patdixon

Exactly what it was! I had missed that; Ben Vesco does a nice YT vid on this very thing.

I went from an X3L to Helix LT myself, no way I'd go back. I too was concerned about this but trust me (or don't, find out for yourself) it's way better. I had all 60 songs in our cover band loaded onto 2 banks of the X3L, also 2 presets for church going straight into FOH & didn't think I could do it. It ended up being uber easy, now I can do multiple things with just one button (instead of trying to pedal dance delays, ODs, etc) without even thinking about it live. That impossible solo Slash does halfway through Sweet Child 'O Mine where he engages the wah on the fly? Now I can do it by simply moving the EXP pedal past 5%. The 3 different delays Neal Schon uses on Don't Stop Believing? No problem. You couldn't do that on your X3L. I also have the ability to control my amp's channel switching per preset, very useful in a cover band! It takes some work; you have to get your hands dirty, but it pays off very quickly. There are a ton of knowledgeable folks here, as well as YT vids explaining many things. Just start with one basic preset sound that you like, then build on it. Let HX edit make it easy to copy/paste blocks or even entire presets. BTW, FWIW I'll be 60 next month- not a real quick learner. If I can do it anyone can. I was building homemade Fuzz Faces with Carbon Comp resistors & Germanium transistors not long ago & this technology has helped me tremendously. Good luck & if I can help you at all please post, If I can I'll share anything I've learned.

Not to split hairs, but why do they show a Helix Floor (scribble strips) in the background? I guess if it's free "don't look a gift horse in the mouth" applies, just that we're all a little suspect of anything "free" so you'd think they would consider that before posting. That said, good luck, I hope you win it, because I absolutely love mine!

Thanks, I'll try that!

Didn't put this in the Bug post because it's probably my fault. I have a few presets with the XP1 setup to automatically engage and be in bypass mode for wah. That works fine, but when switching from other presets some lose sound until I rock the vol pedal (EXP2) even though they're not setup this way. Is there possibly a command that I have turned on somewhere that causes this? I can always rock the vol pedal but might be scary in a live situation. Thanks for any responses.

Sorry to hear that. I have an LT also but haven't experienced that on mine. Most of my problems are operator error :o)

Since you've only had it since Aug I'd open up a service ticket.

So with it on and hooked up in 4cm do you also have guitar sound with the hum, or just hum alone? What if you just go straight into the amp input from the left/mono 1/4 output jack, any difference?

I watched this several times and was a tremendous help getting started:

I agree with the above comments. Flyboy 101 has a good point about the manual- less marketing hype (you've already bought it) and more down to earth how tos would be nice but it's what we have to work with. Watch every video from Jason Sadites, Glenn DeLaune, Paul Hindmarsh (Line 6) & Richie Castellano. A wealth of good info; I'm sure there are others. Nothing can replace experience, but you don't want to learn on the gig. One idea- grab an unused preset and name it "test" or something. Then do a whole bunch of stuff that you'd never actually do, then don't save it. Create some multiple amp/cab sims, assign some bypassed blocks to control some parameters, use one switch to control multiple fx simultaneously, etc. You get the idea, since you're not going to use that preset you (probably) won't do any harm. And if after doing this your HX edit won't backup properly remove all of the blocks and start over. The guys over in the "that pedal show" YT channel have a saying that applies here: "Gotta get your hands dirty". Good luck & enjoy your new Helix!

Okay, got it. It works, great. The 3.3v was no problem at all & now I can change amp channels &/or reverb at will. If the footswitch supplied with your amp doesn't have LED indicators you don't even have to worry about it at all. Just hook up a TRS (or TS if only one sw) cable to the EXP2 jack then follow the manual pages 51/53 first, then 47/48. If your Helix footswitch lights up backwards from the state you expect (ie; lit when clean / reverb off, dark when OD / reverb on) Richie Castellano did a nice YT video showing how to fake out the switch by assigning a "dummy" block which you can then bypass, allowing you to flip the state. Here's a link: Start around 6:00 for this tip Thanks for the response Don. Please remember guys, what may seem stupid easy for you may be worlds away from some of us. My main concern was damaging my LT & it could've ended way worse if the LED voltage was routed to internal Helix processing.

I asked this over in the Blackstar forum also, no response yet. The manual says to be careful when hooking up to ext amps, making sure they're "short to sleeve". The BS HT40 I have does this so I should be okay. "Should" because I measure 3.3v from tip to sleeve (OD channel) & ring to sleeve (reverb) coming from the amp sw jack when both are turned on. When the switches are toggled on the amp footswitch the 3.3v shorts to ground turning off the LEDs & deactivating either one or both. I think using a TRS cable should work fine to switch both from the LT. Can someone please let me know if you've done this & it's no problem, and/or that the LT uses relay switching and therefore the 3.3v won't hurt it. I don't mean to make a big deal out of nothing but also don't want to screw up my new Helix. As always, any responses appreciated.

I had the same thing on my LT- it was 3 bad presets. Since I only had 9 new ones it was easy, a variation of the steps above; I exported them one at a time and sure enough, the 3 bad ones wouldn't export. I cleared all blocks in each one then copied them from a good one, renaming them as before. I don't know what was wrong but it doesn't matter, it works for now. * * I didn't do a factory reset, etc. but realize the importance of doing it if anything else happens. Thank you so much!

Okay, so the plot thickens. In either manual or signal view* bypass mode (with no toe switch engaged so no wah function) the sound changes when pressing the bypass button. This tells me that the signal is routed through the wah anytime it's not bypassed. I guess there are 3 different wah states: Bypassed, no wah and vol pedal on EXP 2 Wah block lit (un-bypassed) but still vol pedal on EXP 2 (this alters the sound) Unbypassed, wah engaged (EXP 1) & no vol pedal I can switch from vol to wah simply by pressing hard on the toe switch, no problem. The problem is when I try to use the manual bypass function with the EXP. It automatically unbypasses the wah, which seems to be altering the sound. I really don't like that so if this is normal I just can't use the manual function. *I realize I may not be saying things correctly, but hopefully I'm explaining what is happening. Thanks again.

If the idle state of every other preset is 100%, the preset with the wah is about 75. Using a Teardrop 310 and the lvl is @ 0.0db. I haven't tried increasing the level because this happens when the wah is off (manually bypassed). I can try that but I assumed that in the off mode the signal wouldn't be affected by it. Not sure I explained it well but this happens when no wah is engaged on every preset, the only difference is that I can "hard" bypass it in signal view & the level comes up to normal. In Manual Bypass mode even though the wah is disengaged it still lowers the vol. I'll try increasing the lvl on the EXP bypass \ed preset & report back. Thanks,

Thanks!

I mentioned in an earlier post that I really like the manual bypass option for the wah. I've been burned by the toe switch on both the X3L & my old Cry Baby so this is a great option. I noticed some presets were at a much lower vol level and traced it to the wah block. I can of course bypass the block (I did on all of the other presets) and that fixes it but that defeats the purpose. Does anyone know if there is another way to do it, or am I doing something wrong? I followed the directions at the top of page 42 in the manual. Bypass Assign / wah block: Knob 1 (Switch) set to EXP1 Knob 2 set to 5% Knob 3 set to 300ms As always, thanks for any help given.

'the hell's a SCART?

"This is what they did for the switches on the X3L, for example" You mean I bought a bag of one hundred of these (smallest Qty I could find) & replaced them myself for nothing? Oh well, having carnal knowledge of it didn't hurt me, maybe it made me appreciate my LT more. To the OP, only had mine a week or so but if I have any EXP issues I'll report it- so far it seems fairly robust.

Maybe snapshots? The manual says "As soon as you alter a new snapshot... the snapshot becomes "active" and remembers any changes. Then "switch back to the snapshot you started with- Helix instantly and seamlessly returns to its previous state". I really don't know but this sounds like a viable workaround...

Now I understand your "shingles flying off the roof" comment on my HXFX post last week spikey. I must be honest and clear- there was nothing wrong with my HXFX- it was my PC. Both GC & L6 have both been very nice to me and I have zero complaints. I'll be 60 in June & the first to admit that all this technical stuff is hard but I love my new LT and give me some time & I'll be blowin' their faces off on gigs. In retrospect I think the FX is great idea, maybe a few bugs to work out but here to stay I hope. If I can ever help anyone here I'm more than willing to share any experience I've had, good or bad.

So you veterans probably already know all of this, but I absolutely love the manual bypass (pg 41~43) and momentary switching option (pg 45). We do 2 songs in our cover band that require me to 1) quickly turn on the wah; and 2) have a momentary delay. The switching on the ole' X3L was inconsistent & sometimes I'd miss it (not cool). The delay thing was okay but better with momentary switching. I haven't even gotten around to amp/cab modeling or multi paths. The Aqualung preset was a nice touch, IMO! Still trolling the YT vids, those guys all make it look so easy! If anyone has links to good info please post them- I've learned a lot from what I've already seen but I know there is a wealth of stuff out there. Please be patient with us newbies, it's quite a lot to take in at first...

Thank you my friend. Now I can enjoy my new Helix LT. The other PC was unable to update. I need a beer...

Thanks Silverhead!!

I'm in a good place right now because: A. I haven't really saved anything (couple of cool tricks I learned in the Template but I can duplicate those) B. the screen says 2.20 on the LT display but I haven't connected to a PC yet. I'd like your input on the best, cleanest way to download the drivers, updates, etc. I know where the link is but it's not clear which of the available options to choose ie; updater, drivers, version etc. Is it best just to load the drivers then see what happens or let it tell me what it needs, or go ahead & load everything first? Thanks for any help given.