Need expertise in live setup

[prudenjim]

I’m having unexpected results from a ‘live’ setup.  I’ve been playing Helix direct to sound boards and loving the simplicity.  And those sound boards and sound men making it happen have been great but, mostly it has been pretty close to plug and play.  

 

My setup at home:  Helix ->L6 cable or XLR->L2M

 

Current band needed a mixer so the setup is:  Helix->XLR->Behringer X-air XR16->L2M (pole mounted).

 

Behringer has no EQ, simply defined input channels, we all plugged in, balanced and played.

 

All my tones seems incredibly tinny.  To the point where I switched from Bridge pickup to Neck pickup to adjust and, while it made a small adjustment, not that much.  I realize the X-air has EQ of course but I naively thought it would simply pass through the signal.

 

Is this expected behavior?  Am I over looking something?  I expect to tweak the setup depending on venue of course but this was in the practice basement. 

 

Thanks in advance for any advice,

[specracer986]

If your L2M has XLR out, why don't you feed the board with that. That way you have your monitor sounding like you want and deal with foh through the mixer. 

Or, feed your L2M with the digital out and apply the Helix master volume to it. Feed the mixer with line level and deal with foh through the mixer.

Are you sure you didn't have phantom power turned on at the mixer. That will thin out your signal if you were sending it mic level. 

 

[prudenjim]

 The L2M is being used for FOH in this scenario and was working this with no monitor.  Eventually we will add monitors but we simply ran and listened through the FOH speakers.  The L2M was connected via Main Left out of the mixer with another speaker Main Right, so I dont think Phatom power is in play.

[specracer986]

But your Helix was connected via XLR to a mic input on the board. If that input had phantom power turned on, it was feeding back into the Helix. If the Helix was set to mic level output, the phantom power would affect the signal in significant ways. 

Here's a video about it:

 

[waymda]

This may seem obvious/stupid, but check that the behringer channel doesn't have any inserts such as compression or gate turned on, and that the input gain stage is set correctly.

 

We had someone play with the kick channel at a gig and accidentally turn on gate and compression, and it took ages to realise that was why it sounded so crap.

[prudenjim]

THanks.  I checked it out and no Phantom power enabled on any channel.  Or any effects, gates, etc.  I will wait for the next practice and see what I uncover.  Perhaps something was connected incorrectly.  Thanks for your thoughts.  Very much appreciated.

[HonestOpinion]

On 6/30/2018 at 4:37 PM, prudenjim said:

I’m having unexpected results from a ‘live’ setup.  I’ve been playing Helix direct to sound boards and loving the simplicity.  And those sound boards and sound men making it happen have been great but, mostly it has been pretty close to plug and play.  

 

My setup at home:  Helix ->L6 cable or XLR->L2M

 

Current band needed a mixer so the setup is:  Helix->XLR->Behringer X-air XR16->L2M (pole mounted).

 

Behringer has no EQ, simply defined input channels, we all plugged in, balanced and played.

 

All my tones seems incredibly tinny.  To the point where I switched from Bridge pickup to Neck pickup to adjust and, while it made a small adjustment, not that much.  I realize the X-air has EQ of course but I naively thought it would simply pass through the signal.

 

Is this expected behavior?  Am I over looking something?  I expect to tweak the setup depending on venue of course but this was in the practice basement. 

 

Thanks in advance for any advice,

 

Could be wrong but my first thought was that your presets may have sounded fine at home in perhaps a much "softer" room and at a lower volume. In your "practice basement" the walls and floors are likely much more reflective and the volume probably louder so you may be hearing the highs that were actually always there but inaudible or at least more attenuated in your home environment. I don't think it is necessarily the Behringer. I have gone through similar PAs without requiring a whole lot of EQ. I would look to taming the highs perhaps with the Helix's global EQ at first to get an idea of what sounds good with your PA. Then look into shifting those high cuts into the individual presets/snapshots as well as perhaps employing other more specific EQ cuts to rein in the highs without requiring the global EQ.

 

If you decide you prefer you could do a high cut on your mixer for the guitar channel. Don't be afraid to crank it down aggressively until things sound good to you. However, doing the cuts at the Helix does ultimately give you more flexibility as each preset/snapshot can have different EQ settings. For example a sparkling clean with little to nothing taken off the top end versus a lead with a more aggressive cut to keep out the brittle.

[prudenjim]

Thank you.  I will give it a try if it persists.  

[jbuhajla]

Were your monitors set to "floor wedge" mode and now you have them in a different mode since they are being used for mains now? Or did you build your preset with them on or near the floor, but now they are on stands? If they were near the floor before but now on stands, then you may have been creating your presets with some bass/floor coupling from the speakers which would have "accentuated" the bass, thus making you roll off bass from your presets. Then you move the speakers on to stands and you lose the bass coupling effect, loosing a LOT of bottom end.