amsdenj

I too wish some of the X3 amps and effects make it into Helix, especially at least one of the preamp models for acoustic instruments. Helix hardware is too flexible to leave this important capability out. The EQ blocks aren't a substitute since the tone controls are not voiced for acoustic instruments making them inconvenient to setup and use live. For recording, I also record dry, but no longer use POD Farm having replaced it with S-Gear from www.scuffhamamps.com. S-Gear is really fantastic.

I would also very much like to have a real desktop and iPad editor for Helix. But I'm very happy that Lice 6 didn't design the Helix UI to need an external editor. This is because it's so important to be able to edit easily in live situations to tweek the patches that sound different live then they did in your music room by yourself at low volume. I'm happy to wait for an editor and am glad Line 6 didn't delay shipping Helix until the editor was done.

1) As above, you can control the input gain from global settings. But there's no metering or clip indicator. 2) I haven't really used the Mic input that much as I use a TC Helicon Harmony G-XT into Helix returns 3/4. That does indeed sound very good. 3) The preamp block is useful for some voicing - primarily using the drive to provide some saturation distortion, and using the low and high-pass filters for mid-focus voicing. But this preamp doesn't have tone controls voiced of acoustic or vocal instruments. So far, POD HD500X and Helix have avoided providing the nice preamp models that were in the POD X3Live. I do hope this is addressed in a future update. It would make Helix much more flexible and usable for a wider range of instruments.

I wouldn't necessarily expect the HD500 and Helix models to sound the same at the same settings, they're different models and the numbers might not relate that closely. Helix also has different I/O and might produce a wider frequency response. I find the Valve Drive distortion in Helix to be quite bright, and useful as a first stage gain boost. When using it for distortion, expect to have to turn the treble down quite a bit when going into the front of an amp. You've probably set your amp for your desired clean sound and that is probably actually quite bright. You'll need to compensate for that with the tone controls on the distortion effect to give more of a mid focus, cutting both highs and lows. Try the Fulton OCD and ProCo Rat models, these are actually quite musical in Helix.

The Roland JC120 uses all-boost tone controls very similar to the design in typical Fender amplifiers. I don't find these tone controls that useful on acoustic instruments since there's no way to cut anything. It is possible to simulate a cut by boosting everything else, but that's a good way to create feedback problems in acoustic instruments. Acoustic instruments might benefit more from Hi-Fi tone controls that boost/cut and do so somewhat more gradually. Cutting things you don't want will often provide better results than boosting things you do want. This partly because of gain staging issues and phase distortion. The PODX3Live had some preamp models that would be quite useful in Helix for acoustic instruments. I hope to see some of these added in future updates.

Give that Taylor IR I linked to above a try with your piezo pickups. You might be be very pleasantly surprised. It should add more body tone to the pickup.

If you're ok with editing JSON files, you can create effect presets on Helix, export them with the Helix app, then copy and paste the effects into separate files. Then when you create a patch, you can copy and past the presets into the patch on your computer then import back into Helix. The JSON files with a text editor are like a simple, low-level editor. I do this quite a lot, especially for making a series of patches that differ in a few ways, but have some common effect that I have decided to change based on experience using them live.

There are a few here: http://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?threads/free-ir-files.1552290/

You need a body IR if your acoustic guitar uses a piezo pickup. The piezo doesn't pickup much of the body of the guitar, and adding internal microphones tends to add way too much bass and feedback. With a piezo pickup into a body IR, you can use a sound hole cover and reduce feedback even more.

No, it only has low-pass and high-pass filters. What we need is a preamp that has tone controls specifically designed or voiced for acoustic guitar. There are other EQ blocks that can come close, but they are general purpose, not designed for acoustic guitar. To some extent this is just convenience. But its nice to have fit for purpose tone controls and a gain/drive control in the same block. Support for acoustic guitar should include an acoustic preamp and some guitar body impulse responses. I have created something close by capturing some IRs from my Fishman Aura Spectrum DI and using a couple of parametric EQ blocks. This clearly indicates the usefulness of Helix for acoustic guitar. I hope Line 6 follows up on this in future updates.

I found it, its the preset numbering option in the Global Display settings. Forgot where it was.

The ability to change the preset numbering 01A to 000 seems to have been removed.

I bought a Fishman Aura Spectrum DI pedal this week and have successfully transformed Aura images into IRs imported into Helix using Logic Pro X Impulse Response Utility. Compairing the IR block to an FX block using Aura with the same patch is indistinguishable. The next trick is choosing the right image so I have a good acoustic patch in Helix. I'm using a Martin 00C-AE that has a Fishman Classic 4 pickup system. The Aura library has an image that closely matches that guitar, so I tried that one. What I found was surprising. Through headphones the Aura patch and/or converted IR sound wonderful through Helix. Its amazing what an IR can do. However, through a FRFR, it was close to unusable. The problem is that a Martin body models seem to emphasize the lower mids, around 200Hz, making the guitar ring and easily feedback when played through speakers - even using a sound hole cover. Notably, when using the 00C with the Aura, adding the sound hole cover didn't change the tone that much making it a useful way of controlling feedback in a live situation. It seems that for live use, it is better to pick an Image/IR that sounds good, and not worry too much about whether its the image for your particular guitar. When choosing an Image, its important to audition them using the setup you'll use live, making sure the guitar is interacting with the speakers. That is, if you use use the looper to capture samples off the pickup so you can audition hands free, make sure the guitar input is still active so any feedback will be noticed. Different images make a big difference in terms of feedback.

I'm using Helix as a USB Audio/MIDI interface into Apple MainStage and Logic Pro X. MainStage is used to get other amp model and effects, and a longer looper. I use S-Gear a log, although Helix sounds very good too. I have tried using Logic Pro X as a digital mixer for the whole band with my three instruments coming through Helix, the rest through a Persons 16.0.2. This is useful for getting multi-track live recordings. It works, but is a lot to deal with in a live situation with no additional support. Helix is a great audio/MIDI interface, and unlike the HD500X, does support USB MIDI, and has a lot more flexibility in mapping the footswitches.

Did my first live gig with Helix yesterday. I had a week to get my patches created. My band, No Worries, plays three sets where I play a different instrument in each set: mandolin, acoustic guitar (variax 700 acoustic) and electric (Strat Deluxe). I had been using an HD500X. It was OK, but I spent forever tweaking the patches and never got them just right - they always seemed just one small tweak away, but I could never get there. My experience with Helix was entirely different. First I noticed that all the patches translated well from my music room at home to live outdoors. That wasn't always the case with the HD500X. The tones on all instruments seemed rich and full. Tweaks didn't seem to be needed - you could make them, but the tones seemed pretty good no matter what the settings were, they sounded different, but all sounded pretty good. This is the same experience I had with S-Gear. There are lots of things to tweak, but everything sounds good and inspiring. Its nice to see Helix has gotten there too. I used the Minotaur distortion block on the mandolin for some solos and it was really nice. It fattened up the mandolin and gave it a nice natural and even warm sustain. I play slide mandolin on a couple of songs and the Minotaur made that work very nicely. I've struggled getting a good tone out of the variax 700 acoustic and the HD500X. But it was no problem with Helix. I use a 6dB cut at around 3.6kHz and that's about it. The tone was full and natural, and I really like how the 700 acoustic plays. I'd still like to see an acoustic guitar amp added to helix, something that has tone controls voiced for acoustic instruments. But the Strat was the real eye opener. I'm using a modified version of JazzInc's Two Rock patch and IR. His choice of speaker and mic works very well for the warmer electric tones I need as No Worries transitions from Bluegrass/Americana to more bluesy songs in the third set. It works especially well at lower volumes, keeping a nice warm, fat tone even in quieter settings. So far I am very pleased with Helix. Line 6 seems to have created a really nice product.

Check your track inputs. I think with that Helix patch the dry guitar is USB 7 and dry vocal is USB 8.

I'm really liking the Helix effects. They all sound and respond really well and are very realistic. I like them so much that I created a traditional pedal board patch to run into the front of my really old Fender Showman amp and its fantastic. Also experimenting with Redwirez speaker IRs, I found the old Showam D130 model sounds pretty good with Heliz and a Fender Deluxe. That's the cabinet that came with that old Showman amp. Its been replace many years ago with 2 Clestion G12-65 speakers. Nice to use Helix to breath new life into that old amp. Helix is feeling like a really big step in the right direction. You can tell because tones are easy to achieve without making you feel like you constantly one tweek away from what you're looking for. Thanks Line6 for breaking out of the price point and design constraints and creating something special.

I've found all the compressors work well and as expected. They are much better than the HD500X or older POD units both in terms of performance, sound quality, control and flexibility.

I haven't played with SPD/IF on Helix yet, but have many times with HD500X. The sample rate set in Helix applies to all digital inputs, USB and SPD/IF. The bug is that Helix I thing currently only works on 48000Hz sample rate. You can change the sample rate in Global Settings, but I don't think this as any effect - Mac OS X El Capitan or Yosemite don't see the change an only allow selection of 48000Hz. So that's the only available sample rate for now as far as I can tell. I also use 44.1kHz, but I don't use Helix for recording, so this isn't a problem. I use a Safire Pro 40 and S-Gear for my digital amp for recording. Helix is only for live playing.

The sensitivity of this control to rotation needs to be addressed. It is not reasonable for a control to be this sensitive and result in inadvertant parameter changes that are hard to notice while adjusting something that is on the floor with a guitar in your hands, picks to control, and playing in a live situation. Line6 needs to address this usability issue.

I do have this same problem on Mac OS X. This is just a bug and will likely be addressed.

Right, because they're expecting typical guitar pedals. You might have to try it and see what works best with your amp effects input. If your master volume is unusually high or low, try a different setting in Helix.

I think that's a reasonable approach. I don't use Helix for reamping, preferring instead to use S-Gear for recordings. But If I did, and I only needed a patch or two in real time, I'd probably just change the inputs and output of the patch, then put them back.

I map a footswitch to a low & high cut EQ, with max and min values, and amp drive with max an min values. When the switch is off, I set the low cut to around 80Hz and gain to be reasonably clean. When the switch is on I set the low cut to about 160 to 200 Hz, and the gain to provide the minimum amount of distortion needed for the song. This keeps the distortion from being muddy or "ratty" where too much bass creates intermodulation distortion with the mids and highs that don't sound that good.

The way I gain stage Helix is to start with no blocks in the patch. Add blocks one at a time and make sure each one is unity gain when on. That way when a lot of effects are turned on together, there's no chance of gain buildup resulting in digital clipping. If I need a boost, then I bring something else that's going to be relatively constant down to establish a new "bias", then there's room to turn something else up to do a boost. Its similar to EQ when mixing, cut the things you don't want instead of boosting the things you do want. But I agree that some cliping indicator would be nice unless there's so much headroom in Helix that it doesn't matter.