Headrush FRFR-112 Powered Monitor

review
LINE 6 POWERCAB 112 PLUS & HEADRUSH FRFR-112
104
Guitarist november 2018
LINE 6 POWERCAB 112 PLUS &
HEADRUSH FRFR-112
£799 & £299
What You Need To Know
What is FRFR?
It’s generally taken to mean ‘Full
Range, Flat Response’. These days, it’s
usually applied to powered monitors
used to reproduce the sound of
amp and effects modelling devices.
Conventional guitar amps and
speakers deliberately colour the input
signal, which is the last thing you want
if you’ve spent ages creating your
favourite sound in the digital domain.
We know Line 6, but HeadRush?
A relatively new player to the market,
HeadRush is part of the inMusic
group of brands, which also includes
Alesis, Akai and Alto. The HeadRush
Pedalboard has proved a runaway
success, with arguably the best user
interface of any modelling floorboard,
and sounds powered by the Eleven
HD DSP software.
So, who would buy one of these?
Any guitarist who owns a modelling
preamp and wants to reproduce its
sounds cleanly on stage, without
the need for in-ear monitoring. The
Powercab 112 Plus is a more specialist
product aimed at owners of Line 6’s
Helix, while the HeadRush FRFR can
work with just about any preamp, in
any size of venue.
D
uring the last decade or so,
digital amplification and effects
modelling has properly come of
age, with software and hardware capable
of producing convincing amp-like sounds
that are hard to separate from the real thing.
There’s also been a significant advance
at the guitar end of the signal chain, with
products such as Line 6’s Variax capable of
sounding like a multitude of instruments
in any tuning you like, all at the touch of
a button. At the other end of the chain,
we’ve seen the development of IR (impulse
response) technology, to mimic the
dynamics of different speaker cabinets and
microphone arrangements.
While many companies package their
digital products in conventional-looking
plywood boxes with speakers, the
professional end of the market is tending
towards all-in-one rack or floorboard
controllers, such as Line 6’s Helix or the
HeadRush Pedalboard, which are portable
and output directly to a PA without the
need for microphones. This is an ideal
setup for the modern ‘quiet stage’ approach,
where performers use in-ear monitoring,
but for more conventional live use some
kind of local monitoring is needed, ideally
something that won’t colour your carefully
constructed amp sounds.
One abbreviation doing the rounds at the
moment is ‘FRFR’, which stands for ‘Full
Range, Flat Response’. In simpler terms,
this means a powered PA-style monitor,
so you can plug your amp modeller into
a PA but still have a volume knob you can
turn up when you need to – after all, we are
guitarists! There’s always more than one
pathway to tone where amp modelling is
concerned, and this month we’re looking
at two very different approaches: the new
Powercab 112 Plus from market leaders
1
2
3
The Powercab Plus’s clean, modern
design is also very functional, with
rounded rear corners and a front port
to reduce internal reflections and
improve bass response and projection
CONTACT Yamaha Music Europe / HeadRush Europe PHONE [phone] WEB line6.com / headrushfx.com
GIT439.rev_l6_hr_cabs.indd 104 03/10/2018 16:27