Inerzia

Some of the guys on this forum are beta testers for Line 6, so they get to play with the cool updates before the rest of us peasants. 

I know, I know... I mean, it's a known fact. I just wanted to know where was it posted, because I didn't see it here, on this forum.

They are not rumors. They have officially announced that there are 5 totally new HX verbs coming to Helix in 2018.

Where is it? Can you, please, point me to your source?

Thanks

Thanks for the info!

No, because there are no separate power amp blocks. It's been requested.

That's one of the most attractive features they could add, IMO.

Also, since we're talking realistic (desired) live setups, I could use mono versions of the reverbs, specially for some of my dual chain patches, where I have one clean classic amp on one "channel", and some dirty amp on the other. I would very much like to be able to use different mono reverbs for each, because I usually prefer spring and plate reverbs for clean and room for most dirty stuff. 

For example:

-Twin > mono spring > 1x12 cab

-Epic > mono room > 4x12 cab

I got the Mimiq a few months back and have been using it in a stereo loop (loop shared with an H9), with one dub, tightness at 9 o clock, and both wet and dry maxed, hard panned left and right. It's not perfect, and it changes the tone (some more brightness that has to be compensated), but it works. 
I run the 1/4 outputs in stereo to my two wedge monitors and the XLRs to FOH. All my patches have dual amps and IRs.
I was hoping to find something similar with the Double Take, but there's some strange phasing issues on it that make me like the Mimiq better. Anyway, I find it usable. Heck, I am using it!
The settings I'm using on the double take are: 1 ; 2.0 ; 1.0 ; Stereo ; 0.0 ; 0.0.
My 2c.

Well, I do miss the vocoder too. I used it on HD500, and yes, upgrading to Helix, was worth the tradeoff, but still, I miss the Dimension chorus, the vocoder, the fuzz phase, the growler...

I'd post here more often if I didn't have to read yet another "When's the next firmware?!" thread.  ;)

And the occasional followup complaints that my marginally snarky banter somehow undermines customer concern. Certain other forums have zero problems playing along.

 

:D

DI said this block wasn't a new effect, but rather just a "utility block"...

It would be nice if, instead of having to look for them on any other forum those kinds of announcements or hints were posted on L6's own forum.

Sounds coherent, right?

I'm doing similar things without snapshots, but having the option to designate certain snapshots as being temporary, would be very welcome, I know I'd have use for that.

LINE 6 really should clarify this so people can get the most out of their units.

I just wish they'd do a manual (or model guide) as awesome as those in the past, where they would explain the particulars of the gear being modelled and of the models themselves.

However, aside from a few really important details (like the emphasis parameter on the LA compressor or panning law, for example) I rather they spend their time creating new models than writhing about them.

Just that, just a random thought

I'm loving the sound, the flexibility, the inspiration, the convenience...

I hate the update process  :lol:

It's hard to beat as command center and do it all. What I'm calling "my band" is the project I do for pleasure (and some money too), the other stuff, the gigs that pay... well, those are work, not my band. So, in my band I'm plugging jacks to FRFR and XLRs to P.A., That's what I bought the Helix for.
What I didn't expect is for Helix to take other places as well. Sometimes I think I should buy a Boss ES-8 and/or Joyo PXL-Live for different kinds of setups with pedals amps, preamps, poweramps and cabs I have... then I start to picture the setup and the possibilities and limitations... well, most of the times I get to the point where I think "Helix would do that better". Helix wants to be at the center of any rig I can think of lately, and I'm thinking I should let it.

I would like to have the vocoder back.
Was there 20 people total using that model on the HD series? maybe. Well, one of them was me :-D

I wonder how much work would it be to "just port the model" to Helix, as they did with the reverbs and wahs, for example.

Lots of us would be happy to just be able to use past models on the Helix, even if they're not re-modelled, but I guess L6 prefers to focus on HX generation models, whichever they are.
At launch, I seem to remember they said reverbs would be re-done in HX, am I right?

Pufff, esa misma mierda fue lo que me pasó a mí hace unas cuantas actualizaciones (creo que en la 2.0) 
Como primer paso, intenta volverle a meter la versión que tenías, con la que estaba funcionando.
Eso lo puedes hacer, o bien con todo el software que tenías, o con el nuevo, si es que ya lo habías actualizado.
Por cierto, hablando de ello, del software... deberías haberlo actualizado, si intentaste instalar la actualización
del firmware con el software viejo, casi fijo que el error viene de ahí. Si todavía no lo has actualizado, déjalo
por ahora, y usa el software viejo para intentar volver a poner la misma versión de flash que tenías.
Cuando ya tengas funcionando otra vez la versión vieja (y ten en cuenta que puede llevarte varios intentos)
tus programas, a no ser que ya los hayas salvado antes del primer intento de actualizar, dalos por perdidos,
así que te vas bajando todo el software actualizado de la sección de descargas de L6, y cuando hayas instalado

los drivers nuevos y la aplicación nueva, ya puedes volver a intentar la actualización del firmware.

Copio de mí mismo, lo que puse arriba:
-Después, tienes que restaurar los valores de fábrica y los programas. Muy importante, no te lo saltes, que trae problemas.
Para hacer esto, tienes que apagar el Helix y, manteniendo pulsados los conmutadores 9 y 10, los dos de en medio de la fila de abajo, lo enciendes, y los mantienes presionados hasta que aparezca el mensaje â€œWill reset Globals and restore stock Presets, Setlists and IRs…â€. Cuando veas ese mensaje, sueltas los botones, y ya lo hace.
Cuando termine, lo reinicias (o se reinicia solo, no recuerdo) y al iniciarse, reconstruye los programas. Cuando acabe con eso, ya lo tienes listo para funcionar.

AVISO: puede llevarte varios intentos. L6 reconoce que, actualmente, el proceso de actualización es una mierda (aunque ellos lo dicen más fino), pero en mi caso, y seguramente en el tuyo también, la culpa es del usuario, por no haber seguido bien las instrucciones ¿el proceso es un lío? completamente de acuerdo, sobre todo si no te manejas bien con el Inglés, puedes confundirte fácilmente en algún paso... todo esto para decirte que te armes de paciencia ¿de acuerdo? Recuerdo que, después de haberla cagado y haber dejado mi Helix exactamente como está el tuyo ahora, tuve alrededor de diez intentos de meter la versión que fuera, vieja o nueva, hasta que al final, una de ellas (no recuerdo cuál) acabó entrando. No tengo ni idea de cuál fue la diferencia entre los intentos fallidos y el que al final tuvo éxito, porque yo creo que lo hice igual todas las veces, pero lo logré solucionar. Paciencia.
Las siguientes veces que he actualizado no he vuelto a tener ese problema, porque he seguido las instrucciones.

Saludos y suerte

¿Puedes sacarle una foto, por favor?

 

As Iknowathingortwo points out, you can further control the GR-55 via CC#s and 'assigns.'

 

Those are titles, my friend, indicators of how much you post in the forum, not names ;-)

Forum names are just above those titles, on the pale blue bar.

I'm running my GR-55's stereo outputs into a stereo return on my Helix, and the GR's guitar output into the aux input on the Helix.
The GR-55 has 4 layers of sound, two PCM, one regular guitar layer (that's your guitar's pickups signal, travelling through the GK cable and getting processed by the GR, although I never use that layer, because I prefer to do that directly on the Helix) and one modeling layer, which can be different types of guitar, a sitar, basses, synth and organ sounds. It's not like this layer lets you sculpt your tone as you would on a synth, but the available control is enough for me, and for most people. Let me repeat that idea: that's a modeling layer, not PCM, and it produces guitar, bass, synth, etc.
There's an option on the GR-55 that lets you choose what goes out the "guitar out" jack, and the options are "guitar" (the actual tone of your guitar, directly fed from its pickups), "modeling" and "both" (though the names may not be exact, the content is)
I run those three outputs separately from the GR to the Helix because sometimes I want a PCM pad (for example) along with some modeling, and being two very different kinds of timbres, I'll probably want to process them separately.
From the modeling side of the GR, I use mostly synth sounds, but I'm using some sitar and acoustic guitar sounds for layering too.
Also, I'm controlling the patch changes from the Helix and, in the past, I've even used the HD500 to control parameters on the GR, via MIDI CC messages, which is nice if you want to control something on the HD500 (or now the Helix) and at the same time, with the same expression pedal, control something on the GR.

Inside the Helix, I process the parts I'm using in different ways:
-If it's a modeled guitar, I obviously process it as a guitar, and run it through amp modeling and whatever else. I could also try something else, but so far...
-For modeled synth sounds, which I'm using as leads, I usually run them through amp models as well, and treat them as if Keith Emerson was covering some Motörhead or something :D
-Some other modeled synth sounds, I may run as regular synth voices, and process them together with any PCM layer I use on that patch, and that´s normally "post" amp. That means I run guitar sounds through whatever is on the Helix patch, and the GR's return normally comes in after amp modeling, just before modulation, delay, reverb... y'know... so every bit blends better.

There's info here that addresses different posts by different people, not just the OP.

I hope I've managed to get the ideas across.

I have a Helix and I'm using my 5 year old POD HD500 for bass because I like the tones better.
The modeling on Helix is waaaaaay better. I sit, dial tones for my bass and... maybe hours later, maybe next day, I come back to the HD500 and confirm why I prefer it.
I'm sure that I will find my way with Helix, but, so far, I haven't.
Something similar happened when I bought it, I came home and I started to try to replicate the guitar tones I had on the HD500. That didn't work for me, I had to reimagine them, rebuild them, sometimes with the same (evolved) models, sometimes with different ones.
I'll get it, I know it's in there, but for now, I'm sticking with the HD500... for bass.

I used to get very good bass tones with the XT/X3 generation as well.

Whatever you decide to buy, don't go and sell your supersynth just yet. 

Agreed and they will I'm sure. But I've heard that you just can't expect updates very often that way.  ;)

With the original you can't expect updates very often anyway  :D

Buy Native at 199 anyway? I'm not so sure

When it was announced I inmediately thought "ok, cool, it was about time they did something beyond Pod Farm, but I'll probably not buy it unless it's really affordable"

The thing is... I wasn't really counting on using Helix to record this time (for the new batch of my band's songs), I was actually thinking of using pedals on a true bypass switcher, the TriAxis, and going out of the balanced outputs of my peavey classic 50/50 poweramp straight to the audio interface. Then use mixIR for cabs and other plugins for mod, delay and reverb
It's been so long since I relied on any modeling software for guitar tracks (the kind that actually make it to the final mix) that I manage perfectly without it.

Sounds as killer as hardware and is affordable? Ok, I'm interested. Sounds anything like Guitar Rig, Eleven, S-Gear, POD Farm, BIAS... I'll pass and stick to hardware, be it Helix or other stuff.

As I posted earlier, I tried using my Helix presets straight to the computer, and doing full song takes, because it seemed easier than trying to replicate all routing and expression control used in my patches, but after that batch of songs I thought: what do I want all those stompboxes for then, if I'm not using them live (ATM) and I won't use them for recording? For live use, I prefer to rely on Helix, but in the studio... well, I can get lovely sounds out of Helix, of course, but I tend to prefer the actual stompboxes (I have a few of the modeled originals, and a few clones).

I'm not a real fan of reamping anyway, so I'd just use the Helix hardware or different gear, I doubt I would buy native at 199$
Maybe it's psychological, but that's the way it is. I've got my mind set on getting it for 99, as it was announced. The price just seemed (and seems) right.
And I know it's something I'm gonna use quite a lot, if not so much for my own stuff, at least for clients, specially those on a budget, those who can't afford to spend 3 or 4 hours trying different gear before they decide what they want to record with.

Oh, we love speculating, don't we?  :D

Regarding the whole "what happen to Native if I sell my Helix?" question, I saw the Line 6 guys gave an answer on Facebook. If you sell your Helix, you can keep Native, but the person who buys your Helix from you won't be eligible for the discount. In other words, there will only be one discount associated with each registration/Helix serial number.

 

I suppose the tricky thing for Line 6 is going to be how they handle the situation where someone buys the Helix, buys Native with the discount code, and then returns Helix. Not sure how they'll handle that.

If that's the case, I suppose whoever wants to sell the unit and keep the software will have to advertise it honestly, so that the buyer knows exactly what he/she gets. 

Judging by L6's history of updates and upgrades, and the price stability of their software, I believe Native will not lose resale value as quick as the hardware. If I wanted a used floor Helix, I wouldn't pay more than 1000€ (sells new for about 1350) if I still have the possibility to get the discounted Native with it, or 700 if it's already registered with Native by a previous owner.

I see people not caring about Native and finding sweet deals on units that have already used their discounts.

21469s depending on clock speed: 2.4 to 2.7 GFLOPS, an I7 is significantly faster, just had a quick look a 6700k is around 113 GFLOPS, so around 28 GFLOPS per core.

Oh, thanks, but I think it's not just those numbers, I mean, those numbers are what I'm hoping to matter most, but Helix is a dedicated signal processor, dedicated, specialized and optimized.

I'm hoping that pure computing power, which is (as you just showed) much bigger on the i7, will make up for the differences, and not just make up.

Simply because I have used the latest versions of Guitar Rig, and Amplitube thru both an iMac and a PC with plenty of processing power, and using a nice powerful audio interface, and neither one (to my ears) would make a pimple on Helix's lollipop sound wise. THAT is why I will be a skeptic until I try it myself.  :D

That may be a matter of modeling "quality" or accuracy, but there are more physical factors, like the input section of Helix.

I have a MOTU 828 MKII firewire that works like a charm... except for that part where I want to record guitar or bass straight to the computer, without any guitar gear in the signal chain, then the preamps, I don't know why, they don't sound right to me. If I use the same plugin with Helix with its own drivers (or the HD500, or the XTLive that came before), it sounds better to me.

With the MOTU, I can get lower latencies than with any USB stuff (including Helix), and a more stable performance, so I use the S/PDIF output on the Helix to the corresponding input on the MOTU. Best performance and best sound.

Bottom line: the input section of your audio interface has a huge impact on the sound you're gonna get out of any processing done in a computer, and the latency affects the feel.

sometime after launch, we'll add the ability to remove this limitation.

Yay!! 

What about being able to load separate blocks "a la POD Farm"? Not at launch? ;-)

I know I can just load more instances to fit my needs but, y'know...

Thanks for the response

not sure, but what if Native reserves the entire Helix-sized block of CPU in every instance? Even if it doesn't, and you only use one amp and one cab, I think that might be more CPU power than other plug-ins, by far.

I can't (yet) establish a fair comparison between the performance of two ADSP-21469 SHARCs and an i7, but we'll get to that point when Native is released.

Meanwhile, we can just guess

I don't expect Helix Native to be any heavier on the CPU than some of the VSTi's I'm currently using, not even close, in fact, I'm expecting to be able to run several instances as part of big projects. It's not like I'm gonna need 32 blocks on any instance, or 6 instances with 2 amps+IRs each... And there's also the possibility that they make individual blocks available, as is the case with POD Farm.
As Native is intended to be, patchwise and otherwise, fully (or almost fully) compatible with the hardware, I expect it will have a certain "artificial" DSP limit per instance, so that you don't load your Native patch with more than the hardware can process. If that's the case, I hope that limit is optional, something you can turn off if you wish.
Even a modest laptop should be able to run more than one instance, provided you have a trusty, low latency interface.
Anyway, for live use, computer+interface doesn't do it for me. Don't get me started on the reasons...

Months ago, I used Helix to record guitars for my electronic rock band. The first two songs were recorded in full takes, from beginning to end, just one stereo track from the best take made it to the mix.
I know, that seems like a stone age mindset nowadays, but I had my reasons, the first one being "because I can": I've been playing those songs for a year at least and I was pretty confident I could nail them (FYI, I didn't, but they're close enough, I guess :D )
The second reason is that I didn't want to multitrack anything, do more layers or any other kind of arrangement one does in the studio, It was (is) just a demo, intended to reflect what we do live.
And the third that comes to mind, is that I didn't want to use too much "outboard" processing, meaning I wanted the sound of Helix as I use it live. I use a lot of real time control with expression pedals and switching, and trying to replicate all that on Cubase (or any other daw for that matter) would have taken a LOT of work, finding the right plugins, programming them, and/or automating Helix via MIDI... 

The third song would have been a pain in the as$ if I had done the same. Seven minutes long, mixing synth sounds and modeling from the GR-55, beat (not signature, nor tempo) changes... not the kind of stuff I want to do in one take, so I did it in chunks, as smart humans do in the studio :D and as I was finding the right delay and reverb plugins and programming them, routing and setting everything up to get the sound as close to the live version as possible, I thought how much easier that would have been if only Helix was available as a plugin, so I could record my guitars dry and stick the ambient effects later, on a bus, or whatever, but at least not having to program anything just to get the sound right, just import the settings and maybe splitting the chain in several instances, if I want some external (plugin or hardware) processing.

Some days later, Helix Native was announced :D

Last year I attended a seminar (more like a Q&A friendly talk) with this guy from Oviedo, my hometown, former chief engineer at Marshmallows and former engineer at Bellringer, and he pretty much confirmed what you've been talking about a certain brand making copies of famous pedals... though I'm not sure why that is any "worse" than what most brands of pedals do, I mean, how many klon copies can you name? Tube screamer?
What about modeling? I don't have any ethical issue, if I pay for a modeler, I want it to sound good, I don't need it to nail anything. I know I'm paying for a modeler, not a tube amp (or whatever)
Amp models and brands are just an orientation for me. The closer the modeling gets to sounding like a real amp, the less I care about it sounding like any specific amp. There are amps whose sound I love, and I'd like something that gets me in the ballpark, but no amp sounds exactly the same as the one that came before off the same assembly line. I know this has been beaten to death, 1K times over, and I don't mean to start it again, it's just this feeling that's growing stronger, wanting something good, not necessarily (an attempt at) a copy of anything. In every generation of L6 modelers, there's been at least one L6 original that I used extensively.

What bugs me, is watching somebody trying to take credit for an idea that they've ripped off. If it's a copy, it's a copy, everybody does it as long as it's not illegal, but at least don't sell it as your idea.