRs to FOH.

[jman64]

I'd go the other way around, have the big knob control the 1/4" outs for your monitoring, without affecting the XLRs to FOH.

That's a great tip. I didn't think about splitting the volume control up.

[shatters]

That's a great tip. I didn't think about splitting the volume control up.

Yep this is a good way jman!

Also you might want to set your Global XLR out to mic.  Or be prepared too.

 

When I have had it at Line and tell some soundmen I'm sending it to you in Line level and they give you that dazed look and nod like they know what you just said.., then tell you your signal is too hot.

A lot of boards are set to mic input as last thing they had in that channel was a mic and some boards only have line level input through a TRS.

and instead of dealing with explaining line level vs mic, I just change it to mic.

[jman64]

That makes sense also. Thanks,

 

Jay