Advice on making the PowerCab sound great in a live setting.

[guitargar]

I have the Line 6 dream gig: Helix Floor into 2 PowerCab Pluses.  My guitar is the James Tyler 89F Variax.   The reason I got this system is to cover all of the variety of song styles in various cover bands I play in.  My biggest issue is that I've spent so many hours in my home studio dialing in patches/presets through the PowerCabs only to find that they wimp out in a live setting on stage.  They don't project like a tube amp and the tone, especially with distortion comes off very thin.  Even when I EQ it in my studio where it sounds full, it doesn't translate well to the stage.  What am I doing wrong?  I would prefer to make my current set up work.  I love how I can use midi to change speakers in the PowerCabs to accommodate my amp models in each preset.  There are so many benefits using them, however, the most important one is simple, how it sounds on stage.  And right now, that is the underwhelming result.  I know Jason Sadites has some very informative videos on settings relating to the Helix and PowerCab.  However, nothing has quite worked for me in solving this issue.  Any advice is welcome.  Thanks so much!

[silverhead]

 A big factor in creating tones in a home studio and then bringing them to the stage is simply volume/loudness. For best results you need to have the volume in your studio during tone creation at the same level as the stage volume. (Fletcher-Munson curve) Not sure how relevant this might be in your case.

[guitargar]

Thanks for your reply.  I understand what you're saying concerning the volume/loudness.  I have a small 10 by 10 studio/office on the bottom floor, close to the garage of my house.  it's actually pretty dead and records well in there. It doesn't take a lot of loudness to be loud.  However, in a large room like the auditorium of my church, or a banquet room at the Hilton, the sound doesn't carry and project as well as a tube amp.  Don't get me wrong, there's a lot I love about my PowerCabs.  If I can get this one issue solved, I will be golden!  Take care.

[silverhead]

On 8/7/2023 at 7:24 PM, guitargar said:

…. . It doesn't take a lot of loudness to be loud.  …

Exactly. Whereas on stage in a much larger room it does take much more loudness to be loud. And that is likely the problem. You need to find a place, other than your small studio, where you can create your tones at a loudness level closer to your live setting. 
 

The inverse situation should also be true. Once you’ve created a tone that sounds good, and loud, in your live setting, try it in your studio. Make sure you turn the volume down first so the live volume setting won’t damage your ears. It will likely sound very different from the original.

[PaulTBaker]

Yes, it is best to "set" your tone at playing volume, however if that is not possible, there are some posts on here that talk about adding an EQ to the end of your chain that supposedly simulates the Fletcher Munson effect at low volumes.  Sort of like a loudness button on the stereo.  The idea is you turn on the eq at low volumes and make then tweak other things to make that sound good, then turn off the eq at the end when you play live (louder).   Lots of posts on this, look them up and they give you examples of settings for the eq block.  Of course they are no where near exact, but by messing with them, you start to learn what is going on.

 

When I was starting out, I did use these eq tricks and they did help.  Eventually, your ears will get used to how to set things in low volume that will translate to high volume, but the eq trick can help.

 

Some of the main things people say (and folks please correct me if I have them backwards:)) are don't use as much drive as you think for your dirty and leads.  The low end and extreme high end will sound much louder than the mids when given more volume.  So at low volumes your tones may be dull or not bassy enough, but that may be perfect at louder volumes.

 

Have fun, don't get frustrated, cause when you hit that tone, it is worth it!

 

Good luck.

[amsdenj]

The advice above about creating and verifying patches at volume is correct and is part of a broader point - doing patch design in the context in which they are intended to be used. That's simpler with a traditional guitar amp because they were designed mostly for one use - playing live and loud. 

 

While volume is a key part of patch design, you may also be experiencing something I'm calling the "Digital Dilemma". The big advantage of digital amp models is they can get good driven, overdriven and distortion tones at any volume level. That's really hard to do with tube amps unless you're using pedals into a clean amp, or your amp has a master volume control and has good preamp distortion. When we think of glorious tube tone, we're usually referring to power amp overdrive, and that's going to be loud even with a 20 watt amp.

 

The Digital Dilemma is that this advantage of digital amp modelers is often what makes them not cut it in live situations. It's not just the volume and tone that doesn't scale up well, it's also the amount of compression or saturation. When an amp is clipping, it has no more volume left. Pushing it harder only adds more saturation, distortion or overtones. There can be a tendency to over-saturate digital amp models, because it's easy to do and sounds really good. But the resulting compression reduces dynamic range and tends to make it difficult for the tone to cut through a dense live mix.

 

Try turning your Power Cab levels up pretty high, running your amp model master and channel volume up (while avoiding any digital clipping on Helix output or PowerCab input) and use less gain/saturation/distortion. I try to use the minimum amount of distortion needed for the song. Then use your guitar volume between 7 and 10 to control saturation, and below 7 to control clean volume. You may find this sounds and behaves more like a traditional guitar amp, gives better dynamics, and cuts through the mix better.

 

 

[guitargar]

Thanks to everyone who responded.  Great advice.  I will do some serious tweaking, experimenting with the advice given.  My clean sounds always sound great.  

[jasilvapt]

Hey guys I am new to this technology, but have vowed to figure out how to use it in a live situation.  I just bought a Helix Lt and 2 x 12 powercab plus.  Been learning a little bit every day about what makes it tick.  My question is for live play.  When I use a preset on speaker mode and the preset is an amp/cab, I need to change that preset to amp mode to jive with the power cab speaker mode correct/or it the preset is amp and cab just turn off the cab.  Finally, if my whole goal is to use this live using the speaker modeling in the power cab shouldn't I just create presets with amp only and assign an speaker/or combination of speakers from the power cab?  Lots to learn. 

 

John Silva