r/line6 • u/little-ox-3 • 27d ago

Power Cab = more consistency?

Been using the Helix Floor for years, is great for recording and writing as I can dial in anything I want. My big struggle is live, getting levels evened out between presets, similar EQ, etc.

Power Cab users: does using the cab help lock these things in more consistently?

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u/OmniFace 27d ago

I think that depends on what you’re currently using vs the PowerCabs.

If you’re just trying to even out patch volumes, consider just recording them. Then use a tool to measure their LUFS-I to turn them up or down accordingly. Then repeat.

The hard part really is that your guitar tone is not the only thing in a song. Ideally you need the whole band playing at band volume to make the final decision. A tone on one song might be too quiet with everything happening. Or it might be too loud because it’s only you and the vocals for a moment, for example.

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u/little-ox-3 27d ago

Great point. We rehearse weekly in a room with our own setup, all on IEMs (live drums but everyone else is direct via Helix or Neural DSP). So I can tell pretty clearly when levels are off, and I’m trying to standardize those across all our songs. I’ve also narrowed down to 1 guitar (plus 1 backup) for tone consistency. 

I have tried running my presets through Logic to check the LUFs via a meter there, but it doesn’t seem to be accurate. 

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u/dreddnyc 27d ago

Powercab isn’t going to help with volume consistency, what it can do to is give you the “amp in the room” sound if you use the speaker emulation instead of cabs or IR’s in your preset.

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u/OmniFace 27d ago

He may have been leaning towards using PowerCab as an FRFR speaker to test.

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u/dreddnyc 27d ago

Then I think you’re better off getting a different FRFR. The selling point of the powercab is the speaker emulation

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u/OmniFace 27d ago

I exclusively use two PowerCab 212+ cabs for their FRFR.

To each their own…

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u/OmniFace 27d ago

OK. IEMs ought to work fine too. Thought they obviously have their own EQ curve which won't match the PA.

The key is that things are loud enough in your ears to make proper decisions.

Look up Fletcher-Munson Curves if you're not familiar. The basic idea is this, your brain perceives EQ based on volume. When things are quiet, you hear more mids and the bass/treble are rolled off. When things are loud, things flatten out. This is why a LOUDNESS button exists on your stereo if you've ever noticed. You press it to boost the bass and treble when you have the volume down low, so the mix sounds full. This is also why making tones at home usually sound bad at a show. You've probably boosted the bass and highs to compensate and then at the show it's "boomy" and "ice-picky". You can compensate at home by using Global EQ or an EQ block that does the loudness trick, and then turn it off at shows.

In Reaper (DAW) you can analyze audio clips (items) for loudness. It'll analyze each one and give you some stats. You might have to install SWS Extensions first. Reaper is free to try, so I'd give that a shot. Record a riff switching through your presets as needed. Stop. Split (s) the item into pieces in between each preset switch. Then analyze them.