DunedinDragon

Agree with @codamedia. Tell your soundman you have MUCH more ability to adjust your signal than he does at this board. Tell him it's 2023 and not 1993 and he just needs to let you know what he needs from your sound. You can adjust it for all your presets in globals. He'll be chasing it on every song.

One of the limitations you'll quickly encounter on the Helix's implementation of MIDI is there's some limitations with the number of MIDI commands you can send from a single footswitch press. Add to that there's no way in the current spec of MIDI to inquire about the settings of another device to determine what needs to be changed. Eventually we'll have the long promised MIDI 2 spec formalized, but who knows how long that will be. My personal approach because of these limitations is to use a Morningstar MC8 as my central MIDI controller for both the Helix and all other devices I want to control because it has much more robust capabilities for complex MIDI interactions with other devices. The MC8 is perfectly capable of sending a preset change along with all necessary initialization sequences to any other devices along with selecting the appropriate startup settings to them. I can also send snapshot changes to the Heilx with other MIDI commands tp other devices so that my Helix settings and external devices act in unison.

The only thing Helix can provide you is a signal output level meter because there's no physical amplification as far as actual volume, just a Line, Instrument or Mic signal level. If you select the output block you'll see the built-in signal meter displayed at the bottom right of the Helix display on the physical device. You can use that display to even out the signal levels being output by the Helix. That will give you a decent start toward getting consistent levels going to whatever your output device is. As @cruisinon2mentioned the actual volume varies based on how your ears perceive it, but I use a volume meter app in my phone to get a good rough idea of what my actual SPL is and tweak it by ear from there. Because I go direct to the mixing board it's very easy for me to use my guitar channel meter on my mixer to gain stage my levels on my presets. Because the signal is never actually sent to HX Edit there's no way to incorporate a signal meter there, but I agree it would be nice to have some form of color coding or marking on the signal meter display on the Helix unit to help in equalizing your signal levels. With a lot of venues now having sound level requirements for live music, these are all very handy tools to keep you out of trouble at gigs.

I use the poly capo all the time on both electric and acoustic setups and I've never had any issues. I suspect it may be an artifact from hearing the originating string sound as the volume fades.

I'm not exactly sure how this update went south but I've never had any problems on any update until now. To be honest it very well could be a physical issue with my Helix since this is the Floor unit I use in my studio and it's been exhibiting some odd behaviors related to the USB and audio interface recently. After updating and restoring my old presets, I rebooted and got a failed message and the Helix was in update mode. I finally got it to boot by manually rebooting it a couple of times but it hung up during the rebuilding of the presets. One thing that differs on this unit from my live performance Helix Floor is this one is powered on via Alexa which turns on the Helix as well as the studio monitors and some other items like my electronic piano and a desk lamp. I re-did the update via Line 6 Central and got it working, but I'm not confident it's going to be stable yet. I'll just manually power up and down the Helix individually and see where it takes me.

I think you're overstating or not understanding what AI is about. It's not a cure-all for developing presets because each person and each rig configuration varies and that entails a certain level of subjectivity about what works best in any given situation. AI in this type of scenario is more about learning personal preferences and the environment in which a preset would need to operate. Taking an AI "picture" of a sound doesn't have enough information to adequately create through AI the same behaviors across all possible configurations given the various things that might have happened in creating that sound in a studio. I'm not saying it couldn't be a helpful tool in aiding people in developing presets, but it requires at least as much of your time in teaching an AI system what best fits you as it would in learning how to do it yourself. Without a personalized approach to teaching AI, you'll get what someone else thinks is best, and it may not match what you envision or how it will sound in your unique situation and it may or may not be that close to what you think it should be. I could see using something like that in providing a bare bones preset that I could tweak to make it more to what I need. But that will still require the user's expertise.

I'm not shocked at all because modeling is all about digitally replicating the features and behaviors of the existing circuits in specific amps, not modifying them. Line 6 does create their own modified versions under a different name sometimes, but it's really based on the level of interest in the user community for such things. I keep a fairly close eye on IdeaScale every week and I don't think I've ever even seen a request there for the bright cap modification. It may be the end all, be all to you, but to me it's kind of irrelevant. The tools in the Helix are more than adequate to get the sound I need regardless of the style of song or the guitar I choose to play on it. That's why I don't get too excited about it. And quite frankly I could care less about what Fractal is doing. I don't own one and have no need for one. I've already got what I need.

I'm really confused!!! How is it I've had my Helix since it came out in 2015 and there has not been a single situation in the thousands of presets I've created where I had to ask this question???

Since I don't use Reaper I'm lost on his description of entering the values, but it's one of two things happening here. You may not be sending MIDI like you think you are and that really depends on the configuration of your DAW in how those things get enabled. Your best bet is to get you a MIDI monitor program that will allow you to capture the values being sent out from Reaper on you computer. There are any number of these available for free downloads, but that will at least tell you whether or not the MIDI values are being actually sent. The other problem is making sure that if they are being sent they are the correct values. Here's a link to a very complete description of the PC and CC values need to be to do MIDI operations on the Helix. It's a long read but it's worth it to understand how it all works. Helix Help MIDI

Any of those type of approaches will give you the live cabinet feel, but only the powercab would have the ability to modify the cab sound a bit more similar to what's done with the Helix cabs. The rest will all be static. However any approach using a physical cabinet will lose that "feel" once it's mic'd and sent to the mixing board. That's just physics and it applies no matter what your system consists of.

In a nutshell the "ultimate" Helix experience has a large range of what different people deem as "ultimate". Many of us that frequent these pages have had our share of different variations, but each have their limitations. But each limitation may not be that important on an individual basis. For example getting a traditional sound like you would out of a cabinet setup isn't all that important to some of us. How could that be you might ask? To put it simply, the only one that hears that particular sound are the people standing in the vacinity of that kind of setup. That can never be the actual production sound you hear in a live performance or on a professional recording because it has to be captured by a mic, which will change the sound. Add to that in a sound reinforcement practical sense no stage setup can ever compete volume-wise with a PA, and you wouldn't want it to because it messes up the overall mix the audience hears. That's why many people using modelers target creating a great production sound, the same as would be done in a studio which the Helix is perfectly capable of right out of the box and going direct to the mixing board. But what a person needs for inspiration as a stage or studio musician actually performing that music may be different, and that's where the configurations can make yet another turn using a stage setup similar to what you're describing, but purely for on stage or in studio performance. But of course that comes with the limitation that you won't be hearing the same thing as the audience will be hearing including the mix with the other instruments. The thing that's important is that modeling, by it's very nature, changes and expands on the lessons we learned from playing in a traditional setup. That's why you see so many variations in how people use their Helix.

Well start with a Les Paul Custom or you won't have the same basis for the sound. Beyond that there are plenty of various pedals that would do the kind of things he did. Compression tends to be the best friend for long sustains given enough drive on the amp model.

There's a real mixture of different approaches across spectrum of users depending on preferences, music style, places they tend to perform and many other factors. For example I personally go direct from my Helix to the mixing board and depend on our standard floor monitors (Yamaha DXR12) as does everyone in the band. I didn't start off that way however when I got my Helix originally in 2015. I used my own dedicated DXR12 in the place of a stage amp and sent a separate signal direct to the mixing board while others in the band were using traditional amps along with traditional drum kits. Over time I changed incrementally until the current band was in a state in which we could all go direct to the board which simplified our setup and gave us a much better feel for what the audience was hearing. It also easily scales from small venues to the largest of venues without a lot of changes on stage other than the volume of the monitors, and our setup and sound check time is minimal. You'll likely hear from all sorts of folks with different setups such as 4cm through a standard stage amp, to using setups like mine, setups like you're describing, or powered FRFR cabinets. A lot depends on what you and the rest of the band are doing more than anything. What drives our configuration is we're a vocal multi-harmony based band so getting a really good stage mix is crucial to getting the stage mix precise so everyone can play as well as hear the vocals clearly. But what works for us may not work for you in your situation.

I don't own a Stomp but from what I understand it's a TRS output. Generally you set the output level on the Helix Global Settings ins/outs, to either Line or Mic, but I'm not sure if it's the same on the Stomp but I suspect it is. Generally most modern mixing boards have preamps that can manage either. Some older mixing boards have setting that determine if it's expecting a Mic or Line level signal on the XLR in. Check with whoever is running the mixing board for that information.

I had something very similar to that on one of my guitars a while back. It turned out to be my pick hitting the pickup slightly.

I would suspect pre-amp volume would relate to drive and master volume would relate 1 to 1 to master volume. CH volume is purely volume or pure signal level which doesn't affect tone in any way.

My approach has been consistent from the moment I started using the Helix Floor when it first came out. I have a single bank reserved as my "show bank". Each preset represents a specific song in the order it will be played. Each of those song/presets are exported as individual files to my hard drive, so I simply import the songs in the necessary order for each show so it's a simple matter of stepping through the presets as the show progresses. Each preset consists of a combination of snapshots and/or stomps depending on what the needs are for the song. This has served me well as it minimizes the complexity of each preset such that I never have any problems running out of DSP memory or running out of available footswitches and I can individualize each presets for each song including changes between what instrument I'll be playing (different types of electric guitars, resonator dobro, banjo, acoustic guitar). The powerful aspect of this arrangement is I can "pre gain stage" each preset so that the signal level/volume is always consistent preset to preset so going through a sound check only requires checking a single song's levels on the mixing board.

No problem here.

Have you tried turning off the MIDI thru? It's been a while since I used it but for a while I was using a BeatBuddy in conjunction with my Helix Floor and I kind of remember I didn't need to use MIDI thru to get messages passed through the MIDI connection that were on a different MIDI channel from the Helix on a MIDI 5 pin daisy chain setup. That's the only thing that occurs to me. What is the configuration of your MIDI chain? Is it MC8-.> HX FX -> RC500 or MC8 -> RC500 -> HX FX?

It's not clear what you're trying to accomplish. If you go to a second amp that's going direct to the front without some form of IR it won't contain any speaker characteristics and not be very close to your 4CM rig. You could certain go direct to the FOH with a direct out from the XLR with a Helix cab model, but again it might be very different than your stage sound from the 4cm unit. There's actually a lot of choices if you're not compulsive about trying to send the stage sound from you 4cm amp which is pretty much impossible.

From the perspective of being an industry observer I'm not sure there's really a huge compelling reason for Line 6 to make a move quite yet to a more expensive premium unit, but it's definitely getting closer. The trend in the industry has been toward smaller units rather than the larger units with more capabilities. The AXE-FX 3 doesn't appear to have been a huge game changer and although there are indications that some innovations such as the QuadSHARC chip might be the next step in processing power, that's going to take some R&D time and experimentation to understand how to best work with it and employ it's features effectively in a modeler application. When I look at what users are asking for in general it's still smaller footprint units, but with more computational power, yet the features they most clamor for tend to be more superficial presentation and usage things like the user interface or better integration capabilities which has little to do with actual extended modeling capabilities that can still maintain low latency times and is durable enough to be road worthy. Those are the things that would make it worth everyone's time to invest in a new platform. But I'm not convinced the industry is there yet.

Many years ago I was automating a BeatBuddy from my Helix. It's was a long time ago but I do remember that I was using simple stomp buttons rather than snapshots or the command center. If I'm remembering correctly I was just simulating the various actions of the BeatBuddy pedal to switch between the sections of the BeatBuddy song as well as a couple of stomps to navigate forward and backwards between different songs.

These are some of the key reasons I've always emphasized the differences between budget powered speakers and more premium quality speakers as well as speaker placement as key factors in how these types of speakers will work with modelers in general. For more than 10 years I've depended on Yamaha DXR12 speakers for live stage production both as monitors and mains. In my experience Yamaha was one of the first to really spend the time and energy to crack the code on how to design these types of bi-amped DSP driven powered speakers so that they have a more musically pleasant sound due to the way they developed their design and technology to tame these various frequencies. I've recently moved away from DXR12 as my front speakers to using QSC KLA12 speakers for my mains as those employ waveguide designs which are a step beyond the standard bi-amp and DSP processed speakers on the market, but are also in a significantly higher price category. It's always mystified me that someone would spend a premium price on a modeler only to run it through bargain basement powered speakers and then wonder why it doesn't sound that great.

I wouldn't hold a lot of hope on a different mixer making much of a difference with your Mackie speakers. What you were likely hearing in the tryouts was the difference between Yamaha higher end speakers and Mackie budget speakers as mixing boards don't have a lot of impact on speaker performance generally other than maybe some improvements in preamps which is pretty slight. In these days of DSP driven speaker designs there's a pretty marginal difference between a 12" and 15" speaker response so I wouldn't expect that to be much of a factor either. The sub will be a difference maker in adding clarity to most of the instruments and vocals if it's setup correctly so that it isolates the very low frequencies from the main frequencies we mostly want to hear clearly.

If you have done a system backup on your last upgrade you can do a restore and just select the User 1 set. There may be some versions somewhere up on the net but these presets change with each new update. If you have setlists that are really important to you it's pretty easy to just do and export of it to your file system whenever you change it so you can restore it anytime.