scheater5

I....what? I've used Workbench for years and I've never seen anything about customizing the knobs? Is there like a print option or a Photoshop template or something in a menu I've never heard of?

This is rad, something that has been bubbling around for a decade as something people want - and now that someone's actually working on it, it seems to be getting pushback or no reaction. I'm ALL ABOUT this, and super stoked and hope it becomes a real product because I want one.

Is anybody making custom model/tuning knobs, so I can visually see the names of things that I've changed in Workbench? Like, I don't need half the models in a variax, but I have multiple versions of les paul for example. Or that I use all 5ths tuning or Drop C more than I'll ever use Open A. But I hate trying to memorize them and the remember on stage. Or has anyone tried customizing their own? It seems like getting them lined up perfectly and getting the lights to shine through would be....fiddly.

For me, "amp in a room" has always been at odds with stage volume. I play a lot of small theaters and houses of worship that require literally zero stage volume except for monitors. So Helix -> Tube amp -> Cab or FRFR speaker is a nonstarter. I see this kind of stage set up more and more - little to no stage volume allowed. While I can definitely get amazing sounds out of the Helix with no additional components in these scenarios, I consistently find it MUCH easier to dial in a sound on the Sheriff. (I send the V4 Preamp into a combination of Helix cabs and IRs, same as I do with Helix amp models). Is it confirmation bias? Is it familiarity with the gear? Well, it might be both, but in the case of the latter - familiar with the gear - I spend a lot of time with the Helix amps as well. I almost always record straight into Helix Native. As some people suspect that me using a tube preamp is "thinking I sound better because I expect to sound better" - I have long thought the same thing about people who use tube power amps. Specially made tube power amps - the Carvin Ts-100 was the one everyone used to talk about, but now there's the Fryette and the Peavy, among others - are often not designed to work like the power amp of a guitar - instead they are designed to have a much flatter frequency response, and so "sounding better" through one I've always thought was confirmation bias. But hey man, ultimately, it's what inspires you. Dan from That Pedal Show used to lug around a modded Roland/Boss CE-1 - the original monster that ran on mains power. Why? Because it inspired him. Could he get 99% of the tone from a much easier to deal with piece of gear? Yeah. Would anyone notice the difference but him, even if they were paying attention? Not in a million years.....except. Except he would play different on different gear. I LIKE my Sheriff V4. Do I sound different with it? Well. I play different.

Hi, I thought I could offer a counterpoint. I own a Helix Floor, and have been using Line 6 floor boards since the initial HD500. I also use my Helix with the Sheriff V4. I love it. I know the Helix very well, I can get great sounds out of it, and frequently use it with no additional pedals much less ampa. But yeah, if I'm playing a gig where the electric guitar is going to be very textural and very dynamic (often church worship service), I can feel a difference having some real tubes in the signal chain. I don't use the Duchess which includes a power amp, I use the preamp only V4, and I run it in a loop of the Helix with absolutely no issues. It Just Works(tm). I literally took one of my patches that has a marshall-y sounding amp - I think one of Placater models - replaced the amp with a Loop block, and done. Tweaked a bit from there over time, but literally that got me though a gig. Sometimes it's nice to plug in a Helix and not worry about any other gear. Sometimes it's nice to be able to incorporate your favorite amps and pedals. That's what the FX loops are for, and Line 6 made a big deal of this fact in the early promotions. Imo, for good reason.

Thread Necro! So, I have a situation where this would be really useful. I have recently joined a band that takes up a lot of stage space. I play mostly keys, and have my Helix under my feet with some Midi controls (the recent ability to make a midi toggle "momentary" makes my life much easier - used to have to do a janky work-around). The problem is that I also play bass and guitar on some songs. Bass is easy enough - one of the singers doubles on keys, so she jumps behind the keyboard and I grab my bass and take her former place on stage. The trouble is that I am not allowed to permanently take up any space on the front line of the stage beyond my keyboard (to be fair, the girls are talented dancers/frontwomen - they use the space well). Bass I can get by on one sound per song - guitar, not so much. If I could change snapshots from the guitar - even just toggle between two - it would go a long way to solving that problem. I've been toying with possible workarounds - my JTV59 arrives tomorrow. One idea is to have the volume knob inversely control the modelling volume - so that the mags full up is the modelling off, and vice versa. But then I lose the ability to ride the volume knob without blending the two sounds. I suppose I could make the tone knob control a "volume pedal" in Helix....this is already getting complicated. Anyway, my 2 cents for this being a future feature - I trust the Line 6 guys can come up with a better implementation of this than I can. Also, if anyone has further suggestions for solutions to this stage problem, or wishes to continue the conversation about variax->Helix control, I'd love to hear you.

So, has anyone messed around with using the send and return to feed an effect into itself since the Helix routing won't let you do that? I've been elbow-deep in synths and keyboards lately for my current gig, and so I'm thinking a lot about routing and sound design from a non-guitar perspective. Got to pondering about how shimmer verb was invented - running a pitch shift into a 'verb and then piping the output back to the pitch shift. That's essentially what the Plateaux setting is doing in a self-contained block. But this kind of routing can do lots more than "shimmer verb" - relevant to me is that one of my favorite effects is the related-but-distinct "ice" or "crystal" delay (essentially the same concept with delay instead of verb - see also: strymon timeline and TC flashback 2). While the internal routing can allow you to approximate this kind if thing if you devote an entire path to it, it can't create an infinite feedback*. What WOULD work (I believe) is to insert a return before the blocks, and a send after them, and run a patch cable between them. The bummer is that it creates an additional DA/AD conversion, but some signal degradation is not a big deal for the kinds of things I would use this for**. So, my helix is already packed up for gigs this weekend - I could easily get it out and have a twiddle with some knobs, but I thought I'd toss this out to the community since I haven't seen anyone do this before - see if I could spark some ideas for others. If I'm late to the party, feel free to point me towards the existing conversation - but I couldn't find any mention of this with a google search. *might be obvious, but word of warning - actual infinite feedback can damage speakers and hearing, depending on your setup. I'd recommend keeping the volume low while experimenting - but hey, you do you. Happy tweaking. **The helix's AD conversion is indeed awesome. And you may well find some use for this I haven't envisioned. YMMV.

Cali Rhythm 1 doesn't have hum, ripple has no noticeable effect on the fuzz, and it happens with the gate both on and off

Interesting. I don't have any recordings right now - I'll try and get a shaky-cam video today, and I should be able to get a decent direct recording over the weekend.

So I've been using the Cali Rhythm 1 as my clean sound, and it sounds great, but there's some funny distortion in the background. The clean sound comes through, but then there's a digital-sounding fuzz that becomes most audible as I let a chord sustain and fade. It may be intentional, but it really sounds like something odd is going on. I thought maybe it was the guitar or any number of things (I actually first thought it was headphone distortion that the manual warns about, but it also comes through both a super-clean solid state amp, a hot rod deluxe, and pa speakers with cab modeling on), so I eliminated anything outside of helix as a possible cause - then I started flipping through amp models, and I wish I had taken notes because I feel like I heard it on a couple other models, but then I settled on the deluxe reverb normal channel for my clean sounds as it doesn't seem to have this strange sound. I know in a couple cases the gain-y channel of an amp was modeled that some forum-goers expected to be clean (the Shiva, for one), but this is explicitly the clean channel of the amp - which high-profile users such as John Petrucci get piano-like cleans out of, so I'm not sure why the model is distorting. I still happens with the gain nearly off (<1).

Never been a fan of spring reverb, so the tank on my hot rod deluxe has sat on 0 for ages - but just recently it started making some funny noises. So I figured if I've gotta get my hands dirty and figure out what's wrong, I might as well take the opportunity for some mods. I once heard Dan Steinheardt of The Gig Rig/That Pedal Show fame remark that you could take a patch cable and connect both leads of a reverb (bypassing the tank) and have a secondary drive control. Now that wouldn't quite work with a hot rod deluxe (at least not well) since it's a solid state driver, but it got me thinking about putting other pedals in the loop. Trouble is, I don't know enough about level, impedance, etc to even know what questions to ask google. I run a hof mini in the loop of the amp on all the time as a substitute amp-reverb, and a separate reverb for sometimes, effect-y reverb. It would be really cool to leave the hof on the amp (maybe even mounted where the spring tank is now), kill the dry signal and use the actual amp's reverb knob to control it.

Good catch - that's one of the first things I did with my Helix, I forgot that's not the default setting.

Hey guitarman, welcome to the forum One of the footswitches should be labeled "Mode" - if you press that footswitch, Helix will change to stompbox mode, which gets rid of preset buttons and the bank up/down buttons, leaving you 10 switches for pedals. Most/All of them should be blank. Use the joystick (the knob to the right of the screen) to highlight an effect you want to assign to a footswitch, and then touch (with your finger, for a second or so) the footswitch you want that effect assigned to - Helix will ask you if you want to assign bypass to that footswitch, and then press down on the knob under the green accept button. Edit: Sean Halley does a fantastic explanation of all this here. Relevant stuff at around the 2:00 mark https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCKEHkXhfhk

The only problem I've had with my HD500 is the occasional bug I mentioned several posts ago - every once in a blue moon it outputs random noise, and it is resolved by a reboot every time. I have had many, many gigs in all kinds of situations without my a problem from my pod. And I have to have some faith in it - it is literally my entire rig. Guitar - HD500 - FOH. So I would not be afraid to link two HD500s and step on stage in front of people. But Line 6 apparently doesn't have any faith in it. And that means neither does will my wallet in the future. The difference between the potential and the reality of this gear is....saddening. I'm still here, Line 6 - hoping you're listening. Fractal is. Kemper is. Are you?

The problem with Line 6 "bowing out" is that there is no one else doing what the Variax can do. It could literally be a game changer, and I'm jonesing after one - but until Line 6 earns some trust again, they don't get my money. I am voting with my wallet. There was some concern about the DSP limits on the HD500 that were somewhat alleviated by the 500X. But the simple (and often overlooked) solution to that is to just buy two HD500s and link them via Midi. Instant double DSP. Which I would do in a heartbeat...if Line 6 fixed the long outstanding bugs. For me, it's not a matter of gear I already own - it's about gear I might own in the future. I'm literally voting with my wallet - and greener pastures look very good right now.

I've had no problems with my gear with regards to QC (though I do have an occasional bug in my POD where it glitches out and just sends noise - but a simple reboot always fixes it) so I can't speak to that. I also don't own a DT-50 - if there are QC problems with the amps, then that's definitely something holding Line 6 back. What drives me absolutely insane is the seeming abandon of pro players. The fact that the pods have had outstanding bugs for well over a year - new amps models are nice and all, but not fixing bugs is unacceptable. I keep hearing word that the Variax players feel abandoned, too - though I don't own a Variax, so I can't say for sure. Still, I very much want a Variax and have been eyeing one for a long time...but that's enough to give me pause and put me in "wait and see" mode. I'm bringing this up because it's concrete. I'm not randomly venting. I want to buy a Variax and stay in Line 6-land, but if things don't change, I'm going to put that money towards a better amp modeler and cut my losses. I'm talking money, Line 6. Mine. And a bunch of pro players that feel the same way I do.

The one many people forget is to turn your wah on/off via the toe-switch. The tinny sound could be, as someone else noted, the wah at toe-down - but also because the wah never disengages. The volume pedal should be "on" all the time - when you click the toe switch, the volume pedal will be left full-on. If set up properly, the wah will then engage, as well as the pedal on the pod switching from exp-1 to exp-2. All this should be in the starter guide, but it's easy to miss

I'm about to make a post that people hate. People hate it because, "if you hate the company so much, why are you posting on their forums!!!??!! Just go away!" But I don't hate Line 6. It's what Line 6 has been doing lately that I don't see eye to eye with. Dear, Line 6. I'm a professional musician. I have QSC speakers and a Presonus board. I don't care how "neat-o" your new speakers or mixer are. If I wanted an amp, I'd buy the one that made the sound I wanted. And if I wanted one of your amps, I'd buy the one designed by Bogner. A professional musician doesn't want an amp with an iPad. Maybe you're having great success. Maybe the 16-year-old-with-parent's-money market is lucrative right now. Bless you for it. But don't let us fall by the wayside. Us, the gigging musician who has carried your company through good times and down economies. Us, who will come back, time and time again, to a company that does us right. We're not "loyal," we just want to trust our gear on stage night after night. But Line 6, you haven't been trustworthy lately. I want - I desperately want - to stay in this ecosystem, because with a few tweaks, a Variax and a PodHD truly could be a dream rig. But I'm eyeing greener pastures a lot lately. Update the firmware to the Pod. If nothing else, fix the dumb math mistakes that forum users have pointed out over and over. The trade shows and people who want "new shiny" have enough to chew on for a while. Throw the gigging man a bone. We want to come back home, Line 6.

IdeaScale is a joke. The community is here, not there. It's a poorly designed site, and so fewer people use it, and so it is a less accurate representation of the community. I gave it the old college try and couldn't stand it. The tons of spam email it sent me did not do it any favors with regards to my opinion (and that's what it is - my opinion. take it for what it's worth)

@kdog nailed it. I have the exact same three gripes about the HD500, and so I've been heavily eyeballing an Axe Fx and that definitely describes the community. Anything Cliff does is gospel and perfect - including his improvements (but wasn't it perfect?). If Line 6 doesn't get a move on, I'm going to make the leap anyway because the product is right. But I'd rather stay with Line 6 and this community.

Ah, that depends on the pedal. For most, "noon" is neutral. In fact, I can't think of any on the Pod for which that isn't true. Since I only use a few ODs on the Pod, perhaps someone else can confirm that this is the case with all of them. Sometimes you run into effects with passive tone controls, in which case "full out" is neutral. Setting any gain settings to zero and A/Bing each effect in turn should make this pretty obvious. Set "gain" or "distortion" to zero Pick a parameter - let's use Treble for now Set treble to noon Turn the pedal on - listen to your top end Turn the pedal off - listen to your top end If the effect has active eq, there should be little difference If the effect has passive eq, there should be much less top end with the pedal on If you're still not sure: Set treble to full out repeat above steps If the effect has active eq, there should be a much more pronounced top end If the effect has passive eq, there should be little difference Keep in mind that most pedals alter the eq anyway, like when I mentioned that a Tube Screamer has a midrange bump. So even the most neutral setting will probably change your tone.

@Akeron It has more DSP on the inside than makes it to the FOH.

I'm not sure what you mean by "least amount of tone alteration as possible" in a distortion pedal. That's kinda the point of dirt pedals. But I'll take a swing. 1) there are some industry standard settings, but 2) You should feel free to fiddle around with any setting on and pedal/amp. In terms of standard things, the ones I'm most familiar with are a tube screamer and a fuzz face. Tube screamers are often set as a true "overdrive" - that is, they don't provide much distortion themselves, but instead cause the amp to "overdrive." This setting is with the distortion all the way down, the level all the way up and the tone to taste (12 o'clock is neutral). It's basically functioning as a boost pedal, but tube screamers have a distinctive EQ bump in the midrange that many players find desirable - and even at zero drive, it's putting a little hair on the notes that many amps respond favorably too. The famous fuzz face sound is with everything turned up to 11. Roll the knobs all the way clockwise. If you're going for a Jimi or 60's Clapton tone, then break them off, that's the only setting you'll need. That being said, most pedals have interesting things in lots of settings. I'm not a huge fan of the way the Pod handles gain staging (running one distortion thing - say, a pedal - into another - say, an amp), so I use a real Tube Screamer either in front or in the FX loop of my Pod HD.

There's some complaints about how the eqs on the pod are structured - specifically the use of % instead of decibels and hertz. Meambobbo has some excellent info regarding that - see the link that TheRealZap posted. The cliffs notes version is: Djent is characterized by a (sometimes extreme) bump in the 1.4kHz. Djent also sometimes employs a high pass filter to remove some of the bottom end of the guitar before it hits the amp, but this is less universally accepted than the 1.4kHz bump, and you may find it does not suit your taste. The graphic eq on the pod does not include this specific band - many graphics eqs do not You can use the parametric eq to do this "Q" refers to how narrow or broad a parametric eq is. A low Q is a very broad, typically subtle eq that will effect many frequencies. A high Q is a narrow eq that will sharply effect a smaller number of frequencies. However, since Line 6 choose to use percent instead of frequencies, this is not intuitive on the HD500. Someone more experienced that me will have to walk you through the specifics.

@SiCantwell That's not how midi works. Midi pickups individually pick up each guitar string, allowing them to be processed separately. Something extremely similar occurs in the Variax. Midi controllers are another beast altogether - that's using midi signals to trigger events, such as changing a patch on an effects unit. It's even theoretically possible to use the HD500 to control a rackmount synth and have the switches act as keys through midi signals. BUT, there is no midi signal coming from your guitar without a midi pickup, therefore the HD500 cannot possibly "turn your guitar into a midi controller."