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Phased Cutover to Helix from Rack (MIDI switched)? Routing ideas?


randallp
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This might be a silly question but here goes - we have around 100 worship songs in Ableton which (along with MIDI controlling Pro Presenter, OnSong and Lighting) switches my MIDI controlled effects rack gear in and out automatically for different songs and parts of songs. I have separate Ableton MIDI tracks with clips that send CC and Pgm change etc to the rack gear. Ableton provides the MID tempo for time-based effects. 

 

Now, I am loving my Helix and Variax sounds and want to move to them instead of the rack stuff but I'd like to be able to cutover song by song over a period of time. Is there any bright spark here who can see how to take one guitar input and, with a MIDI nudge from Ableton, send it either through a Helix Snapshot or the old Rack, ending up with stereo input to the PA as today. 

 

When all songs are on the Helix, discontinue the rack effects and their Ableton MIDI tracks.

 

I am a Helix newbie.

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Hopefully this helps, or at least gets the conversation started. 

First, if the outgoing signal from your rack is line level (by that, I mean you can send your rack's output into one of Helix's inputs without blowing something up--I'm using "line level" here, but I'm sure I'm being imprecise and someone can correct me), I would plug my guitar into Helix and send the right and left channels to FX Loops 1 and 2, respectively, from Helix to the rack and back to Helix. My out to FOH would always be Helix's XLR L and R outputs. On the Helix signal chain, the FX Loops 1 and two would actually be a stereo FX Loop block, and I would put it first in the signal chain. For songs you use a Helix preset, the FX Loop is bypassed, and you use only Helix amps and effects and output to FOH from Helix's main outputs. For songs that use your rack, turn on the FX Loop and bypass all other blocks. (That actually describes how I would do it using Snapshots. In reality, you would probably have at least two presets; one for Helix songs, which wouldn't have an FX Loop block, and one for rack which would just have an FX Loop block and nothing else).

If your rack has greater than line level final output, you would continue to use that output to FOH, but your signal would still start out Guitar > Helix. For Helix songs, the output block on Helix would go to the XLR L and R outputs directly to FOH. For rack songs, the Helix preset would be empty and the output block would go to 1/4" L and R outputs to your rack, then to FOH however you currently have it.

Either way, your MIDI signal would only change the preset. So, if you had two presets and 1A is your Helix preset and 1B is your rack preset, the MIDI signal would just be a program change to 1A or 1B accordingly. (Or it would be a snapshot change if you choose to go that route. There is literature somewhere on what CC numbers each snapshot is.)

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