amsdenj

Maybe it's a matter of realistic expectations. Do the Variax models sound as good as their real counterparts? No, they don't. And there's some variability in different guitars that result from variability in the piezo pickups, how well the neck is attached to the body, quality of the setup, etc. So I'd never claim that I love to listen to the Variax models when playing by myself while practicing. Nor would I be too motivated to record with them. But gigging in a live band situation - nothing beats Variax, nothing. The flexibility of the models, tunings and MIDI control is just fantastic. And in that context, with a full band, playing in anger for an audience, I really doubt if anyone could tell the difference between a Variax model and the real thing. If you're Matt Schofield, you're not going to use a Variax. But if you're playing in club bands semi professionally, you can't beat a Variax. I have a 60 year old Les Paul, a very nice Strat Deluxe, a Tele and a Epi Sheraton Pro - all really fantastic guitars. For gigging, I always bring my JTV-69S as my main guitar, and rotate the others just because I love them and want to play them. The JTV really does all I need for gigs and always gets the most playing time. But that Tele... It's new to me, and I'm really loving it. That Tele quack really seems to speak to me. I haven't gigged with it yet, but will soon. I get that its always the new guitar that gets the attention. But this feels different to me.

What would work is block links instead of copy. In a patch, you would add a link to a block in another patch, not a copy. Then any changes to the target block would be see in all the blocks that like to it automatically. Helix doesn't support block links yet. Hopefully it will someday. In the absence of that, you have to redo the copy paste to propagate changes. That's a pain, but not that difficult with Helix Native and HX Edit open at the same time.

Rumor has it that 2.9 HX Stomp will have 8 blocks! This will really increase the utility of HX Stomp for me and make it a more viable option or backup for gigging. 8 blocks will allow me to add an always on compressor and Wah to my existing patches. Very wonderful news.

My HX Stomp got stomped on at rehearsal the other night and the top encoder knob shaft got bent. This caused the encoder to turn hard. I just bent it back with no problem, at least so far. It appears that these encoders are well attached to the chassis and can stand to be stepped on and bent a few times. I don't recommend it of course, but was happy that HX Stomp could withstand this potentially common issue.

You could also create template patches and "global block" sets in Helix Native, and use these with simple copy/paste to Helix, HX Effects and/or HX Stomp patches using HX Edit. This is just another way of saving the block parameters.

Excellent analysis. @codamedia, your contributions are always great, thanks. One more consideration might be pickup height. If all the guitars are setup the same, its possible pickup height is the issue. Try lowering the pickups to improve responsiveness and tone.

Testing a lot of IRs can be very tedious and unrewarding. A lot of them will sound pretty similar and you can go nuts trying to figure out which one you like best. What you need is some way of filtering things down to smaller sets of things that have discernible differences. Start with thinking about the tone you want based on your experience, preferences, song styles, type of guitar, preferred pickup, etc. All tone starts with the source. Then see what other players whose tone you like are using. Watch live concerts and see what mic they are using and where its placed. Next pick the kind of speaker you want, one that is generally known to be able to produce the kinds of tones you want. This can take some research to read about different speakers and how they sound, as well as look up speaker comparisons, especially those with audio so you can get familiar with how different speakers sound. Next pick the kind of mic you want based on what you're trying to get out of the speaker. If its loud rock, an SM-57 will work fine. If you want something warmer, go with an R121 or some other ribbon mic. If its clean jazz, probably any condenser mic will work. All the mics will sound different, even mics of the same type (dynamic, condenser, ribbon). But these three will have the biggest differences and will help zero in on what you're looking for. Finally consider mic placement. This has a big impact on tone and can give a lot of different tones even with the same speaker and mic. Closer mic'd will have more boomy low end because of proximity effect. Closer to the center will be brighter. Start with 1" and cap-edge and move from there. This approach should narrow down 1000s of IRs to 10 or so. Load these up and play through them at gig level. Pick one and stick with it for a while. Playing is much more fun that worrying about the perfect IR you might be missing.

I add an IR or Cab block to the patch. If I have a patch that uses the powercab speaker models, I bypass the IR or Cab block. If I need to go directly to the PA (no Powercab), I turn the IR or Cab block on. I don't like copying patches because its too hard to keep them all updated. I wish Helix allowed block links to blocks shared across patches.

Check the impedance setting for the patch. Guitar pickups are very sensitive to impedance. Low Z settings can result in a very dull tone. I leave mine at 1M all the time.

When mine broke, I found the center piece on the floor and glued it back in with super glue. Its been OK for over a year now. Next time it breaks, I'll send it in for repair.

Try using Heir Apparent very early in your signal chain as a tone shaper for you guitar. Use low drive, unity gain, and tone/presence to tailor the overall tone of your guitar. Leave this block on all the time.

I think you can use controller assignments to send PC messages from Helix Floor to Helix Native. See https://jimamsden.wordpress.com/2017/12/28/creating-logic-pro-x-controller-assignments/ for details. Logic's controller assignments are powerful, but complex, and user, not project based.

I wouldn't recommend it. The speaker models in Powercab are designed to work with the stock speaker. Using a different speaker might not necessarily sound bad, but it probably wouldn't sound like the speakers that were modeled.

It's quiet when powered through VDI, but makes a lot of noise when turned if powered by the internal battery or through the 1/4" jack using the old Variax power supply. Any ideas what might cause that? Sounds to me like there's DC getting on the pot, but that shouldn't happen unless there's a short somewhere.

In theory, it doesn't matter where the IR is as long as everything after it in the signal chain is linear. Any block in the signal chain that introduces distortion should be before the IR.