DunedinDragon

In effect what you're talking about is latency. I suppose it's not impossible for the Helix USB to have some weird electronic problem with the USB interface, but it's WAY less likely than the problem being where all the additional computational cycles and device/memory management systems are being applied. I've never heard of latency being specifically caused by the USB port on the Helix, but I seen hundreds, if not thousands of problems associated with latency on the connected computer for tons of various reasons. Some associated with the DAW, but many associated with operating system overhead. From the Helix side it's not really doing much more than it does with any other output, just handing it off to hardware to send it. Given how you describe it as something that comes up after a period of time, my first impression would be either a memory management log jam or a device priority issue.

I'm always skeptical when people use verbiage such as "3 dimensional" to define sound, particularly as it relates to an amp model since only the output device could even possibly control such a thing because that's the only place where three dimensions come into play. There is no such thing as 3D circuitry. But that's where confirmation bias comes into play. If you're forced to define the difference somehow, then using a term that's subjectively meaningless would be the best way to do it. Kind of the same thing as "warmth". Personally this isn't one of those things I ever pay much attention to. Modeling isn't subjective. It's not even an art. It's simply a procedural process of measuring output differences in a circuit given an input signal and emulating that same behavior through mathematical operations on the output signal. All very measurable, quantifiable and non-subjective. Subjectivity comes into play once you begin to combine the components into a signal chain and route it to a specific output device. All of that really depends on the user, his skills and his decisions, not the machine.

With only one cabinet offering it's kind of hard to take it too seriously yet. Maybe once they've expanded their product line a bit more they might be worth looking at.

I guess for me I've never experienced this issue with either of the amp models simply because there are so many other factors that come into more serious sonic variation in the arrangement of blocks in the signal chain such as the right type of cabinet, mic, and mic placement that the placement of the reverb on either of these two models is not something that jumps out at me as being "off" in any way. For me I've always placed the reverb very late in the signal chain after the amp and cab as I would in a typical studio setup regardless of the amp. But I do hear some people prefer the results of placing it after the amp but before the cab/mic setup. It's all a matter of what your ear tells you as far as do you want the reverb effect to be colored by the cab/mic or not. I prefer it not be colored and be pure once the amp/cab/mic tone has been fully formed. To me it just has a more professional polished sound like that of a recording.

It depends on the speaker. Without knowing more about it we'd just be guessing. Assuming it's a typical powered speaker you would normally go into it Line level, but the speaker may have other settings on it that could be the problem. Plus you don't mention what the watt output is on the speaker's internal amplifier. I'm assuming it's a powered speaker since you said you turned it all the way up, but there are some older passive designs that have a knob that actually is used to attenuate the line signal, but there's no amp in the speaker and it depends on an external amp. Also check your DI box as most of them have line level attenuator switches on them.

To some degree I understand why. There's simply way more traffic on TGP because it's been around forever and has a larger user base. They used to come on here but to be quite honest most of what gets posted here are fairly rudimentary discussions on how to do things with the Helix. There's much more depth to the discussions over on TGP. I think both have their place but one can get pretty tired answering the same question over and over here on this forum from folks can't be bothered to read the manual or view the training videos. Another alternative would be the Helix Facebook User group which has a very wide group of users that have considerable influence in the product group at Line 6. Facebook Helix User Group

Everything you say suggests the problem lies in the HX Edit program having a version incompatibility problem with the Helix firmware which causes it to shut down. When you said you installed the HX Edit, you do understand that to install the HX Edit program you have to download the HX Edit install program, then run the file you downloaded in order to actually install the HX Edit program. Another common problem is if you choose to not have the install program replace the HX Edit icon on your desktop you may actually be running an older version of HX Edit and not the newly installed version. None of this explains the lack of automatic restart however unless you didn't actually RUN the HX Edit installation program in which case you would be executing an older and possibly incompatible version of the Line 6 Updater which gets installed when you run the HX Edit installation program. If I were you I'd go through the COMPLETE installation process as defined in the release notes which is to download and RUN the HX Edit install program, then run the Line 6 Updater program and update the firmware. If you do that and follow it to the letter I think you then may have evidence there may be a problem with your unit and you need to get Line 6 to physically look at it. As far as improving the install program, I think the VAST majority of users have no problems with the update process. Only a very small handful of people tend to have problems. Most of which are from not reading and following the installation process completely. I don't think Line 6 can do anything about that one.

But you never know. Maybe he's one of these folks that prefers to wait another 5 years to pay an extra $800-$1000 than get what's available today for an extra $100. Not everyone is good at math ya know....

Uh...the Helix IS the new HD500 with Helix power and clarity. Where have you been???

I'm kind of confused by your question. The snapshots are always present within a preset because they're defined as part of the preset. When you select a snapshot, all of the blocks defined in the preset remain visible in the preset, but are either changed in value or disabled/enabled based on how you defined things in the snapshot. I'm just not sure what you mean by "staying on the screen". If you're referring to snapshots staying on the scribble strips when you change presets, that's not possible because a snapshot is defined as part of a preset. If you change to a different preset, those would be all different presets. That's the nature and definition of what a preset it.

I think you have a VERY, VERY old version of the HX Edit program. I'm talking initial release. What version of Helix firmware are you on?

I can honestly say that of all the remarks and feedback I've seen on the Helix delays over the last 3 years this is the very first time for this one. I'm not even sure I know what a "too dark" delay would sound like. Maybe it is something related to the dry/wet setup...

That's the standard message you get if you don't have the Helix plugged into your computer with a USB cable and have the Helix turned on.

I notice in their specs they say 2000 watts peak power and 1000 watts continuous. So that may explain the difference. The more important spec is SPL which really relates to "loudness" and it rates it at 131db SPL. For comparison the Yamaha DXR12 and QSC K12.2 are both rated at 132db SPL

I think it's highly unlikely the Headrush is any better tuned for guitar than the ZLX. Which guitar is it tuned for? Acoustic or Electric? Resonator? Les Paul or Gretsch? If it's tuned to the guitar that means your on stage sound will be different than the sound coming out of the front of house. This all sounds like marketing fluff to me. What is true in terms of difference is the Headrush has more volume, but at the expense of a lack of ability for the user to "tune" the speaker to their needs using a range of DSP contouring options. Additionally, the ZLX-12P is a bi-amp design (one amp for lower frequencies and one for higher frequencies) whereas the Headrush is a simple one amp design with different drivers for highs and lows. The bi-amp designs are used more in premium speakers because it makes it easier to evenly allocate frequencies given the nature of how well sounds project at different frequencies, so they allocate wattage differently for highs and lows. Those are really the only considerations that should come into the equation. As Cruisinon2 mentioned, the idea is you want a speaker with as little coloration as possible so that you get an honest representation of your tone. Some of that coloration can come into play depending on how the speaker is positioned which is why it's handy to have various contouring options to correct for it.

There are quite a number of good threads going on right now that may answer a lot of your questions. As far as 10" or 12", that's really a matter of taste. Due to the way the speakers are tuned, there's not a particularly big difference in the frequency response profile of different speakers sizes. To me the difference really comes down to a feeling of the sound simply being "bigger"...kind of surrounds you more I guess. In smaller, more intimate venues I get great results from a QSC CP8. So it all comes down to preferences. The thing about DSP is that most, if not all of the bi-amped speakers use DSP to allocate frequencies across the two amplifiers that serve the higher frequency response and lower frequency response. This is what makes these speakers different from the older style of speakers that just used simple crossovers and provides a more even allocation of frequencies across the two speakers resulting in a flatter response.. What differs with the more expensive speakers such as the QSC or Yamaha is they allow you more flexibility in defining the response characteristics of the speakers. This help you tune the speakers better for how they might be deployed (as a floor monitor or on a pole) as well as the type of performance they're being used for (live performance, recorded music, speech, etc.) I've owned the Bose system in the past, but was using it as a solo performer. It's a bit of an odd beast in that the design is quite different from the normal run of powered DSP driven speakers. What is a bit deceiving with the Bose is that, unlike normal powered speakers, it uses a pseudo line array setup which projects the sound differently than a normal powered speaker. This results is a more even level of sound across a large area using less volume. So I suspect it might be a bit challenging to get a good match mixing the volume on a stage with traditional amps and speakers without being too loud further out in the audience.

This is one of the reasons I really hate the term "FRFR" because the "flat response" part of that is so speculative. Other than the Headrush you'll see the speaker manufacturers tend to avoid this term. The reason being is this isn't the first time the "flat response" term has come under fire. Back in the 90's and early 2000's the term was casually used a lot with studio monitors, however every studio monitor would sound different with the same source recording, so how could that make sense? Well that's because what sounds "flat response" to one person doesn't sound "flat" to another. It's a very subjective term that really means a lack of artificial coloration that would normally be added in consumer grade gear for audiophiles in contrast to a more pure representation for the studio. One other thing that entered into the picture in studio work was the critical nature of how the speakers were positioned in and the room treatment order to have a natural response and not accentuate various frequencies. Roll forward to today's live performance powered speakers and this explains a lot about what they try to achieve. Ultimately the basic tuning of the speaker is reliant upon the manufacturer and the construction methods and materials used. However you don't always have control over the placement and acoustic treatment of the room the speaker will be used in. In live applications it's not reasonable that the speakers be tunable to room acoustics as that tends to be better handled by RTA processes at the sound board. But the speakers can adjust tuning for various placement/deployment situations and potentially what it will be used for (live music, recorded music, speech, etc.). So the value add for these speakers is in the DSP contouring options that will adjust for such things to address speaker coloration issues. Those DSP contouring adjustments automatically tell you these speakers aren't "flat" because if they were you'd be stuck with that response regardless of how you placed them and what you used them for. If I were to imagine some nomenclature for this I would probably elect to use Full Range Contoured Processing (FRCP) instead of FRFR as that's really more descriptive of what they're doing.

Okay...just to clarify. You're going direct from the Helix USB output into the computer's USB input? In other words the Fireface UCX is NOT involved in the input signal capture? When you say out of sync, are you talking about out of sync with the track capture (i.e. what is recorded on the track is out of sync with the rest of the tracks) or out of sync with the monitoring playback coming through the Fireface UCX? My instincts tell me there's some form of throughput processing issue, most likely in the computer's operating system. One test you can do is to monitor the Helix output with open air headphones plugged into the Helix while recording to see if the latency is on the Helix end or the computer end. My guess is the computer simply because (depending on your answers to the above) you would have two different device drivers processing the input and the output and because there's realy not much that can get in the way on the Helix side of I/O, but you do have a fair amount of complexity going on in the thread stack of the computer. By rebooting the Helix you would be releasing the Helix device driver on the computer side and causing it to reload.

It's probably one of two things. You have your DAW configured so you're listening to the recorded signal rather than the source which would be the Helix. Or you have your monitors connected to the PC rather than to the Helix so you're getting some latency whenever the operating system gets busy and can't get the signal processed in real time. I can pretty much guarantee it's not on the Helix side or the USB connection.

Absolutely correct. I just prefer to have more contouring options in order to be able to adapt the speaker to different scenarios. Especially if the speaker is going to be used as a main front which is what you were referring to. A high pass adjustment is only one of many contouring options I've found to be useful in these type of powered speakers. One I've used often is the case in smaller, more intimate venues where there is no sub and it's not necessary to put the instruments through the PA, is to position my speaker behind me on a half height pole and remove the high pass filter. In effect giving me a fuller low end to compensate for the lack of a sub and have my powered speaker act almost more like an augmented speaker to the PA for the guitar or keyboard. I use it quite a bit that way for open mic and jam nights.

Given your description there could be any number of problems with your setup or the construction of the preset. In all honesty it's probably multiple issues. We don't even know what your setup is as far as amp, or what kind of presets you were using, or the signal level you're sending...blah blah blah. You're going to have to be a bit more verbose and detailed in your description if you want to get some help figuring out what's going on...

I've never seen anyone using Alto speakers for a live band PA. I see them a lot in Karaoke and DJ applications, but that's the regular Alto and not the FRFR. Personally I'd want something with a bit more contouring ability if I were to use it as a powered PA speaker...at least in order to work appropriately with a sub woofer.

My guess is there are some differences in the DSP tuning, but that's just a guess. The regular Alto speakers are generally marketed toward the DJ crowd, so they may have tamed a bit of the bass on the FRFR....but that's just a guess.

The preamp applies only to the microphone input that the Alto has that allows it to work with a mic level input. The "flatness" of a speaker has nothing to do with the preamp or even the dual amp design really. That kind of tuning is typically done through DSP processing between the dual amps used for highs and lows. One of the differences that keeps the price lower on the Headrush as well as the Alto is that the DSP doesn't provide much for user contouring to be able to adjust it to different uses such as floor monitor versus pole mounting or speech applications or live music or recorded music as most of the more expensive speakers have. The FRFR112 has a single simple adjustment that allows you to accentuate lows and highs (i.e. suppress mids).

Nope...no input pad and impedance set to auto. That's the same for all of my guitars, Les Paul, Tele, Strat, Gretsch hollow body, Gretsch resonator. I just dial in my patch for whatever guitar will be using that patch and never have any problems.