sinlimo

thanks eenymason! I was thinking for about the same price as the USB interface, I could get a used Pod XT live or Pod X3. (I hardly ever see used USB interfaces for sale on ebay, reverb.com, or CL)

I'm seeing a used pod xt live is about the same cost as the USB interface... any idea if I'd run into the same problems with a Pod XT Live as I do with the Helix LT?

Hi, Now that my beloved Variax 500 is working again (thank you Line 6!!), I'm looking to connect it to Workbench and adjust some of the guitars and pickups. I no longer have the old USB interface, but i do have a Helix LT. Question - can a legacy item like the Variax use the Helix LT as an interface with the older Workbench (As I don't think the Workbench HD would work with my older guitar) thanks in advance!

thank you!! A 2nd (Win 10) machine did the trick!

Just got a brand new Helix LT and wanted to upgrade it to the latest and greatest. I downloaded the latest driver, updater, and the 2.21 Installer. Whenever I run the Installer, I get the following message: Firmware Update Failed An error has ocurred. Please try again. Please follow these steps when updating your Line 6 Product. 1. Turn the power switch off, then back on. 2. Ensure the USB cable is connected directly to your computer and not to a hub or peripheral such as a keyboard or mouse. 3. Click 'Continue' and attempt the update again. Of course I follow those steps and get the same results. Now the Helix doesn't even boot - it shows some glitchy blinky logo on the screen with the message "Boot failure Entered Update Mode!" There's also a red -3 in the upper left corner. Any advice??? (I'm running a Win 7 machine and followed the steps to update)

Ah sorry, should have included this - "Notes from the tech: "Replaced battery holder,battery cable and main board." Pretty sure I could have handled 2 out of those 3 items, but I'm amazed/glad they still have some of the old boards around!!. :)

ok, for the benefit of those either in the same boat, or if you're contemplating what kind of company Line 6 is, I gotta post the resolution to this. soo, on the advice Charlie_Watt, I did contact Line 6. I figured it was a huge reach in the dark, knowing full well they hadn't even made this model in years, and my guitar was about 10 years old. But figured (shrug), why not, right? It's worth an email. So I reached out to Line 6 support and explained that my Variax 500 had suddenly died on me, and was there anything they could even do (knowing how old the guitar was)? They gave me an RMA and told me to send the guitar to them. Kinda odd, as I figured they'd either tell me it's the guitar is too old to fix, or they'd tell me to go find some authorized repair shop. But no, they said send it directly back to them. I did, and expected their response once they received it to be either "it's too old, we can't fix it as there's no parts for it" or "we can fix it but it'll cost more than the guitar is worth". Imagine my absolute SURPRISE when about 2 weeks later, a large box appears on my doorstep!! (yes, I did receive an advance UPS notification) I thought maybe Line 6 had simply returned my Variax with some sort of note saying "sorry, couldn't fix it". But no... I plugged it in - and it works perfectly!!! Are you kidding me? I was very surprised by their service (in a very, very good way) Short story long (cause that's how I roll on too much coffee) - I have a fully functional Variax 500 back in my hands - repaired by a company that DOES give a damn about their customers. Thank you Line 6.

ehh, no luck with the connector. I took a look at all the connections to the PCB and they all look good. Bummer... Any other ideas or suggestions? I'm open to try just about anything before I sell the 500 for it's body and neck (which are stunners on this tobacco burst)?

Thanks BillBee, I'll check the connector tonight! (it's the one with the rainbow colored wires coming out of it correct?) If that's the cable, I did remove it and re-insert it last night just to make sure it was connected properly... but I didn't check the contacts for oxidation. (fingers crossed as I really do like my 500)

I know this is a legacy product, but any insight would be super appreciated. I have a Variax 500 that used to work just fine, but recently stopped producing any sound. For the record, I'm strictly running off batteries at this point but this Variax did use to also work fine with a Pod XT using the variax cable. When I noticed initially the 500 wasn't working, all I got was occasional weird wooshing, spacey sounds, but absolutely no guitar sounds. I checked all the connections, made sure the batteries are fresh, and now I get no sound whatsoever. It doesn't matter where the knobs and switches are, there's just no sound coming out of this guitar. The online research I've done points to "maybe" the bridge cable being bad (it looked fine when I looked at it), but is there anything else I can try and fix to get my 500 working again? thanks!

awesome, thanks Plastalmonus! I'll try it tonight.

Rather than do a tap dance (which I'm not good at), I'm looking to see if it's possible to program a footswitch to turn on one effect (or, multiple effects), while simultaneously turning off other effects? For instance, in the verse of a song I have a nice chorus and light trem effect assigned to a footswitch. When I get to the chorus, I'd like to be able to stomp a footswitch to turn on my OD AND turn off the chorus and trem effects with one stomp. I looked through the manual and "think" I might be able to do this with some sort of controller assign, but I couldn't really wrap my head around it.

And not sure if I'm missing something, but is there a Helix application for Win 10 PC's?

Dang DI! First you were posting Helix updates while you were in Hawaii, and now you're working weekends? I very much appreciate your responses but you do need to relax SOMETIME! (jk) ;-) And I submitted a tech support request as well so I'm hoping to hear from the Line6 support team in a few. There's definitely enough with the Helix to keep me occupied until the bug gets figured out.

heh heh, that'd be heavily ironic if I have to take this into work to get it to communicate with my PC. I determined that it's NOT my USB port that's the problem... I was able to connect via USB to the updater and install the latest firmware. The issue seems to be with the actual Helix application. Whenever I try and launch it, it just crashes.

While I was able to connect (and edit) my Helix on my work PC (Win 7), I can't connect on any of my home machines (Win 10 and Win 7). I keep getting the error message that says "Helix has stopped working". Argh, this is frustrating as i wanted to back up some presets I made and try out some new IR's! I've uninstalled and re-installed the Helix application and drivers to no avail. Any ideas on how to have my Helix and PC communicate???

awesome! Thanks again Phil! I was already excited to get a Helix, now I'm even more so!

Wow Phil, thanks so much for the quick response! How exactly would it work? Would one cable go in the normal "input" and the other go into the "Aux In"?

I have a guitar with two outputs (think Epiphone Ultra 3 with magnetic pickups and a Nanomag pickup). Will there be any way to plug both outputs from my guitar into Helix and run two different signal paths (summing to either same amp or split to amp/PA)? thanks!

Got my red cable, luv it! Nice work Dallas!