Line 6 | Rhett Shull on Why He Prefers Powercab When Performing Live 

Hi Robert, can you please explain why plugging in your HX stomp into a tube amp didn't sound right? Is it just because the tube amp has it's own EQ? couldn't you just adjust that? I have a traditional tube amp +stomp box pedal board and M13. Want to get an HX stomp for a light setup to plug into house PA. but I guess that won't sound good?

@@tomzeto Hey buddy, sorry, I saw your mess until last night. 1. When yo go from your HX unit directly into a Tube Amp input and if you are using an amp modeler such a Marshal, Diezel, Soldano or anyone, the sound of the signal will lose the "flavor" of you modeler and it will be drastically modified by the Tube Amp you are using. 2. The only way to use you Tube Amp avoiding this, is by using the FX loop, this way, you are just going to use the power and the volume of your Tube Amp, however, the sound of the power system of your Tube Amp will modify a lil bit your sound from the HX Stomp 3. If you what described in step 2, the EG and any FX in your Tube Amp will be bypassed, in order to make the FX loop way to work, besides the 2 cables (in-out from the HX unit to the FX loop), is also necessary to plug into the input of the Tube Amp a cable leaving the other end in the air, otherwise is not going to sound 4. The very best way to use and enjoy your HX Unit is with a powered cabinet, I´ve tried KC12 and many others, but nothing is even close to the Powercab 212 Plus

@@robalo61 Thanks for your feedback Robert! Appreciated it! I've wanted to get an HX stomp for a while now to replace my big line 6 m13. Don't like to haul that plus pedalboard. Currently I have my pedal board going through my fx loop on a Yamaha Soldano or Fender amp. idk IR and modelers are constantly changing. I don't know if I should get the HX stomp or XL or Kemper... wonder if I should wait... We see new modeler gear all the time now and it's getting better and better.

@@tomzeto You are right, now is getting better and better. Since I got my HX I`m absolutely happy, without a doubt the is best small unit that has almost everything and many often they improve the quality with the updates so, if you don`t need more than 8 blocks like in my case (I use with high gain amps like distortion as a booster, amp, EQ, IR, Delay, Reverb, EQ parametric and the LA 200, the last 2 with mastering purposes), for the price-size you are not going to get any better. I`ve used Kemper but the price just for the unit is almost $2 k´s, about the same cost to get both, the HX and the Powercab 212 Plus, think about it, is a great decision and you won`t regret it

@@robalo61 Thanks Robert. I love how Stomp/Helix has digital updates, just like a Tesla, so amazing. How does the HX stomp with traditional pedals to the Powercab sound? does it work/sound good together? pedals i use are wah, compressor, drives, boost, modulations delay, phaser, and boost.

Can you use an acoustic guitar with your setup?

Yeah he gets the new sponsored flavors of the months to sell to you, ya big silly goose!

I have thought about just selling all of my Amps and pedals. I have a lot of shit. But to be honest it fucking scares me. My victory Amps sound great but even though I have a huge pedalboard that just about does it all....I still get board. Helix has been around for about 5 years now and it makes me apprehensive to get it. Surely the next greatest one will come out shortly. But if I do get one I will get the power cab as well. What do you use for speakers at home?

@@therangersinger Look at Kemper -- they have had the same Toaster amp for 10 years now. They keep releasing updates. The recent Helix update with oversampling makes it sounds even better. Since 3.0, there is great acoustic sim and poly pitch shifting. The Helix allows me to do everything I would ever need. I can't say the same thing about other pieces of gear I've owned previously, other processors that have that annoying 27 ms of silence when switching between presets. Helix sounds like the real thing. I have recorded with it and gigged with it and not one person complained about it sounding digital. If you asked me 2 years ago, if I was 100% happy with the Helix -- I'd say "no", because there was no acoustic sim back than. Or the Freeze functionality, which is a nice gimmick I could really live without. Now I honestly have not a single complaint in terms of the sounds/tweakability. There are some flaws, but I found workarounds for all of them. For example, I recently figured out how to use a dummy SEND1 block to help me see if my auto-engaged WAH-WAH is on or off. I have a preset for every song, with snapshots for different sounds. When switching between the snapshots, there is no audio gaps. I can program my delays to spill over, assign different tap tempo to each preset, engage/disengage effects with the EXP pedal with different values of engagement... for example my wah turns off after 300 MS, but Delay turns off after a second. The only thing I wish Helix did differently was bring back the step design for the 2nd row of buttons, the way things were on Pod HD 500X. But everybody is going for the flat design, and I doubt it'll be brought back. With some practice, I hardly ever miss-press the buttons now, but still I feel the back row should be raised more.

@@accidentals_hacks my friend. I didn't expect such an outstanding level of a response. I'll keep it short. Thank you for every letter you typed. I know when I sell everything I'll put money back in the bank. I mean hell just my automatone and large myriad fuzz being sold will bring at least $1100.....looks like I may be visiting sweetwater, then selling everything else on reverb. I might keep my tuner, wah, looper and the Strymon volante that's about it.

@@therangersinger btw for amplification I use studio monitors at home to tweak my sounds. Live I use whatever is there pretty much, just for stage volume, since I go to straight to FOH . Typically you would just go into an effects loop of an amp which necessitates using global EQ so it’s not too woofy. I have my global eq set up so it gets rid of the sub frequencies. So it’s been either on or off depending on the amp and room. For example on a Marshall stack it was off, on Fender Mustang it was on. One time I played a show going into the input of Peavey Classic 50, because the effects loop was broken. I also have Headrush FRFR 108 which is very popular among processor users. It’s also very boomy. It’s basically a very low weight and powerful wedge monitor that I always keep in my trunk just in case. Perfect to hear yourself on stage…. But absolutely not for dialing in your presets at home since it’s bass-heavy.

When a youtuber is constantly casually suggesting products he’s a nipple tweaking salesman

@Earendil's Star nipple tweaking salesman is the one I came up with, and I’ll stick to it. RU-vid is a disgusting influencer pit. It used to be real.

Don’t see Rhett constantly doing that at all. Sure he has some. But he seems to genuinely like those things. I have seen more than a few RU-vidrs that push the “gear of the day” for a check… Rhett is much more reserved on his… IMO. Go for the money I cannot tell you if I would or wouldn’t advertise a product. With TV you have adds for all kinds of crap in commercials that have NOTHING to do with what the show is about. If our favorite RU-vidrs get money to advertise so they can keep making great content… and they happen to be promoting products that align with their subject matter… more power to them.

Dude he plugs what he believes in, and he’s honest. That’s all we need to know, go away

How are you liking the Laney so far? is it loud enough to keep up with a very loud drummer? And do you find the weight of it bothersome when bringing it to a rehearsal/performance?

Pity Line 6 has totally abandoned the FH1500. Great amp with the Helix.

Yep. Can’t stand the powercab.

I have a matrix fr10 and tried a power cab and thought the PC sounded muffled. Do you hear the same?

Have you tried connecting into ur effects loops works way better than going into the front of the amp. Just one cable main out to effects return of your tube amp and guitar into helix (or any amp modeler) It bypasses your tube preamp and goes straight into ur power amp. So your amp won’t color the sound as much like it does when u go into front of amp. one thing u need to remember is to turn off cab simulation because you’ll be using ur amps speakers. Cab simulation into a real cab sounds horrible like ur amp is covered with blankets. Anyways good luck. Btw I connected my helix into aux in with a 1/4 to 3.5mm jack adapter of any speaker in my house and it still sounded awesome my tv’s surround sound was particularly fun and this small random boom box type speaker was more enjoyable than headphone for those late night sessions. What I’m saying is don’t limit ur self to waiting till u get the perfect frfr speakers and play around with anything with an aux In you might find some jems. 😎

I’m right with you. I’ve also gone down the modeller path for the covers band and tube amp and pedals for original stuff. My original reason for going with the modeller (full-fat Helix) was that I always seemed to need more delay pedals every time we added more covers to the setlist. As a bonus, I get to have a Fendery ‘amp’ for the really clean poppy stuff. The Twin Reverb model does the job better than the clean channel on my Marshall. The modeller setup is also great for acoustic tones. In a band where I only have to play rock and punk, I still prefer my Marshall. That said, I mostly use a digital gain pedal into it, Line 6 DM4. Moral of the story: just use whatever works.

Yes. It’s left me feeling really confused and frustrated with people bragging about selling all their tube amps. I am like, what!? Why!? Stupid bastards! And these people don’t even care. They just go on about “toan” and could give zero fucks about the exhilarating feeling that got most of us hooked in the first place.

Hey I’m a pedalboard player for both acoustic and electric. I own pedalboards and amps as well as a helix and power cab plus. It is an excellent choice for acoustic. You run it in flat mode and let your acoustic guitar sing, but then switch yo you electric and let the speaker emulation do its thing. I even plug in my pedalboard into this as amp and it works when paired with a amp preamp pedal. Hell operen as just a monitor/amp for the acoustic with no pedals/helix it works.

any word from line 6?

with the 2x12 version you can keep up with your bandmates

Since I usually leave my FRFR cab at the practice room, I’ve been running the Helix into the FX return of the Katana at home and it sounds fine for home practice and maybe even setting up effects. I feed the Katana after my amp model, but before the speaker model or IR, so that I’m not running a speaker model into a guitar speaker. Basically, from the beginning with the Helix I made all my patches with the jack outs tapped off before the speaker model (for home practice) and the XLR outs after the speaker model (for rehearsals and gigs - feeding my FRFR cab and front of house). Bear in mind that the sound can be pretty different between these setups. So if you were feeding the Katana (or whatever power amp input) for your sound, what you hear could be radically different to what you’re piping out the back of the Helix.

That’s strange, I have a contradictory experience. Since I’ve been using the Helix and FRFR cab, one of the things I love about it is that it sounds the same every time, and sound check can be as quick as just a line check, because our FOH guy knows he’s getting exactly the same output as the last gig. I run an FRFR wedge in front of me with 2 inputs, one from the Helix and one with my monitor mix. I can control the volumes independently if I want to bring the band (or myself) up or down a little during the set, which is a godsend! My only complaint is that I’d love to have the volume controls on the front panel of the wedge and not have to reach down behind it.

Yes, that's what he means.

@@mark7166 Thanks Mark , just a friendly reminder that the devils in the details cheers

Same here. I was running mine using a poweramp into a real cabinet. Using Preamps only. It was ok until I tried the unit in an FRFR. Whole new world.

Tone is subjective but Power Cab is designed to work with any modeler.

I bet that sounds awesome! The stuff we can do with these rigs nowadays is mind blowing

Glenn Martin how do you switch this setup?

Dude that's wicked as hell. I once owned the katana artist and its a terrific amp. Ill reconsider the mkii version for an frfr solution as thats what was part of its purpose to work alongside with modelers.

Are you still doing this 4 months later? I considered this myself... a nice powerful katana to take to practice for use with my gigboard..

For some reason these modeling enthusiasts are hell bent on demolishing proven and beloved methods. The old ways. The best way.

I know it's been a while since you asked this question, but you have multiple options: 1) You could run Powercab in FRFR mode and use the IR from you Helix to both the Powercab and FOH, or 2) You could use the speaker sims (they are great!), and just send the signal from Powercab to FOH. The same sound mic'd up is sent to FOH. With Powercab plus, you can chose between 16 mic model, or 3) You could also send the sound of dial 4X12 to FOH within Helix and monitor that with a wedge or in ears, and then just let the Powercab provide some stage volume. Hope that helps. I want two 112 Powercab Plus just for fun. I've tried that setup multiple times and it's amazing for band jamming and home noodling. But I need to save for it 🙄

@@newcomer87 That was really useful! Thanks for taking the time to reply!

@@newcomer87 This is a really helpful answer. I'm mulling over ditching my current pedalboard and amp and going for the Helix and PowerCab 112 Plus. This was exactly the type of question/answer I was looking for.

@@noodlemans no problem 👍🏽 Just make sure you get send a signal that’s strong enough to get the powercab to flash yellow, that goes a long way to making it sound full and sweet. I’d suggest you try that combo and see how you like it before committing to digital, but imo Helix just keeps getting better with every update. Such a great platform that you can use in so many different applications. I love it with their new Catalyst amp as we’ll 😎

@@noodlemans no problem 👍🏽 Just make sure you get send a signal that’s strong enough to get the powercab to flash yellow, that goes a long way to making it sound full and sweet. I’d suggest you try that combo and see how you like it before committing to digital, but imo Helix just keeps getting better with every update. Such a great platform that you can use in so many different applications. I love it with their new Catalyst amp as we’ll 😎

I just purchased the normal PC myself after going back and forth with the PC+. I figured I would just run it as FRFR and use the Cabs in the Helix presets, changing them as needed for each preset. I dont plan on using any of the modeled speakers on the PC itself, gonna let the Helix do all the work. Does that make sense?

@@danc3746 Yes, my thoughts exactly. I haven't used anything on the PC+ that I couldn't get off the PC regular. I don't plan on it either, so I could have saved a few hundred bucks if I understood it better at the time of purchase. I'm with you.

Yep that’s an expensive bundle of garbage they added to the +

@Mike James Pretty sure he's taking about using two 1x12 Power Cabs (not the 2x12 model) for the stereo effect.

I have this setup and it's awesome. Having this with a wireless guitar setup allows you to go out in the audience area before the gig and experience and tune your stereo setup. Maybe lots of reverb on the Right side, a slight delay between sides, etc. It's the best.

I just read your comment and agree I don't think anyone really knows the difference. I run overdrives into a terror stamp (for the tube preamp) then fx loop the 500x for fx only no amp sim or cab and straight to a 2x12 cab and get compliments so... it's really just us guitar players obsessing over nothing

@Ganjang gongjangjang That might explain why one IR is better than or not better than speaker emulation. But Rhett was talking about the interaction between the ss amp and the speaker.

The PC112+ allows you to load impulse responses, gives you MIDI capability, and L6 link/AES digital input/out which can eliminate another stage of Analog to Digital to Analog conversion(reducing latency ETC...)

@@matthewferguson2131 besides the features stuff. Loading ir ia adv if tour presents are heavy

I agree. Stereo is good if you're in a 3 piece.

Watch the vid again. It's a actual reaction between your guitar and a speaker cab that makes for a more traditional playing experience .

@@Prettynoise Yeah thanks, I worked that out. I've got a terrible habit of blurting out questions instead of listening. It's plagued me all my life😂

They’re all nipple tweaking cash farmers

I’m using the Headrush with my Helix. To me it sounds decent, good even, but I’m not in exactly love with it. It’s worth it for the convenience, for me. I’d love to try a Powercab. What other alternatives have you tried?

@@frmcf I recently acquired a Mesa 2:90 poweramp. I now use that. It's an absolutely killer setup. I just setup my patches with preamp models only, and then run it through the 2:90 and into a speaker cab.

@@mark7166 So you're still miking a cab on stage? I bet your rig sounds great, but I might be addicted to the convenience of just having the Helix and the floor wedge. 😅 Maybe for a special gig I would try something a bit more pro, like your setup! But I'm guessing you have to carry a rack and a speaker cab around?

@@frmcf I haven't used it live yet. If I play a gig, I'd most likely just use my Mark V and a small pedal board.

@Ganjang gongjangjang Hi Ganjang. I purchased the single speaker power cab and demoed it at my house for a week. I own a 90's Sampson era Matchless SC-30 which I run my Helix straight into any of the four inputs. I don't get why people are giving the Powercab such high praise. It sounds very digital. I tried all of the possible scenarios the Powercab offers. Not dissing on Line 6. I love them and think they are a fantastic company. I own a Helix and LOVE it! But the speaker cab sounds like poo. Sorry, but that's the honest truth.

You are definitely lost. The Powercab is a "powered cabinet". It does not refer to itself as an amp. Why do people use the term "real amp"? Is there such a thing as an "unreal amp". If Rhett is playing a Powercab on stage during gigs, you can bet it sounds great. Rhett has lots of amps to use, and if one sounded horrible, he wouldn't use it. I'm being honest.

@@loopie007 I'm not lost. The Powercab sounds bad. That's all there is to it. Maybe I will try it again someday.

@@robertmccormick1029 are you just using the Helix for effects when playing it through your Matchless? The C30 is one of the best amps of all time. I hope you're not running the amp sims through it.

@@Billywagner22 Hi Billy, happy Thanksgiving. I use everything (amps, preamps, cabinet simulators, and effects) including the straight clean sound of the Matchless. I view them all as effects and tone pedals. Yes, the Matchless sounds incredible and adds a lot to my live sound. I have A/B'd the Power Cab against it and there is absolutely no comparison against the gorgeous, fat, clean tone of the Matchless.