Helix - Great at home - not great at Band Practice

[barnsleyboy]

Hi All,

 

I have a mate who has just joined the Helix club. He is only a week into ownership, but is having trouble using the unit for band practice. I think it's quite a common problem that patches built at home sound great when the volume is relatively low but don't necessarily translate when the volume is higher when you are playing with the rest of the band. He is playing through a Marshall power amp and a cab with PA speakers in both situations, so "relatively" FRFR. Are there any easy tweaks that will get him closer to what he has dialled in at home? Could it be just a case of global settings, or is it that the mix should be turned down on certain effects? or is it that in louder settings he should go for less gain?

 

I feel bad because I have raved on about my Helix and how great it is, and I want him to really get the most out of his.

 

Any help or advise would be much appreciated.

[PaulTBaker]

pull up a comfy chair and hang on!   this site has what you need, but you have to dig for it.  There is so much that could be going on.  Type of guitar, type of helix/floor/stomp (that really doesn't matter), type of music, volume.  Yes, you are correct that the lower volume patches will be different.  Its the Fletcher Munson (spelling ?) effect.  Bass and highs will get boosted more than mids when the volume is louder. (or something like that, there are very smart people on here that can help).

 

it could be your effects (reverbs,delays) are washing out his tone.  could be he just needs to drop the gain some (you don't need as much as you think), drop the lows and highs (either on the amp and/or high/low cuts on the amp or an eq block at the end of the chain).  

 

Jason Sadites has a ton of explanations and is very good at explaining the why of things... maybe too much sometimes, but I like it.  Also John Nathan Cordy and Steve Sterlacci.  all good stuff there.

 

Hope he sticks with it.  I and others have spent many hours (mostly enjoyable) tweaking things in the helix and have gotten pretty awesome results.

 

Good luck

[Schmalle]

What Marshall power amp?

What PA speakers? Do they have tweeters?

Does regular music (a full mix) played through it sound great?

[barnsleyboy]

I think he's running it into an old Marshall Valvestate 8008. The cab is a Marshall cab. All I know is it has PA speakers - don't know about tweeters. He's using the same rig at home which sounds great, but at volume, totally different.

[josehdx]

When creating patches, the best practice is to made it at loud levels (+80db) then you will know that they will be suitable with a band

[waymda]

The above all apply. Another thing to consider is starting with one or two basic patches that he tweaks at practice. Yes it will bore the pants off everyone, but:

 

• they will be heard in context (ie with the band) which makes a huge difference
• they'll be heard at volume in using the play back system to be used live
• he will be able to save the new versions seperately and compare what sounded good at home with what sounded good with the band and get better at building patches

Ultimately they have to sound good with the band, not stand alone and thats very different.

[Schmalle]

A bit oversimplified statements to illustrate the essence of equal loudness contour aka Fletcher-Munson curves:

If you create a balanced sound at low volume it will sound scooped at higher volume - it gets lost although it's loud.

If you create a lean and mellow sound at low volume it will sound balanced at higher volume - it comes alive.

[SaschaFranck]

For the future, he should create a handful of patches at band volume through the equipment used for band playing. You can then compare them at home and draw your conclusions when designing more patches at home.

For a quick remedy, he might want to try the Global EQ and a relatively broad mid boost with a center frequency somewhere between, say, 700Hz and 1kHz. Just set it up and fool around with it while playing (as much as possible at least). In addition, it's always a pretty good idea to have the low and high cuts in reach, to tame excessive boom and shrillness.

[brue58ski]

So it sounds like you use a Helix as well. Perhaps he should use and do what you are doing. The main thing, as has been mentioned, is to create patches at 80dB. I don't know exactly what PA speakers are but if he's creating the patches in his bedroom with the same setup, I'm pretty sure the speakers will also respond differently when pushed from bedroom levels to band levels. He may want to consider trying another FRFR that may be work better to do this kind of thing. I think the 8008 was made for dedicated guitar preamps and an actual guitar cab, not to be used as a PA. Not that it can't. It's just not designed for that as I recall. As is the Marshall cab as well. Even with "PA speakers" it will still affect the sound since it's made for guitars and not for accurately reproducing sound. Is he using the virtual cabs with his Helix? Perhaps try turning them off. I have even just kind of whipped through cabs quickly as kind of an EQ buffet. Sometimes I get surprised at what comes out. Have you guys tried his Helix through whatever rig you play your Helix through?

[brue58ski]

Just a quick little note, I use little to no reverb live unless the room is totally dead (I've played in a movie theater...dead) or for a particular effect.

[PaulTBaker]

quick question.  It is suggested to use 80db level to set the amp.  At what distance from the sound source?  That makes a difference. 

[brue58ski]

Take your dB measurement at the distance/place you/you're ears are at. You want your ears to experience the 80dB. It's at that point that the Fletcher-Munson curve essentially flattens out. Are you familiar with this Fletcher-Munson concept?

[PaulTBaker]

yes, thanks to this forum and many smart people like yourself.  Found out several years ago.  Used to use an EQ block to get close.  Not perfect of course.  However, I'm getting to the point now where you can kind of understand what will happen at the different levels.

[SaschaFranck]

On 9/28/2023 at 1:58 AM, gsmanon said:

The idea is that you craft the sound at 80 dBSPL at your years because that's where the curve tells us we get the flattest subjective experience of the harmonic information. 

 

And then you would still have to use corrective EQ should you play louder (very likely to happen in a band context).

[barnsleyboy]

On 9/27/2023 at 3:44 PM, gsmanon said:

Your friend seems to be under the impression that the buttons on his Helix somehow magically know when they're in a studio and cease to work inside the rehearsal room boundary. This is not the case. The buttons still work in the studio and they should be tweaked at the studio while playing to optimise the sound for that particular live environment.

 

I don't think anybody is naive enough to think that you can just take a home patch, turn it up and get the exact sound you want at rehearsal volume. The essence of the post is that faced with a myriad of parameters to play around with are there any quick and easy things to look out for and adjust to get the sound closer to where he needs to be? I guess what I'm trying to say is that I've read that you need to tweak the sound when you play at higher volumes, but what do you tweak? is it EQ? Reducing reverb mix? Less drive? etc. My go to patch has all sorts of stuff going on with it to get the sort of post-punk noise that I like. If I were to take it out to practice/ performance levels, I really wouldn't know where to start. I'm guessing that I would probably begin with the straight amp sound and add effects in one at a time.

 

With a conventional tube amp the tweakable parameters are a lot simpler. Helix is a powerful and versatile unit which brings with it a lot more complexity in fine tuning the sound. The responses here have been a good starter for ten, so many thanks to you all for taking the time to reply. The Sadites videos have been a big help. I think it's a case of him spending time getting to know the Helix. He'll get there in the end!!

[SaschaFranck]

Thing is, there's way more of a difference between home and live/band setups but just to defeat Fletcher Munson.

As said before, mids are your friend. They help you to stand out without raising volume. And at the same time, as you will likely lower the overall output when boosting some mids, this will help with Fletcher Munson as you're essentially reducing low and top end.

[Paulzx]

On 9/29/2023 at 10:45 AM, barnsleyboy said:

I don't think anybody is naive enough to think that you can just take a home patch, turn it up and get the exact sound you want at rehearsal volume. The essence of the post is that faced with a myriad of parameters to play around with are there any quick and easy things to look out for and adjust to get the sound closer to where he needs to be? I guess what I'm trying to say is that I've read that you need to tweak the sound when you play at higher volumes, but what do you tweak? is it EQ? Reducing reverb mix? Less drive? etc. My go to patch has all sorts of stuff going on with it to get the sort of post-punk noise that I like. If I were to take it out to practice/ performance levels, I really wouldn't know where to start. I'm guessing that I would probably begin with the straight amp sound and add effects in one at a time.

 

With a conventional tube amp the tweakable parameters are a lot simpler. Helix is a powerful and versatile unit which brings with it a lot more complexity in fine tuning the sound. The responses here have been a good starter for ten, so many thanks to you all for taking the time to reply. The Sadites videos have been a big help. I think it's a case of him spending time getting to know the Helix. He'll get there in the end!!

Don't worry, you always get the obligatory sarcastic reply from someone. Most people just want to try and help. So the solution to your issue is for him to duplicate his bedroom presets and save a copy for live playing so he has two set lists basically, one for each scenario. The live presets just need to be re edited at live volume level in your rehearsal place. That should just be a case of re editing the amp and cab settings for that environment. 

 

I do find with my Helix Floor that I need to have a copy of my presets not only for volume differences but also for different guitars. Basically any time you change one of the factors, be it guitar, environment, volume, you need to edit the preset. I don't use the global eq for that, I much prefer a nicely dialled preset copy.