jshoenfelt Posted November 30, 2016 Share Posted November 30, 2016 I need some help guys, I use my Helix primarily at church where I keep my tube amp. I was listening to my patches at home through a set of headphones and they do not sound anywhere near the same. Any ideas for a cost effective way to get my tones at home? Thanks in advance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spikey Posted November 30, 2016 Share Posted November 30, 2016 Cost effective and good tone usually do not mix. I would bring the amp home from church. Or buy two exact FRFR speakers and leave one at worship and one at the house. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruisinon2 Posted November 30, 2016 Share Posted November 30, 2016 I need some help guys, I use my Helix primarily at church where I keep my tube amp. I was listening to my patches at home through a set of headphones and they do not sound anywhere near the same. Any ideas for a cost effective way to get my tones at home? Thanks in advance. A tube amp and headphones are worlds apart in terms of frequency response...that's why they sound nothing alike, and there's nothing you can do about that. If you want your patches to sound the same at home, then you need to be listening through a similar amp, end of story. No set of headphones will ever sound like your tube amp. However, if cost-effectiveness is the goal, then just create a separate set of patches for use with headphones. It'll require some time, and EQing things a bit differently, but it won't cost you a dime. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoeWoe Posted November 30, 2016 Share Posted November 30, 2016 I'm in a similar situation, but I run direct instead. When I had the HD500X I used to build my patches at church because the sound was never the same at home. With the Helix I've been able to reuse the same base tone for almost every patch. I typically just switch out the delays and reverbs to fit the song or add any extra effects. It's been working well for me to the point where most weeks I just build the setlist at home without testing it until practice. If you can find a few tones that you know work good in the room than just tweak the extra stuff to taste and you should be good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JLondon Posted November 30, 2016 Share Posted November 30, 2016 Cost effective? Nope! I use mine to play at church too. What I did is scrap the whole amp '4 cable method' mess and purchase two FRFR Line 6 Stagesource speakers (one with onboard mixer option so I can play acoustic guitar through same set-up). I leave one at church/one at home and just transport Helix and guitar back and forth. VERY convenient! But it's still not going to sound the same at both locations because of the venue size difference. But it will get you close and you can tweak your presets quickly at church and save a set for both locations. Not really cost effective - but the whole system is a whole lot less money than the alternative set of amps/pedals/etc. AND with the onboard mixer option on one of the speakers I basically have a P.A. system to boot when I put all pcs together. AND STEREO! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HonestOpinion Posted November 30, 2016 Share Posted November 30, 2016 I agree with the whole approach of using an FRFR or just a powered PA speakers for a monitor. They tend to give you the best idea of what will be coming out of the PA and make it far easier to customize your presets predictably. Use one at home and go direct to to the PA at church with the second speaker as your monitor. You can even dispense with the monitor at church if your soundman can get you a good enough guitar feed from the mixing board in the PA's vocal monitors (assuming that you can live with that just go direct to PA from Helix). If you don't have the cash to shell out for one or two of the more expensive Line 6 Stagesource speakers or FRFRs there are plenty of less expensive powered PA speakers that work great. People have even reported good results with some of the least expensive models like the Altos. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbuhajla Posted December 1, 2016 Share Posted December 1, 2016 I am going direct to the PA with the Helix at church. We are using in ear monitors, but should not matter what you use as your on stage monitor. The patches in the house mix are pretty close to how they sound at home through headphones. I just have the sound guy run my eq flat on my Helix channel, and it sounds the same. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AZGuitar Posted December 4, 2016 Share Posted December 4, 2016 Same for me, eq helix channel flat. I use xlr out with output set to mic and it plays nice with our system. I do create my patches using a matrix FR10. Sounds great in my IEM's, but thin in my Sony cans. Headphones can be canny! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlexKenivel Posted December 4, 2016 Share Posted December 4, 2016 My Alto TS112a goes everywhere my Helix does. Your situation with a tube amplifier it's going to be a tough one unless you have another one of those tube amplifiers at home, it's never going to sound consistent. If I were you I would use full modeling and stick to that for headphone usage at home Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbuhajla Posted December 5, 2016 Share Posted December 5, 2016 Same for me, eq helix channel flat. I use xlr out with output set to mic and it plays nice with our system. I do create my patches using a matrix FR10. Sounds great in my IEM's, but thin in my Sony cans. Headphones can be canny! Yes, beware of the thin headphone effect. My tones are a bit thin in the in-ear monitors, and I am tempted to tweak the tone on the Helix. I have to keep myself from doing that because it sounds great in the house. I need to figure out how to EQ my sound on our Behringer P-16 monitor controller so that it sounds a bit more full. That way the process is seamless from building tones at home to playing at church. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jshoenfelt Posted December 5, 2016 Author Share Posted December 5, 2016 Lot of good info here, thanks everyone. I think I am going to look into the Altos and see what I think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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