gunpointmetal

It doesn't help that every three days I get an email from GC suggesting I go buy my "In-Stock, Ready-to-Ship" Line 6 Helix from the website, to be directed to an item page that says "Item Currently Unavailable"....

GC has put a hold on my account for that amount every week since I ordered.

This is the reality of things. Retailers and companies like L6 need to accept and understand that. I don't appreciate spending money and having no idea whats happening to it for months on end. The last time GC had horrible communication with me regarding orders and customer service, it ended up costing them $500 in gift cards. Messing with my money is like messing with my emotions, man. haha

I'm kinda salty with GC..some stores have gotten units to sell outright, and I'm still waiting on my order from over a month ago...

No, I mean I get WHAT you're using it for, but if you're recording into a DAW you have a plethora of advanced, surgical EQ tools at your disposal. If I'm not mistaken the intended use for the Global EQ on these devices is tuning the total output to a specific space for live performance. If you're having to drastically alter your Global EQ settings to get good recorded tones, something is amiss in the signal chain.

Just out of curiosity, what would you need the Global EQ on the USB output for? I'd think anything you're sending USB audio to would probably have a more flexible EQ available.

As long as it has a series effects loop it should work as well as any other amp.

Waiting is stupid. Make more Helices faster!

I can't imagine L6 is real happy about not having some standing in-store stock for the holidays.

Thats impressive that you had a damaged one and already got a replacement.

Or just bring your own full-range monitor and don't worry about the guitar cabs.

This is the only real issue I'm seeing. Some users were reporting an actual "ramp up" in volume when switching patches. Not very professional during a show....

The Boss delay trails only worked if you had the same delay in the next preset if I remember correctly. I'm more concerned with the patch change lag than delay trails. If whats been reported is accurate, you'll need to have everything on one patch and only change presets between songs or something.

I have no issue with there being delays. But my patience is none when a retailer takes $1500 of my dollars and gives a ship date, then another ship date...then another ship date. I'd rather have them say "We can't tell you when you'll receive your unit, but you are #XXX on the list of current orders" and then update my position in waiting instead of BS, made-up availability dates.

Yeah, I can't believe they didn't expect to move a bunch of units at the outset and have more ready to go... My order went from 11/20 to 12/11...which, it seems will probably be pushed back again considering GC and MF share inventory... Bought myself a Christmas present in before Thanksgiving and I probably won't have it till Valentine's Day.

I just do what my guitar tells me to.

Tech metal with constant time signature, key, feel, and tone changes. Some of our songs require me to switch to a clean with delay/chorus/verb (along with the typical compression/EQ/whatever else is needed for the amp sound) for maybe one or two eighth notes on a quick chord stab and and back to heavy distortion. Sometimes this will happen multiple times in a single measure. Sometimes I need to switch from a clean patch for rhythms to a distorted patch for one flurry of sixteenth note triplets at the end of measure and back to clean on the 1. I don't always have an extra "and" or "e" to have no sound as I'm the only guitarist in the group and with few exceptions am accenting fills/changes/etc. all the time. Not really sure why it matters why I need it. I do, and it seems Helix isn't even switching patches as quickly as the HD500X, which can have audible lag if its done while there is still sound being processed.

Never had an issue with musical feedback out of a modeler, don't expect this one will be any different. Same principles of amp feedback apply: volume + proximity + no noise gates = musical feedback

I have one song where I switch from a clean channel with some dirt, some phase, some chorus, some delay, a reverb and two amp models to my "main" distortion which usually consists of at least two gates, a pre-EQ, an overdrive, a comp, and then delay, reverb, pitch shift and harmonizer on switches for when I need them. I have other songs where I'm using up to 3 presets in a single song two cleans, and a rhythm distortion, or clean/rhythm/lead, all with various effects available.

20ms is more than audible, 10ms is definitely audible.... 150ms is unacceptable. Does it take that long for patch changes on something like the Kemper/AFX? The patch lag on the digitech units is nowhere NEAR 150ms, and that;s a performance issue. You shouldn't have to cram everything into a single patch for a song to be able to change sounds..... Is this something that can be remedied via firmware in the future? I ordered one of these expecting that L6 would have LESSENED the patch lag experienced on the HD500X (which can be noticeable in quick distortion/clean changes) but that amount of changeover time is ridiculous.....

You're on the right track by having a decent PA speaker to use at home. The most important thing for me when building my live patches is that I'm doing it at a volume comparable to what I will use live, which for me is SUPER F-IN LOUD! haha. Stuff that sounds full and crisp at talking volume will be muddy and harsh at performance levels. I've heard of some guys that use and EQ with the treble and bass boosted at the end of the chain when building patches at headphone/home listening levels and then removing the EQ for live use as a sort of reverse-fletcher-munson-curve type, approach, but I wouldn't trust it myself.

guitar center's website says they have them in-stock, ready to ship, which is weird, because I ordered mine about 2 weeks ago and haven't got a shipping confirmation...

Thanks for the kind words guys! This track actually doesn't have any pitch effects running (as far as I can remember) just some purposely out of tune bending near the beginning. Our bassist tunes down an octave from standard, and my guitar goes down to standard bass E, so we are moving a lot of air without any pitch effects. The drums were recorded live and then the kick was replaced with a set of samples taken from the kit we recorded with before we buried it under blankets to keep it out of the overheads. You pretty much nailed the idea. Beginning has at least three guitars most of the time, and is very "tight" harmonically, where as the back half opens up to a straight melodic minor tonality. There is a keyboard track under the rhythm guitar during the build up and the fast waltz-feel riff, the break where the drums lay off is three guitars on the main melody with a keyboard pad working with the bass.

You're going to have to sculpt tones on ANY device to your gear and your ear, but the HD500X can absolutely do what you asking aside from having awesome patches out of the box.

My band is releasing a new 4-track EP on September 4th and we recently posted a track to SoundCloud. All guitars were done through the HD500X via USB into Reaper. I didn't mix it, so I can't verify, but the mix engineer told me post processing was a high pass below 100Hz and some light room reverb. The Ancient Art of Auto-Erotic Asphyxiation ft. David Carradine