This was our 5th year playing St Patrick’s Day at Norm’s Grill in Danville. And it was off… the… hook!! We had an absolute blast.
It was my first time ever playing a gig without an amp- and the Helix was awesome! There wasn’t even room on stage for the Eon 610, so I just went direct into our DL32R mixer and out to our in-ears and the PA. I’m a Helix believer! More
After preparing my basic Pedal Board preset, I’ve spent the last week learning my way around the Helix, preparing presets for our setlist.
I’m loving this thing! I’ve been waking up early to craft song presets before work, and staying up super-late every night.
Yes, I’m obsessing, but there’s a lot to prepare if I’m going to pull this off at Friday’s gig with the Drop Daddies. More
I mentioned last month, as I awaited the Helix arrival, that I was considering going ampless- completely replacing my entire amp and pedalboard rig with a single device: the Helix.
So, once I started learning to edit on the Helix, the first thing I did was try to make a preset to match the sounds of the channels on my Blackstar Stage 60. This was surprisingly easy to do. Very quickly, I had a Pedal Board preset in which I could switch between Clean, Overdrive, High Gain, and blistering Lead, all of which sounded close enough to my Blackstar. And bonus, no more pause/delay in the sound when changing channels on the Blackstar. Changing snapshots on Helix is totally seamless. Beautiful!
We’ve had our Mackie DL32R Mixer for how long now? (nearly 2 years!) And I’ve never bothered to figure out why the Solo channel controls weren’t working as I expected. When I solo a channel, its Solo button turns yellow, and the yellow all-caps SOLO indicator shows up in the top right quick access panel button. But, I don’t hear the channel solo in the audio outputs. Why not?
We don’t really need to use Solo during a gig. But at soundcheck, it sure would be nice! We like to record our soundcheck and then stand out front while playing it back to adjust the mix. Being able to solo a channel would be helpful when dialing in EQ setings, etc.
So, this weekend I finally read the relevant parts of the Mackie Master Fader reference guide, and figured out how to make this work! Just in time for our St Patrick’s Day gig on Friday.
My Helix arrived last night. Sweet! I lost myself for a couple hours, going through the presets and getting familiar with the unit.
I borrowed a JBL EON 610 full-range powered speaker for the occasion, and the combination sounds amazing. I haven’t even tried plugging it into my Blackstar Stage 60 yet. It sounds soooo good through the full range speaker. More
The Helix finally came in stock today, and it’s on order! While I’ve been waiting over the last couple weeks, I’ve been obsessing about my big rig transition to the Helix. I’ve come across a couple of new video demos which just blow me away how good the Helix sounds.
These demos have me seriously considering going ampless. While I love my Blackstar Stage 60, this would be amazing simplification in my rig, and a serious boost in flexibility. We’ll have to wait and see when the Helix arrives.
Meanwhile, take a look at these videos – two very different styles, two compelling arguments:
At our Outpost gig last weekend, I noticed at the end of the first set that the red recording light was off in the Master Fader control app for our DL32R mixer.
I know that I started the recording before the first set! Did I bump it accidentally during the set?
So, I restarted the recording at the beginning of the second set, and the red light was still on after midnight when we finished…
However, when I loaded up the files into Logic to have a listen, they were garbled and glitchy. Here’s an example of what it sounded like:More
Great time last light with the Drop Daddies playing at our local bar, the Outpost.
This was the Outpost’s final Saturday night party before closing their doors forever. It was off the hook!
It’s been a year since I saw that first demo of the Helix at NAMM, and I haven’t stopped dreaming about it! But I decided that I should really sell some old gear before investing in the Helix. And I just never got around to it.
But after the dreaded HD500X sunlight-wah-freakout happened again, this time in front of a huge crowd at a gig in October, I decided it’s time to make this happen, before the sunny season rolls around again.More
