Leaderboard

Playin my Kemper ;P lol

I think that's been the greatest benefit for me. It has inspired and motivated me to experiment, learn new things, and just play more, because of all the options on a Helix and the quality of sound. I can't say I'm playing a LOT more than I was; some, for sure. But I'm definitely doing more focused and productive practicing, and learning, when for the longest time I've just been goofing. I was having fun goofing and there's nothing wrong with that, but I'm enjoying this change. I'm spending much less time on the computer, and zero time gaming, and spending most of my solo free time learning about Helix and experimenting. I feel like I am at 'Progression Level 2%', and that's ok.

Thank you everyone for the super helpful advice. I have been playing guitar for over 20 years now but am still such an amateur on everything, especially gear. I only understand about 1/4 of everything the LT can do and what it means (signal chain, wet/dry/wet, 4 cable - might as well be speaking Cantonese) so I know me having this LT is like giving a Ferrari to a toddler but being able to really clone my favorite sounds (metallica, randy, coheed & cambria, etc.) makes me all the more motivated to play and learn. So again, I really appreciate everyone taking the time to reply and for the super helpful advice.

Just saw we had an update- FAST this time around! Smooth as butter installing too! Thanks!

Thanks guys. I did wonder...

Try using the Helix updater to do it offline. That seems to be what people have done in your situation. You are supposed to update it through HX Edit but others have had your experience as well.

All of the above. BUT, to maximize what you've got, using 4cm and swapping the Katana's Preamps with Helix Preamps (or full amps, whatever sounds best) by having the FX Loop Block and your Helix pre/amp asssigned to the same footswitch so that one is ON when the other is OFF is most flexible. As others have said, for home use, stereo is BIG FUN! You don't need to blow the rent to get a decent pair of studio monitors. Yamaha and JBL are very popular. I have KRK. AND, if you can swing a sub in the deal, even better!

Don't use Cab modals in the LT. I forgot to add that.

You could go Four Cable method with your Katana, And (I think?) swap out the pre amp from the Katana to something different

And the sweet stereo delays and verbs will sound awesome

+1 on monitors. If you'll be sitting/standing in the same area, monitors will give you the most accurate sound in a typical room. That's what they're designed for.

It would be smart for home use to get some good studio monitors, If you are playing small gigs than just go direct to PA. But in my opinion and many others, Go for monitors!!

There was a hotfix patch released, 2.91, that you should install.

Well... as far as "protecting piracy" a get it, and don't begrudge Line6 on this. It's the buggy implementation. ;) I created a macOS Automator App (attached) that removes the Session Key for you when you try to run it tomorrow and get the Spinning Beach Ball of Death again. Native De-Beach.zip

I also got a Trio+ from my wife and I spent the past couple of days trying to figure out how best hook it up to Helix. Due to the way Trio+ routes guitar internally and how it forces you to use TWO outputs if you do not want to apply cabinet emulation to the drums (which would make them sound awful) or to the guitar (which would force you to disable cabs in Helix), I could not figure out a way do this without sacrificing TWO effect loops (good news is... we still have two effect loops left). I have uploaded a patch to custom tone that shows you how I got mine setup (link at the bottom of this post). Basically, the Trio+ requires the clean guitar signal to "learn" each song part and it has an "effects loop" where you put your effects (I basically put virtually the entire Helix patch in the Trio+ effects loop). Then I get the Trio+ "amp out" (guitar + looper, no cab emulation) and feed it back to the Helix and sum it to the Trio+ "mixer out" (bass + drums). Why did I waste 2 FX loops on the Helix when I could've done it all in one, you say? Well, I could've plugged the guitar straight into the Trio+ and saved me an FX loop, but I have a Variax and wanted to use all of its features and control it via Helix *and* wanted the Helix's expression pedal to control volume for both the Trio+ and the Helix... hence my convoluted routing. Finally, the Trio+ is mono unless using the headphones out, so the patch will also be mono. There is no way around this unless the Trio+ is fed out of the headphones jack straight into the mixer separately from the Helix. So cabling as follows: Helix Trio+ Send1 ---} Guitar In Return1 {--- AMP Out Send2 ---} FX Return Return2 {--- Mixer Out Patch can be found in CustomTone: http://line6.com/customtone/tone/2152016/