gunpointmetal

I think some people just really, really, REALLY love gear, and love having their analog rig, their digital rig, their hybrid rig, and that's totally cool and awesome. For me this stuff is tools I use to accomplish a goal and the better my Swiss Army knife, the less tools I need to have. I'm a total gear nerd, and probably know specs on lollipop I'd never even dream of buying, but at the end of the day, I want my rig to get me on stage fast, do everything I need it to do while I'm there, and get me off stage even faster. Adding more cables/pedals would not help me there.

Yeah, I went the complete opposite way. If I find a pedal I like in Helix, it makes me glad I DON'T have to go buy the real deal to get the sounds.

Is there something you can't get the Badonk to do? If that model is super important and you wanna ditch the rack, grab an old XT bean and throw in on your board.

Try the "AUX" input on the Helix. If the mic has a built-in preamp that may be your best bet, treating it like an active pickup.

This is where a "Compare" feature would be nice, at least in the editor.

I guess maybe post an example of the tone you're referring to? What I consider a modern metal tone IS that ENGL/5150/Boosted Mesa tone that is quite "hairy". For a lot of what I consider modern metal(BOO/Periphery/TLTSOL/ATB/Black Tongue), the tone on the record is almost ALL "hair" as you've described it and the bass guitar is doing most of the heavy lifting in the fundamental/note body area.

ENGL's are pretty hairy amps, too (based on what I'm understanding as your description of "hair"), whereas something like a Mesa or SLO would be what I would think of as "less hairy". One thing I like to do on the Helix if I like the gain structure but not necessarily the total sound of an amp model is to EQ before the model without boosting the gain to try and tame some of what I'm hearing. Maybe try an EQ with some of the 900Hz-2kHz dipped out before it goes into the amp model and see if that tames some of the the fuzziness you're not enjoying from particular amp models.

Max it, use the amp/speaker volume for settings. Then he can't complain. He's probably just mad your tone is so good.

Man, that "not so hairy" guitar would get completely lost in a live mix. The "hairy" guitar could use a a little low cut and it would probably sit nicely. OP, if the "not so hairy" tone is what what you're going for, just drop a LP filter at about 1.5kHZ, otherwise you'll lose all cut with other instruments. The recording doesn't sound overly "hairy" to me, but everyone has different ears. The "not so hairy" guitar frequency response looks like what I would expect at ear-level standing right in front of a 4x12.

If you're still within your return period, return it because they're not gonna update the hardware for this one anymore unless there is a major bug somewhere. As Phil_M said, making it brighter won't make it visible in the sun because of how the display works. If you want the step up from the XTLive, that's still the HD500X, or the HX Stomp, and even those displays are not gonna be awesome in direct sunlight. The Firehawk is more of a step to the side of the XT stuff. Also threatening a company on a forum with "FIX THIS NOW OR I'M RETURNING IT!" is hilariously petty and immature.

That's what preset changes are for. If you had to load a new amp model in each snapshot it would take as along as a preset change anyways, introduce gaps in the audio, and you wouldn't be able to have delay trails. Think of presets as being able to change out your whole rig with one button. You wouldn't be able to switch amp heads, cabs, and pedals without everything turning off. Think of Snapshots as being able to turn all the knobs on your rig simultaneously to exactly where you need them to make a different sound.

So Snapshots work with whatever FX/Amp models are already in a preset, and you can set just about every setting to do something different per Snapshot of a preset, but you can't change the amp model/FX models of a block from snapshot to snapshot. So you can't say, setup a preset with a Fender and OD and save that to snapshot 1, then have snapshot 2 be a Panama with a delay, unless you have the Fender, OD, Panama, and Delay already in the preset.

For the "dreamer" price, it would probably have to be something that could only load one or two amp models at a time (at least to get to the normal stomp pedal size and still have all the I/O it would need) and I just don't see them doing that. I think the HX Stomp is their version of what you're asking for.

Set up the patch so the WAH and volume are switched by the toe switch, making sure the volume is ON and the WAH is OFF when you make the assignments. Assign the VOL to EXP1 for the controller, and assign the WAH to EXP2. Now when you press the toe switch the VOL pedal will turn OFF (leaving your volume at full) and the WAH should turn on and be controlled by EXP2.

I guess I've never tried (I can't think of a real-world use for having my volume and wah on simultaneously), but I was under the impression that the toe switch always changed from EXP1 to EXP2 when you pressed it. I could be wrong.