DunedinDragon

This is all so silly that it's almost laughable. I record daily through my Helix which is connected via USB to my Windows 10 computer. In addition I have two separate keyboards (88 key electronic stage piano and a 48 key MIDI controller keyboard) connected via separate USB ports to a hub connected to my Windows computer. My Helix serves as my general audio interface and that's where my studio speakers are connected as well as my headphones. That's the entirety of my setup and I do tons of multiple track projects weekly consisting of multiple guitar, bass, banjo tracks along with pianos, organs, Fender Rhodes, Wurlitzer piano, string sections, horn sections, drums, 244 piece orchestra, harmonicas, choirs, pedal steel, country fiddle, a wide array of synthesizers...and tons more. There's no fancy hardware other than my Helix with a USB connection and a powered USB hub for any other instruments I need to record. I configure my DAW to work with my Helix ASIO and everything just works with no serious latency. Honestly the issue here is thinking you need to have a bunch of extraneous physical hardware to do any kind of serious recording and that's simply not true at all.

It's been a long time since I did this but as I remember the secret was to use snapshots to change the Key and Scale parameters during the lead so they harmonized correctly over the chord pattern.

I personally think this is well outside the range of what Helix as a product and Line 6 as a company do. There are any number of external devices that specialize in such things and they specialize for many reasons. One of which is having access to virtual instrument libraries which is a considerable task and an essential part of augmenting live performances with additional instruments or synths. The band I'm with has been doing this sort of thing for 3 years now and Helix (as a guitar processing unit) fits nicely into that situation and is greatly simplified by being under programmatic control of that system. But when I originally began trying to develop the abilities using the Helix as the centerpiece it fell way short of what was necessary to be competitive so I moved on to more specialized setups from companies that are built to address that kind of stuff. I do use the iConnectivity PlayAudio12 device for track routing and MIDI routing and realtime failover which is spectacularly useful, but well outside the range of what the Helix was built to do. Keyboard players with high end workstations can certainly do such things these days, but there's a reason they're three times the price of the top Helix unit. There are other units made for this sort of thing that are finger pad triggered such as Native Instruments Maschine and others if you want to have a dedicated person on stage triggering things but they don't have keyboard skills.

I may be wrong but I always assumed the Helix devices were all at 48K as far as the USB interface, but I could be wrong since I never use anything but 48k. The link you provided has the firmware update for the Helix, but that's not specifically a USB driver. That USB driver is contained as part of the FW upgrade. I do know, from the activity in other forums, there are a number of vendors that are having problems which are supposedly still being worked on with their direct USB interfaces with Macs depending on the Mac, its OS level and it's configuration. You might want to investigate that and see if there's a known fix.

Personally I don't worry about the volume knob. In global in/outs I disable the volume knob and I set the output of my XLR to Mic level. This presents a consistent signal level to the mixing board which can then be gain staged appropriately with all other inputs. This also removes the possibility of the volume knob on the Helix getting changed by accident. What this also means is you need to develop a method of keeping your presets at a consistent level so changing presets doesn't dramatically affect the level going into the mixer. In my case I have the mixing board we use so I can use the signal level meter to help me when dialing in a preset. You also have a built in signal meter in your Helix so that if you select the output block of your preset you can get a reasonable idea of how hot your signal is and can adjust it using the output level on the output block, or adjusting your amp model's channel volume which doesn't affect your tone. This becomes pretty important since all the Helix amp models are based on the actual circuits in the real amp so their setting will vary considerably as far as output levels. Going direct into your Headrush speaker is only going to allow you to set your level by ear. It takes a while to get a feel for how to adjust your levels so they're consistent but it has an advantage of making it easy at gig time when everything needs to be gain staged at sound check. As an added note you should also make sure you set the gain knob on your speaker to 50% or 12 0'clock as well as that is basically unity level for the speaker's amp. You should also check that you have the Headrush set for Mic level input rather than Line level input which is the default setting were you to have it connected to a mixing board. This is actually a fairly broad subject with lots of different ways to do it. Mine is just one way to do it but it's worked for me since 2015 when I first started using my Helix. I might suggest you invest in Craig Anderton's "Big Book of Helix Tips & Tricks" available as an online download from Sweetwater. It's a one time investment but it constantly gets updated and you can download all updates for free and it has all the nitty gritty details about how to best use you Helix in all sorts of areas.

I might go a step further in saying there was never any feeling of "amp in the room" was nonsense back in the 60's, 70's and on. That's all we knew and there really wasn't any viable alternative to it. Even as the technology matured it was very hard to leave that paradigm behind because it was taking a huge step of faith into the great unknown. Even as late as 2010 I would have thought if anyone had told me I'd be working in a band today with no amps on stage and everyone going direct to the mixing board using just stage monitors I'd say they were out of their minds. And yet, here I am. And it wasn't because I was so dissatisfied with what I had. It was more about curiosity of what it could be.

I honestly think that one of the key reasons I never felt I lost anything by moving away from physical cabinets is that I spent almost an equal amount of time over the years playing on stage and dialing in the consistent sound being heard by the audience from the PA or in a studio. Those "warts" in a cabinet were always something I battled against as a soundman when playing on stage, so I was never happier than when I found out I could get there so simply just using an FRFR approach.

I think this is really the core of the problem that frustrates a lot of people. I've never had any problem getting the tone I want through whatever amp and cab/ir models I use because I'm trying to match the sound I hear from either recorded or live performances (which are pretty much the same) not the stage sound which only the band hears. That's relatively easy especially now since the release of 3.6. Because of that it's much easier to get a good mix with all of the instruments for both the audience as well as through the stage monitors on a very consistent basis regardless of the style of music. It certainly doesn't disappoint the audience because that's the sound they've always been used to hearing.

According to your own description you first updated HX Edit to 3.6. Then you updated Helix Native to 3.6. Then restarted Helix LT, but you never mentioned updating your Helix LT. If that's the case, of course your Helix LT isn't updated to 3.6. You have to go through update to the 3.6 firmware using HX Edit 3.6 which involved doing the backup, doing the firmware install, and doing the reboot of the Helix LT....THOSE are the instructions.

I guess it comes down to individual perspective. I've been playing my Helix for almost 8 years now and I'll admit to having had Helix burnout at one point. But for me it was never really burnout from the Helix, but burnout from live performance. What changed things for me was making the leap from doing live performances the way I'd been doing it since the early 70's and moving to a completely direct to PA, no stage amps setup. Add to that the incredible abilities Line 6 has added to the Helix in recent firmware releases and I couldn't be more invigorated about playing and it's never been so easy to play and put together amazing performances. No more tweaking with IRs or EQ tricks. Just select the either the Grammatico GSG for heavier sounds or the Elmsley for cleaner edge of breakup sounds along with the incredible new cabinets and it almost dials itself in. And my band's performances now sound like studio sessions and our audiences couldn't be happier. I really noticed this last week when I joined some friends of mine at a local bar and watched a traditional band with amps on stage. I spent the whole night wondering how people can tolerate doing such things anymore. After one set I was never happier to finally have a break. And it's nothing against the band as they were fine compared with other traditional bands I've seen, but their sound is not exciting or interesting because it's a big bag of mush compared to what I'm used to now. In essence what changed my perspective was embracing what modeling really brings to the table in this day and age rather than trying to force fit everything into an outdated paradigm.

Quite honestly from some of you responses and your history I'm not sure you really know what you're looking for, so you just audition and audition thinking you'll hit your "Ah Ha" setting but you end up burning yourself out. The fact is, most of the stock amps these days are pretty good and only really need minor tweeks to get you something useable. You might try just finding a song that has the tone similar to what you're looking for and listen to it closely. How much drive it has, is it mids heavy or highs heavier and just select an amp and cab and try to simulate it. You may not get it exact, but you may tweek it over time to get it better once you're playing it for real. What you're going through is not unusual. When I first got my Helix 7 years ago I spent a WHOLE lot more time meticulously adjusting it until I realized my audience really won't care or notice that much. Now I can pretty much create a fresh, scratch preset in about 10 or 15 minutes. I may adjust a few things over the next couple of days with it, but it won't take much. So don't worry and don't get so obsessed.

Here's your first stop in getting a good tone and understanding the amp settings. Jason Sadites has long been the goto reference guy for dialing in presets and understanding how to use different amps and effects on the Helix. When it comes to a Strat sound slightly overdriven or clean my new favorite model is the Elsmley. Here's Jason's overview of the Elmsley which should help you get started. He literally has HUNDREDS of videos that can get you up to speed on anything Helix related.

There's a BIG difference between the Twin Harmony and the Dual Pitch. The Twin Harmony has the ability to take into account the key and scale being used and Dual Pitch doesn't, and that's why they're used for different purposes. If you need a static interval regardless of the key then you would use Dual Pitch. If you need harmonized lead lines relative to the key and scale being used you use Twin Harmony. That's a big difference if you're doing a 1, 3, 7 interval because the 3rd will be a different note when it's a major versus minor key.

The obvious way to do this to me is to have a simple MIDI footswitch something like a Morningstar MC6 sitting as the master MIDI controller between the Mobilsheets and the Helix, MIDI connected to both. When you press "Next Song" footswitch on the MC6 it sends the appropriate commands to both the Mobilesheets app to get the correct sheet and to the Helix to change to the appropriate preset that matches it. You then have plenty of other footswitches for scrolling, turning pages, etc. with no loss of available footswitches on the Helix.

Well the first thing I'd need to know is...what the HECK is a di sample?

That question can only be answered by researching the specific MIDI messages that the Mobile Sheets app requires for page turning. Assuming all other aspects of the physical connection will work you'll still need to know what channel and CC or PC number to send to load songs and turn the pages.

It's still not clear what you're trying to do, but I'm guessing you want one footswitch to toggle between two effects? In other words when you press the footswitch it turns on the polycapo effect, when you press it a second time it turns off the polycapo and turns on the volume. Is that what you're trying to do?

It sounds to me like there's something wrong with your main display. Typically everything on the Helix is pretty consistent as far as display brightness.

On the plus side, they're VERY informative.....

It's kind of confusing how you're stating your problem. If you're saying that when you change the PolyCapo setting to -1 with Snapshot 1, that PolyCapo setting is still affecting the key when you select Snapshot 3? If so, it's not affecting Shapshot 3. It's just that the PolyCapo change is still at -1 and is affecting your entire signal chain until it's undone or changed by some other action. Snapshots are nothing more than a way of changing settings within your signal chain. If you make any kind of change within a Snapshot the effect it has on the signal chain is there until you take some other action to undo that change.

You still need to be online because what gets downloaded is just the starter pack to actually download and install the actual programs.

Well I finally got my first session with the new Grammatico and Elmsley amps....holy smokes...what versatile and useful amps!!! My biggest problem is going to be how I want to configure the Grammatico for different styles of music because it seems like it can handle almost anything. That's going to take some time just experimenting. But the Elmsley compensates for all the Grammatico complexity with the most flexible, easy to use configuration you could ever ask for. Both of these are home runs in my opinion.

It's there on mine so I assume so. I updated two Helix Floor units both just using the HXEdit update process and both went smooth as silk and I'm not missing anything. That makes me think you must have something going on either through your USB connection or Internet connection that's disrupting the process.

I don't know about anyone else but I'm not waiting on anything from L6 as far as any OS updates (on Windows 10). Everything's working great and the update was as smooth as it's always been...just takes a bit longer.

Probably because we haven't had time yet to play with it. Just getting through the update process takes some time.