bloodychoir

Tried out charging my battery last night after some time. Don’t know if it’s my battery or the charger that’s a goner. I’m hedging my bets on both. There’s a red light, goes off after a couple of secs. Last gig I played, between sound check and show, either my XPS died or the electronics in my Standard. The trs cable is fine. Hence my return to the battery which I never felt comfortable with. Rather tellingly I actually expected it not to charge, not to work. Can’t get a new one in Australia (edit - seems you can now, just $120 a pop haha!), Line 6 won’t implement VDI on anything but the most enormous and expensive floor unit. I get the feeling the Variax is a dead duck. Literally, probably, in my case. Loved having a reasonable fudge on alternate tunings, did roughly what I needed it to do, but I think the marriage is over. It plays like the cheap Yammy it is and sounds pretty ordinary too with two layers of modeling at work. Back to hauling several real axes. The little Stomp is a good box so I’m still on the team. As an early JTV59 owner (too heavy, too prissy, PRS like and kind of soulless) it makes me sad that something as intrinsic and yet banal as power supply has crippled this very nice but undernourished idea.

If I'm not wrong there's a new reverb that does a bit of the Freeze action, that's something I would love. I currently achieve that in recordings with an old Klark Teknik dn780 but it's labour intensive. Still miles better than a plug in. Be nice to hit a chord in Helix and let it ride.

Hi, I'm fully updated, no other issues, but for the last few updates this behaviour hasn't changed. Every 3-4 times I boot up the presets have to rebuild from scratch. It's several minutes of getting angry instead of recording. I searched for relevant threads but nothing satisfactory. I'm sure I've done something wrong but if I get an answer with the word 'caching' in it I'm going back to the bottle. Thanks for any help

I hope that was a joke

Thanks silverhead, good to know

Any updates, sorry if I've missed it but as this subject, depending on your interests, evolved or devolved into a technical discussion the actual point has disappeared into the fundament. It's well and truly March, and I want to plug my 76 Musicmaster bass into my Helix and know the power of a Darkglass pedal. I suspect it will enable me to actually play bass and not just rest my foot on the wedge and run quarter speed Steve Harris lines.

I'm thinking a laptop?

Yep. Just sounds wonderful and made you work harder, cleverer. You have made me sad...

I've done it with a Metric Halo 2882 into Logic with no issues, but I haven't updated to El Capitan. The aggregate option has been solid for me for many years with a variety of interfaces. I know it's sport to rubbish Apple but they do some very nice things audio wise

Issues? No issues here. Maybe if you've updated to El Capitan on a Mac, but then that's an issue with not being very patient like a good audio person should, no issue with Helix. Memes are powerful!

Neli it sounds like you're on a Mac which means you can also aggregate the two devices to create a, wait for it, Helixicon. If you want to keep using your Lex as primary in/out you just nominate it in the Audio/Midi window and the Helix will slave to its clock and become a further 8in/outs. I can tell you it works fine so far for me but that said I haven't had any time at all to mess with it other than to confirm its function. Just do a search for "aggregate devices OS X"

Apologies, I posted this first on the enormous The Gear Page Helix thread as it's way more active than here - and I'd urge anyone who hasn't to dip in there, it's hugely informative...so "Yet another review, but I won't apologise as I've found it thrilling and educational from miles back in the thread before I got one and I'm still reading every morning. That said I'll keep it short and sweet. Like most I didn't find the presets especially impressive off the bat and didn't really expect to. What I did find was that a bit of judicious and quick tweaking got them to a very nice place, likewise some of the Customtone presets people have been putting up. Last night I got busy making my own amp and pedal board, which is what it's all about for me at this point. Gorgeous clean Deluxe, little bit of Deluxe compressor, with the barest hair of hair, a handy incremental boost, two Minotaurs dialled way back for three grades of ampy drive that roars if you hit it hard enough, a little spring, a little slap via the Transistor Tape. Glorious! If that's a beginning the world is an oyster with more pearls than snot. It takes the Variax beautifully via mags and the models really show their legs - at this point I'm just direct in, no VDI. The fizz or crossover distortion issue, well, it's the same disappointment I've often experienced when I've come in after a take using the most wonderful sound I've ever got from an amp only to hear something slightly dead in the arse coming through the monitors. This thing works like the harsh real world of amps being recorded works. Good, it means the sweet spot is all the larger. Tried a few 3rd party IR's, nice colour but certainly not putting the onboard cabs to shame. And lastly I tried a couple of mics today, crystal and more than a little bit thrilling to try some modelled compressors and fx with a view to committing rather than treating afterwards. Barely peeled the first grape and I'm already making fine wine. Recording is going to be a blast, writing has a new partner in crime, live I don't have a clue yet but I'm confident. Only wish, an even more natural overdrive, a Paul Cochrane Tim or even a Timmy. I want something that marries the amp and then takes it waltzing - and something that at zero gain is not still distorting....time for Ideascale. Love it, amazing work Line 6!"

Spot on if he was referring to the 500X (although 2nd hand average $500 tops), but he named the 500. In any case our dollar is no friend to the gigging musician with a head of GAS up. Having briefly owned a 400, and with a bandmate using a 500X, I'll reiterate that it's night and day. Helix is a completely different beast, one that can even outsmart its owner!

I received an email from Matrix after asking about the Neolight cabs with Helix, they suggested waiting till December when the active cabs FR10 and FR12 are available. Very light and small frfr powered cabinets, ported for extra bottom end. Sound like they might be the compact answer to the problem of no longer having an amplifier behind you. And apparently at a pretty good price point too, I think it's likely that's going to be my choice. I guess the idea of having to lug a Helix, a large cab and a preamp around really defeats the purpose for me.

Sorry, the above was meant for bartnettle! Mcoffey, you were using El Capitan I presume? A Yosemite partition would have fixed your issues, also the bugs would have been ironed out eventually for EC. Bit of a hassle but not really the fault of the unit