I've done a search but I'm bloody lost so needed a thread if I'm honest so I can gauge opinions. I could've gone in the Amp thread or here but thought I'd go here tbh.
I have 2 great valve amps, although one of them will be sold as I need some funds to be honest, however I'm torn between selling both and just going all digital. I was thinking when I get home of setting up my effects board with a midi switcher and using my Amplifire as an amp modeller and then depending on the gig take either my valve amp and route the board to bypass the Atomic, or take something like an active speaker for monitoring and use the Atomic DI. Thing is I also know I'd never truly be able to use a valve amp at home, so why have both?
Then after chatting to others I do have to concede that the Atomic has limitations if things sound off at the gig in terms of having to adjust on the fly, and I know I'd need seperate effects as they aren't great on the Atomic.
So I'm thinking Helix is the solution, but I love my pedals!! My Skreddy Mayo, Mini Bi-Comp, Philosophers Tone, Timeline, Timmy, KTR, KOT, Mobius etc. surely the Helix can't sound as great as those pedals!
So, with that in mind, any anecdote, advice, experience, help, guidance anyone can offer please, please chuck it my way and help me out!! Before I go crazy!! I have a Les Paul, a Strat, and a Wolfgang, and when I get home I want to join a covers band to get out gigging so again, the idea of a modeller is probably perfect.Tuning parallel signal paths on the Helix to use different guitars sounds perfect, that was always an issue before for me.
My head said brake, but my heart cried never.
Comments
As for Helix not being as good as your individual pedals... well that may or may not be so. Honestly, I wouldn’t worry about it. What’s in the Helix is plenty good enough and I found it really liberating to stop worrying about the minutiae of which OD pedal sounds marginally better than the one I bought last week.
My head said brake, but my heart cried never.
As for reliability, I’ve had no issues. I’ve got a Floor and an LT, the Floor lives in the studio and serves as a backup and I gig the LT (it must have done a hundred or so gigs by now). Anything can go wrong, but Line6’s support from what I’ve seen on here, the Facebook page and other forums is nothing short of superb. I still take a Tech21 FlyRig to every gig as a backup, just as I did when I used amps.
My head said brake, but my heart cried never.
Only kidding, nice to have a different opinion tbh, I'm still undecided and love pedals and valves, I just don't think they're practical for me anymore. Short of buying an ox maybe....
My head said brake, but my heart cried never.
If I play my guitar I generally always go for my amp and pedals. I prefer the sound a lot more to be honest.
However if I was to go back to the souless world of covers I would probably use my helix for laziness
Ymmv and all that
My head said brake, but my heart cried never.
mines never let me down, but carry a backup just in case, but I’d do that with an amp too
My head said brake, but my heart cried never.
http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/139619/fs-tech-21-flyrig-plexi
My head said brake, but my heart cried never.
IMO, there is no other unit or swish pedalboard out there that is as easy to use or could accommodate such rig changes with so much ease and still sound as good.
Best bit of kit I have ever bought for gigging.
Ahhhhhhrrrrrrgggggghhhhhh!
My head said brake, but my heart cried never.
Which makes setting it up and tweaking it on gigs an absolute breeze.
Just to give you an overview of my Journey to using the Helix exclusively direct to the mixer.
I wasted 6 months of my life on the Atomic, I wish I had just bit the bullet and bought the Helix originally.
I made the decision about downsizing as I was fed up with carting big amps around. I went with the Atomic and tried to stick with it, but in fact I got a bit fed up with it all. I couldn’t get it to sound like I wanted and it was having a negative effect on my enjoyment of gigging.
So much so I switched back to amps briefly. I had a 2 boss Katana rig running in stereo which I loved and it sounded great, I then went back to a valve amp which was a Blackstar Artist 15 which wasn’t so great.
I seen a Helix LT come up fairly local to me for a great price, so I decided to take a gamble back into digital world and its the best decision I’ve made. The portability and lightweight is fantastic, it sounds amazing and is consistent every single night.
I flirted briefly with the idea of having an frfr cab on stage but again I didn’t want the extra weight to cart around on gigs. So I decided to get a good quality pair of IEM headphones instead.
Its worked out so well that it has in fact inspired the bass player in my band to follow suit. He has bought a Sansamp and is ditching his head and cab and also going to use IEM’s. So there will be no cabs on stage whatsoever.
Also does anyone find their overall band mix lacks bass when you put it all through the PA? Does it swamp the singer?
My head said brake, but my heart cried never.
If anything I find the band much easier to mix with the bass and guitar going direct, as I’m not fighting the cabs on stage. The mix is much cleaner.
I’ve just had to tell my drummer to ease off a bit, which he actually prefers and now he’s not fighting the guitar and bass cabs on stage, he is totally comfortable doing that. So now I can turn the drums up in the FOH mix, again it’s hard to do that when the drummer is clattering the kit and you are fighting the acoustic sound of the kit.
So overall I think it has improved our live sound both for us and the audience.
I also play in a covers band and use an AX8 into a DXR10 as a monitor in front of me. The only pedals I use with the AX8 are an EP boost in front (mainly for balancing input volume between single coils and humbuckers) and an EHX Synth9 or C9 in the loop for special effects. Everything else is taken care of by the AX8. It's super quick to set up/ tear down and sounds great. It's ideal for a cover band set up as it covers such a wide range.
I do also have a valve amp which I use with either an HX Effects and a couple of drive pedals or a small analogue board with half a dozen pedals. The interface on the hx is outstanding . The AX8 takes some learning but I'm still able to make on the fly changes to settings about as easily as i could with real pedals. Setting up an entirely new "rig" from scratch isn't something I'd want to do on the fly (but then i wouldn't do that with real pedals either) but you could do it fairly easily on the Helix.
Having said all of the above, it's the digital rig that gets pretty well all the gig time due to consistently good sound, flexibility and portability so I'd say there's not much to fear.
I just carry a POD2 as backup, just in case.