Lifeless through monitors?

[Suhr_Nathan]

For most of this year I’ve tried coming back to Helix because I want to love it, I love John Cordy’s tones and want to use them.

 

Every time I try, I feel like it sounds lifeless, I open up some Neural DSP plugins and immediately get what I want.

 

I just discovered that it sounds great through my HD600 headphones, I try my studio monitors (Presonus Eris E5) and it sounds lifeless again.

 

I’m confused because it’s only Helix that doesn’t sound good through my monitors, other plugins and my Quad Cortex sound great, I just assumed I didn’t like Helix but now that it sounds good through headphones I’m excited to use it and hopefully find out how to improve the sound through my monitors.

 

Any tips or ideas??

[silverhead]

Make sure the level setting for the Helix outputs (Line, Instrument…) match the expected level of your monitor inputs.

[datacommando]

On 10/15/2023 at 1:37 AM, Suhr_Nathan said:

Any tips or ideas??

Hi,

 

Here ya go. Read this.

 

https://blog.line6.com/2023/09/15/eric-klein-at-least-half-of-your-modelers-sound-is-determined-by-your-playback-system/

 

Hope this helps/makes sense.

[cruisinon2]

On 10/14/2023 at 8:37 PM, Suhr_Nathan said:

For most of this year I’ve tried coming back to Helix because I want to love it, I love John Cordy’s tones and want to use them.

 

Every time I try, I feel like it sounds lifeless, I open up some Neural DSP plugins and immediately get what I want.

 

I just discovered that it sounds great through my HD600 headphones, I try my studio monitors (Presonus Eris E5) and it sounds lifeless again.

 

I’m confused because it’s only Helix that doesn’t sound good through my monitors, other plugins and my Quad Cortex sound great, I just assumed I didn’t like Helix but now that it sounds good through headphones I’m excited to use it and hopefully find out how to improve the sound through my monitors.

 

Any tips or ideas??

 

Every time you change the output device, your tone will change... sometimes a lot, sometimes a little. Headphones and studio monitors are two entirely different listening experiences. One has a complete lack of natural room reflections, and the other is well, a room, lol... and the inherent characteristics of that room will have a huge impact on the sound you get from any pair of monitors.  Take the same monitors and stick them in:

 

A) A room that's been acoustically treated specifically to serve as a studio... and

 

B) Your home office with wall to wall carpet and a big fluffy couch.

 

The first scenario will likely sound pretty good... and the latter is where trebel goes to die. Same speakers, entirely different results.

 

The moral of the story is this: you have to tweak your tones based on how, where, and at what volume you intend to use them. And you can't really expect tones created for one scenario to be usable in another without (sometimes significant)  adjustments... and unfortunately for us all, there are no magic "if you want this, do that" settings to employ. You gotta do the grunt work yourself... because what works for me might not work for you.