Getting set up.......

[Baseborn]

Hi,

 

I appreciate that new people to this stuff asking questions gets annoying, but your help is appreciated.

 

I've pretty much not touched my electrics for about 8 years and having solely played acoustic for that time, i'm finally getting back into the game. Having sold most of my gear (excluding a couple of guitars and some pedals), i thought i'd pretty much settled on getting a tube amp and running my pedals into it via a boss ES-5 or ES-8. Then the Helix Floor was mentioned........and I can get a good deal on a used unit.

 

It looks good, I like the sound of it, am happy to invest the time in getting good sounds etc. - but having never really used anything like this before , i just wanted to clarify the best way of going about getting set up.

 

It will be used mostly (initially at least) for home use, maybe the odd jam session with friends. We don't have any neighbours, so i'd like to be able to crank the volume occasionally too. I think from doing some reading, the best solution for me is to go for a monitor style FRFR speaker which I can place at my feet - i'm conscious that i don't want to go crazy on spec as this is very out of my comfort zone, but obviously want a good sound. 

 

Is this the 'best' way to go for someone new to this? And what speakers should I be looking at (i'm in the UK if that makes any difference). Also, connectivity wise, how am I setting all this up? XLR?

 

Thanks, and apologies for asking questions you've no doubt answered in some form about 10000 times......

 

 

[jbuhajla]

I got rid of all my amps and pedals and just use the Helix floor. Not a pro player, but I play weekly at my church. Here is my setup:

 

Home- Helix Floor connected to two JBL EON 610 powered speakers (plenty loud for any jam session up to medium sized gig) connected XLR, Windows 10 laptop connected via USB for Helix Edit software and DAW, Line 6 G10 wireless, two external expression pedals to control effect/amp parameters. 

 

Church- Helix Floor connected to front of house via XLR, Line 6 G10 wireless, two external expression pedals to control effect/amp parameters. Monitor mix of full band going to in ear monitor system. 

 

I can't see myself deviating from the digital realm ever again. It just isn't necessary for me. 

[DunedinDragon]

It's probably going to be a fairly big leap after 8 years because a lot has changed in that time, and Helix is kind of at the leading edge of those changes, so just be patient and willing to learn.

 

Although you wouldn't necessarily need a powered FRFR style speaker at this point, it's probably worth going that route in order to keep things simple initially.  I personally believe this is one area that pays off in spending a bit of money rather than going super cheap.  There really is a difference.  But you can get a pretty good speaker in the $400 range nowdays that will work well at home working with the Helix as well as jamming with friends.  I personally use Yamaha DXR12's as my preferred speaker which are fairly pricey, but worth it to me.  However I recently bought an ElectroVoice ZLX12P that compared quite well with the DXR12 but priced around $360.  So the price/performance has been getting more reasonable in the last year or so.  The ZLX is a bit less wattage than the DXR, but more than enough for live performance.  Many folks around here use them quite a bit.

 

As far as hooking things up, I prefer to go 1/4" out to my stage monitor and reserve my XLR out for going to the PA (using a phantom power blocker on the cable).  It just makes things simpler and more consistent.  Just make sure you're using LINE level on the 1/4" out and set the speaker to the same.  Another consideration on setup is if you position these type of speakers as floor monitors there is a good possibility you will get a bass biasing effect which makes them sound a bit bassy.  So you want to make sure you have the speaker's DSP options set for a monitor to correct for that.  A lot of the lower priced speakers don't have these type of options so make sure you check when you're shopping.

 

In my case I set my monitor speaker on a half height pole mount so I can position it in a normal backline setup the same as I would an amp.  The value to doing it this way versus a floor monitor in front of you is that it's easier for the rest of the band to mix with your sound as it will be consistent with a normal backline.  It's also useful in those situation in which you're playing in a situation where you aren't running the instruments through a PA.  By having it on the backline it projects in the same way as a PA speaker because that's essentially what it is.  I've included a link to the half height speaker stand if you're interested.  Good luck...

 

Half height speaker stand from Amazon

[surfsup1955]

You say you basically played acoustic for 8 years, do you have a decent acoustic amp?

 

I only ask, because I was in sorta the same boat when I bought my Helix 2 years ago. Was basically just running it via my DAW monitor system and looking for an FRFR solution. Then it dawned on me that my Fishman Loudbox Performer was also a very VERY nice 180w line level PA system when hooked up from the back, bypassing the preamp. I can run it stereo in as well.

 

I’m no longer in the market for an FRFR.

 

 

[Baseborn]

16 hours ago, DunedinDragon said:

It's probably going to be a fairly big leap after 8 years because a lot has changed in that time, and Helix is kind of at the leading edge of those changes, so just be patient and willing to learn.

 

Although you wouldn't necessarily need a powered FRFR style speaker at this point, it's probably worth going that route in order to keep things simple initially.  I personally believe this is one area that pays off in spending a bit of money rather than going super cheap.  There really is a difference.  But you can get a pretty good speaker in the $400 range nowdays that will work well at home working with the Helix as well as jamming with friends.  I personally use Yamaha DXR12's as my preferred speaker which are fairly pricey, but worth it to me.  However I recently bought an ElectroVoice ZLX12P that compared quite well with the DXR12 but priced around $360.  So the price/performance has been getting more reasonable in the last year or so.  The ZLX is a bit less wattage than the DXR, but more than enough for live performance.  Many folks around here use them quite a bit.

 

As far as hooking things up, I prefer to go 1/4" out to my stage monitor and reserve my XLR out for going to the PA (using a phantom power blocker on the cable).  It just makes things simpler and more consistent.  Just make sure you're using LINE level on the 1/4" out and set the speaker to the same.  Another consideration on setup is if you position these type of speakers as floor monitors there is a good possibility you will get a bass biasing effect which makes them sound a bit bassy.  So you want to make sure you have the speaker's DSP options set for a monitor to correct for that.  A lot of the lower priced speakers don't have these type of options so make sure you check when you're shopping.

 

In my case I set my monitor speaker on a half height pole mount so I can position it in a normal backline setup the same as I would an amp.  The value to doing it this way versus a floor monitor in front of you is that it's easier for the rest of the band to mix with your sound as it will be consistent with a normal backline.  It's also useful in those situation in which you're playing in a situation where you aren't running the instruments through a PA.  By having it on the backline it projects in the same way as a PA speaker because that's essentially what it is.  I've included a link to the half height speaker stand if you're interested.  Good luck...

 

Half height speaker stand from Amazon

 

That ZLX looks interesting - i'd looked at the L2M which is obviously twice as expensive........

 

Thanks for the set up advice!

[Baseborn]

14 hours ago, surfsup1955 said:

You say you basically played acoustic for 8 years, do you have a decent acoustic amp?

 

I only ask, because I was in sorta the same boat when I bought my Helix 2 years ago. Was basically just running it via my DAW monitor system and looking for an FRFR solution. Then it dawned on me that my Fishman Loudbox Performer was also a very VERY nice 180w line level PA system when hooked up from the back, bypassing the preamp. I can run it stereo in as well.

 

I’m no longer in the market for an FRFR.

 

 

No acoustic amp! Thanks for the tip though.

[jb-dan]

I'm new to Helix. Did months of researching before I bought. I went the PA speaker (Yamaha DXR10) + quality headphones (Sennheiser HD600) route and could not be more pleased. I played in bands in the 80's with tube amps and some stomps then went to college and forgot about electric. Acoustic was where I stayed for the next 15 years. Then was asked at church if I'd like to play in the P&W band there. So back to electric it was. We use IEM's with an Aviom system. I run to FOH using 1/4" out mono into DI into FOH. At home I use the headphones to create and jam, and use the Helix > XLR > DXR10 to see what it really sounds like at ~90dB. 

 

At home I originally placed my DXR on the floor, but for me personally and even with the contouring, I like the way it sounds off the floor so I got a tripod stand at chest height. To emulate the PA at church. Sounds really good to me. I haven't ever heard or played through any of the coaxial FRFR's, but from what I gather if you want more of a classic tube amp sound then they might be worth looking at. They're not cheap.

 

Long story short, research, read, research more, then go for it :)