DunedinDragon

if your scrolling is done using a footswitch you can access that footswitch via CC commands that directly fire off the footswitches. If you've configured FS4/5 to scroll banks, then you simply send the appropriate CC command for FS4 (CC# 52) and FS5 (CC# 53) to get the same effect. Or am I misunderstanding something here?

Here's all the MIDI info in one simple web page. https://helixhelp.com/tips-and-guides/universal/midi

I see no reason to hack to hack together some solution that's easily and safely solved with a VooDoo Labs Pedal Power 2 mounted on the underside of a pedalboard which provides power for the Helix as well as any other outboard effects or wireless receiver with just a single power cable since the Pedal Power 2 has a IEC power plug that the Helix can use along with the power ports for any other effects.

I've used it quite successfully with my acoustic in a live setting with the following setup. I have a sound hole cover on the acoustic, the Helix goes directly to the mixing board at the same signal level as would any electric guitar patch, I have my own dedicated floor monitor which is a QSC K10.2. It's not at ear splitting volume, but it's at the same level as all my other patches and more than enough to overcome the minor amount of sound from the acoustic with a sound hole cover.

There's no reason to hold on to older versions of HX Edit other than if you're wanting to create a problem like this. The sequence for any upgrade is to first download and install the new version of HX Edit and when you run it, it will guide you through the process of backing up your system and installing the upgrade on your Helix unit. If you inject yourself into that situation it's almost a guarantee you're going to do something wrong.

^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^ Is really something to pay attention to when it comes to live performancea in bands that perform a lot. We've all been there when the singer, at the last moment, decides they need to drop a song down a full step or two. For the Helix Floor or LT that's no longer a problem as long as you're not using spillover. But it's almost impractical for the most part on a single DSP unit like the Pod Go or HX Stomp without some serious surgery or restructuring of the preset. It's not the answer to all questions regarding changing keys, but it is a viable and useful solution in many cases and it has come in useful for my performances quite a bit since it's introduction.

I think you may want to take some time and read your manual about the concept of DSP and how it gets used with the addition of various blocks into a preset. DSP is the core of what makes modeling work, but it's not a limitless well. Each block you use reserves a certain amount of DSP and as DSP gets lower it removes (or greys out) certain types of blocks because there's not enough DSP to support them. Different blocks are more DSP hungry than others, and the poly effects are among the hungriest as are reverbs and delays. Once you go to a new preset you have all the DSP available again, so they show back up. If you have a Helix rack, floor or LT then you have two signal chains and each signal chain has it's own DSP allocation so you can double up on DSP hungry effects or amps by splitting them across the signal chain. This is the most fundamental aspect of modeling and is the reason it's a good idea to read through your manual so you're not surprised by the basic stuff.

Most mixing boards expect XLR inputs at Mic level, but you don't really have to use the 1/4" out to avoid phantom power. You can simply use the Helix XLR set to Mic level and just connect through a phantom power blocker which typically sits inline from your XLR output. They're not expensive at all and a fraction of the size of a DI box. If you do that you have your 1/4" output available to run to your FRFR112, which are set to Line level typically as the industry standard input level. This type of setup also gives you the benefit of being able to disengage your Helix volume knob from the XLR output so it's sending that signal at full unity level, while still using your Helix volume knob to control your on stage FRFR level.

The weird chorus effect is probably due to having two signals that are out of phase with each other and probably comes down to the difference in the cabs/IRs..especially if you're combining IRs and cabs. Without knowing the specifics of your particular setup it's hard to diagnose where it might be coming from. Generally speaking, all you have to do to get a mono signal to a mixing board is simply send on the Left/mono output with nothing plugged into the Right output. Helix does the rest.

This is actually a design aspect of all modern PA type speakers. In order to conserve energy in order to project evenly across long and wide areas they're designed to limit vertical coverage to about half the area of horizontal coverage when placed in their upright position. So if it has a horizontal coverage of 180 degrees it will have something like a 90 degree coverage vertically. So if you lay it on it's side as a monitor your horizontal coverage is limited and your vertical coverage is wide. That's actually very functional in that in an upright position you're not wasting sound energy getting projected into ceilings or floors. We address that in our band by having more floor monitors spaced across the stage, but you could also address it as I used to by placing your monitor in an upright position and leaned back.

I go direct in the mixing board and have a QSC K.10 as my dedicated floor monitor. I've also used the Yamaha DXR12 as my stage monitor from time to time. I'm very happy with either, but I have to say I prefer the QSC as my monitor as it's seems to be "more in your face" than the DXR which is a bit more musical or tamed. But I do prefer the DXR for main speakers because of that musicality or tameness for the audience. For a short period of time I used the ZLX12P and the QSC CP8 as monitors. Both are very good and well tuned, but not as good as the K.2 or DXR. Our bass player and acoustic guitar player each have dedicated DXR's as their stage monitors and are quite pleased with them.

I'm not sure what you're referring to on this. If you're talking about changing a channel on a real amp, I think it has a feature for that, but I don't use real amps so I can't really say with any confidence. I know their manual is available online from their web site.

I have my Helix Floor mounted on my pedalboard with the MC8 but I'm controlling multiple things and I want the visual feedback from the device, but it certainly could be located elsewhere. I'm not sure about the pedal as I rarely use mine on the Helix. I have my preset up/down mapped to my MC8 bank up/down action and all other controls are simply mapped to the buttons that activate a given snapshot or stomp for that preset in the MC8 bank that matches it. So selecting bank up gives me a different bank with matching stomp/snap buttons in the MC8.

Are you sure you have your Snapshots/Stomp button selected correctly?

I haven't had to touch a single footswitch on my Helix ever since I started using my Morningstar MC 8. Since it has two pages of footswitch assignments that gives me a total of 16 footswitches at my disposal for every preset. Pricey? Yeah, I suppose at $309, but worth every penny.

It's not a feature I'd ever use since my "master" preset for each song is always exported to a specific directory and imported as needed into my performance preset list on the Helix. The value being it can be sorted in name order, or date modified order (which helps in managing song rotations), along with any other relevant info I choose to store along with the name of the preset such as which version is for which guitar. The good news is comparing the date created and the date modified helps me to identify which presets need to be updated after a firmware upgrade. It also gets archived into my backups automatically every night to a cloud server so I can roll back to earlier versions should I choose to. I don't need or want the Helix to become an archival facility. That's what I have a computer for and it's better at it than anything the Helix could ever offer.

I suspect it may be karma. I know that when I eat 6 meals a day rather than 3 I get fatter. When I drive twice the speed limit I go to jail more often, and when I drink twice as much alcohol I turn into an alcoholic. It's a very suspicious set of actions and results isn't it???

Which ever one best suits the sound I want for any given song would be my favorite at that moment. That's the reason I have a Helix. However, there are a handful that I tend to reach for depending on the situation and type of sound I'm after. Pure Clean - Placater clean, Jazz Rivet. Archetype clean Edge of Breakup to crunchy - Matchstick, WhoWatt, Princeton, Interstate Zed In your face Crunch - Soldano, WhoWatt, Archetype, Litigator, Divided Duo Heavy overdrive chug - Placater dirty, Brit Plexi Bright

There is no way to import your HD500X presets into Helix, and you probably wouldn't want to anyway as you'd be far better off building them from scratch to take advantage of much better ways of doing things. Most of the HD500X amps are there, some aren't, and a lot are there that are far better than what was ever available on the HD500X. There's really nothing in the amp packs you won't have available in the Helix. The good news is, you'll feel right at home for the most part in building presets on the Helix so your transition time will be minimal.

I've been saying this for a while that the Helix environment is FAR more like a recording studio environment from back in the day when studios were filled with different amps, cabs, mics, effects, etc. So a lot of what you're experiencing is based on a very simple paradigm that most people used when playing live over the last 30 or 40 years of a pedalboard feeding into an amp. So most of your experience is based, like many people, on effects that feed into the front of an amp and occasionally can be placed after the amp through an effects loop. None of that is wasted knowledge, it's just that a wider level of freedom is now available just like it was in the studio days of old. Many of those people used different amps and effects on different songs and placed effects in adventurous ways to achieve unique sounds. And that's what's available to you in the Helix environment IF YOU CHOOSE TO EXPLOIT IT. <-----THAT is the key phrase. Just because the options are there doesn't mean you MUST use them. Start with what you know, learn as you grow, and decide on what seems interesting to you. Like you I started playing MANY moons ago in the late 60's and didn't get into modeling until about 10 years ago with the POD HD500X. I cut my teeth on that and by the time I got into the Helix 6 years ago I was getting pretty good at coming up with new ideas and approaches. Even then I would NEVER have thought I'd be doing the sea change of things I'm doing right now with my Helix using complex MIDI integration even a year ago. This is an environment you grow in. And thankfully we have people like Jason Sadites who are very talented at giving us videos that introduce us to new approaches and ideas we can incorporate. The only thing that will ever hold you back on the Helix is being fearful of change or being afraid to try something new and different.

The key difference and limitation between the Pod Go and Stomp is flexibility in how you choose to arrange the blocks in your signal chain which can make a significant difference in the sound of a given preset. For example, you can place a chorus before the amp/cab model or after the amp model and there will be a difference in sound. Same with a compressor as well as a number of other effects. Lots of users prefer to place effects like reverb between the amp and cab because it sounds better to them. Stomp is just like any other Helix in that you can place blocks anywhere you want, but that's not the case with the Pod Go. Personally I have the Helix floor and I'm the first to admit I rarely put together presets that require the full capabilities of dual signal chains, but there are occasions when I've needed it and it's nice to have it. No one can guess at what's going to be important to you next year or the year after that, so you may want to consider whether you want a unit you can grow with or not.

What does the signal meter look like when you select the output block on your signal chain? (That assumes you're outputting your Helix through the XLR or 1/4" outputs not the USB.)

Alternatively you can offer to send the soundman on a one-way time travel trip back to 1985 where his live sound skills are still relevant.....

It doesn't sound to me like you want to do much different with your setup than what most people do with any on stage direct monitor. The main difference being if you intend to go into the normal amp input of your bass SWR rig you'd probably want to split the output and send the bass rig output via 1/4" output at Instrument signal level to the SWR and then send the direct output through the XLR output at Mic signal level. However it's probably going to sound a bit off through the PA without any amp or cab models in the signal chain so you'd likely want to add those in after you branch off of the signal chain going to your on stage rig. There are any number of ways you could do this but the most common I think is to branch of with a send block for your 1/4" output to the rig and after that branch add your bass amp model and cabinet to the signal chain before sending through the regular output block to FOH. As stated previously there will likely be some pretty significant tonal differences between your on stage sound and your FOH sound, but those can be addressed in the amp and cab model blocks if you've got a decent FRFR speaker or maybe even headphones to monitor that signal and adjust it. The only other thing you would have to consider is the volume levels of the two outputs are going to be different. I'd suggest you configure the XLR output so that it is not affected by the Helix volume knob and sends to the PA at full volume. That way it will send the most robust signal to the PA where it can be gain staged appropriately at the mixer and it won't be affected by volume adjustments of the signal going to the bass rig on stage.

Press the Presets button for the Setlists menu. Find the preset you want, select it and the CC and PC commands and value will be displayed at the bottom of the screen. Just put that into your MC6 and it should all work fine. Here's the page from Helix Help Helix MIDI Guide