codamedia

My 6 year old LT has had one "complete" microswitch cleaning. That was about 2 years ago, and it's still going strong. The entire process took me about an hour... so I can't complain over the level of required maintenance I've had to endure. On the contrary, I have bags of BOSS microswitches from a variety of units. I use to have to replace those puppies on a regular basis. I wouldn't dismiss the foam theory, but outside contaminants will certainly find their way in as well. On the LT, the EXP area is a clear point of entry. Combine some humidity with some dust/dirt particles and cleaning becomes inevitable over time. Just my 2 cents... based on "my" experience with them.

I always sent a MONO signal to the FOH and let the tech position it as he needs. He can add some stereo delay, or some stereo reverb if he wants, he can pan the guitar left/right/center as he feels he needs to... but he does have instructions not to go drastic. As an listener, I prefer MONO live as well. I want to hear the MIX regardless of my ticket being LEFT/CENTER/RIGHT in the room. I tend to agree, a slight separation is nice. But you don't need a stereo signal to PAN the guitar a little to the left or right!

I would try the JC120 pre-amp into an Alnico Silver or Alnico Blue cab block. The cab block will give it a Vox tonal quality. For any dirt you may require... I'd just place a dirt block of choice in the chain, not try to get it from the amp.

Separate the amp/cab block and put the send before the cab. YES - it does use one additional block, but it also works!

If I were buying an FRFR today... I'd lean to the Fender line. They sound great and have those familiar controls of an amp for quick room/stage compensation without diving into menus. That said... my AITR tones are baked into my presets. As long as I have a quality monitor arrangement... that tone is there. Studio Monitors.... check! FOH/PA... check! Quality stage monitor... check! IEM's.... check! Any decent FRFR .... check!

3 Options... 1: Do what the studio engineers have always done. Work really hard with the mic choice and placement in the cab block to capture the "amp in the room" sound to the best you can. Those recordings we love often sound like amps in the room.... that was achieved with creative use of mics & placement. 2: Turn off all cab modeling in the Helix and plug into the effect return on an amp. Voila... amp in the room. 3: Find a good "speaker simulation" IR. Before IR's existed people used speaker simulation hardware such as a Palmer PDI-03... but there were many others as well. Those don't have the MIC character added... they are simply EQ's that attempt to sound like a speaker/cab, without the mic. If you can find an IR package of those sounds.... you can load them up instead of a cab block.

That's not how it works.... going back to snapshot mode simply gives you the options to choose a snapshot, it doesn't automatically load one. That is the behavior you will get if you set the stomp(s) in question to ignore snapshots. When you set "snapshot bypass" to OFF, the stomps on/off state maintains separation from snapshots. Page 47 of the V3 manual explains "Snapshot Bypass".

It's the Waylon Jennings sound... Phase I don't get their the authentic way, but I just throw on a Script Phase and turn the mix down (between 30% & 50%) so it blends with the original tone.

For troubleshooting, eliminate anything that can adjust volume... If you have a volume pedal block (often assigned to the EXP... disable it) As stated above, disable the big volume knob from your outputs I would also disable the Global EQ if you are using it... Make sure you try the 1/4", XLR and headphone out to see if the problem is everywhere, or just on one set of outputs.

My steps are already detailed, and they are also in every update instruction Line 6 issues. I don't know how to make it clearer. You said that the problem occurred after an UPDATE! The simple question is... did you follow the update instructions and did you restore your "global settings" after the update? If not, that is likely where your problem occurred. Silverhead tells you how to restore your global settings... give it a try.

There is no bug... bugs are unintended... this is by design. As far back as I've owned my Helix (2018), the update procedure has been as follows Full backup of the Helix (this is forced when updating through HX Edit) Update the firmware... this will restart the helix and rebuild the presets Perform a factory reset... (also restarts the Helix) Restore what you require from your last backup Global Settings (I do these) IR's (I do these) Presets/Setlists (I have 2 setlists I import where I do all my work... YMMV) Restart one last time and let the Helix rebuild the presets! Not part of the update notes... but I also do one more restart to make sure it starts without rebuilding again. I set aside 1 hour for the full procedure... it often takes much less. I never update the day of a show... or anything else that may be important. Since 2018 I've done a lot of updates... I have never encountered an issue. I'm not saying others have never encountered issues, I'm just saying I haven't!

If you insert a "SEND/RETURN" as a single block... you can only set it to "Instrument level" or "line level". The problem is... often the send will go to the input of an amp which would be instrument level. But the amps effects send will be line level, therefore it won't match the return settings. Line level into something set to instrument level will be very loud.... there is an option to lower the return level on the block to compensate. This is not a "one adjustment works for all" solution... everyone needs to know how their various pieces of gear operate, and set/adjust things accordingly to accommodate.

Since you don't want an on/off state on the volume pedal.... set it to none. @datacommando pointed you (and me) to the right page in the manual.... your volume block will be assigned to one of the EXP pedals positions, you want to set it to "none"

I don't use an HX Effects so I can't really direct you... but it is part of the "bypass assign" area for the block. Locate that and you will see EXP is assigned... remove the assignment.

That sounds to me like the ON/OFF state of the volume block is assigned to the exp value. That is often great for a WAH, but not a volume pedal. Locate that assignment and remove it.... then make sure the volume block is on when you save the preset and/or any snapshots depending on your snapshot global settings. The volume pedal block will always remain on, and will obey the global settings of the EXP pedal.