litesnsirens

Here's another one Roland hasn't figured out... how to make their gear class compliant so that you can midi over usb. How about virtually no updates to products? While we are anxiously awaiting 2.8 and know there will be a 3.0 at some point, Roland's updates are within the first year of release and typically consist of fixing things, if you're lucky, there might be a new feature or two so maybe you get to 1.1 or 1.2 (they may name it differently but this is essentially what it actually is). After that the product is ignored...forever.

I think it's less of an issue if the cables are running along side each other and not crossing. I use a pedal snake which for years carried all my signals and power from the front of the stage to the back of the stage. Unfortunately there isn't a pedal snake solution for IEC type cables so now it only carries my audio and midi signals.

LOL ... It's so true ... but for me anyway , that's not the case. I know for a fact there are lots players out there that have better tone than me. And that's OK, it gives me something to copy. I like the challenge of trying to dial it in, and I actually enjoy the process. I've lost entire weekends doing just that.

Does fractal sell fingers? Maybe if I just get new fingers....

I can just plug into my Helix if I want to hear great sounds happening...and I actually get some practice out of it at the same time. You know so I can improve the tone in my fingers. My fingers have horrible tone right now... I'm trying to correct it... ;-)

I do all those "tonal" variations that you're describing, usually without thinking about it, and probably in every song. All of those are almost equivalent to rolling back the volume on the guitar and having it clean up. I think that is a given variable, ie; "listen how this tone cleans up if I roll back the volume knob or if I just play lightly". "Listen to the attack I can get out of this preset or amp model if I dig in." I can tell that the player didn't change presets when he plucked that string harder to make it bark. My point is, if you and I are sitting side by side and did sound clips of each of us, in turn, striking an A chord, through the same Helix or AxeFX preset, same guitar ..blah blah blah, put them up as A or B comparisons, no one listening is going to be thinking "I prefer the tone on Preset A". I'm not saying nobody will claim to hear a huge difference, there are plenty of those people out there. As far as the two definitions of tone, I don't think they have anything to do with what we are talking about here. At some point guitar players hi-jacked that word and converted it to their own usage. Words don't really have intrinsic meanings, they have usages, kind of like when "gay" really had one usage and that was to describe "happy". So let's not get caught up in a dictionary definition. It also comes down to context, I would say that if we are talking about a guitar rig, we are tacitly using the word tone in a slightly different way than we are if we are talking about an acoustic guitar. Since we are talking about modellers here, we shouldn't have too much trouble with what most guitar players mean by tone to describe an electric guitar signal chain. I think that is different than skill and proficiency. Sure, if someone is unskilled and plays through a rig, you can be distracted by the lack of skill and it might throw you off on whether or not it's a good tone but I think they would have to be terrible for that to happen. I could still say, "the guy can't play worth beans but that amp sounds great". As far as the comparison of two different guitar greats through each others rigs etc. It really has nothing to do with whether or not the tone they are playing through is the same or different. The tone is the same the playing style is different, they are great players who play a certain way and like a particular tone to compliment their style. The amount of delay, reverb, distortion the character of the IR etc etc doesn't change no matter how you play.

I think skepticism regarding the voracity of a demo video is only warranted if you are under the impression that the person making the video acutally used a different modeller and lied about using the helix or whatever product they demo’d. I’m a skeptic about pretty much everything it’s just me. It doesn’t mean I don’t trust or believe anything, it just means i withhold belief until the claim has been demonstrated to be true. Put another way there is enough evidence to warrant the belief. in all these cases the video is the evidence, the Helix can sound that good. I’ve seen plenty of demo videos so I’m not relying on a single one which means I can increase the confidence i have in the belief. Ultimately I would have to believe that all the guys putting up vids are involved in a conspiracy but if I’m using occam’s razor I have to go with the more simple explanation. Also the crap about how good the players are doesn’t factor in for me. Let’s get real here, if buddy in the video handed his guitar to me, although I might not do justice to the passage the guitar tone would be the same for every good or lollipop note I play. The signal is going through the same chain. I’ve gone and watched bands in bars with mediocre players that have a great guitar tone. If you can’t separate the tone from the skill to decide what is actually impressing you, that’s not skepticism that’s just an inability that you need to work on. And I think if you thought about it you could probably do it, you just have to try to get past all the times that you have read on various forums that good tone is all in the fingers. And to tie this all back to the thread, I have no interest in spending estra cash on a device when I can get equally impressive tones from my Helix. That, and the added luxury of having the footswitches built in, being able to control other devices from Helix, the scibble strips, etc. It’s a no brainer. Helix hangs with the best of them in tone and it meets my needs in other departments. Rant over...

Thanks phil_m. At this point it’s really just a curiosity for me. By the time the update comes out I will likely have used the workaround on every preset that I need it for. I’m not sure there would be any real need to go back and change things once they are working. That’s not a slight or complaint about how long it’s going to take to get the update out, it’s more of a statement about how excited I am to get this functionality completed in my set up. That said, going forward I can use the update for any future presets. This Helix is the gift that keeps on giving, the deeper I get into it’s capabilities the more fulfilling my gigging life becomes.

While I am seriously enjoying the fact that I can use the work around, did I catch on the 2.8 video from namm that this has now been officially addressed? It was hard to tell...I heard and saw something briefly flash on the screen about momentary cc then it went on to a demonstration using helix to control the slide show. Which probably to others was the more exciting reveal.

This little work-around worked for me too. Thanks Phil_m. My gigs just got a whole lot easier.

I think the issue is that when you want to use a momentary feature via midi from the helix, it doesn’t work. It sends the cc to complete whatever function but then that function is on. And there is no way to turn it off. By definition, “momentary” should mean that it is on while you are holding down the footswitch and off when you let it go. So there should be an option to assign a zero value to the release of the footswitch. I’ve enquired about this, upvoted others requests for this on IdeaScale, I’m just waiting for a fix. I use the helix to control my voice live 3 via midi. I would like to be able to have momentary harmonies, which is possible on the voice live 3 itself, but I just use the CC and not the CC toggle, it just turns on the harrmony and then it’s on until you find some other way to turn it off. In ideaacale it’s currently in the “in progress” status, so I’m hopeful. It’s probably the most immediate feature I would like to see added.

It’s all water under the fridge...

To add to this, the reason I didn't want to copy and past all commands was because I already had some commands in there for other things. But since I have realized it's going to be much easier to go back and make some adjustments on those as I go through this. I've decided to use that function. The problem now is, when I copy and paste "all commands" it doesn't include any of the customizations ie: the names I've put in the scribble strips. So I paste all to another preset, and all the names are either "note" if I have a midi note number assigned to that footswitch or "CC Toggle" if I have a control change assigned to the footswitch. Is there something I'm doing wrong here? That seems ridiculous.

The deeper I get into the helix the more things occur to me. I use the bandhelper app on my ipad to scroll lyrics and to choose presets for me on my helix. For years I've been using the irig blueboard to control functions on bandhelper over Bluetooth. But after a bit of experimenting, and I should give part of the credit to the capabilities of bandhelper, I found that it's possible to control whatever functions I want in bandhelper via the footswtiches on the helix over the usb cable that is connected anyway. The problem now is, I use a different preset for every song, so I have hundreds and between 2 bands actively use at least a hundred with another 20 or 30 songs on standby that we may pull out for certain situations. So it's going to be a tedious task. I have 6 commands that I need to assign to footswitches in every patch I expect to use at a gig. Currently all I've been able to figure out is to copy a single footswitch function and the copy that to all my other presets… which means I'll have to do that function 6 times. The copy and paste function is all or one. I can't highlight 6 and then go into the next preset highlight the same 6 and then paste them. Does anyone know of any ideas that might help? I'd be happy with a global paste, like to every preset within a setlist or even the entire device.

Of course it’s subjective like most of the comments are advising. I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’ll work for you. If you have some competence in creating tones you can get the job done with this device. The only other line 6 modeller I owned before this was the HD500 and I thought it wasn’t a bad modeller but the Helix is in another category altogether. If you’re going to be using it direct live it’s best to craft your tones through some decent PA speakers. I’ve found that the tones translate pretty well between various FRFR speakers. So you should be able to just bring it to the gig plug into the PA and be happy. I use Bose F1 system for my live PA, I can set it up at home without the subs and the tone translates nicely with or without the subs and I’ve plugged directly into other PAs that are either installed at the gig or where there are other bands playing through a common PA. I’ve been happy with the tone of my guitar in all of these circumstances. Other than that the Helix is easy, sounds rich and organic and is really versatile.

I agree with a lot of these ideas, slow gear, ehx B9,C9,Key9,mel9,synth9. I’m not suggesting everyone one of those ehx pedals... but just something that gets into the territory, we could add our own Leslie effects after, even run through an amp for more of a deep purple b3 sound. But having jumped over to helix from GR-55 I’m missing some of those options. I’m using the Glen DeLaune acoustic patch which I have tweaked for my guitar and pickups which works amazingly well, but I’d also be down with an acoustic simulator pedal, just for more options. I think for straight up guitar tones ie; amps/effects/cabs, I can tweak my way into any sound I’m looking for so I don’t really care if they add anymore amp models, new models might make it easier as far as a jumping off point but I think the sounds are already in the box.

The thing is, I totally hear what you're saying. It all depends on how you use the device. I don't think anyone is going to say it's anywhere near convenient to go from Helix to HX Stomp. But the subject line in the thread is the question as to whether or not 6 effects blocks are enough, followed your answer of "Not Really". And I get that to kick start a discussion a little controversy helps and that a "Not Really" is more provocative than a more subjective "Not for me". As I said less convenient for sure and I am one of the guys that has a different preset for every song. But I change my patches from my ipad so it doesn't matter the order of the songs and it doesn't matter if we want to drag a song out that we haven't played for awhile. I just pull it up on the ipad and I'm ready to go. In that sense I could set up the stomp to get me through an evening if the Helix ever failed and also control it from my ipad. I could also easily set up some core tones that would get me through an impromptu jam session. So my impression, 6 is enough to get through a gig or a jam albeit with some concessions compared to what you're used to with a Helix. I think it's a useful product with a niche, kind of a pocketknife. I think for a lot of bass players that aren't too crazy into effects this fits the bill better than Helix or Helix LT which could be overkill.

Aren't there presets on this? Do you need 10 slots for every song? I can get a lot of mileage from an OD, delay and reverb. Which on the HX Stomp would be OD > AMP (maybe + CAB) > CAB (if not with amp) > CHORUS > DELAY > REVERB. I don't need Chorus on every song, in fact the only thing I might need on every song is the amp and cab because depending on the song I may only need DELAY or REVERB. Point being, I'm sure if I sat down with this I could construct a bunch of great sounding patches that would get me through a gig. I have the Helix because I want convenience and excess. But back in the day I gigged a lot with way less.

Personally I think the cab models included with Helix are excellent quality. I do still have a bunch of IRs that I use, but I also use the stock cabs (I'm probably 50/50) and I think that anyone saying the stock cabs aren't any good is probably just really used to using IRs and haven't gotten a handle on the Stock cabs yet.

the tuner is great. in all modes.

i'd like to see momentary midi added in the control centre section. On ideascale it's in the "in progress" phase so I'm hopeful. It's a pretty simple fix too, they just have to make it so that you can assign a value to both press and release. They could even leave it fixed at 127 for press and 0 for release and accomplish the same thing. So even though it's probably not high on everyone's list of priorities, it's not like something big isn't getting added because they put time and resources into this.

I just spent some time in ideascale and it appears that someone had already requested this feature. And it's in the "In Progress" filter so I guess they are working on it. This is great news for me as the whole idea is to not have to use any other pedals or footswitches. If I get migrated over to Helix before this is implemented I will use your idea, but it's nice to know it'll just be temporary.

To be clear I also use bandhelper, I transitioned from setlist maker a few years ago. I just thought setlist maker might be the better option for solo artists since it's a buy it once type of deal. Bandhelper is great for full bands because it syncs better (IMO) than SLM and has features to allow each user to have personal fields for lyrics etc. I guess in my recommendation for SLM I didn't take into account the editing on the computer which bandhelper has and which I really do love. ALl that said Bandhelper is the ultimate.

setlist maker is the best I've used so far. There are android and ios versions. I'm not sure if you would make use of all the features so maybe it's over kill for you but it's a great app.

Do you mean purchase an external momentary footswitch? Like a Boss FS5 and plug that into one of the expression pedal inputs?