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New to line 6 and the Helix


Abokerr
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As the title says I am new to the Helix , it hasn't even arrived yet but thought I would warn you of a new guy potentially needing guidance.

i have been watching how to create tones on you tube and my plan is to copy these to get started.

i am a gigging player and my normal band set up is no back line and straight into the mixer / pa.  The pa is all mine and my set up will be guitar into helix into sound craft fx8 mixer ( two channels one panned left the other right on the desk for full stereo sound ) then into a QSC pa a K12 and Ksub either side.

I have never played with a stereo sound before always mono is the panning both channels on the mixer the correct way to do this or could I leave them flat and the output from the helix sort that out ?

Secondly to get my initial sounds should I bring my mixer and at least my top cabs in the house  as in the past taking your in house sound to gig and turning up can have not good results.

Any tips for the setting up for a gig at house volume appreciated - watching the you tube stuff I felt the low and high pass filters would help with this but looking at this forum I thought I would try and draw from your experience.

thanks in advance 

Abo

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If you build your patches as stereo patches using the appropriate effects you would have a separation were you to go directly from your XLR L and R directly to the powered speakers.  The further you separate those speakers, the wider the stereo field.  Likewise you can adjust it the same way somewhat from a mixer using panning to widen the stereo effect.  But this is all going to be dependent on the room and the placement of your fronts so you'll just have to use your ears.  As you noted it would be best to hook up your K12s at home direct to the XLR L and R outputs to dial in your tones.  The mixer wouldn't be necessary but it's small enough that you could do it without too much problem if you wanted to get a good feel for how you want to use panning.  The question in my mind is how you get your stereo sound monitored on stage.  Easy to do if using in ears.  A bit more trouble using speakers.

 

The important thing when it comes to managing volume is to have consistency in your signal strength that goes to the board.  I personally use a small mixer which I route into at home and with my master volume set at the same place (11 o'clock) I try to get all of my patches and snapshots to have roughly the same levels on the signal meters when PFL'ing them.  High and low pass filters will generally be different for each patch and will be highly dependent upon the style of song, amp, cabinet or IR, mic and mic placement.  I generally prefer to only adjust those kind of EQ things at the end of my chain using a parametric EQ block.

 

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8 hours ago, Abokerr said:

I have never played with a stereo sound before always mono is the panning both channels on the mixer the correct way to do this or could I leave them flat and the output from the helix sort that out ?

 

Others may disagree... but in my opinion, LIVE should be a mono signal. The room itself will create a stereo image naturally.

 

Keep in mind, that unless an audience member is sitting precisely in the middle of the two speakers about 10' or more back (depending on room size)... not only will they not hear your glorious tone, they will actually be missing half of it. 

 

Here is food for thought... The vast majority of touring acts use mono systems. They want everyone to hear everything... not just the people with the optimum seating. 

 

 

 

 

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21 minutes ago, codamedia said:

 

Others may disagree... but in my opinion, LIVE should be a mono signal. The room itself will create a stereo image naturally.

 

Keep in mind, that unless an audience member is sitting precisely in the middle of the two speakers about 10' or more back (depending on room size)... not only will they not hear your glorious tone, they will actually be missing half of it. 

 

Here is food for thought... The vast majority of touring acts use mono systems. They want everyone to hear everything... not just the people with the optimum seating. 

 

 

 

 

 

Amen. Trying to run stereo live is a sh**storm that's never worth the trouble... at home through headphones or studio monitors,  and on recordings, it's glorious. Two very different worlds,  though. 

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What's actually worse than all of that is that if you're lucky maybe 1 or 2 people might even notice you're playing stereo.  Most people in clubs are way too busy drinking and trying to pick up someone to care that much about the music.

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7 hours ago, DunedinDragon said:

What's actually worse than all of that is that if you're lucky maybe 1 or 2 people might even notice you're playing stereo.  Most people in clubs are way too busy drinking and trying to pick up someone to care that much about the music.

True...UNLESS you make a mistake on stage! LOL!
Then they ALL seem to notice. :)

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I will give it a go and see what happens - trial and error.  

I know what you mean about stereo and where the speakers are in a room. Hadn't thought about that but good points .

Thanks for the help folks no doubt I will be on again 

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Knee jerk advice, teaching granny to suck eggs and all that, but set the tone as close as possible to the volume you intend to use it.  Sounds great at bedroom volume will always sound awful with the wick turned up to compete with the drummer...

 

Something about how ears work - Fletcher Munson or someone?

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On 6/7/2018 at 3:27 PM, mrkphpps said:

Something about how ears work - Fletcher Munson or someone?

Yep, the Fletcher-Munson curve. Since the human ear responds to frequencies at different levels always setup any device using the same speakers, amp, and volume as you would on stage.

 

My neighbors hate it when I get a new toy because of this! 

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Re: stereo vs. mono: there’s a compromise. You can run mono effects in front of the amp, and then use stereo effects after the amp, typically for chorus, delay and reverb. Depending on the effect, most of them can be configured to be “mono compatible”. That is, if you isolate only one side, or the other, or sum them both to mono, the overall tone doesn’t change that much. So if you avoid ping-pong effects, or things that put significantly different things in different stereo channels, you can get some benefit from the stereo effects while avoiding audience presentation and positioning issues. Whether its worth it or not is another question. I run stereo all the time (into the same PA speakers), but never rely on it for any specific tone. It just adds a bit of depth. I also use two JBL EON610s for my backline, and they’re stereo too. These provide some front of the band fill, and give me and my guitar something to feel. I also use IEMs mostly to protect my ears.

 

Re: setup: those subs can make a big difference. Generally you’ll want to have a low cut between 80 and 150 Hz on guitar. If you do that, the subs won’t change the tone much. But if you don’t and you set the tone stack for a nice bass thud, it could get pretty muddy when you add the subs.

 

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Think, Play, and Monitor in Stereo.  

Run Mono for most Live Gigs/Personal Appearances. 

Helix handles the heavy lifting, as each of the L/Mono (XLR and 1/4") Main outputs independently Sum to Mono (when the R output jack is not used)! 

Do not run Stereo FX Blocks before Amp/Cab Blocks, unless tracking (or otherwise specifically needed).

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