themetallikid Posted November 5, 2021 Share Posted November 5, 2021 Ok, so right now for my solo shows I do the mic input, guitar input, XLR out to my FOH speaker and 1/4" out to my monitor. I have a split at the end of Paths 1 & 2 that seperate the feed/mix from FOH/Monitors for myself. For my duo shows, I really like using the Helix, but we end up having to use the full bands PA/Mixer setup and it just doesnt sound as good and is more crap to haul around. My mind was thinking in the shower today (doesn't everyone think about gear things in the shower? No? Just me? hmmm).... Could I get a small passive mixer to run Mics 1 & 2 into, to essentially submix to send to the Mic Input of the Helix? Then send my guitar to guitar input, and send the 2nd guitar into a return send (better option?) then I can run a single vocal path and 2 guitar paths. This would allow me to maintain my 1/4" out to monitor(s) and XLR out to Main(s)?? Or would I have a better option of getting an adapter (XLR>1/4") and running the 2nd mic into Return 1 and the 2nd Guitar into Return 2 and using those inputs as paths 1b & 2b so everyone has their own vocal/guitar path. I would just run a simple FOH mix then from 1/4 outs for monitoring purposes. We dont do a lot of special stuff acoustically. I play leads but really dont need much more than Chorus/Delay. The other guitar player only a small lead part here and there. So I dont think we would run out of DSP, its more the routing that is in question. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soundog Posted November 5, 2021 Share Posted November 5, 2021 My 10 cents. A passive XLR mixer (I like the Radial Mix 2) would work fine for your mic's as long as you don't need phantom power (although you could get a small mixer that provides it if necessary). Also, the setup and preset building will be much simpler if you don't need stereo effects on your guitar, and could dedicate the upper Helix path to guitar, and the lower to vocals. Further, a small MIDI mixer (even a cheap used nanokontrol) would be helpful to provide more control of the Helix during gigs (especially for the Split mix of guitar and vocals, but also delay, reverb, chorus levels). If you won't use a computer/phone/tablet for MIDI mixing, you will need a small USB host to use with a USB MIDI controller like the nano. I use one of these. There are others out there. If you mix everything in the Helix, you could take one line out to FOH. Or take two lines out for vocal and guitar line out to external mixer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themetallikid Posted November 5, 2021 Author Share Posted November 5, 2021 Thats what I was thinking. We dont use a lot in the way of effects and such. Some reverb on vocals, chorus/delay on guitars. EQ's for sure to clean things up a bit. We dont need phantom power. Is there a benefit over going the mixer route vs adapter>Return 1? I would run guitars on path 1 and vox on path 2 more than likely. I would be the 'A' paths and other would be the 'B' paths Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soundog Posted November 6, 2021 Share Posted November 6, 2021 Since an adapter is cheap, why not try that first and see if it meets your needs? I haven't tried it myself... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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