gunpointmetal

Thats how I was running modelers for years. Crate PowerBlock in stereo to a stereo 4x12. Sounded great, lots of people wanted to know how I got that "crappy little amp" to sound so good. I love my Powerblock! It's been used as a PA amplifier for a cookout with some small 10" PA speakers, a bass amp in mono to a 1x15 cab, and it's never even blinked. This type of rig is an EXCELLENT option for someone who wants the flexibility of modeling but can't gel with the idea of not having a traditional cab on stage. Not sure what you mean by the "FRFR of the amp model" though. A speaker can be FRFR, but there is nothing about the sound coming out of the Helix that is either full-range or flat-response.

assign the Wah to a specific snapshot and don't use the toe switch to activate it....if you hit Snapshot 4 and in the that one the wah is controlled by the default pedal and the wah on/off is controlled via snapshot, you don't have to use the toe switch, the wah is on when you hit the snapshot, off when you leave it, right? that seems to be how its working for me anyways. I have one snapshot with a 2 octave down pitch bend and when I click that one on, the same EXP 1 that was controlling my volume, now controls my pitch bend, but the volume pedal state goes to off, whammy goes to on, hit back to another snapshot with the on/off states switched and it seems to work just fine.

Good, good....although I think snapshots may have solved my patch change issues if I can instantly change gain and effects parameters within a patch. But fixing that patch change latency is definitely a good thing.

It's silly that the software can't handle that on its own as part of the update process.

For me to get the editor to work I had to uninstall previous versions.

There really should be a single piece of software that deals with all of this. It seems kind of silly to have to uninstall old versions and install new versions every time there is a firmware update when one would think (I'm no programmer) there could be a single "Editor" software that handles the updates for drivers, firmware, itself, without having to manually back-up everything, manually install new software and firmware every time....just click on a drop-down that says "Check for New Versions" (like almost every other piece of hardware-controlling software) and will automatically back-up presets, update firmware, update drivers, and update new features in the editor (like just about every other hardware-controlling software). I've got too many shows in the next few weeks to mess around with the new FW even though I really, really, really want to use snapshots.

most studio monitors are expecting a line-level signal

Just assign both to the switch with the volume on and the wah off. When you hit the toe switch, the volume will be disengaged and the wah will come on...unless you're using your volume as a master volume, then I don't know how to help you.

I've always run my powered speaker level right at half-way and used the Helix master to set the volume. Never had a problem of it not being loud enough, and I've never had a problem of clipping the input of the speaker. You pretty much cannot take a low volume patch and just "turn it up" and have it sound the same.

I'd like it if I could tune a 5-string bass to A (or my 9-string guitar with the same low notes) without it having a fit. I play along with synths and stuff all the time, and its its never "out" enough to sound wrong unless I've been beating on the guitar for a while, but thats the same no matter what tuner....but the low tracking on anything below a 5-string bass "B" is almost non-existent.

I don't think you could do it with no wires without some sort of additional networking/bluetooth hardware on the device, but I can't think of a time where I've ever actually needed to edit anything DURING a gig. If something is fishy during soundcheck its no big deal to lean over and edit something real quick. For my use, I want as little hardware and as few possible points of failure on stage as possible, but I can see where, especially if someone is one who is constantly dicking around with pedals between songs, etc, that it might come in handy.

It doesn't quantize, save tracks, or auto-record either. If you need to record and loop and ENTIRE song, something like whatever is built-in to most pedals isn't going to cut it, but since you have the ability, you could bring a laptop, control it with the Helix, and have soooooo much more looping power than most floor-based pedals you're trying to compare it to. At least it has a looper.

Pick noise has as much to do with with your pick material, how you hold the pick, where in the string you pick, etc... Some amps tend to make it more audible (the Engl and Peavey models in Helix have a sharper pick attack), but you can actually dial it out using some of the EQ methods above. I prefer to have it as an option and try to control it with my dynamics. You can also use a compressor with a fast attack to push it down into the same level as the rest of your playing, as well.

He wants to copy just the amp block of an already-existing amp/cab block preset into an amp and separate cab preset so he can audition cabs.

wants to play two guitar parts....doesn't want to step on a pedal....

For the most part, I don't think anyone is expecting to use the pre-programmed presets for anything other than goofing around or finding individual effects settings, so most people will probably start from scratch or copy/paste and edit the crap out of one of the stock presets.

I can't believe how many people seem to think they're use of the device is the only "right" way to use it.....we get it, you can get away with one patch, lots of us can't, or don't want to, considering all of the available options. Maybe you bought the Helix because you wanted to have a bunch of little pedalboards. I bought it so I wouldn't have to tap dance, but in order to use it live, I'm stuck with one high-gain amp, one clean amp, and I have to do "background" switching on the off channel while playing to have things go the way I want instead of just hitting A01 for my dirt, A02 for my cleans with delays, A03 for my lead tone, and A04 for my smooth jazz clean with reverb. If I want all that in one song with no noticeable switching lag, I gotta make sure my delay is on my clean channel before I engage it, disengage the delay when I switch to my dirt channel again, then engage an EQ and reverb for my "other" clean tone, then engage my delay/chorus/and boost for my lead tone while I'm on my clean tone so I can have my lead ready to go when I switch to it....oh wait, but then I have to switch back to that original clean tone so then I have to disengage my EQ/Reverb while playing with my lead tone, then switch off all my lead stuff again while I'm on my clean tone....it may not be as many individual button presses if I was trying to do that with a traditional pedalboard, but its still A LOT of tapdancing to keep things clean on the switching, which detracts from my ability to be entertaining while I play, which sucks.

They're not denying it necessarily...just denying that its a "flaw"....which it is....

I don't remember buying the newest Line 6 Conventional Pedalboard.

If you can't hear it, that means its either not there, or you just can't hear it. When I switch from a clean to a distortion (using "recording" patches that utilize the device to pretty close to its maximum potential per patch) it is SUPER noticeable. If it happened during a show, it would probably throw the drummer off for a beat because he would think I f-ed up...... Or somehow a bunch of us got slightly defective Helices and you didn't?

Not everyone has the same goals with the product. I only use the touch stuff when I'm at home. I turn it off when we play live. Workflow in patch creation is an entirely different thing than live performance, and if you've got the rack, chances are better you'll have the unit at a reasonable height for editing, and the PC editor makes the foot controller stuff almost unnecessary for editing outside of a gig situation. I don't want to seem like I'm arguing with you, but you sound more like you're selling the Helix vs. helping to solve a problem/concern.

I'd suggest getting your patches to sound as best they can before you ever touch the Global EQ. If you get your patches dialed in and then use the global to get them the rest of the way, then go play somewhere else with different amplification or FOH, adjusting the global is going to f-up your "sound". If you have the global EQ available to tune to a room, you should be able to get yourself 99% consistent sound in most scenarios.

If you're worried about beer and drunks spilling themselves on your gear, or you think the screens are going to be an issue, there would be no issue with using a different controller than the one L6 matches to the rack. If it was a concern of mine, I'd much rather have someone tripping and falling all over my $150 Behringer footboard that doesn't have touch-sensitive buttons and LCD screens all over the place.

I'm guessing there is a way to start/stop the looper with MIDI, though? Haven't looked into it, but that could be really cool.

Even if you're as humanly-possible to being on beat with the looper, after a while, its going to fall out of time. We used to have a song that started with a keyboard playing off a backtrack to which would build a chord one note at a time with the looper on the HD500, but live it always would fall apart (it was about a 30 bar section). Without being able to quantize the start/stop points, its pretty hard to use with something that never changes tempo and can't react to small differences. The looper is super fun for solo jamming, not good if you need it to sync with other things that are really tight.