dietmd

Ended up buying a 2nd FH1500. Got them set up flat w/o any effects and stored a user setting for the Helix on each one. Just stays there. I was going to buy two PowerCab 112 Plus's but the more I thought about it the less I liked the idea. (Got the 2nd FH1500 for less than the price of a PowerCab Plus!!!) Sounds really great- Loud as hell. No limiting or extra compression going into the guitar inputs on the FH1500s. Would love to AB with a pair of PowerCabs and the FH1500s. The opportunity just hasn't presented itself. If L6 follows it's usual pattern they will be coming out with a PowerCab 212 Plus at which time I might jump on that bandwagon. Till them I'll hire a strong man to move my FH1500s when I'm playing out and need stage volume. (Amp in room and all that!!!)

I realize it's a warrenttee void but has anyone figured out where in the circuit of the Amplifi 150 you could get a direct input into the preamp/ power amp section. I want to connect directly to the stereo amp area with a stereo line level external preamp (Heix) bypassing the on board effects perhaps adding a pair of 1/4" inputs (a la a return circuit) and or XLRs. I'm not a tech but this should not be that hard to do and would make my Amplifi 150 which is gathering duct usable again. Secondly - is it possible to BlueTooth two Amplifi's at the samw time? (or Firehawk 1500s for that matter!!) ANY ONE PLEASE!!!!!!

I know this sounds nuts because I believe the FH1500 has the capacity to run all 6 speakers directly from a Helix w/o all the special gyrations and wiring hookups!! I do think there should be a Firmware upgrade that could make this happen easily. I firmly believe that there is a market for a Helix Amp/Speaker (with an L6 Link!!) to serve this specific purpose. I'm actually thinking of buying a second FH-1500 to use for this purpose to connect to my Helix. I have to admit that the thought of schlepping around two 65 pound amps makes my brain / back / butt hurt but I really don't want a SoundSource speaker as my principle guitar rig!! Another thought is to try and find someone who can Modify the input circuit of a Firehawk to accept the two line level outputs from a Helix and allow me to use all 6 FH 1500 speakers in a "Stereo" configuration. An additional idea from the "3rd Rock from the sun" would be to purchase an Amplifi 150 (getting pretty cheap now and I already have one!) and use the guitar inputs on each of them. I'm a bit reluctant with this thought as the Amplifi is small and fairly light but doesn't seem built to be terribly "Gig" worthy and I'm not sure that two of them would give me the stage level sound reinforcement I really want. Open to suggestions!!!

Wish they'd give us an update to match the New Helix Update from today!! A firmware update that does a WDW setting for the FH 1500 with the Monitor ins would be great. Issues resolved with the phasing etc. resolved would be amazing!!!

Thank you TONY!!!!!! :)

I have an Acoustic 700 I love (not sure why they stopped selling them it plays and sounds great!!) A Variax-600 I really haven't touched much since I got my first JTV-69 HSS. I had lots of problems with the JTV-69 HSS factory neck and made multiple attempts at fixing it. The nut was installed in the wrong place from the factory. Despite having a professional work on it and replace the factory nut with a Roller nut but we still could not get the feel Buzzing or intonation right. I ended up replacing the neck with a Mighty Mite Strat neck. I also installed Lace Alumitone Sensor pickups in it and it sounds fine with more of a Humbucker type sound to my ears. I bought a JTV-59 which other than a minor setup was fine right out of the box. Recently I added a Shoreline Gold JTV-69 SSS to the collection wanting a real Strat Sound which it offers along with all the single coil noise!! Not a quiet guitar and I plan on copper shielding the whole damn thing hopefully decreasing the noise. Overall I obviously like these guitars. They need TLC out of the box to get them right but the JTVs are great at what they are meant to do.

PierM is absolutely correct!! Will is not telling us anything helpful!! He's' simply stating the obvious and what all of us FH 1500 owners already know. What he needs to tell us is that L6 is actively working on the issue and has a firmware update due next week that will fix the problem!!! So far the "Super Dream Rig" - JTV - HELIX - FIrehawk 1500 is just that - a dream. Nothing uninhibitedly speaks to each other. No clear transparency. JTV/Workbench doesn't speak Helix and Helix doesn't speak Firehawk.

By the way I'm in the USA

Verlew, My fingers are crossed BUT in the words of my dear old Dad--- Don't hold your breath!!! Haven't seen a significant movement by L6 with this issue for close to a year. I was led to believe this would be addressed a long time ago!! I went as far to directly contacted their product expert and L6 rep in the UK. (He made the Gigging video for the FH 1500). No joy!!! I hope the effort you have put fourth helps but ?????? Ya ain't seen nothin yet!!

Verlew- I totally agree with your dilemma!! L6 just doesn't seem to be taking us seriously. I have a been waiting for 10 months for a L6 answer as well as a JTV - Firehawk and or Helix VDI Workbench Interface. No movement or answers at all!! They got our cash now it's over!!

I have a different problem with my Helix Foot Controller. Can someone tell me what I am doing wrong? When I hold the two Up and Down Buttons down together I get Snapshot mode. The Snap Shot 1 - 8 show up on the scribble notes but are blinking. As soon as I press one of these blinking buttons it stops blinking- the snapshot icon vanishes from the scribble screens and it switches to the presets. You can scroll up and down the snapshots with the Up / Down buttons on the left and the snapshot numbers show on the screen on the Rack Unit screen. I can't figure this out and Spoke with a Customer Service Rep who didn't help me either. Help someone???

Me TOO!!!

UBER GURU - I sure hope L6 is listening to these forums!! Contacting CS every time their gear hiccups is far from what I think the customer should need to do when there are basic functional issues with their gear. There a numerous postings regarding the issues I mentioned earlier and yes I have had numerous phone and email conversations with their support people. Though they have attempted to assist and have been quite pleasant in all of my encounters their support has not been able to "fix' the issues in many cases nor have they made public, plans to fix many of the problems that loyal L6 customers have posed .--- EG. - The three that I mentioned in my earlier post.- Freezing Helix, L6 link DT compatibility, Variax Workbench and VDI issues- all of which have hundreds of forum postings and votes -- My opinion/concerns are shared by many others. Hundreds of us calling customer service will do nothing except clog up their phone lines and reps with previously reported issues that CS can't fix making it even more difficult for customers / users to get through with issues that CS might actually be able to resolve. L6 and Yamaha are the controlling factor which make or break Helix. None of us end users have the ability to write an firmware update addressing our issues as the programming is proprietary and though this has been suggested by some software savey forum members L6 has not to my knowledge allowed an outside developer to work on our gear issues or it's glitches. Our collective thousands/millions of $DOLLARD$ dollars going to L6 compettitors is apparently the only thing that makes them listen. L6 has consistently left end users behind from a compatibility point of view. A change in that credo would encourage a major change in at least this end users satisfaction level.

I too have been experiencing freeze ups with my Helix Rack and Controller. I have needed to reboot the Helix 3-4 times and suddenly alls well again!! Definitely not trustworthy for a live performance. This has happened both connected and unconnected from my PC. Last bout of freezing was disconnected from the PC. Hope they fix this or like a bunch of other L6 gear I've got it will be in the duct collection area of my Studio. L6 defined you ain't listening to any of our issues!! You buy their upper end gear and are on your own. Nothing fixed on Helix in a year. Deserted on the DTs, JTVs, Amplifi and Firehawk. I think the time is coming for a firesale!!!!!

Wish I could buy one!!!

Jon_Me I have an Acoustic 700 that I LOVE. Great guitar and though I have a 600, 3 JTVs - 69, 69s and 59 I like the acoustic sound modeling of the 700 best despite the HD hype. Be cautioned that L6 is not really supporting the first gen Variaxs (or JTVs as far as I can see). As evidence I offer the fact that you can't really get it to work cleanly with Helix. As of now the Helix will NOT act as an interface to allow you to run any version of Workbench in any iteration. A complaint of from many of us. Other than that the Acoustic 700 is great instrument. I can't really understand why they discontinued it at least in in some form.

It appears L6 has not made an easy Interface between the Helix and FH1500. I came up with a small solution by I've been criticized by some for it. I found some cheap powered PA speakers available at Costco by a company called ION. They are A 15" & horn selling for $199 each. I found them on "Reverb" for $107 each manufacturer refurbished. I bought 2 for a total of $214 Shipped to my door and though they aren't incredible they are very adequate for small gigging and 1/4 the price of and L2s or L3s. For Acoustic they are actually killer!! I'm just running my XLR L and R outputs to the Line In on each. Have no phase issues, loud as hell and maybe not the highest fidelity but for the money shut down anything else I've seen/heard. Worst case if you hate them you're out $214!! Just my 2cents. I've got an Amplifi 150 I tried, Firehawk 1500 as well as a Carver GA250 into 2 Boogie 12" Thiele Cabinets. Sound as good as any of these setups and cost less than one Boogie Cabinet!

Not true!! The more gear the better!! He who dies with the most toys wins!! If you can't afford to lose don't play! And by the way buying more gear has made me a much better player! Just ask the guys I buy gear from!!! Ha!!!

I admitted to start that I'm a gear hound! For which I make no excuses! I still feel that a change in format from a speaker cabinet behind you to the FRFR format is a major fork in the road. Absolutely right Line6 ain't forcing me to do ANYTHING but from the point of view of a devout hobbiest the change from "Stamp Collecting" to "Email Saving" is a big change.

Been experimenting with a bunch of different combinations and permutations. I know I've wasted a bunch of money but hell this is my hobby and I'm gonna play till I drop!!! I had an Amplifi 150 and tried to connect the Helix through the Stereo Aux In== Very Thin, not motivating, and a waste of money (The Amplifi that is. It's a toy!!) I have a rack mounted Carver GA250 Guitar Power Amp-- A truly pro piece of gear that's 20 yeas old.(Sorry Bob Carver is gone he was a true auditory genius and died much too young :() So I plugged it into two Boogie 12" EV Black Shadow Thiele loaded Cabinets but the setup is still missing something in the High End with the JTV's acoustic models. It was just missing that Piezo tingle you get with an acoustic amp. Sounds killer otherwise so... I bought a pair of cheap Piezo tweeter arrays and they improved things but still not perfect. So--- I bought a Firehawk 1500-- It's cool-- BUT--- trying to hook it up WDW has phase issues and unless you use three connections the Horn is dead plus you need to modify your Helix models to accommodate for the settings!! Now I'm using it connected via Bluetooth to my backing tracks so I can Jam at a nice volume level! I'm still not satisfied so--- After reading lots of comments and being a die hard gear nut!!! I thought about the powered PA speaker/monitor suggestions I read about, JBL EONs, ALTO 12Ts, Mackie Thumpers, etc.Saw some cheap speakers at----COSTCO!!--- Ion 15" Bluetooth junk!! for $199.00 each. Listened to their built in FM radio right in the store and thought about a pair of them. Being a gear nut :wacko: I came home Googled them and found a guy in Florida selling Manufacturer Refurbished units for $107 each with free shipping and I bought a pair. They should be arriving in the next few days. If they suck I'm out another $214 if not---- :D We shall see!! In reality why the hell Line6 does not offer a decent powered unit Ala Firehawk sold side by side with the Helix, designed to be used by us overzealous gear mongers is a real question?? Spending another $1400-$2000+ on a pair of L2Ts or L3Ts is the only next step for me i guess, but- I resent Line6 making me change my entire guitar playing habitus forcing me to play though PA gear or floor monitors while I'm just trying to use their flagship "The Helix" for what it was designed!! Lets not get into my two DT50s that are now gathering dust or the fact that I have to pull out a dongle device to update my 3 JTVs because Helix won't speak to Workbench. === "You can't really believe what you see and hear can you? Now if you'll excuse me I must be on my way" :rolleyes: And so the saga continues!!

I put a set of Lace Sensor Alumitones (SSH) in my JTV-69. They sound good but not quite perfect. The reason they are not right is that the JTVs use 500k pots and they need 250k per Lace. My mistake as I should have looked into that before buying and installing the Alumitones. You can't switch out the pots in the JTV w/o major surgery!! They are mounted to a PC board AND I don't know where to find replacement stacked pots like those used in the JTV. Attempting to modify the pots and make stacked pots modified for use in the Variax will be a nightmare. I can't even think where to start!! The pots probably need to be 500k for the modeling to be correct with the piezo circuitry. I'm not afraid to try, but this is a pretty difficult modification unless someone has a better idea!! Any ideas would be very well received!.

Maybe it's the cab models I'm missing? There were several in the IR list I think they said something 2x12 and 4x12 with the numbers 1000 and 2000? Associated with them?

Thanks for the reply but I still can't find the factory IRs anywhere?? They are not in the documents IR folder from my backup and I can't find them anywhere else? Do you know where I can get them and how I am supposed to reinstall them?? Another issue I now am noticing is that every time I power on the Helix it goes through the process of rebuilding Presets and starts counting through them. Takes a minute or two to boot the Helix unit. Is this correct? I don't remember it doing this prior to the 2.0 upgrade. It seemed to boot much faster and I don't remember it counting presets?

How do I restore the original IR's that came with Helix? It appears that since I did the 2.0 upgrade the original IRs are not in my saved bundles or Preset files. Help Someone PLEASE???

I did the upgrade and am also experiencing the thin sound others are having. I looked in the IR list and there are none?!! What did I do wrong and can I recover them?? I have not added any and had a problem with the Helix locking up after the upgrade and reinstalling my presets. Please help me somebody?!?!?