sheehanje Posted July 3, 2017 Share Posted July 3, 2017 Sold my Mesa JP-2C. Hard decision, but decided to keep my 2 L3T's and Helix due to versatility and less cost of maintenance. Now that I'm only gigging sparingly I decided to part with portions of my live setup. I'm all in on the Helix now - before it was mainly used in 4CM to the JP-2C. With that said - I've had mixed results with the L3T's so far. Pushing the band through them, I get pretty good results. Pushing just guitar, or guitar and vocals - I'm not too happy with reference PA mode. I don't seem to get enough "punch" out of them. I believe the problem is crossover, and that in Reference mode, at useable guitar frequencies I'm only getting 1 of the 10" speakers engaged. Or the system is getting engaged inconsistently - where if I'm playing more bass heavy rhythms I'm getting both speakers engaged, but when I'm not only the one 10" is doing the work. I was fooling around with monitor mode - and it's ok. But what really gets me close to what I'm used to (and I've been playing over 25 years with a traditional tube amp on stage that is mic'd to front of house) - is setting the L3T's in electric guitar mode and doing away with a IR or Cab block. I get sounds closed to what I'm used to for my high gain "channels". I also figured out for FOH I can just put a cab on path 1B or 2B, kill the split path, then change the output to XLR. I realized FOH will sound different then on stage, but again, that's what I'm used to - and what I prefer. The FOH mix is for the engineer to figure out, the stage mix is for me to figure out. My problem now is when I want to setup a patch with multiple "channels". One thing I found I do like is the speakers set in reference PA when using clean channels - and setting up nice stereo effects with modelled cabinets. The problem I have here is I can't change the speakers from electric guitar mode to reference mode when using the Helix. It's got to be one or the other. So I'm stuck between two worlds here, and it's a bit frustrating. So - I'm now thinking, I'm going to try and just get everything working in reference PA mode. Has anyone else had issues with high gain sounds being uneven in PA mode? Like I said, if bass and drums are pumping through with the guitar, it sounds killer, when it's just guitar, I don't seem to be getting full power out of the unit. Is there anyway to deal with this at a patch level? Also - anyone dealing with 2 L3T's - how do you do your stage setup? Do you use them both vertical, horizontal, a mix between the two? In any case, I know I can make this work - I'm just trying to get some ideas from other peoples experience. I don't intend to pole mount these. The venues I am playing have limited stage space, so pole mounting will take up valuable real estate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrrjr68 Posted July 3, 2017 Share Posted July 3, 2017 " But what really gets me close to what I'm used to (and I've been playing over 25 years with a traditional tube amp on stage that is mic'd to front of house) - is setting the L3T's in electric guitar mode and doing away with a IR or Cab block. I get sounds closed to what I'm used to for my high gain "channels". Interesting.. so you have to disable the cab sims on the helix to get it to sound right? kind of defeats the purpose of the FRFR speakers. Sounds like a bit of a learning curve for that as well.. I have been considering FRFR monitorsfor a while but the L3's are a bit salty I dunno about all that Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sheehanje Posted July 3, 2017 Author Share Posted July 3, 2017 " But what really gets me close to what I'm used to (and I've been playing over 25 years with a traditional tube amp on stage that is mic'd to front of house) - is setting the L3T's in electric guitar mode and doing away with a IR or Cab block. I get sounds closed to what I'm used to for my high gain "channels". Interesting.. so you have to disable the cab sims on the helix to get it to sound right? kind of defeats the purpose of the FRFR speakers. Sounds like a bit of a learning curve for that as well.. I have been considering FRFR monitorsfor a while but the L3's are a bit salty I dunno about all that I thought the same thing - but it gives me more of the feel I'm used to. I'm sure it's more just user learning curve then anything. But I wonder if I would've been better off with the L2 series, a firehawk or mission engineering. When I first envisioned the L3T's - I was planning on eventually building out a full PA eventually - but I've curbed that idea due to.... well.... due to my wife putting her foot down lol. I guess 25K in guitar equipment the past 3 years has been a little excessive for a weekend warrior. My goal is to make what I have work by any means necessary - whether it's considered "standard usage" or not. The thing with this stuff, and why I kept it over my tube amp, is the variety of options you have with it. Yes, right now the Electric Guitar mode "feels" right to me - but I'm not limited by that, and there are plenty of spots to store a multitude of patches. I just wish I had the ability with L6 Link to change the mode of the speakers at any givien time. For something that I really need that amp right next to me feel (think Dead Boys, or Misfits covers) I do better with the setup I described, where raw tone and feedback are just as important with the amp as it is with the guitar playing. On other stuff, especially more heavily processed sounds like Rush or <insert late 70's - 80's metal band here> I can get more out of modelling cab's/mic combinations. So, yes, Helix/L3T's give a lot of versatility - but I want to be able to change all that on the fly. I believe POD500 series has this integration where you can change modes. Without that, I'm going to have to find a way for Reference PA mode to do the whole job. EQ'ing will only get me so far because like I said, in that mode I feel I'm not getting the full power from the L3T when just pushing guitar into it something I don't think the L2 suffers from because it only has 1 10" speaker. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrrjr68 Posted July 3, 2017 Share Posted July 3, 2017 "where raw tone and feedback are just as important with the amp as it is with the guitar playing. " Again a great point. I haven't tried the helix live yet but I was certainly hoping that if I had a few powered monitors I would get the feedback I do from my dual rectifier. It is kind of an issue in the studio for me now.. I may have to bring in my real amp for some solo stuff.. I'm still trying to capture that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrrjr68 Posted July 3, 2017 Share Posted July 3, 2017 Check these babies out. I've been hearing some good things about them. I am probably going with a 12-15" speaker because of drop tuning.. but at any rate Seismic will also do custom builds. $489.99 PAIR!!!!:0 https://www.seismicaudiospeakers.com/products/powered-10-inch-coaxial-monitors Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sheehanje Posted July 3, 2017 Author Share Posted July 3, 2017 Check these babies out. I've been hearing some good things about them. I am probably going with a 12-15" speaker because of drop tuning.. but at any rate Seismic will also do custom builds. $489.99 PAIR!!!!:0 https://www.seismicaudiospeakers.com/products/powered-10-inch-coaxial-monitors Let me know how they work out for you. I actually just got home from work and I'm putting the L3T's through their paces in reference mode - think I'm getting really close - they sound absolutely monstrous. My wife even questioned whether I actually sold my tube amp or not lol. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrrjr68 Posted July 3, 2017 Share Posted July 3, 2017 Let me know how they work out for you. I actually just got home from work and I'm putting the L3T's through their paces in reference mode - think I'm getting really close - they sound absolutely monstrous. My wife even questioned whether I actually sold my tube amp or not lol. hahaa! it may just be a matter of tweaking everything enough to taste Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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