DunedinDragon

I personally switch between my single coil tele and strat and my les paul all the time and never have to do anything special. However, I also have to say that I wouldn't expect a patch built for a Strat to work the same for a Les Paul. And I wouldn't want it to. I doubt it's digital clipping as well. I suspect it's just the natural difference between playing a Les Paul through a patch built for a Strat.

You didn't say whether you're using HXEdit or the controls on the Helix unit itself. It kind of sounds like the kind of thing that happens when you have a mismatch between the HX Edit program version and the firmware. When you installed the 2.7 firmware did you first download and install the 2.7 version of HXEdit before running the update on the Helix?

I hope you paid next to nothing for a Helix that has a messed up Guitar In jack.

Go to Customtone and download Jason Sadites presets that match up to his videos. You'll get a complete discussion about the preset settings.

You need to go watch Jason Sadites YouTube videos and watch his instructional videos on creating patches for the Helix. Everything you need to know is there.

I hate to tell you this, but I tend to agree with your lead guitar player. It sounds to me like you keep attempting to fix a fundamental problem with a series of band-aids rather than address the core problem. I don't think you necessarily have to resort to IEMs to fix the core problem which is having enough manageable stage volume at your command while sending a decent a signal to the mixing board for a good FOH mix. That problem's been solved many times over without all the weird permutations you're considering, but you seem to keep dismissing them because of what your "feel" you need rather than what logically solves the problem. Here's just a few solutions that come to mind used by many people. 1. Use IEM's controlled by the FOH. 2. Use IEM's direct from the Helix for your guitar and send a separate XLR signal to the FOH and get your vocal mix in the monitors and your guitar to the rest of the band's monitors. 3. Trade in your Powercab for a more capable stage speaker and send a separate XLR signal to the FOH. Not a Headrush, but a quality unit with plenty of clean headroom and some viable DSP contouring options. You spent serious money on a premium modeler, but are pinching pennies on the system it uses to produce the sound. That doesn't make sense. The alternatives here are abundant. There are some great premium quality FRFR speakers with clean high powered outputs with plenty of headroom like the QSC K.2 series, or the Yamaha DXR series, or if you insist on having a cabinet there are the Friedman units and many others. Any of these can be used in the backline to give you a more traditional feel on stage and provide a good stage mix for the rest of the band. The fact is, there are TONS of us out here that have found simple, direct solutions to the problem you're citing without jumping through hoops. You're the one placing arbitrary limitations on what you "feel" you need. Just fix the problem directly so you can focus on playing.

THIS^^^^^ is really the core question because given your description of how you intend to use the Helix I have to wonder what value the power amps provide in your setup. I think you'll find many if not most of us have a simple direct connection to powered speakers whether they be powered studio monitors or powered stage speakers for live applications. With today's modern flat response speaker designs I'm not sure there's any real discernable value in having an amp in the signal chain. The powered speakers alone provide everything one really needs. Most of this has to do with the advancements in the design of powered speakers over the last 10 to 15 years in providing flat, full range response which is all you really need with a Helix. It's not about the wider frequency response as much as it is the flat frequency response for accurately and honestly reproducing whatever is being played through it. I have two different setups in my house, both of which are pretty common arrangements. I have one Helix floor unit connected direct to my computer via USB and connected direct to two Yamaha HS7 studio monitors. On the input side of the Helix I have my electronic keyboard, my electric guitar, my bass guitar, my acoustic guitar, and my vocal mic all connected to the inputs on the Helix and I simply select the appropriate preset for the instrument I want to play. All MP3's or videos I want to play along with come through the USB connection to the Helix and the computer provides the DAW if I want to record. Separately I have a second Helix unit that I use for live performances. It has a similar USB connection to my laptop but I use a Yamaha DXR12 as my powered speaker connected to that Helix unit, which is the speaker I use on stage when I play live. I use this unit solely for designing and testing my patches and preparing my setups for live performances. Both sets of speakers provide everything I need for the Helix which is a flat, full range powered output. This is made possible by the advancement in the design of powered speakers over the last 10 to 15 years using bi-amp designs and integrated DSP processing rather than simple crossovers for more precision in managing the frequency response profile of the speaker. As I said before, it's not about the frequency range of the guitar, it's about an accurate representation of any and all input sources across the entire frequency range.

Unfortunately there's not a lot you can do when it comes to FRFR setups than to just directly try them out and see what best fits you. The range of FRFR setups alone can make that a daunting task, but the one thing I think is important to bear in mind. You just spent a considerable amount of money on a premium modeling unit so it doesn't make sense to try and save money on the audio output system since your ultimate sound will be so dependent upon it. Personally I'm a big advocate of using professional level powered speakers as my output method. By that I mean the same powered speakers used on most club level PA systems such as the Yamaha DXR or DBR series, the QSC K.2 or CP series, or comparable systems by Electrovoice and JBL. Some of that is dictated by my experience working as a sound man in live productions, but some of that is also because it tends to be the most versatile setup for a range of situations. All of these speaker systems have several things in common. They're all bi-amp setups meaning they use two different amps to power the main speaker and the high frequency speaker separately providing a smooth and consistent transition between frequency ranges in a much more effective way than a simple crossover system. More importantly they are equipped with their own DSP processing units that will allow you to contour the speaker response to the manner in which it's being used. A classic example of this is when a speaker is used as a floor monitor it can have the effect of building up bass frequencies as it acoustically interacts with the floor. Therefore all these speakers have a contour setting that will automatically adjust the speaker's response to address that situation and a different contour setting if the speaker is placed on a pole for live sound applications, as well as various other potential application settings. In my case I set up my speaker on a half height pole behind me in a traditional backline setup. Most of the time I use a Yamaha DXR12 speaker for medium to large situations and a QSC CP8 for smaller, more intimate situations. There are several reasons for this. These speakers are engineered in such a way that in a vertical setup they provide a consistent sound across a very wide angle of sound dispersion and a limited vertical angle of dispersion. This ensures that sound energy doesn't get wasted by sending it into the ceiling and floor and therefore has much better projection across long distances. With the way I set mine up in the backline the rest of the band is able to easily hear me and we can all blend better because of the wide dispersion and in the case in which the venue doesn't lend itself to putting the instruments through the PA, I still have the value of getting the same level of projection into the audience as if I were going through the PA. As a side note I also use this same type of setup for the electronic drum kit when we use one for the same reasons. Of course the primary reasoning behind all of this is to allow me to have confidence that the sound I'm hearing on stage is the same sound my audience is hearing through the PA. I recognize it's not going to be a traditional amp cabinet sound but rather a studio quality sound, but that would be the case for the audience no matter what type of stage setup I had once it's been sent through the PA. The powercab is a great design for addressing those that prefer to use a FRFR cabinet style setup and has many more features that some of the other FRFR cabinet style FRFR systems out there. But again, this is a different type of choice than the style of FRFR I use and suits other purposes. The principle advantage to these type of designs is they will give you a more traditional cabinet feel on stage than will the type of setup I use. Ultimately they all end up being the same once they feed through the PA to the audience.

In order to import a preset it has to be downloaded to your PC and if it's a .ZIP file unpacked into a file ending in .HLX.

You do realize, of course, that should they build wireless into the Helix you'll have to buy a whole new unit to get it since you can't download hardware changes, right?

I'm assuming you haven't read or watched any videos about how to use snapshots? In order to change values on any of the parameters in a block you have to first push in the knob and make the change to the value. That surrounds the value with brackets and allows you to change that value on different snapshots. You might want to take some time and watch Jason Sadites YouTube video on how to work with snapshots as that will likely lead to less confusion.

I can't believe I'm that lucky. I have two different PC's both on Windows 10 connected to two different Helix floor units via USB and have never had a single problem in the three years with either of them connecting. When it comes to this stuff it's hard to define whether it's the PC, the operating system on the PC, or the Helix. I'd recommend opening a service ticket with Line 6 and hopefully diagnose where the problem actually is or isn't so you don't waste time troubleshooting the wrong thing.

It could be a number of things but most likely your mic choice and mic placement which can make a fairly startling difference in the sound of a cabinet just as it does in real life. Try and MD421 or even a condenser mic positioned closer to the cap rather than the cone and work your way out from there. Of course you don't mention what you're playing it through, and if you're playing it through a traditional cabinet you likely will have a darker output simply because you're playing a cabinet through a cabinet.

First off, SNR is somewhat irrelevant in the digital world. That's more of an artifact to be worried about in the analog and tube amp era. From what I can tell from user comments on the forums here and elsewhere, most people are choosing an arbitrary master volume setting and sticking with it for dialing in their tones. Most of the time it ranges between 10 o'clock to maybe 3 o'clock on the master volume dial. I personally set mine at 11 o'clock just to ensure I have plenty of headroom space up or down as needed on stage. I then dial in my patches and snapshots so that they are typically in the -6 DB range using the signal meters on a small mixer I have hooked up to my unit. In live scenarios that typically works out about right for medium sized stages. For smaller stages I go down to around 10 to 10:30 and on bigger stages I've gone up to as much as 12 or 12:30 on the master volume dial. Note that I've specified my global ins/outs that my XLR outputs aren't to be affected by my master volume and are set to mic level so they can easily be gain staged at the mixer without being affected by my Helix master volume setting. I have well over 200 presets I've built and I've never had any clipping on any of them unless someone at the mixing board wasn't gain staging appropriately. They're all good clean signals on the 1/4" and XLR outs and can easily be worked with direct to a monitor as well as to a mixer.

I'm pretty sure it's impossible to get "sluggish" response from the Helix since it limits you from incorporating too many blocks to the point that processing would be adversely affected.

Why did you install the Updater? That gets installed along with all the appropriate drivers when you download and install HX Edit. Follow the directions regarding FW upgrades: Download and install the HX Edit version that matches the FW you intend to install. Run the Line 6 Updater that was installed with HX Edit.

I guess this all comes down to one's definition of optimization. To me optimization is about improving core functionality such as modeling performance and DSP usage which applies to all platforms, but I can see where it could be applied to GUI performance enhancements. The rest of the post goes on to warn against getting expectations too high as they'd just finished the new amps and Helix core..meaning there's very little time left between now and NAMM to code and test too much in the way of GUI related features. This is why he was non committal when it came to meters (no longer off the table) actually being in THIS release. Meters may be there for all we know, but we're at the end of the year and they've got to lock down features very soon in order to complete coding and testing before NAMM. I'm just being cautious about expectations is all.

Again, this was NOT about optimization. As Digital Igloo pointed out and has been talked about several times this is about getting a consistent Helix Core between all platforms. From the end user's perspective that's exciting in one regard which is that there will be fewer impediments to developing new features in the future since they won't have to be individually coded to each different platform. That means a greater likelihood in the future of faster development of new features due to less overall platform coding time. There will certainly be some interesting new features in 2.80, but if you want to build up some excitement then keep your eyes focused on 3.0. That will be a major revision. The last major revision of 2.0 included a new feature called "snapshots"...and you can see what that meant for everyone. THAT will be something to get excited about....

I wouldn't get too excited. They're not "updating" Helix core as that was done a couple of releases ago which gave birth to Helix core. It's more about consolidating Helix core so that it's consistent between all the platforms. This will allow them to more quickly introduce features simultaneously between all the different platforms (floor, rack, LT, HX FX, Stomp), but the graphics part was all worked out with the tuner, so that does leave open some interesting possibilities for the future as you mentioned.

I'm not sure it's as simple as dropping out amps, cabs, and/or IR's and leaving the effects. For example, how do you translate a split block that follows an amp and has different effects on each of the splits prior to going to different cabinets or IR's before it comes back together into the main signal chain? Also a lot of the EQ block settings may be related to the amp, cab/ir's and their settings in the signal chain. Not to mention the complexities involving multiple amps and effects in different snapshots. Those kind of things may be more trouble than they are worth to figure out what to do with them. You're probably better off just building your own HX Effects chains and sharing HX Effects chains separate from full Helix implementations.

It's nice, however, to have someone come in a whisper rather than SHOUT....;)

That might be legit if it weren't for the fact the OP was specifically talking about the '63 Bassman and NOT specifically talking about the Brown Bassman....

Did you first download and install the HX Edit program to ensure you Line 6 Updater version was sync'd up with the appropriate version of the device driver and underlying Helix software?

I suspect this is due to your computer choosing to make the Helix it's sound card when the Helix is turned on since it's connected via USB. Obviously the Helix won't have this behavior when it's turned off, so it's likely something in the configuration of your computer's sound devices.

My guess is the '63 in spite of the master volume. I've seen several of the L6 folks mention both on here and on TGP that all amps have a master volume whether there was one or not on the original model. That's often why the master volumes are defaulted to a setting of 10.