Line 6 Helix

Adamski

So much bottom end the Kardashians started doing squats to catch up 

Sporky

vaticancameos said:

I'm insanely stuck between Kemper or Helix. My main reason being, I only play at home, most likely only through headphones as well...

I've always been more into FX creativity than into amps, I usually just find an amp that sounds nice clean and dump pedals in front of it but, seeing as I only play at home now, I dont want a huge board and an amp.

Someone talk me into a Helix, I know i'll like it more because of the focus on FX and amps, as opposed to just amps really in the Kemper

Well, I gather the Kemper has perfectly decent FX, but if creativity is your outlet then I think the Helix is going to be hard to beat; it is enormously flexible and it's really simple to do quite complex setups.

Vaiai

I need a hand as I have a cancelled rehearsal tonight and was gonna use the Helix which I have set up at home ready for tonight - I'm still gigging the FX8 every weekend until the LT is ready.

I am using it 4CM just now but tonight as I have the place to myself I want to try it direct to PA. What do I do?
I have the manual here to read up on again but didn't expect this window of opportunity so any advice on what to do?

I think paths/routing will be the area I need explained - monitoring on my cab (altho that will colour it?)
I can just hear it thru the PA for now I suppose - that's the thing I want to hear the most - how an audience will hear it - FRFR is a way down the line but it's where I want to get to. 

Ta!

John_A

Split the path after the amp, but before the cab.  route the cab out to the XLR -> PA and the 1/4 out to your cab via an FX send, you might want to put an EQ block after the split to the cab to roll off some highs

Credit to @cabicular for this idea

Cabicular

Vaiai said:

I need a hand as I have a cancelled rehearsal tonight and was gonna use the Helix which I have set up at home ready for tonight - I'm still gigging the FX8 every weekend until the LT is ready.

I am using it 4CM just now but tonight as I have the place to myself I want to try it direct to PA. What do I do?
I have the manual here to read up on again but didn't expect this window of opportunity so any advice on what to do?

I think paths/routing will be the area I need explained - monitoring on my cab (altho that will colour it?)
I can just hear it thru the PA for now I suppose - that's the thing I want to hear the most - how an audience will hear it - FRFR is a way down the line but it's where I want to get to. 

Ta!

Here is one way to do it 
Take a split before the last cab and send it to the 1/4 outs
Or you could put a send and return block anywhere you want and send that to your monitor
I disable the volume knob for the PA and only have it affect the 1/4 outs

Cabicular

In terms of the XLR output I don't really do much to it. I EQ it a bit on the PA end to suit the venue. I use the dual cab with a couple of 4x12 cabs a light stereo delay and a short reverb

Cabicular

Nowadays I have ditched the local cab and just send myself and the rest of the band a signal through the monitors.
The amp onstage was more a psychological barrier (same with the drive pedals in the loop). Now the only other things on the board are a wah and my wireless receiver

Bridgehouse

More bass related experimentation last night. 

I managed to find the volume control on the amp this time so no major structural damage was done.

Some observations:

The amp models are better. Well done @fretmeister - far more punch and welly and a much richer sound when compared to the preamps. I found you have to watch the drive setting - too much and it's hiss city. On that note, trying it this way with a cab with a tweeter, I found it sounded much better with the tweeter off. 

The SVT model is better than Ampeg's SCR-DI pedal (which is the SVT modelling they use in the PF500/800 series). Adding in some sag and hum really brings out the Ampeg flavour. 

The Mesa models are exceptionally good. I like them a lot. Mucho goodness. I'm an Ampeg tone kinda man at heart - I would usually use a blend of the B15 and the SVT - but found myself going to the Mesa models a lot whilst practising last night. 

Having now played with EQ pedals I'm liking them both before and after the amp models. Ive not set up a compression that I like yet - suggestions gratefully received - but I haven't spent a lot of time on that yet.

The B7K model is superb - but I need to spend time getting a proper blended signal in. I want to play with multiple paths to get that bit right.

Mostly though, I'm glad I spent time playing with it as a complete front end/preamp solution for live - the EICH preamp is very good indeed, but I can see myself using helix into the power amp direct quite a lot...

fretmeister

I love the Mesa 400+ model - I often blend that with the GK800 too.

When I've got a mo at the weekend I'll sort out some of my bass patches to send to you.

I've got a few main ones that I use, a simple "anything" sort of patch, a Cliff Burton (ride the lightning era) patch, a mental Billy Sheehan shred thing, and the basis of my Rig of Doom, but that needs an external pedal too.

Bridgehouse

fretmeister said:

I love the Mesa 400+ model - I often blend that with the GK800 too.

When I've got a mo at the weekend I'll sort out some of my bass patches to send to you.

I've got a few main ones that I use, a simple "anything" sort of patch, a Cliff Burton (ride the lightning era) patch, a mental Billy Sheehan shred thing, and the basis of my Rig of Doom, but that needs an external pedal too.

That would be great - thanks. I'm actually liking Helix more as a direct in to the power amp than I did with 4CM. Simple, effective and sounds great. 

I like the GK800 model - needs more tweaking, and I'm not sure if I like the "boost" control yet, but it's getting there. 

I'm half tempted to get another smooth hound wireless and stick that in between the Helix and the amp to make that wireless too... but maybe that would just be overkill

fretmeister

You'd be building in latency then.

8ms for the first unit, and another 8ms for the second.

You'd start to notice that.

Bridgehouse

fretmeister said:

You'd be building in latency then.

8ms for the first unit, and another 8ms for the second.

You'd start to notice that.

Good point.

I shall have to stick to good old tethered wiring.


Just wait til wireless power comes out - Power Over Oxygen ftw!

Cabicular

Bridgehouse said:

fretmeister said:

You'd be building in latency then.

8ms for the first unit, and another 8ms for the second.

You'd start to notice that.

Good point.

I shall have to stick to good old tethered wiring.


Just wait til wireless power comes out - Power Over Oxygen ftw!

I did that with the relay g30s at both ends and in the real world I didn't really notice the latency (and I'm a bit of a shredder)
The only reason I stopped it was that I started running stereo

Vaiai

Thanks for the advice - I was not gonna use my existing presets for 4CM but I never thought to split before the cab and send that out.
I was gonna just start with some of the templates then built a few presets myself.

Thanks

Cabicular

Vaiai said:

Thanks for the advice - I was not gonna use my existing presets for 4CM but I never thought to split before the cab and send that out.
I was gonna just start with some of the templates then built a few presets myself.

Thanks

You want a copy of my presets?

vaticancameos

Ordered one.

Cant wait, havent felt like this since I asked for a SNES for Christmas.

Teetonetal

I think some of the tones Paul gets in this are excellent, and looks like all pretty basic patches:



Nice Looper Jam at the end too.

Cabicular

Teetonetal said:

I think some of the tones Paul gets in this are excellent, and looks like all pretty basic patches:



Nice Looper Jam at the end too.

He was up on stage with me last month and even though he was using pretty much identical kit his tone was massive
its really annoying
i don't know if it is because he spends all day with it or if he just has a knack. He's been able to get sounds out the pod HD500X where I couldn't get that to work for me at all

sweepy

Nice to see an Andertons video with decent playing

Teetonetal

Cabicular said:

Teetonetal said:

I think some of the tones Paul gets in this are excellent, and looks like all pretty basic patches:



Nice Looper Jam at the end too.

He was up on stage with me last month and even though he was using pretty much identical kit his tone was massive
its really annoying
i don't know if it is because he spends all day with it or if he just has a knack. He's been able to get sounds out the pod HD500X where I couldn't get that to work for me at all

It's interesting, because through the video you can see the patches and it looks like very little fancy stuff going on. All stock cabs and none of the "tricks" etc. The Les Paul at the end sounded particularly good I thought.

@Digital_igloo You really ought to get him to do some tone tutorials. He demos the unit, in terms of sound, better than anyone.