A good point, well made

[Dynamic Mike]

I can't speak re the workflow on the Headrush, but with my newish Pod Go the only way I eventually got to the sounds I like was ditching the idea of setting up the sounds on my headphones and tweaking stuff at gig volume, the Cab high and low pass setting were key to getting something that actually sounded like a guitar amp. Also for me, using the cab module at the end of the signal chain made everything sound more guitar amp like - so the reverbs and delays were going through a speaker sim instead of being super clean. Is it as good as my board and amp? Nope - but it's close enough for me to not worry about it too much and works very well with the PA.

This has pretty much been my Pod Go experience too. Awsome sounds created on headphones (espcially cleanish tones) sounded flat & lifeless through the main outs without tweaking the Cab high/low pass settings. Although you can easily save these as snapshots, it still felt like I was doing everything twice & it's a bit of a faff unless you're editing via the software. But until you posted this I'd never thought of sticking the cab at the end of the chain instead of directly after the amp. I don't know why because that's where it is in real life!

To be honest none of the compromises made by the Pod Go from the full fat Helix bother me in the slightest. I've never struggled for DSP, I won't be dual amping & I'll probably never use 75% of the available amp/fx emulations anyway. Naming snapshots & staggered switches would be nice & as a left hooker I'd like the vol/wha on the opposite side but with Helix tones for silly money it seems churlish to complain.

[The Elf]

I bought a Headrush Gigboard at the beginning of lockdown last year. I like it a lot but I can't say I've got it to sound as good as my, fairly modest, pedalboard yet. I will persevere as I don't want to end up sounding like a guy I gigged with a couple of years ago, he had a Helix and a pair of 8" FRFR boxes, sounded pretty feeble compared to my 18 watt combo and a Tube Screamer

All about the user, I'd say. There's no reason for a Helix to sound thin if you know what you're doing (cabs notwithstanding).

I have a collection of presets from guitarists I've worked with. Some of them exhibit a total lack of understanding (and sound odd), while others sound simply stunning. That's the thing with the Helix, and similar - they give you enough options to sound like a god, or a fly in a bottle. After that it's about your taste and your ability. And far be it from me to question some of these guys - it's like questioning someone's religion! Interesting that the strongest opinions seem to be from the ones with the oddest signal chains...

Your combo and TS are fine, but you can't switch in a whole new chain of effects at the click of a switch - or stereo delay, or reverb, for example, or choose a different amp/cab per song. That's important for some acts. And how it sounds from a cab sitting next to you is not *as* important (though it has a bearing, obviously) as it sounds out front. I've heard some mighty rigs also reduced to the 'fly in a bottle' by the time it reaches the audience!

[Sam Spoons]

I bought a Headrush Gigboard at the beginning of lockdown last year. I like it a lot but I can't say I've got it to sound as good as my, fairly modest, pedalboard yet. I will persevere as I don't want to end up sounding like a guy I gigged with a couple of years ago, he had a Helix and a pair of 8" FRFR boxes, sounded pretty feeble compared to my 18 watt combo and a Tube Screamer

All about the user, I'd say. There's no reason for a Helix to sound thin if you know what you're doing (cabs notwithstanding).

No argument there, I'm not trying to suggest that Helix et al can't be made to sound great just that this particular guy hadn't managed it, (I'm not tech-phobic and for many years used a GX700/Marshall8008 rig).

Your combo and TS are fine, but you can't switch in a whole new chain of effects at the click of a switch - or stereo delay, or reverb, for example, or choose a different amp/cab per song. That's important for some acts.

Yup no argument there too.

And how it sounds from a cab sitting next to you is not *as* important (though it has a bearing, obviously) as it sounds out front.

No but for some players it makes it very hard to perform to 100% if the onstage sound is poor, I'm not precious but I certainly find it easier to play my best if my guitar sounds great to me.

I've heard some mighty rigs also reduced to the 'fly in a bottle' by the time it reaches the audience!

Me too but that said, if it sounds good on stage then it's the sound guy's job to make it sound good out front (said with both my guitarist hat and my sound tech hat on). It does still have to sound good on stage first though.

FWIW I will probably be continuing to use my 18 watt and be treating the Headrush like a pedalboard simply 'cos that's how I like to work, I know that's only using part of it's capabilities

[Random Guitarist]

Unusually for me I had someone say that my guitar had a really powerful sound at the weekend. I was surprised as I had left all the valves at home and gone out to play with a Helix and a Wharfdale titan 12. I'm not used to tone compliments and was a little taken a back.

I was waiting for a followup along the lines of 'I don't know how you got so many bees in that little jar', but it never came.

[Funkyflash5]

Your combo and TS are fine, but you can't switch in a whole new chain of effects at the click of a switch - or stereo delay, or reverb, for example, or choose a different amp/cab per song. That's important for some acts.

That's broadly true, but with my ES-8 I certainly can set up to switch in a whole new chain of effects with one switch, while still being able to turn a knob with my toe if the creative moment calls for a different sound than planned in advance. Not that I have anything against digital in principal, I also have a Poly Beebo if I want to do Cab IRs or some convoluted interconnected signal path, but having physical controls at my toes is still worthwhile for how I work.

[SecretSam]

Of course, if you spend a few hundred quid on a Voodoo Labs Ground Control, then you can indeed switch entire chains of effects with one stomp.

Although I would suggest that if you need a pedalboard to control your pedalboard, you may have lost sight of why you turned up in the first place.

Dan Patlansky, having been through many pedal experiments, opines that the optimum number of pedals is five. Beyond that, the complexity and signal degradation outweigh the benefits.

I don't recall the old masters using massive pedal boards, so the magic number five might be about right. Your thoughts?

[Murray B]

Dan Patlansky, having been through many pedal experiments, opines that the optimum number of pedals is five. Beyond that, the complexity and signal degradation outweigh the benefits.

I don't recall the old masters using massive pedal boards, so the magic number five might be about right. Your thoughts?

That's interesting - I will of course agree as I have 5 pedals on my board - but I'm not counting the Tuner

[The Culprit]

My live gig experience is slightly different to the scenario discussed here, but it does fall under a similar circumstance.

I play just me and an acoustic and have never bothered about what equipment I use. Plug straight in to the desk, adjust the eq, reverb and levels to suit and away I go.

The thing that always carries me is the fact that I see it as my job to make sure everyone enjoys their night. That's ultimately what people appreciate.

There are lots of bands doing the circuit within the niche we occupy, a lot of them with a good sound and decent players, but some are guilty of just turning up and collecting their dough and it makes a huge difference to the atmosphere and people's experience of the night.

[Funkyflash5]

I think it varies vastly depending on what kinds of sounds you find useful and what kinds of tradeoffs you're comfortable with. My main pedalboard has been a slow evolution over quite a few years, and on most gigs with my own bands or that are a bit "out there" I use between 7 and 10 pedals, excluding what I consider utility pedals like the switcher, tuner and expression. On a jazz gig, I might use eq and compression, or nothing at all. I'm not a blues guy, so the 5 pedals that are just right for Dan Patlansky wouldn't be the right ones for me. I also don't have the budget for a crew of roadies, so the Edge's multiple racks of effects aren't going to be practical either (though I'm sure with several months study I could find some sounds in there). I've sat down and figured out what it would take if I wanted to get all the same sounds with a minimum number of pedals and I could get down to 5 or less, but that would make actually getting to those sounds more complicated for me, rather than less.

[S2]

The other 'con' is the cost of the system in the first place.

I spent less money on my latest bass rig - a Line6 Helix Floor and an RCF 745 powered cab (approximately £2k) than I had on the rig it replaced that was composed mainly of items bought second hand.

And when you consider the fact that I also use this rig for Bass VI and guitar, I actually came away with a profit after selling all the stuff it replaced.

Out of interest (and gear envy!) what was your bass rig before the Line 6? Sounds like a seriously impressive rig for over £2k second hand!

Mine is a lot more straightforward (and inexpensive) - a Mark Bass 12 inch (CMD121) Combo with NY Extension cab. £600 for both (second hand). Oh and a lead!

[BigRedX]

Out of interest (and gear envy!) what was your bass rig before the Line 6? Sounds like a seriously impressive rig for over £2k second hand!

Your wish is my command!

Speakers: Two EBS 4x10 cabs (£900 S/H)
Amp: Tech Soundsystems Black Cat 1kW hybrid amp (£750 S/H)
Effects: Line6 Bass Pod XT Pro Rack (£450 new)
Others: SFX Thumpinator HPF (£100 new), Peterson Strobo Rack (£350 new), EMO rack mounted power distribution system (£100 new), Boschma 6U Rack Case (£50 S/H), Line6 Floor Board (£50 S/H), all the cables required to wire this up including some very expensive heavy duty ethernet leads for the Floorboard, after I discovered that was going through standard ethernet cables at the rate of at least 1 a month (around £200).

There was also a Sony Wireless system (x2 so I had a second transmitter pack for my spare bass) which I've not included as I have hung onto this although I've not used it as yet with my current set up.

This rig was great for The Terrortones, but after they stopped gigging I found that with the subsequent bands I was in, either the stages were so big that I couldn't hear my rig once I was no longer stood directly in front of it, or for the smaller venues I was being asked to turn down so much so as not to interfere with the FoH sound from the PA, that I could hear me louder in the foldback on the other side of the stage than I could from my own speakers, that while it looked great from a practical PoV it was almost completely redundant.

For the gigs I am doing now, if I know we are going to be on a big stage with proper monitoring I don't even bother with the RCF powered cab. I just bring the Helix Floor and go straight into the PA. For the smaller gigs I can tuck the RCF under the stand that holds the computer for the backing tracks and aim it sideways across the stage the rest of the band can hear me with needing to go through the foldback. It has significantly cut down on the amount of gear I need to take to gigs, and for gigs were the backline is supplied we can comfortably get the whole (4-piece band) plus the gear we need in an average sized car, and not have to bother with the van.

[S2]

Nice rig! Bit out of my league (pub and club Cream/Hendrix covers band) but I like to see what others are using for various size gigs.

And yes I imagine the Helix (I know nothing about it other than seeing it on the Andertons website) and the RCF are significantly less kit to cart about.

Thanks.

[James Perrett]

I don't recall the old masters using massive pedal boards, so the magic number five might be about right. Your thoughts?

Pete Cornish has been building pedal boards for nearly 50 years which have been used by many well known guitarists. There are some pictures at

http://www.petecornish.co.uk/fxboards.html

[Wonks]

Don't forget a lot of famous guitarist had all their effects switched for them by a tech offstage, so all you saw was a trailing lead or their radio lead on the guitar and all they had to do was worry about playing. Wah wah or a talkbox probably being the only exceptions of pedals that really need to be used on stage by the guitarist.

[BigRedX]

Nice rig! Bit out of my league (pub and club Cream/Hendrix covers band) but I like to see what others are using for various size gigs.

And yes I imagine the Helix (I know nothing about it other than seeing it on the Andertons website) and the RCF are significantly less kit to cart about.

Thanks.

I play in two different bands with different rig requirements (bass in one and Bass VI plus synth in the other) and the Helix plus RCF handles both with ease.

My last two gigs were the main stage at Leeds O2 (capacity 2000-ish) and The Chameleon in Nottingham (capacity 50 + the members of the other two bands) and I used the same rig for both, although I didn't bother with the RCF for the O2 gig as I knew the monitoring would be fine without it.

TBH on the big(ger) stages the bass rig in particular is just for show as the speakers will make zero contribution to the FoH sound and the amp only the pre-amp section (and maybe not even that depending on where the DI is situated). Most of the gigs I do in these situations I'm in the support band, so I simply set up in from of the headliner's (usually Ampeg) rig and no-one is any the wiser!

Regarding the Helix, IMO it's brilliant. AFAICS it's limitations are down to the user's imagination rather than the device itself. However I've been a massive fan of programmable multi-effects since I bought my first (Roland GP8) in the late 80s.

[BigRedX]

Don't forget a lot of famous guitarist had all their effects switched for them by a tech offstage, so all you saw was a trailing lead or their radio lead on the guitar and all they had to do was worry about playing. Wah wah or a talkbox probably being the only exceptions of pedals that really need to be used on stage by the guitarist.

You don't even need to be famous or playing big stages. In the late 90s I was playing in a band that used MIDI-controlled backing for some of the synths. Everything that had a MIDI In socket on it was also controlled this way - bass and guitar multi-effects units for patch changes and parameter control, electronic drums for patch changes, synths for patch changes, vocal effects and the mixer that this all went through. The mixer settings could be over-ridden by our sound engineer, but simply the ability to set up a "scene" with all the correct effects and routings and ideal levels for the song made life so much easier. All the musicians had to do was play the correct notes at the correct time. Certainly not being anchored to our pedal boards made the on-stage performance much better visually.

I'm looking at implementing a similar system with at least one of the bands that I'm currently play with.

[The Elf]

As per a previous post, for one of my bands my Cantabile-based rig controls the entire stage system. If we are running to a click/backing/sequencers then every bit of gear is controlled from Cantabile, such that nobody needs to make patch selections - all we have to do is play. Even if we aren't running backing it sets each of us up for the start of each tune.

That said, any of us can override on our own rigs, and it doesn't stop us looping sections to extend where required. It's good to know that we have ultimate control, yet if we mess up the system will look after us.

There's a Helix under each keyboard station. The Helix can function as a 2 x stereo or 4 x mono input device (or combos thereof), which covers a lot of ground for the keyboards (and guitars) that don't have their own preset storage. It also handles a lot of MIDI switching for external gear, such as loopers - and for Cantabile itself.

Cantabile also opens/closes the stage mic between songs (no vocals in this band) and multi-track records the whole gig.

When I first set this system up it caused me a few sleepless hours of 'what if?...', but it's performed perfectly. We have a few 'safety' features to catch anticipate-able problems (missing patch changes, non-functioning pedals, detached cables, etc), but so far we've had no cause to trigger any of these. The only problem we had was the guitarist accidentally catching his Helix volume control - aargh! But now I can lock that control out, so problem solved.

All the stage sounds arrive at a Behringer XR18, again under the control of Cantabile. Monitoring is under our own control - in-ears or speakers. Each artist has his own monitor mixer. FOH mix was set in rehearsal - no need to change, but overrides (and some headroom) is built into the system.

I hit a Helix switch, the gig starts. I hit a Helix switch and we go to the next song. The rig takes care of everything but the playing.

The whole stage system is set up in around 20 minutes, which is important for the gigs we play. I just introduce FOH to our mic/line isolator and we're ready to go - sound-check or no sound-check!

I've gone well beyond the guitar pedal discussion, but just thought I'd show what can be done when you are prepared to take advantage of modern gear.

[Sam Spoons]

Nice rig! Bit out of my league (pub and club Cream/Hendrix covers band)

I really like the sound of that

but I like to see what others are using for various size gigs.

So do I

And yes I imagine the Helix (I know nothing about it other than seeing it on the Andertons website) and the RCF are significantly less kit to cart about.

Thanks.

Dan Patlansky, having been through many pedal experiments, opines that the optimum number of pedals is five. Beyond that, the complexity and signal degradation outweigh the benefits.

I don't recall the old masters using massive pedal boards, so the magic number five might be about right. Your thoughts?

That's interesting - I will of course agree as I have 5 pedals on my board - but I'm not counting the Tuner

I have 8 on my board, in signal order Wah, Boost, Dual Distortion, Delay, Octave/Chorus, Looper and Reverb (always on) and there's a tuner in there somewhere. I use three basic sounds with all but the Distortion and Reverb being icing. I could do all my electric gigs with just those two pedals (and only one if the amp had reverb).

[Drew Stephenson]

I envy the professionalism and control of you guys.
I just stamp on things until the right guitar makes the right noise.

Just not always in the right song.

[S2]

I envy the professionalism and control of you guys.
I just stamp on things until the right guitar makes the right noise.

Just not always in the right song.

Which is why I don't have anything to stamp on at all. Makes it so much easier!

[ManFromGlass]

Drew - I hope you don’t have a cat in the studio . . . .with all that stamping on everything

[Drew Stephenson]

Next door's cat sneaked in the other day but did a runner as soon as he saw me coming.

[BigRedX]

Nice rig! Bit out of my league (pub and club Cream/Hendrix covers band) but I like to see what others are using for various size gigs.

I did actually use the big expensive rig with the Dad Rock covers band that I was in for a couple of years, and where it was a lot more necessary since our PA was strictly vocals only.