DunedinDragon

Because customer service has become such a joke with so many companies, I think it's really important to recognize companies that are really great at it, and I have to say it's been a long time since I encountered customer service as good as what I've gotten from Line6 My Helix unit joystick malfunctioned and I was within 7 days of my warranty expiring. I called Line6 Customer Service on Friday May 19th and verified the problem (with a knowledgeable English-speaking customer service rep), received my RMA and UPS label in my email that day. I wasn't able to send the unit in until Monday May 22nd due to gigs I had to play on the weekend. I sent it out Monday morning and got my unit back from Line6 repaired on Friday May 26h.. Now THAT is what I call EXCEPTIONAL service!!!!!

I would strongly urge you, if you can possibly afford it, to get at least a decent pair of studio monitors. They can hook up directly to the Helix and will provide you with a great representation of what the Helix can do. Some folks have mentioned several different brands here, but as someone mentioned...just go to your local music store and listend to a bunch of different ones and find something that sounds decent within your price range. As far as the stock presets, some are pretty good for getting started. Some are a little bit "out there" and over the top, but meant as learning tools. But there should be enough there to get you started playing. More important than the presets are a number of instructional videos both here on the Line6's web site http://line6.com/support/page/kb/_/tutorial-videos/line-6-video-tutorials-complete-list-r202 as well as on YouTube on how to dial in your own patches. Just search for Helix on YouTube and you'll have hours of videos to learn from. The thing is with Helix, the more knowledgeable you are, the more satisfied you will be with what you can do with it.

At the top of this page select Downloads. In the middle drop down box select Helix and in the 3rd drop down box select your operating system and press the Go button. You will see a set of instructions for Helix Editor 1.21. Keep this page handy because you'll be following those instructions. Read through them first and understand the sequence. IF THERE'S ANYTHING YOU'RE NOT CLEAR ON, COME BACK HERE AND ASK QUESTIONS...DON'T GUESS...BECAUSE YOU'LL LIKELY GUESS WRONG. Follow the instructions in steps 1 - 3 to save any presets you want to keep. Step3 tells you to download the Helix Editor so scroll to the end of the instructions and press the Download button. The installer program will download to your computer, then you need to run the installer program and it will install the current versions of the Helix Editor, the Line 6 Updater, and the appropriate device drivers for your computer. DO THIS FIRST BEFORE GOING ANY FURTHER. If the Helix Editor version and firmware versions don't match you are going to have all sorts of bugs and problems. After dowloading the Editor, UpdateR, and device drivers continue through each step of the instructions PRECISELY from that point (step 3). In essence you will use the Line 6 Updater to install the current version of the firmware on your Helix unit. Then you will have to go through some manual steps to make sure everything is setup correctly. Follow ALL the instructions. The major problem people have with these updates is not doing the instructions correctly.

I personally use the DXR12s...one at home for dialing in tones and practicing and one at our rehearsal space for live gigs. It's a very capable speaker and would serve your purposes well. My situation is a bit more extensive as I play in a 7 piece band and use it as my stage monitor, but I suspect in your situation you could get by with just a single speaker along with a small 4 channel mixer to do everything you would need to do as a duo. Personally I think that makes more sense than to try to send everything through the Helix. It could be done, but it would be much harder to manage everything I would think. There are a few other differences between the LT and the full Helix such as no separate headphone volume knob on the LT and fewer stomp buttons, but I'm not sure any of those things would necessarily impede you. The one area that could be important are the additional inputs (send and receive) which could come in handy were you to want to add something like a keyboard that you might want to route through the Helix and take advantage of some of the effects. Bottom line, the full Helix has enough added capabilities it might just be safer to go that route since you never know where you're going to end up. At least you'll have the capabilities should you need it in the future and it's not that much more. As far as the knowledge base here, actually there are quite a few of us that come from engineering type fields, but I don't think that's really where the knowledge comes from. I think it's more likely that it comes from 20 to 50 years of experience being gear-heads.... :lol:

Personally I have a small 4 channel mixer I connect up to my Helix when I'm dialing in patches. I always set my Master Volume on the Helix at the same spot and then I dial in the patch volume using the signal lights on the mixer as a guide. I still have to adjust a bit by ear based on the patch, but it works very well at least for maintaining a consistent signal level going to the PA for live performances. Should work fine in a studio as well. As long as the patches are consistent you can adjust the Master Volume accordingly to get the right signal strength across all patches.

I would think unity setting on the channel would be fine as long as that channel doesn't have a pad engaged. Just so you know, unity setting on the gain knob doesn't really mean much. Gain on the signal should be set by engaging the PFL button and then watch the signal lights as the signal comes through and maximize the signal to unity based on the signal lights. That's just FYI, but the hissing is very suspicious. It could be a bad cable or it might be phantom power is engaged on that channel which is a known issue for the Helix. But the fact you heard hissing (i'm assuming you heard it at a fairly normal level on the fader, not at it's peak) suggests there's something else going on there. Just to eliminate some things, I don't know what type of FRFR speaker you have, but I would assume if it's like most you have a piggyback output XLR out on the speaker. You could try running your XLR to the board from that output and see what you get. That would at least eliminate a bad XLR cable and give you a direct line into the board. If that's still bad try a different channel on the board and see if the channel has a problem. I'd also suggest running from the XLR out on the Helix to your FRFR speaker...just make sure the speaker is setup correctly for that signal. That's just to either eliminate or identify whether there's a problem with the XLR out on the Helix. The problem with these kind of things is the failure point could be in so many places. The editing issue is truly a strange one. That's never happened to me on either of my Helix units. I've had a couple of freezes when hooked up to the editor, but it never affected the sound on the Helix. Honestly, this is one of those things I think is worth a call to the support line. The XLR issue needs a bit more troubleshooting to verify it's a Helix issue, but the dropout during editing is a true mystery and is worth a call.

What was the gain/trim setting on the channel you were plugged into on the mixer? Mic levels are considerably lower than line levels so you need to make sure the gain/trim which is the preamp level for the channel is turned up. Personally I run my XLR out using line because it's not that far of a run to the mixer, but it should work either way. It's just that Mic input on most boards will require more preamp gain/trim. Also select the output block make sure your output block is set to "multi" per the instruction on page 15 of the manual. As far as sound going off while you're editing it shouldn't do that unless you inadvertently changed an input or output block in some way. If the patch wasn't saved and you just shut off the unit, when you turned it back on it would revert to the last saved version which had a correct input or output block. That's the only thing I can think of that would fit that behavior.

Glad everything went well for you. By the way, if your friends give you any flak over going digital relate this true story to them.... A couple of weekends ago a national touring act came through and were performing at an event in the local area. They wanted to get a local band to open for them and the organizer asked us to do it. We were hanging around out there waiting for our sound check while they were getting setup with all their big tube amps and such. Some of the band members (all young guys) came over and were talking with our drummer (who's 25) about all sorts of stuff...touring, music, etc. and pretty much ignoring the old guy standing there (I'm 65). Eventually one of them asked if I was in the band and I told him yes. He asked what I play and I said guitar and then asked what gear I used. I told him I had a Helix and they all went nuts and wanted to know everything about it, how it compared to Kemper, and Axe and so forth. They really went ballistic when I told them I had two Helix units...one at home for recording and as a backup and one for live. After we played a couple of the guys came up and told me that was maybe the finest live tone he'd ever heard in a concert. The point being...the world is leaving your buddies behind. It's kind of ironic that these young guys grew up in the high-tech digital world, but it's us older guys that have adopted it more quickly than them...and are reaping the benefits while they struggle with all the old amps we abandoned. You see, we used those amps because we didn't have a choice. Now that we have a choice we're happy to leave them behind for something FAR better.....

Absolutely. I was using the frequency response chart from the actual speakers as a way to understand the difference in the response of the IRs. There may be slight differences, but the IR should have similar response characteristics, especially when relatively compared to charts from other speakers.

I think you can get the sound you want from the internal cabs or IRs. Most of the time I use IRs simply because they're convenient. Rather than go through the process of selecting a cab, mic, and dialing in parameters I simply add the specific IR that has right mic and general parameters I want to the signal chain and I'm done and can move on to other elements in the signal chain.

The problem with demo videos is they really don't give you a feel for the range of sound you can get from a pack of IRs. They can only realistically demo just a few sounds. But there's really no way to find that out other than get the pack and experiment.

I would pay heed to what Silverhead has been telling you. Yes, things could go well. But the Helix, in spite of how easy it is to navigate, is a highly technical device. You might be lucky and be able to pull things off at practice, but I would certainly have a standby rig you could quickly go to if things aren't working exactly right for you...and there's a good chance of that since you will have had ZERO amount of time to get used to it. Here's what I'd recommend, Have your normal rig ready to go as a standby. See if you can quickly find a decent preset you can use from the factory presets. Without knowing what firmware will be loaded it's hard to know what presets are there, but a good one for you might be in the Factory1 Presets. It's the second preset named "Essex A30" which is a Vox preset that has a hall reverb, and a mid-gain boost for leads. That may be your best bet right out of the box if it's there. The amp has quite a bit of drive on it by default which you can adjust to clean it up, or potentially control it a bit with your guitar volume knob. But it might suffice on it's own or at least get you by. Do as you were planning on doing and use the mic cable from the mic on your normal amp and plug it into the XLR L/Mono out. Gain stage that signal on the board and make sure you are receiving an adequate monitor feed from that line. If things begin to get dicey, don't be afraid to unplug the Helix and go back to your normal rig for now until you can work things out on the Helix. That's probably the best plan for now. If things seem to work out well at rehearsal then you can consider using the setup on Sunday. If not just go with your old setup until you can get the Helix appropriately dialed in.

Wow...what a shame they got rid of that GoldTone 10/12. That's an amazing IR that I use a lot, especially with my Gretsch hollow body. Glad I grabbed it when I did. That's a very unique sound that I can't get out of most of my other IRs other than maybe with some of my Jensen speaker IRs. Even then they don't really compare to the Gold/Tone.

I bought this set of OwnHammer IRs a couple of weeks ago and just now got around to doing some real testing with them. I thought I'd pass my impressions along since this is a relatively new offering from OH and there may be some folks interested here. This set of IRs is based around two Vox cabinets, the AC15H1TVL which is a 1 x 12 open back solid mahogany cabinet, and the AC-30/6 open back fawn 2 x 12 setup. Interestingly, OH has apparently dropped the 2 x 12 VX30 IRs as they're no longer listed and seem to be replaced by this group and the single IR pack for the AC-30/6. This pack interested me because I do quite a bit of blues and british rock tones which use Vox cabinets so it seemed like something I'd get a lot of use out of. Obviously I didn't have time to go through all of the various IRs, but I spent a couple of hours working with some of the basic arrangements to get a feel for how they performed using a single patch based on the Litigator amp model set to an edge of breakup tone I'd commonly use for bluesy jazz using my Gibson Les Paul. The 1 x 12 pack comes with four speaker variations, a Celestion Bad Cat proprietary speaker, a Celestion Blue Alnico, a 1979 Fane speaker (commonly used in HiWatt amps), and a Celestion Alnico Gold. The 2 x 12 pack also has four speaker variations; a Blue Alnico, a Celestion G12M-25, a Celestion Silver Alnico, and hemp cone Celestion Vintage 30. The pack also includes various mixtures/combinations of these speakers. For my test I just focused on using the Royer R-121 Mic in the position 3 location just a bit outside of the speaker cap. My first impression is I REALLY like the 1 x 12 cabinet. It's very much an "in your face" kind of sound compared to the 2 x 12 which is a bit more docile and mellow. There were no real surprises with the blue alnico speakers, typical "throaty" or "chimney" sound you'd expect from a typical Vox. But the Alnico Gold and Silver were a nice surprise in that they had just a touch of that throaty sound, just enough to give it a bit of mellowness. Both the Bad Cat and the Fane speakers were a bit more rockish in nature with the Bad Cat having a bit more bass and body, but both were really nice sounds and the Fane turned out to be my personal favorite for the tone I was going for which was more of a very edgy/crunchy sound but needed a lot of clarity for some jazzier parts. The only one that really didn't make much of an impresson for me was the Celestion hemp cone Vintage 30. It's not that it was bad, just didn't leave much of an impression. From what I can tell from my test I think I'm going to get a lot of use out of this pack in a pretty wide range of various styles. I intentionally tested all of these setups with no high or low cuts going out to my Yamaha DXR12. I might incorporate some slight cuts on some of these were I using a brighter amp, but overall everything was pretty pleasing to my ears in this arrangement using the Litigator amp. I'd probably recommend this pack to anyone that's doing a considerable amount of blues, jazz or even classic rock tones from Rolling Stones to The Who or even Queen.

Sorry, but your patch didn't get loaded. I think to actually share a patch you have to load it into Customtone and then you can put a link to it here.

Well, I received an update from Line 6 on my unit. The unit arrived there today and the RMA was erroneously written up as a replacement rather than a repair. That's been changed so I guess they won't be sending out my unit until it's repaired now. I guess it's a good thing I bought a second unit as I'm playing this weekend. But all is going very well with the new unit. Everything transferred over and is working as expected. I amost hate to have to take it out and gig with it because it's so nice and pretty compared to my other unit.

Well I hope this time you don't get distracted by all the different options and simply take things a step at a time so you don't get anxiety attacks from getting overwhelmed. Here's a simple process I'd recommend to ease things a bit: First, set up the Helix and your ELX112P about 6 feet apart with your speaker in the vertical position around head height. Use the 1/4" L/Mono out on the Helix into Input2 on your ELX and select Line position on the button. Set the Input gain on Input2 at the 12 o'clock position where it's marked with a 0 (that's unity). Do the same on the loudspeaker level and place the siwtches in Normal (not boost). As far as the Full Range or With Sub switch you can play with that. Full range simply means all the bass frequencies will pass through to the speaker. With sub cuts off low frequencies probably below 110Hz. Next use a blank preset and select an amp+cab you might be familiar with such as a Fender Deluxe or maybe a Brit Plexi Bright. Don't select it into the signal chain by pressing down on the joystick yet just use it while in the selection phase to go through the options and listen to it. Use the default settings on the amp and cabinet for now. As you strum move over to the cabinet options which is the 3rd page to the right and adjust the microphone position out further and compare the sound of the mic at 1" out to 10" and notice the effect on both the low and high end. Don't listen to it as if it's supposed to be an amp. Listen to it as if it were a studio recording of the guitar on your stereo. If it still seems too harsh to you, dial down the High Cut parameter little by little. Once it seems relatively presentable to you try selecting various different speaker combinations to see the effect those might have. The point I'm trying to get you to is to critically examine the key foundation elements that make up the sound of that amp and that cabinet with that guitar. Changing EQ, adjusting drive levels are all refinements on that basic foundation as are external effects, compressors, and eq. They can make adjustments to the basic sound, but the basic sound will always be that foundation. If you get the foundation right, it will be easier to set your sights on how you want to adjust it bit by bit. Again, you have to divorce yourself from focusing on what you normally hear from your amp and listen carefully as if you're a recording engineer designing the guitar sound you want on a specific recording. Move around the room a bit while you play simple chords and even turn your back on the speaker to get a feel for the overall sound. You don't need a lot of volume, just enough that it's like listening to a fairly loud stereo system. Probably about the 10 o'clock to 12 o'clock position on the Helix master volume knob.

Oh it's definitely cabinet coloration alright. Especially with the OwnHammers. I have full sets of all of these brands so it's pretty easy to match up specific brand cabinet, speaker configurations, mics and mic positions to get a real feel for the differences. Particularly when comparing OwnHammer and Redwirez. Not so much with Celestion since they don't specify cabinets other than generic open back or closed back, nor mic positions, just relative mixes (balanced, dark, dark2, etc.). Redwirez certainly win the competition for detailed mic and room placement though...I'll give them that.

I think when it comes to this part of how to best use the Helix it comes down to what the person needs in their performance more than anything. There have been endless discussions about the "amp in the room" sound which really just boils down to just a traditional live stage sound. In many cases that's what the person is after, and in which case they're probably better off simply by-passing the Cab and IR features of the Helix and going direct into a traditional cabinet in the same way as you're describing. There's nothing wrong with that especially if it fits your needs. There is another segment of user of which I'm a subscriber. What I've sought after for a long time is to have a stage sound that competes with, and is as good as those that you hear on a professionally produced recording. For that you really do need all of the tools provided by the Helix, especially including cabinets, mic's, mic placements and mixes, because that's how it's done in the studio. More importantly you need a rig that will reflect that kind of accuracy and those nuances effectively. Most modern, decent PA systems have that ability, so it's simply a matter of reproducing that sound on stage as well as having a way of achieving it when you're building your patches at home. In other words, the control room experience while you dial in your sound. That's where the FRFR speaker comes into play as it will give you an accurate idea of where you're at in achieving that goal. Just as it's hard for people who like the "amp in the room" feel to explain why that's important to them, it's equally hard to describe why some of us are so driven toward the produced sound. All I can say is I'm more than willing to tediously tweak and mess with a patch for many hours over a period of a few days to achieve that sound using various arrangements of cab/IRs, mics, mic placements and mixes as well as placement and configurations of amps and effects until I hear it. It doesn't happen every time, but when it does it's a truly glorious sound....indistinguishable from a polished studio recording. And when played live in a band it's in a completely different world from a traditional live amp sound. To me it's not about convincing people that one side or the other is the way to go, because they are two very different ways of approaching what you do and achieving what you're personally after.

At thus point you're better off opening a support ticket with Line6 and see what they advise.

And that's exactly what I'm doing now with my backup unit I bought. Hooked it up to the laptop and starting to do most of my editing through the editor. At least I'm experienced using the machine interface so I'll know what to do at a gig if I need to make adjustments.

LOL...yeah. But it might also on the plus side indicate they've determined the hardware failure points on the joystick and the newer units have the newer hardware. At least I hope so...

I'm kind of suspecting that Line6 may be simply replacing the units with joystick failures as that's simpler and faster. It's not that it's irrepairable, just faster logistically.

I just sent mine off this morning for repairs to Line6 for the same issue, but the message I got from them when they sent the RMA and UPS shipping notice was that as soon as they receive it they'll be shipping my new unit. I certainly hope that's the case as I really don't want to get a credit and have to go about getting a new one shipped from a dealer. Here's what they said in the message to me: Mine was still under warranty however by a few days... "We have written Replacement RMA 60022656 for your Helix A UPS label will be sent to you via email shortly. Please box up the entire unit safely and drop it off at a local UPS store. Once we receive the unit, your replacement will be sent out from our warehouse."