DunedinDragon

First off, you don't need a Fender Bassman model since there are already two Bassman models there. The Tweed Blues Norm and Tweed Blues Bright are Bassman models. Secondly, it doesn't do any good to post such things here as the only place that is refered to by Line 6 would be on their Ideascale site. Here's a list of what models are currently in the Helix and the amps they are based on. https://helixhelp.com/

Some people just can't help themselves. Get a shiny, new, expensive piece of gear and start hacking at it until they break it. I guess it pays off to some degree. It resulted in a show about a guy that does it all the time. It was called, "Home Improvement" and Tim Taylor was quite popular for his colorful explosions.....

I personally own two Helix floor units and I can't tell any difference between them given all the same settings and all the same presets. The only variation comes in with what I use for output speakers.

Gain is a tricky animal especially when used with a compressor. By definition gain takes away punchiness and definition especially when there's too much of it as it clips the tops of the signal. There are two specific things you can try to see if it helps (three if you count lowering the gain a bit). Everyone defines punchiness differently as it's not exactly an objective measurement. For me it's about having a certain amount of clarity and definition on the strings. So instead of SAG I'd probably focus more on BIAS and BIAS X to get the string clarity and definition. Beyond that you could also mess with the mix parameter on the compressor if it's the LA Compressor used in the same way as Jason Sadites uses it to gain back some definition by mixing in some of the uncompressed signal.

There is no auto update on Helix. You go through the same process (HX Edit then Line 6 Updater) every time you want to update.

You have to first download and install the current version of HXEdit (version 2.70) which installs the appropriate device driver and correct version of Line6 Installer.

Just so you know, you may not have gotten a good download on the Firmware upgrade since downloading and installing HX Edit downloads the appropriate device drivers and version of Line 6 Updater. That's why the directions tell you to download and install HX Edit first, THEN run Line6 Updater.

Snapshots were added way back in the 2.0 firmware update. Anything past that would have it. How did you determine snapshots weren't there? Did you look in global setups to see if it could be set for 4 snaps/4 stomps? It's likely the unit was set for all stomps if it was one that was fresh out of the box.

Does this apply to all presets or one's you've built? It's hard to believe given the range of output types you've used that everything would sound muddy unless something is messed up within the preset, or something is messed up in the global settings somewhere. The first step I'd take would be to make sure all your global settings are on the default settings and make sure your global EQ is turned off. Then try it with some of the presets that come with the Helix. It would also be handy to know what specific FRFR speaker setups you've been using.

Have you opened a ticket with Line 6 support?

I don't know who you purchased it from but most will take it right back and give you another unit. Every manufacturer has an intermittent problem with some units and I tend to think it's rather rare with the Helix units. I've purchased two myself and never had any problems. Worst case, if it's under warranty you simply open a ticket and Line 6 will have you send it overnight and typically get you a fixed or replacement unit within five days and cover all overnight shipping charges. They're absolutely the best customer service company I've ever dealt with.

Well...this is a real can of worms because it really boils down to what you want to get out of the Helix. The full range of Helix capabilities is best mined with an output device that provides the least coloration as possible. That allows the cabinets/IRs and their mic combinations and placement to be fully realized without any limitations placed on them. But as Cruisinon points out, that's not necessarily what everyone wants as that also introduces a whole new world of sound and signal chain possibilities adding to the complexity of the design of a patch. So it really does come down to what are the key things you want to get out of it and how you envision using it. I'm very definitely in the same camp as Cruisinon in that what I want is a polished studio quality output, which is very different from the "amp in the room" sound. My interest in the Helix was driven to accomplish a studio quality sound output in a live environment, so for me I'm firmly committed to using high quality powered speakers such as Yamaha DXR12's for larger applications or QSC CP8's for smaller applications and Yamaha HS7's for studio work. I don't even own a cabinet at this point. But the more you know about what you want to accomplish the more likely you'll be to able to make the right kind of choice.

Good luck finding that out....

Okay, I get what you're saying now. I guess I just haven't run into the scenario in the way I use the Helix. Normally if I'm using a stomp it's over the backdrop of a given snapshot and it's off unless i turn it on. But it's typically turned off before switching snapshots. Normally all of my snapshots would be defined with that block in it's off state so it can be turned on or off within any of the snapshots. But I get it. Where you can confine the state of a given block or set of blocks so they're only affected by a stomp and excluded from being manipulated by any snapshot. It's probably worth putting it up on IdeaScale if someone can describe it accurately enough so people can get a feel for how useful it might be and vote on it. Since it's not something I've ever run into I'm not sure how many people are affected by this.

I'm not sure we're talking the same kind of thing here. Snapshots aren't really "loaded" other than when the preset is loaded. It's probably more accurate to think of them as being executed within a preset. That's a different operation than loading a scene in a digital mixer in which all the channels physically exist but some are to be ignored. Snapshots exist only within the context of a given preset and are simply a macro operation for changing the state of blocks within that preset. I suppose it would be possible to designate that certain blocks in the preset are to be protected so they can't be affected by a snapshot change, but I'm not sure there's any real benefit to that beyond simply not changing them in the snapshot. I can see plenty of problems and confusion if blocks were protected and someone decided they wanted to eventually change something in a snapshot and it didn't change as they expected because it was "protected". It seems much simpler if you don't want a block affected in a snapshot then simply leave it alone.

They can't change the order of the blocks. Nothing can do that other than editing the preset. Snapshots exists totally within the confines of a specific patch. So anything you could normally do within a patch can be accommodated within a snapshot.

I seriously doubt you'd get any value at all from either the stock cabs or IR's in your particular setup. You'd just be sending a modeled cabinet, modeled mic, and mic placement which will get that much further colored by your cabinet and any real mics and mic placements you use on those cabinets. I'm not surprised that you aren't impressed with the helix cabinet models since you're not getting anything close to an actual reproduction of what they do given your setup. What some people do that use your kind of setup is they send one branch of their signal chain that contains a cab/IR and mic setup to the FOH, and one that doesn't have any cabs/IRs to their traditional stage cabinets. That way they don't have to mess with mic'ing the on stage cabinet.

Did you run the HX Edit install download? That's what installs he appropriate USB driver.

Have does it work with HXEdit? I always get that error from Windows, but it still always works fine with HXEdit or as an audio device.

That's because the high and low cuts aren't the same for all patches and are dependent on a number of factors in the patches including the type of cabinet, mic, and mic positions. This is why you have those two things on the side of your head referred to as "ears".

Actually I think it's you that's overlooking something pretty important here. Combining the HX Effects and HX Stomp in a unit the size of the HX Effects means, given the pricing of the individual units, you would have a unit likely in exactly the same price arena as the Helix LT, but with far less capabilities including half the overall DSP capabilities and several other features. Why would anyone do that? I'm not even sure how you could present a marketing case for such a thing.

So in short what you're asking for is the full functionality of a Helix LT at the price and size of the HX Effects??? I wouldn't hold my breath.....

Helix, by design, can accomplish any style. But it's not a turnkey solution. You have to be knowledgeable enough about what blocks need to be in the signal chain and how they should be dialed in to get the sound you want. The good news is the Helix interface is generally designed around the layout of various pieces of equipment in a recording studio so it's just a matter of putting together the right sequence of of the blocks with the right settings to achieve that sound. For example I have a great funk style preset that I use on an old Blind Boys of Alabama song called "Satisfied Mind" which is designed to be used with a Telecaster. It consists of the following sequence of blocks: Interstate Zed amp -> Ownhammer Basketweave IR -> Plate Reverb -> Parametric EQ (for low cut, high cut, and notch out 3db in the 400Hz area) -> LA Studio Compressor. It's very simple and effective, but you have to dial in each of the blocks to get the sound you want. But that last part's all dependent on your knowledge and skills on each of those blocks.

If I'm understanding you correctly, no there's not. The state of the stomps and snapshots are saved when you save changes to the pereset and those are automatically recalled when you move to a new preset. Unlike the Boss unit there isn't really a concept of "Banks" so to speak on the Helix. Only a set of patches gathered together in a setlist. Therefore you don't really change "banks" you simply rotate up or down in the setlist to a different preset whose state has been retained by the save operation.

Having been a software developer that grew up starting with the IBM 370/MVS through the Unix age of System V and BSD and finally into the age of development on the Windows and Apple platforms I've always found Linux to be a curiosity and somewhat of a throwback to the earlier days of computer system design and I wondered where it would fit in today's market. Ironically it appears to have found it's space in the closed, turnkey solution spaces such as Android and in the areas of dedicated server apps that don't require a lot of overhead or complexity and therefore can take full advantage of the slimmed down OS such as web servers. But trying to do anything more complex than that would take away the particular advantage that Linux has in the marketplace of being a small footprint, tiny overhead, highly efficient and flexible OS. And that's the greatest impediment Linux faces in establishing itself on the desktop or in bigger and more complex backend server solutions to the extent that it makes it cost effective to develop desktop apps or underlying support facilities (middleware) for it in any commercial sense. In short, to become anything more than that it has to bloat and become Unix, and we all saw how that went....