First live practice with Helix and L2t. Mostly thumbs up.

[StruckingFuggle]

Pretty positive experience with Helix/L2t in my first live practice.  I used a single preset with four snapshots (clean, crunch, dirty, lead).  Basic patch using Archon (wah, delay, verb).    

 

I've dialed out way too much bass (due to some problems with my studio being very low frequency resonant, and some kind of fan defect in my L2t that causes awful buzzing).  Was pretty happy with my lead tone.  The dialed-back bass with extra mid and level boost put it just about right.  It cut right through.  We played at a much lower volume than I was expecting, which I'm sure contributed.  

 

I need less gain in my crunch and dirty patches.  Archon has so much drive.    It sounds fantastic all heavy and banging, but the material I played tonight definitely needed a lot cleaner tone.  I found myself dialing back the volume knob on my guitar, which (given the EQ settings I was using) made it thin out more than I wanted.  

 

The L2t came in very handy, since the singer brought a 10 watt bass amp to sing through. :huh:   I let him plug into a channel on my L2t, and was quite impressed with the clarity and power.  As far as monitors go, it's fantastic for this application.   A pair of them would be kick butt. I'll have to be on the look out for some used ones. 

 

I'm definitely more confident that Helix is going to work for me.  I had hundreds of gigs on my last rig, which I loved, but these days who's going to lug around 100 watt head, 4x12, and a rack of processing?  Not me.  I can tell you that.  

 

Each time I play it I learn something, and get closer to what I want.  The issues I'm having with Helix are just inexperience, and will get sorted out with some time in the saddle.  It took me quite a while to dial in my Triaxis and JMP1.  Have a few more nobs to tweak with Helix, but I'm getting closer.  Will probably never give up my Mobius, though.  :)   Dang I love the phaser in that thing.