Greg Edwards69

I was using exactly the same one until my brother kindly 3D printed the 'unofficial' bespoke stand for me. The laptop one works well though, and has a handy place to hang your headphones!

Drawing up a stage plot diagram with notes can be useful in these situations. IIRC there’s specialised online tools to help do this.

I finally got around to sorting midi control out via the BandHelper app and used it at the weekend's gig. I didn't enjoy double footswitch pressing to change presets on its previous outing. Using Bandhelper to automatically choose the correct preset worked very well. Using CC's to select modes, stomps and scenes, however, is less reliable, and I had to resend the midi data manually a few times But I think this is because I'm sending PC and CC messages at the same time. If I understand Bandhelper's help page correctly, I should be able to resolve this issue by adding a small delay between each one. One rather annoying thing I discovered is that my Kindle Fire doesn't support MIDI over USB. Amazon, in their wisdom, decided not to include this in their fork of Android. I bought this device a few years ago, specifically for gigs, so that I don't risk getting my more expensive iPad Pro broken or stolen. So I'm looking into getting a similarly sized and cheap 'proper' Android tablet to replace it.

Starr Sports, Canvey Island, on Saturday evening. Decent night with a good crowd reaction. A few issues during soundcheck with feedback and a resonant node that seemed to appear in the second set that I wasn’t able to resolve whilst playing. Oh well, it didn’t seem to detract from the performance too much. I think we’re going to have to dial in a ‘gain safety net’ for the vocalists, their mics are just way too sensitive, and complain they can’t hear themselves during soundcheck, then they're too loud during the actual performance. Typical lead singer thing! Second gig with the Anagram pedal and I feel I had the EQ dialled in much better this time, punchy and articulate, and the drives sounded much better. I also set MIDI control up with BandHelper to save double footswitch pressing to switch presets. I need to spend a little more time with this. PC changes were fine, but CC changes are hit or miss. Next stop, Cow & Telescope in Southend in two weeks' time (with a much-needed holiday in between).

I think sometimes, it's just the time of the month and year. This Saturday just gone at a regular venue was rather quiet compared to usual. We put it down as the last weekend before payday, compounded by it being the first month after the summer holidays.

I haven't played with it much aside from setting up 2 or 3 alternate tuning scenes, but so far it's performing well. It tracks well down to my open E string, but I notice a little latency depending on how far down you shift on the lower note, but it's perfectly usable for BEAD tuning. My prefered pitch shift on the Helix for bass is the Simple Pitch, which whilst monophonic, tracked better on bass. The newer poly shift blocks had a tradeoff between speed and artefacts depending on the tracking setting. The Anagram is just as accurate as the simple pitch, but polyphonic and no artefacts so far. There's an indepth review on the pitch shift that I found useful

At the Sarah Moore on Saturday night. The 'performance area' in this pub is rather cramped for a band of our size, but as we were a man down (Liam, our co-lead singer was unavailable), it meant I had the opportunity to move from normal 2 square feet stuck behind a guitarist and move up front next to Jenny as I was doing the majority of backing vocals. And I have to say, she did a fantastic job covering both her and his songs, including a couple she had never sung lead on before. This was the first time I used my new Darkglass Anagram outside the house. I decided to tempt fate and leave the Helix at home. I needn't have worried, as the anagram sounded great; besides, the pub is only 5 mins from home, so I could have gone home to get the Helix if I needed it (and I keep a Sonicake Boom Ave in my bag just in case). I still need to tweak several things with my presets and get midi control from Bandhelper up and running. Pressing two footswitches simultaneously to change presets is not the easiest thing to do. But I really appreciated the much smaller and lighter unit by my feet. This will be very useful in tight venues. EDIT: I forgot to mention. My tone sounded fine in soundcheck, but in our first set, my bass sounded muffled and lacked definition. My initial thought was it was due to using the Anagram, and perhaps it wasn't EQ'd in as well as the Helix, so I quickly added some high-end EQ with the Anagram's global EQ. It was only at the last song of the first set that I realised my bass' tone control was rolled nearly all the way off. Doh! I'm sure I'm not the only bassist in the world to have done this and not realise the obvious. The gig itself went well, but the pub was a bit quiet. I put this down to being the last weekend before payday, and the month after, many people have had expensive family holidays. But the manager was very happy with us and hoping to get us back next year, lease pending. Next week, our regular overseas stint at Starr Sports on Canvey Island.

Interesting, whilst I can see the alure of a bigger Anagram (and I reckon DG are already considering it), I've gone totally the opposite way. I'm getting fed up carting my Helix LT around, and I'm going to start integrating midi control from bandhelper to make life easier.

Whilst useless as IEMs, my Apple AirPod Pro 2 are surprisingly effective as earplugs when set to transparency mode, as they have a volume limiter. The only problem is you look a bit of a tit wearing Apple AirPods whilst watching a concert.

Thanks for that. I'm pleased to see my Loop Switch are highly rated, especially at that price.

Is anyone else have ground noise issues using the supplied psu? I only noticed it tonight. The past few days I've had my helix plugged into the same power strip which must have grounded it. I was using my mooer psu for the anagram for a couple of days, then tried the supplied DG one. It's only when playing tonight since packing away the helix yesterday that I noticed so much noise.

I need to look into better footwear for gigs for similar reasons. My right foot rolls inward after rolling my ankle badly some years ago. Often, gigging makes my ankle ache for ages afterwards. Strapping it up helps, but it's not comfortable. My go-to trainers are a pair of Camper Beetles as they're so comfy, but obviously not giving enough support for lengthy standing stints. Having a high instep also limits my choices somewhat - typically, trainers that fit my footshape are too loose around the heel, which starts to slide inward.

Guilty as charged!

No worries. I did try it without cab blocks, but felt it lacked a certain “Je ne sais quoi”, it’s diffult to put your finger on it. That said, I notice most of the effect and/or the amp blocks seem to have a smooth response at the top end, almost as if they have a high cut already applied. I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one scratching my head over the I/O gain. I kinda feel the input needs to be pushed a little more - it would certainly explain why the compressors seem a bit unresponsive - I’m having to crank the input on hte luminal FET compressor. I never really though about it with my Helix, I just added blocks to get the tones I wanted. The resulting signal is bit hotter than going in, but that's just the way they turned out. The Anagram blocks seem to naturally sit at unity gain. Furthermore, the main volume knob on the helix is cut only. I have detached it from the XLR outputs so that FOH get full volume. I'm a little confused with the Anagram's mixer block. I would assume leaving the XLR outputs at 0db would be "unity", but it also has a master volume control that I don't really see the point of. I notice you can unlink the different output from the master volume. I assume that unlinking will achieve the same as disabling the Helix's volume knob. Like you, I need to investigate this further. I haven't been able to A/B these at volume yet, and I'm not likely to before the next gig.

New venue for us at The Winged Horse in Basildon. Pretty much your usual community pub in a busy resential estate, with an array of lively, colourful characters. We were also joined once again by one of our dep singers, Hazel, who did a fantastic job once again. Initially they wanted us to set up in the main bar area, but there's barely space for a duo, let alone a 6 peice band, so we set up in the secondary room. It did however mean we had to compete with the football on the screen in hte main bar. Nevertheless, we played well and had a decent crowd who came through to watch, sing and dance. Only real downside is no body told us it's payment via "Just Pay", not cash. So that's that's going to take a while to come through. Oh well. Next stop, The Sarah Moore in Leigh-on-Sea.- about 15mins walk from my front door.