Helix routing question

smigeon

Here’s a hypothetical question for all you experts on Helix routing. Specifically, I’m wondering if it’s possible to do the following:

INPUTS: 

1. guitar in (mono, 1/4 jack input)

2. vocal mic in (mono, XLR input)

3. monitor feed in from mixer (stereo, returns 3,4)

4. boundary mic in (stereo, returns 1,2)

OUTPUTS:

1. guitar out to guitar amp (mono, 1/4 jack output)

2. guitar out to mixer (mono, send 1)

3. vocal mic out to mixer (mono, XLR output)

4. output to wired in-ear monitors (stereo, sends 3,4)

REQUIRED ROUTING:

- "guitar channel": input 1 SPLIT TO output 1 AND output 2

- "vocal mic channel": input 2 -> output 3

- "monitoring channel": input 1 MERGE WITH input 2 MERGE WITH input 3 MERGE WITH input 4 ->  output 4.

This implements a personal monitoring system for a singing guitarist in a band. As a singing guitarist, I want to monitor, through wired in-ears, a personal mix of i) my guitar, ii) my vocal mic, iii) an "ambient"  boundary mic positioned near me (to give me a sense of connection to the world), and iv) a stereo monitor feed from the PA mixer (so I can hear everyone else in the band). I want to be able to mix these 4 inputs arbitrarily to taste.

From looking at the manual, the Helix clearly has enough inputs and outputs to achieve this (e.g. using the assignments I suggested above). What is not clear to me, though, is whether it has the routing flexibility. The Helix has 4 paths: 1A, 1B, 2A and 2B. If I feed my 4 inputs into the 4 paths, it’s clearly straightforward to implement my “guitar channel” (i.e. split my input 1 to my outputs 1 and 2). 

BUT, is it also possible to implement the “monitoring channel” - i.e. take splits off 3 of the paths and merge them into the fourth??

steveb

I dont have a helix but try this.
 

smigeon

Thanks, Steve. Yes, I’d seen that video a while back and then couldn’t find it again! It’s what first inspired me to think about using the Helix as an “ultimate” IEM controller.

It’s close, but it doesn’t quite reach the complexity of my scenario in the OP, which adds stereo inputs from an ambient mic and the PA’s monitor mix. It’s hard to tell from the video whether or not the Helix could handle the complexity of the OP scenario...

Any Helix owners able to weigh in??? Thanks!

Cabicular

I’m having to get a bit creative as it’s quite complex and you are thinking about it in a very linear way
how about for example your boundary mics come in on return 1/2 but appear as a block on the mixer return on 3/4
That way you can send the boundary mic and the monitor mix to a single stereo pair send 1/2

Cabicular

The problem I’m having is stereo inputs
if I physically join send 3/4 with return 3/4 I can use it like a pair of aux channels and put a send 3/4 block on every path I want to monitor
it means we have have left
guitar input
mic input
Ret 1/2 input
so not enough for stereo boundary mics AND a stereo monitor mix

Cabicular

https://i.imgur.com/z5m5U0e.jpg

smigeon

Hi Cabicular, many thanks for having a go at this! I'm not sure I'm quite understanding you - I don't actually have a Helix, I'm just going by the manual. I'll have another look at your posts tomorrow and get back to you...

I'm not at all committed to the specific way I set it out, BTW - I just wanted to be concrete and clear. If there's a different/better approach, I'm all ears :-) 

Sporky

I think it's doable if you have a mono monitor feed and mono ambient mic.

Cabicular

Sporky said:

I think it's doable if you have a mono monitor feed and mono ambient mic.

That’s my view Sporks.. when it goes stereo I run out of inputs. I was hoping you’d chime in as your probably the most advanced at this kind of shenanigans on here

Sporky

I'm also having some "light the lamp, not the rat" feelings about this - why not have the mixer do the mixing for the monitor mix (apologies for saying "mix" so often there)?

This looks a bit to me like trying to use the Helix because it probably can, not because it's the neatest solution.

I'd suggest (though I may be missing the point) using the Helix to send guitar to amp and mixer with appropriate processing on each, but having the IEMs run from the mixer. I am unsure of the value of the IEMs being done via the Helix is all.

smigeon

Yeah, fully agree it could all be done from the PA mixer. What I like about the personal monitoring solution I outlined above, though, is that everything is under *my* control (bwa ha ha!). I could mix my vocal and guitar against the rest of the band and the ambient environment, all from where I’m standing and without being reliant on the sound guy to give me a tolerable PM mix. I experienced the hazards of this reliance at a couple of festivals (just small-beer ones) that I played at over the summer. You know the situation: limited time to soundcheck, lousy monitor mix, soundman wandered off for a drink. 

I reallise also that a personal mix can be had from digital mixers, and controlled from your own phone, at that. But a Helix soultion would free you from relying on having such.

It was also partly just a thought experiment to see if the Helix could do it. I don’t have a Helix, am unlikely to get one, and am anyway getting a wired IEM pedal from @Danny1969 that will sit on my pedal board and do all of the above. 

I’m still intrigued, though, as to why exactly you think the Helix wouldn’t be able to hack my scenario. It has all the necessary inputs and outputs, as per my OP, so presumably the devil is in the routing?? I guess in a nutshell I’m relying on the possibility of setting up paths 1A, 1B, 2A and 2B in “true parallel” mode (which is clearly doable) and then feeding splits from 3 of these into the 4th (which may not be possible??).

Sporky

That's fair enough.

I'll have a play and see if I can work it out. The advantage of going mono for the ambient and return mix is that it leaves you two returns so you can do outside-the-Helix routing using patch cables - that lets you cross paths very easily.

Cabicular

smigeon said:

Yeah, fully agree it could all be done from the PA mixer. What I like about the personal monitoring solution I outlined above, though, is that everything is under *my* control (bwa ha ha!). I could mix my vocal and guitar against the rest of the band and the ambient environment, all from where I’m standing and without being reliant on the sound guy to give me a tolerable PM mix. I experienced the hazards of this reliance at a couple of festivals (just small-beer ones) that I played at over the summer. You know the situation: limited time to soundcheck, lousy monitor mix, soundman wandered off for a drink. 

I reallise also that a personal mix can be had from digital mixers, and controlled from your own phone, at that. But a Helix soultion would free you from relying on having such.

It was also partly just a thought experiment to see if the Helix could do it. I don’t have a Helix, am unlikely to get one, and am anyway getting a wired IEM pedal from @Danny1969 that will sit on my pedal board and do all of the above. 

I’m still intrigued, though, as to why exactly you think the Helix wouldn’t be able to hack my scenario. It has all the necessary inputs and outputs, as per my OP, so presumably the devil is in the routing?? I guess in a nutshell I’m relying on the possibility of setting up paths 1A, 1B, 2A and 2B in “true parallel” mode (which is clearly doable) and then feeding splits from 3 of these into the 4th (which may not be possible??).

It’s the feeding the splits
You can’t use the sends to return internally (like you can with the Axes special block) so you would have to physically patch the sends you use for the monitors to the returns (in my example send 3/4 block on every path goes to a return 3/4 on the monitor path

the minute you do that you lose outputs send 3/4 and inputs return 3/4 and that’s where we start to struggle

Sporky

smigeon said:

I don’t have a Helix, am unlikely to get one, and am anyway getting a wired IEM pedal from @Danny1969 that will sit on my pedal board and do all of the above. 

Just spotted this bit - I'm not sure I see the point of spending an hour or so working it out if it's never going to happen.  

smigeon

Sporky said:

smigeon said:

I don’t have a Helix, am unlikely to get one, and am anyway getting a wired IEM pedal from @Danny1969 that will sit on my pedal board and do all of the above. 

Just spotted this bit - I'm not sure I see the point of spending an hour or so working it out if it's never going to happen.  

Ah sure, wouldn’t have expected it! Just thought it was interesting to understand the semantics of routing in the Helix.

The manual explains it all by example, which is a good start, but it seems to be lacking (or maybe I missed it?) a definitive statement of what the routing rules or constraints are (e.g. if you split off 1A is it only allowed to merge onto 1B, or is it allowed to merge onto - or both? - of the “2” paths? Can a path take incoming merges from >1 split? etc).

Cabicular

Sporky said:

smigeon said:

I don’t have a Helix, am unlikely to get one, and am anyway getting a wired IEM pedal from @Danny1969 that will sit on my pedal board and do all of the above. 

Just spotted this bit - I'm not sure I see the point of spending an hour or so working it out if it's never going to happen.  

me too

You can download the free trial of native and play around with the paths if that's what you want to see

smigeon

Cabicular said:

smigeon said:

I’m still intrigued, though, as to why exactly you think the Helix wouldn’t be able to hack my scenario. It has all the necessary inputs and outputs, as per my OP, so presumably the devil is in the routing?? I guess in a nutshell I’m relying on the possibility of setting up paths 1A, 1B, 2A and 2B in “true parallel” mode (which is clearly doable) and then feeding splits from 3 of these into the 4th (which may not be possible??).

It’s the feeding the splits
You can’t use the sends to return internally (like you can with the Axes special block) so you would have to physically patch the sends you use for the monitors to the returns (in my example send 3/4 block on every path goes to a return 3/4 on the monitor path

the minute you do that you lose outputs send 3/4 and inputs return 3/4 and that’s where we start to struggle

Ah, OK. Physically patching I/O seems a fiendishly clever approach that hadn’t even occurred to me! It does indeed seem to open more possibilities. If I get to fully understand the rules/constraints of the internal routing, I think I’ll have another go at seeing if I think my scenario may be doable through that approach. Or maybe it would be possible to compromise the scenario just a bit by going with a stereo ambient mic (which I think would be crucial), but only a mono monitor mix input from the PA mixer. 

i guess another thing that’s not clear in my mind is whether the headphones output might be useful here? I’m thinking that might be the case if, when set up in “multi inputs” mode, it could gather outputs assigned to multiple paths. Not sure if you could independently regulate the volumes of such multiple feeds to the headphone output, though, even if that was the case. This would amount to there being a separate mixer just for the headphones, I guess. And I didn’t spot any hint of such in the manual (I think the TC Helicon devices have something like this, though...)

smigeon

Cabicular said:

Sporky said:

smigeon said:

I don’t have a Helix, am unlikely to get one, and am anyway getting a wired IEM pedal from @Danny1969 that will sit on my pedal board and do all of the above. 

Just spotted this bit - I'm not sure I see the point of spending an hour or so working it out if it's never going to happen.  

me too

You can download the free trial of native and play around with the paths if that's what you want to see

Ah, that’s a good idea, thanks. Might be tempted to do that... 

Sporky

smigeon said:

Ah, OK. Physically patching I/O seems a fiendishly clever approach that hadn’t even occurred to me! It does indeed seem to open more possibilities.

Indeed - not only can you create feedback loops, you can also use the send/returns to split paths into sections for more parallelity (a word I may have just made up).

The headphones can be set to copy the main out, the XLR outs or the multi outs which might solve your problem quite simply.

Digital_Igloo

The IEM feed might be a bit tricky, but otherwise, it looks to be doable.

TimmyO

Sporky said:

I think it's doable if you have a mono monitor feed and mono ambient mic.

I was thinking the same as I read the thread- any reason those *need* to be stereo?