DunedinDragon

Everything about this is screaming audio interface and buffer size because of the intermittent nature of it and the whole crackling and popping affect. What's odd about that is that typically is associated with recording, which is the one thing you're not doing. I can't remember any settings in the Helix that would effect this, so I have to think about Spotify. Since I'm not a Spotify user and have no background with it I can't say for sure what might be happening, but I'd suggest looking at some of the configuration parameters in your spotify to see if there's something akin to a buffer size that can be adjusted to make it larger. It would make sense to me that streaming would need to have some sort of configurable buffer space. As you increase buffer space you potentially affect latency, so the smallest buffer space would likely be where it would be set. But a smaller buffer does run into problems in any DAW when the CPU load on the computer rises or memory use rises significantly. This is what causes the crackling and popping. In your case, everything works fine if the CPU and memory usage are normal but if there's something going on in the background or a slowdown in network efficiency (like heavy traffic on the Internet) which causes the streamer to fall behind it would logically make sense that the popping and crackling might show up. This could be associated with a streaming content that's particularly dense possibly like your one song you're having problems with. This is all just guesswork based on the technical foundations involved in streaming and digital production, but it's worth exploring. Again, the first place I'd turn to is Spotify to see if there's some configuration parameter involving how much buffer is being allotted to the streaming content.

It sounds like you're playing along to an audio recording of the STP song, right? If so, what is the source of the audio recording and are you playing it from the laptop through just standard playback features or through a DAW or what?

I'm relatively certain you need to rename them inside of Helix as Helix knows them only by that internal name and their IR position. I actually take advantage of this "feature" when I export my presets by adding additional info to the preset name in the file system for the guitar I use on that preset and such that doesn't show up in Helix when I import it.

I had the same thing happen to me and I had to replace the both units as the G10S transmitter only works with the G10S receiver.

I keep all of my presets exported individually to my hard drive so I can load them into a setlist in any order I want for each performance.

Probably your best bet is to use the Event Viewer to see what errors or warnings may be getting logged when you try running HX Edit.

Typically it's not the amp sims as much as it's the configuration parameters within the sims that will tend to make the difference. Amp sims all basically do the same thing but there's an absolute WORLD of different parameters and settings you can use.

Well increasing the sensitivity will certainly affect higher frequencies more than it will mids and lows simply because your ears are more sensitive to that range. What concerns me more is the aggressive high cuts you've been using. I rarely have high cuts on any preset below 8khz and generally they're more in the 9 to 10 khz range. This can be related to a couple of different things. Either your listening position relative to the speakers (both studio monitors and live speakers) or the mic and mic positions you're specifying on your cabinet model setups. In terms of listening positions, studio monitors are typically more sensitive to this than are PA speakers, especially if they have rear facing bass reflex ports. I use 7 inch speakers (Yamaha HS7) and have them about a foot away from walls and positioned so that I'm in the center of an equilateral triangle between them at roughly chest to ear height. PA speakers aren't as particular about physical positions relative to walls, but they can be dramatically affected depending on how close you're standing to them. In my rehearsal space I have my Yamaha DXR12 at about chest height and I stand about 6 to 7 feet away to allow proper blending between the main speaker and high end driver. In terms of cab/IR models I tend to use a combination of MD421 dynamic and R121 ribbon mics and I keep the 421 positioned farther away from the speaker then I do the 121. Some folks get good results with a R121 positioned around 2" in their cabinet models.

Have you already downloaded HX Edit and run it to install it on your PC or are you trying to download it? If Windows indicates it has made a connection with your Helix unit, you should be able to click on your speaker Icon at the bottom of the screen and you should see Speakers(Line 6 Helix). If it shows a different audio playback device click on the audio device and it should display the Select playback device and Helix would be listed there. This is all assuming you created an account and registered your Helix with Line 6 support and established an account and a password. You need all of that in order to login to Line 6 Support and select HX Edit for downloading and then run it to install HX Edit. Downloading and running the install of HX Edit is what sets up all the necessary drivers for Helix to work with your computer and upgrade you to the current firmware levels.

USB 1/2 are for output going from the Stomp TO your computer. If you're listening from headphones connected to the Stomp you're successfully receiving the USB output and converting that output from digital to analog and into your headphones connected to the Stomp. Your better off doing what most people do which is to adjust the output volume from the PC so it matches the output level of what you have dialed into the Stomp for output.

There's not a lot here to go on. You probably need to be a bit more verbose in describing what you're trying to do. For example, are you able to run HX Edit and connect your computer successfully? Start there because if you can do that you probably have no need for the updater as the prescribed approach is to update your Helix using HX Edit. If you can't connect with HX Edit then the problem lies in your computer and your USB connection. You need to make sure you're not using a USB hub but a direct USB connection on the computer. It would also be useful to know what type of Helix unit you're using as well as what computer and version of operating system you have. Surprisingly enough, most of us here are pretty good at diagnosing things. What we're not good at is reading your mind.

I think sophisticated modelers like the Helix have so many capabilities the it's easy to attribute capabilities to them they don't have. In the end they model amps and effects, and sometimes those things can roughly recreate the sounds of other things like an acoustic, but it's not a true acoustic sound. It's a simulated sound that, in my opinion, is not terribly effective but might get you by in a pinch. It's a far more reasonable statement to say you'll never have to buy another amp or effect because that's certainly the case for many Helix owners including myself. But trying to use the same preset to get the same sound out of a Les Paul that you would get with a Strat is a fool's errand. You can potentially have a different preset which might have a similar sound, but it won't be the same because the two guitars are so different in so many ways. You can make a Helix serve as both a modeler for your guitar and process your voice in a separate signal path, but that doesn't make it mixer by any stretch of the imagination. In the end it's a modeler for guitars or other stringed instruments. That's all it does and it does that job very well.

Hiss or noise is one of the risks with downloaded presets. If the person built it using a humbucker guitar and you're on a single coil you have to recognize that's going to need to be treated differently. Sometime hiss can be present in presets that use a lot of gain on an already high gain amp for example. There's simply no free ride around getting knowledgeable about things in your signal chain, and that just takes some time and experience to learn how to troubleshoot it. Your best bet is to go through the preset turning each block on and off to isolate what, if anything, in the signal chain is causing the noise and then take some corrective actions on that block or with a noise gate. I always advocate learning to build your own presets maybe based on ideas you see in downloaded presets so you can learn to do it and what not to do for your particular setup.

Well the "why" is that it's not designed into the unit that way. And the reason for that is it's posted here rather than on Ideascale which is where suggestions are reviewed by Line 6.

I'm pretty sure the folks that are still hung up on analog versus digital in this day and age are only hung up on it so they can have something to argue about. Consider this fine example: You send your analog signal from the standard guitar output to the Helix where it's immediately converted to a digital signal. It's converted back to analog to be sent out of the XLR outputs to a digital mixer where it's immediately converted back to digital and processed through the mixing process. It's then converted back to analog so it can be transmitted via an XLR signal out to a modern speaker cabinet such as a QSC K12.2 where it's immediately converted back to digital so it can be adjusted by the DSP processors and digital amplifiers in the speaker cabinet based on the configuration you set into the speaker's parameters and then eventually converted back to analog when it's sent to the speakers in the cabinet. If that performance gets recorded on someone's phone...guess what? Yet another cycle through the digital to analog conversion washing machine. And yet some people would still argue they can tell the difference between an analog and digital signal in a double blind test. Maybe it's true if they are half human and half bat.....

Without understanding what your intended use is (live performance as a solo, live performance in a band, just playing at home) it's hard to know what to recommend here. But I use Ableton Live extensively in my band to provide coordinated backing track support as well as overall coordinated automation control over the Helix as well as other components such as lights or video screen projections, so I can tell you what I've discovered and where that has taken me. I send my Helix audio outputs to the mixer via the XLR out. That doesn't include vocal output which is sent directly from my vocal mic to the mixer. But I see no reason why you couldn't send your vocal through the Helix and route it independently to a separate channel on mixer using the 1/4" output for example. I'm not sure what advantage that might have over a direct route from your vocal mic, but you may have your reasons. I eventually ended up using a dedicated audio interface for Ableton that sends my Ableton outputs to different channels on the mixer using a iConnectivity PlayAudio12 which allows me to have up to 12 distinct audio output channels for backing tracks, click track and cue tracks to the mixing board or other outputs devices (one of which could be an IEM fed from the headphone output) from the tracks in Ableton using a single USB connection from Ableton to the audio interface. You could easily route your Helix output direct to Ableton via a send/return for looping purposes and all of that going through a single XLR output to the mixer which is what I do. Isolating the click track and cue track would probably be more easily done through Ableton through an audio interface like mine given that you're using at least the Ableton Live Standard edition which allows you to have up to 12 distinct audio outputs for your Ableton tracks (Intro version only allows 2 outputs), one of which could be your click track and cue track both of which are easily accomplished in Ableton especially if Ableton is controlling the tempo. You could also control the looping functions via MIDI from the Helix through the USB connection. I chose to have a separate MIDI controller which is a Morningstar MC8 which has far more robust MIDI capabilities than does the Helix. One of the additional features of the PlayAudio12 is it provides for setting up an automatic failover if you wanted to run dual Ableton sessions on two different laptops. Ultimately where I ended up is putting more control on the Ableton side for routing, MIDI control and audio management simply because it provides more robust capabilities for such things than does the Helix.

I think at this level it really comes down to personal preferences. I can only speak to DT770's as I've owned 2 different pairs of them. I did compare them at one time to the HD600, and I thought they were both excellent headphones, but I went with the DT770's mostly due to comfort. When I use headphones I normally wear them a long time...like all day and the DT770's feel like pillows on my head and I've actually forgotten I was wearing them from time to time. You may be better off just going to trying both of them out and see what you think. I've heard other people remark they don't like the isolation of closed back headphones and you may be one of those kind of people. Anyway...sorry to hear about your band. We just had a minor shakeup in ours as well...or will have come May 1st. You get used to it after a while....

Unfortunately the spotify drop in doesn't display the run time, so it's hard to figure out what phrase you're referring to.

The problem may be coming from your controller rather than from Logic if it changes when you press record on your controller. Or if you're using OMNI settings for MIDI on Logic and then it's somehow forwarding to the Helix from Logic.

I pretty much control all my stage elements including the Helix via MIDI, but not wireless MIDI. I use a traditional MIDI controller that works with my Ableton Live on the laptop, my Helix and several other MIDI interfaces such as lights or other footpedals either through USB or traditional 5 pin MIDI. It all works flawlessly and has for a couple of years now. For me it's no real issue not being wireless as it's all pretty much prewired on my pedalboard with just two USB connections to my laptop so it's not a pain for setup or tear down. There's a couple of real MIDI gurus on here that will hopefully chime in on the wireless MIDI market capabilities. As far as controlling the Helix via MIDI it's about as simple as it can be, but I have my MIDI controls setup on a song by song basis, so when I change MIDI banks on my controller it automatically syncs all other devices including the Helix preset to be aligned with that song, and my MIDI functions are specifically defined for what needs to be done within that song. But I use a Morningstar MC8 MIDI controller to control everything because it works flawlessly, is very powerful and is easy to program and setup. It sounds like you want to use your Forscore app as the controller which may work fine, but I initially started out using the Helix as my controller and quickly ran into a number of challenges because the implementation wasn't as robust and flexible as a dedicated MIDI controller. This is especially true when you want a single control action on your controller to execute a series of of different MIDI commands to different devices. I'd say look very carefully at what MIDI control capabilities Forscore provides to ensure it can work smoothly across all the devices that you want to control.

I'm not sure I completely understand what you're trying to say, but I understand you want to take a monitor feed from the main mixer and process it along with your guitar signal and mix your own IEM or wedge mix. But I'm not sure that fixes anything. If you're getting a poorly EQ'd mix from the mixing console to your wedge, you're still going to get a poorly EQ'd mix going into your Helix which you'll combine with your guitar. I'm a little skeptical that you're using the correct terminology when you say your monitor feed is poorly EQ'd and I suspect what you mean is it's poorly mixed (different instruments and voices are either too quiet or too loud). But that's not something you can fix on your end because you'd be receiving all instruments and voices as a pre-mixed stereo feed which you have no ability to change on an instrument by instrument basis. I think you'd be better off correcting the problem the proper way by getting your monitor feed corrected. No matter what the issue is, the tools for correcting the monitor mix properly are at the mixer...not on your Helix. Whether it's EQ or mix that's the problem, you should be able to get a completely customized mix of all the instruments and voices from the mixer that meets your specific needs...something that you can't do on your Helix or on any piece of gear if you're just receiving a stereo mix of the band from the mixer. You do that sort of thing during sound check by letting the person running the board know what you need corrected in your mix through your wedge.

One of the problems here is the signal level you are sending to the mixing board. Mixing boards almost universally work with Mic level inputs whereas powered speakers tend to work with Line level signals which are considerably higher than Mic level. When I used my own dedicated powered speaker I configured my 1/4" output to Line level and connected the speaker to the 1/4"output and controlled the level with my Helix volume knob. I disengaged the volume knob from the XLR output, set the XLR output to Mic level, and sent the full signal from the XLR output to the board and managed the signal at the board through the gain/trim knob for that channel. That worked fine for many years but now I just use the XLR output to the board and get a customized mix from the board to my powered speaker as a regular floor monitor attached to the mixer and that works MUCH better as I get a better sense of how my guitar is sitting in the mix with everyone else. Unless you're dealing with a troglodyte running the mixing board, the soundman should know how to set you up on a separate monitor output and adjust it to your needs during sound checks.

You might want to watch both parts of this video even though it's not the Helix, a lot of the same concepts apply. pro tools midi automation to Axe-Fx

All that means is you're likely sending a signal that's too hot within your preset. The quickest way to check this is to select the output block on your preset and watch the signal meter at the lower right corner of your Helix screen while you play. Normally this would be in the 60 to 65% range. If it's significantly higher you need to examine each of the blocks in you preset to see where that's coming from by simply deselecting each block individually and seeing what effect it has on the output level.

Although it's an interesting idea I'm now sure how big the market might be in order to make the cost approachable. Guitarists, by and large, are born into an analog world and really seem to struggle with digital tools. I might be interested for a couple of reasons such as tunings and possible guitar emulations, but keyboards have such a dominant lead in their digital offerings that are accessible at a reasonable price and I'm not sure I would be all that interested in a guitar overflowing with various programmable buttons and such which would provide comparable functionality on a guitar which is really where the digital input devices pay off. But I do think such a guitar when paired with a higher end brain like the Helix could certainly open a LOT of possibilities. But that may just be the keyboard side of my brain talking.....lol