Hello Helix/HX owners!
We have some important info for those of you planning on updating to Helix Stadium/XL from Helix/HX devices:
- Make sure your Helix/HX has been updated to 3.50 or newer firmware BEFORE you export any of your stuff
- Helix Stadium cannot import full-state BACKUPS from Helix/HX. However, you can extract Presets, IRs, and Favorites (which all CAN be loaded into Helix Stadium) from a backup file via HX Edit, even if you don’t have Helix/HX hardware. From HX Edit’s File menu, select "Extract Files From Backup.”
- If you still have your Helix/HX hardware (or Helix Native), presets, IRs, and even favorites can be dragged out of HX Edit/Helix Native to your desktop or any finder window and then dragged back into Stadium via the Helix Stadium app
- We’ve mentioned this before, but note that the older Hybrid cab engine is NOT in Helix Stadium—only the new cab engine that came with 3.50 and later builds. Any presets with Hybrid cabs will automatically load an equivalent new cab, which will sound different.
- Also note that, at least at launch, Stadium won't be able to automap your IR library to existing presets, due to its all new, much more powerful file system. Unfortunately, you'll need to write down which IR(s) each preset uses. We're hoping that automapping might work in a future FW rev (depending on how annoying it is), but there's no promise—much less timeline—implied.
- There are a few other minor caveats (select HX EQ models appearing as our new 7-band Parametric, EQ bandwidth and slope improvements, pan laws, parallel vs. serial levels, single vs. dual cab levels, etc.) but we're currently working on a document (and accompanying video perhaps?) called something like "Getting Ready For Helix Stadium” which will provide details
So while transferring presets from Helix/HX to Stadium may not be perfectly seamless, Helix/HX presets are actually sounding a bit better in Stadium, which can be apparent in reverb tails, noise level, headroom, etc.