MartinDorr

This, but no matter how little Drive (and amp volume loss) you want to try, a tone neutral gain block (or 2) after the amp can always get you to a reasonable signal level for further processing. A setting of 0.5 Drive is not a signal or volume level problem on Helix, though you may not like the tone ;-) ...

I might be wrong interpreting your audio signal flow, but aren’t you recording USB out, i.e., a signal that stills needs to run through your amps on playback to match what you are hearing in your headphones while recording. Maybe your recording path to your ears is exactly the same as your playback path, but there could be a few pitfalls the way you are monitoring and comparing.

Don’t know from where rd2rk is accessing, but I have the same delays from PHX area in Arizona. There are times when it seems to respond normal, but mostly it is slow, and sometimes I even get server not reachable errors.

On 2/24/2020 at 7:51 AM, cruisinon2 said: WHERE'S MY FREE $HIT?!?! WHERE'S MY FREE $HIT?!?! Somebody in the know could have hinted that it will happen on a Tuesday, maybe even next ... ... and 6 weeks seems not too bad for soon ;-)

I am a bedroom player too and the LT does almost all the things the full Helix does. What’s missing is mostly connectivity to tie in more stomps, control amps, and getting more visual feedback on what is or can be controlled in your patch. The latter one would not miss in a typical bedroom playing scenario. If you need or want to use lots of external gear (you potentially already have) take a look at the differences in input/output options and decide whether the LT offers enough options for you. I use USB to connect audio and MIDI to a DAW running on a MAC or a looper and mixer on an iPad. The latter also supports playing backing tracks, and I have used the iPad to control the LT via BlueTooth using a fairly cheap BT to MIDI converter plugged in the LT MIDI ports. For sound I primarily use 5” studio monitors, but good studio headphones and my DT25 will do too without any unexpected issues (if you make reasonable adjustments, i.e., headphones tend to overemphasize effects and real guitar amps are obviously not full range amplification systems and have their own speakers - use preamp models w/o speakers as a start - but don’t let that limit your imagination. If you like a full amp model going through your guitar amp and speaker, just enjoy it). Enjoy the ride, no matter whether you pick an LT or a full Helix.

Happy Christmas, merry holidays, or just having a good break at years end to all of you. Especially the ones who always answering questions. I truly appreciate your patience and tracking down the occasional real puzzle.

My take on the 2.8 update enabling quicker update development is that it just allowed Line 6 to kind of maintain or not seriously reduce the historic Helix update release frequency. There are now so many Helix class products that Line 6 may have had a hard time to do more than 1 update a year unless they spend a serious effort to consolidate their code base for all those products. Given that any update will likely require testing on all Helix family products, it is more likely that the historic 4-5 month update period will become stretched despite 2.8 being a code rewrite to maximize reuse. Your best guess for any ’official’ update info from Line 6 is probably related to the timing of the upcoming NAMM. Maybe we hear about a teaser date and a preliminary list of content. Maybe even a demo, if the really curious are lucky. Better play with what we have than fretting about something that might get released mid next year (like last time).

If you need to stay at medium volume levels for home use and have the space to set them up, good studio monitors (5” and up) were my solution. Which ones work for you are a matter of personal preference. They do not feel like a guitar amp, but they can sound like good guitar recordings through a beefy sound system. I don’t know whether there is a great product that can handle both gig volume and medium volume home use, especially if your home room is space limited.

Same number of foot switches. Just no label strips and less I/O, e.g., no MIC in, less send/returns, and external amp controls, ... Downloaded patches are hit and miss as your other equipment and guitars typically do not match the stuff from the author.

Hoping for an unannounced extra model in the release to ‘ease’ the wait. ... and next week release would be extra motivating for Line 6 (so they have another good week to release a patch if needed before NAMM ;-)!

I haven’t tried one o these, but there are a number of companies offering Bluetooth/ MIDI converters. For example, https://www.amazon.com/BM-A01-Wireless-Bluetooth-Adapter-Interface/dp/B07RFJFXHN.

Mine did too about a year ago after trying it for kicks within 30 minutes. Did a bit searching and found the most likely failure is due to leaking capacitors in the power supply. In fact after opening it up the capacitors leaked in mine. Have not found the time and patience to find replacement parts and try a home repair though ...

Worthwhile as a quick check when you are in doubt and have no baseline from other tones or no DAW. Be aware though that changing your input pad is like changing your amp model drive dial, which may have an audible impact on your tone, especially if it is on the verge of breaking up. Thus you may think of hearing the onset of clipping, but It’s just amp distortion.

Thanks guys. Great feedback.

Thanks a bunch

Title says it all. Searching for past discussions did not find anything ...

Check how old your tubes are and and consider replacing. They may no longer work reliably in all modes and it appears as if the mode switch is broken.

I suspect that any real tone changes would be due to the post-amp modeling chain. I have never come across a situation where a change in Channel Volume seem to have impacted the dynamic response of an amp when there was no post processing.

I am curious what the Channel Volume values were before and after your adjustments. The Channel Volume knob is neither linear nor exponential, but seems to have a few regions were its effect is fairly fine grain to pretty corse when you make a 0.1 change. Maybe there is even more going on ...

Forgot to comment on the Channel volume. Do not use some target Channel Volume level as a guideline. Its only purpose is to keep the amp output level at your target peak and/or RMS level. First of all it will need to be dialed in primarily based on your amp model choice and the selected Drive setting combined with amp input signal level. Obviously the other amp dial settings matter too, but usually to a lesser degree. Use your Master to fine tune your volume to the environment.

I used play through an HD500 for a few years and found that it introduced soft compression when sound levels peaked higher than -9 dBFS, possibly even a bit earlier. The Helix does not seem to do that. From what I can tell (and when I measured) Helix stays clean (undistorted by levels) up to or very close to the clipping level. So you have a bit more freedom depending on what you play for. For studio/recording or working with a sound guy a peak target of -12 to -9 dBFS I have seen recommended several times. You want the mixing engineer have plenty of headroom to work with. For live in a small venue when playing with others that produce fat sounds (high RMS levels) you can consider pushing the peaks of clean sounds a bit higher so they have a chance of standing their ground. RMS levels of a good mix should be about 9-12 dB less than peaks if I remember right.

Would you mind sharing a few of you tone stack settings combined with your guitar type, pickup, tone and volume settings you use with them? I never had the opportunity to get my own experience on a Deluxe and struggle to get really different cleans on Fenders (from creamy mellow over full bodied to bushy eyed bright or funky).

Not tried, but can’t you just run 2 chained Amp models with the first one being a preamp only, followed by the rewerb / tremolo block(s) and follow that with an Amp and a low preamp gain and the power amp level you want. A bit clumsy, but shouldn’t that get you what you are looking for?

For the few amps I actually tried this, a clean gain stage (not a boost pedal) in front of the amp is no different than adjusting the amps Drive dial - and this is true no matter whether the amp is still in the clean range or pushed into distortion. From that experience my conclusion was that a boost pedal in front of the amp (or any block) in a way is an alternative to higher Drive settings and just adds pedal-specific ‘spice’ to the tone.

Back to the ground ... I suspect we will get expanded MIDI and other control functions (e.g., generalizing the multi-button looper to control an external looper (and not record a loop at all), or control lights, ...) or something similar to reach more Pro users. Making a single button looper available was just the first step into that direction. Maybe a signal level indicator (effect?) place-able in the path Probably also a small (1-3) number of Amp and effect models. ... and fixes. Polyphonic effects seems like a NAAM ticket / teaser item, thus maybe in 2.8 in Jan/Feb 2019 time frame