PeterHamm

The Helix is still selling well, still has a lot of life left in it with updates, and even if it never got any, I could still use it for another 10 years.

Line 6 isn't worried about niche players that sell through only their own store or through only one outlet.

And they aren't worried about sub-standard copycats either.

When there needs to be a next flagship processor for guitarists, I will bet you that they have something ready, and I'll bet that it's something that they are working on now, but haven't told us about, because they can't.

1 hour ago, haydenikerd said:

Hi Helix community, my first time on here ! Having an issue with the volume / expression pedal...

 

I occasionally use swells in songs our band plays. For these, you take the volume pedal all the way to down to heel, play a chord or notes, and then open up the volume to get a neat shimmering effect. However, recently, even with the volume pedal cut all the way down, (it even reads 0% on the display) a weak signal still comes thru ? Wondering if anyone has run into this or if anyone can help me here. 

 

Short version -- when my volume pedal is all the way off, my volume is not all the way off.

 

Thank y'all !!

Double check first to make sure that you don't have the guitar inputting on another path. Perhaps you could take a screen shot of your signal chain? Never seen that happen.

12 hours ago, chechunka said:

Can you have more than one switch attached to an amp block?  i.e. one switch for "more amp drive" and another switch for "MORE MORE amp drive"?

Nope. 

You can do this with snapshots, OR... what I do... add a dirt pedal or a boost (the Mark V EQ is fun for this, as is Deranged Master).

1 hour ago, bingefeller said:

I'm late to this thread, but just got a Helix LT and am interested how I use an RTA app with the Helix to tweak the EQ.?  Can I use an online pink noise generator and feed that signal into the Helix?  I'm guessing i would go phones out to 1/4" input on the Helix?

 That RTA analysis is only meaningful for the room you do it in, tho.

Only use Global EQ to "fix" the room, when you are in the room. Otherwise, for shaping your tone, use EQ in the preset. (and START with the Amp EQ!)

2 hours ago, Imyourcluster said:

I’m considering buying a new helix floor, but I’m afraid to regret my purchase because I feel like it is going to be a new helix floor released soon… what do you guys think? 
is it about time?

two things.
1. every day you wait to get the tool that will help you make music better and have more fun doing it is a day wasted.
2. There is not a Helix 2 coming any time super-soon.

1 hour ago, theElevators said:

If Pod Go now has built in wireless, chances are Helix will also have the same. Call it an educated guess.  

Well, here's my educated guess. I am going to guess that Helix (and anything that follows it in that product class) will continue to cater to professional-level musicians who will have nothing to do with "built-in wireless" and that products on the POD Go end of the spectrum will continue to offer an entry level (very limited and very "amateur") wireless built-in.

8 hours ago, theElevators said:

Hilarious....  Quad cortex is amateur hour karaoke equipment then... with the touch screen... wi-fi... small footprint, and buttons/knobs.  bwaaaaahaaahhahaaa.  Pros only use rack units.. and never ever ever any wireless systems. 

Tons of professionals use wireless, in fact, every touring act that I've seen for decades. And tons of pros use the Helix Floor, too.

19 hours ago, kringle said:

 

Wow, really a complete jerk-off response, clearly when you lept instantly from birth to seasoned professional the stardom went strait to your head...  you forgot about all us poor sucker amateurish noobs trying to make it or have fun.  Let us all just get out of your way mr. rock god... 

 

I must say that with you clearly being a professional... It's intriguing and honoring that you waste your time here with us nobody's on the forum.... so I guess we should say, Thank You?

You misunderstand. Pro-level equipment will never have a built-in wireless for instance, because pros would avoid that product to use the one that will let them use the wireless of THEIR choice, rather than the one chosen for them.

There is NOTHING wrong with being amateur, but there is a completely different ideal feature set for a POD Go than for Helix.

Many of the other features you list have nothing to do with the sound or capability (such as touch-screen, tested and rejected because it was... wait for it... not preferred by the pro musician which Helix targets).

You inferred I was insulting you personally. I was not. I did not levy any personal attacks against you, as you did towards me, btw. Please keep it classy here.

10 hours ago, theElevators said:

The next Helix IMO will have:

 

1. quad core or 8 core processor

2. built-in wireless for guitar/in-ear/Variax?

3. touch screen/buttons that double as knobs, like on the Quad Cortex

4. wi-fi

5. be 1/2 the width and weight.  Maybe it'll have a kick stand lol to raise it at an angle. 

 

That's about it.  To me, in terms of sound, flexibility, snapshots, etc, Helix is more than enough.  I guess having a slimmer Helix would be an added bonus. 

Sorry, most of these very "amateur" features will never be in Helix, I'll bet.

4 minutes ago, zappazapper said:

and I don't think it's that much of a stretch that there be a VST version of it for full integration with a DAW,...

I am rather certain that those who actually would have to do the work to create this VST version you speak of would tell you that you are mistaken about the complexity and cost of such a venture. 

1 hour ago, zappazapper said:

When most people buy a cell phone, they buy it to have a phone to make phone calls. But then you see that there's Google Maps and you use it even though you didn't ask for it and you never thought you'd need it.

It's like comparing apples and oranges, only really, you are comparing apples and baseball.

The economies of scale.. and the purpose... are totally different.

Most people bought a smartphone so that they COULD use it to do non-phone things. And when they come up with a feature like "maps" they do it to sell more products because LOTS of people want it. They make those things to sell more phones to more customers, and the market segment is huge, the entire world.

If there are 100,000 people who want a feature on a smartphone it makes sense to make that, even though that's less than 1% of the 100,000,000 people who buy cell phones. That's why those apps exist. And they end up not being money losers, because 100,000 is a lot of people, even if it's <1% of users.

There are not nearly as many people who want this feature on their Helix, which compared to cell phones is a minuscule market, as evidenced by the ONE vote that this feature has received.

54 minutes ago, zappazapper said:

I'll chime in here and say that I agree with rizzy. It's not simply about the additional cost. Native takes up DSP headroom in your recording app. Freeing up DSP is one of the main reasons why using outboard gear is still part of the typical workflow in the age of plugins. For example, I have a outboard Lexicon unit that I use all the time because it saves me a bit of DSP headroom, and it has a VST plugin that does nothing but control the Lexicon so that its settings can be recalled when I load up a project, and so I can automate it. It's not a foreign or new concept (I bought it over a decade ago), and yes, there are Lexicon plugins that are available, and that I have, and use all the time, but I still use the hardware unit in almost every project because it allows me to use DSP headroom elsewhere (often for Lexicon VSTs).

 

And yes, I have Helix Native, and use it often,  but if there was a VST plugin that could be used to just control my LT, then I could fully integrate my LT into my recording workflow the same way I do with the Lexicon. As it stands now, the LT is a great tool for tracking, and can certainly be used during the mixdown phase as long as you're mindful of saving your presets, but if there was a VST that just controlled the LT, then it would just automatically recall the right settings when I load up the project.

 

I'm all for it. 

It would be super cool. It will cost a lot of money and only 12 people in the world are going to pay money for it. So... Probably should find those 12 people and split the cost... oh... that means it won't be cheap.

14 hours ago, fremen said:

The best IR you can use to simulate an electro-acoustic with an electric guitar is the one one you make yourself, in a specific pickup position. An IR made for a Telecaster neck pickup won't sound the same with the Strat, although it would probably work too. But making IRs requires some skills

 

 

Talking about ACOUSTIC guitar IR, though...

And... nope... the best IR you can make is one you make yourself if you know EXACTLY what you are doing. (as you, admittedly, do say)

I know how to make my own, and I made my own IR of my acoustic guitar, and I STILL USE the 3 Sigma offerings instead, because they sound miles better, and probably nobody reading this is going to be able to make them as well as 3 Sigma do.

1 hour ago, Svenisak said:

Yeah? I guess that equipment like the Behringer WING console is meant for (very rich) amateurs! As a mater of fact, it's very common to have the capability of controlling professional equipment via BT these days!

And doesn't the Wing connect via Ethernet to a WiFi network, not bluetooth, for wireless control?

1 hour ago, Svenisak said:

As a mater of fact, it's very common to have the capability of controlling professional equipment via BT these days!

If it is so common, perhaps you could list all these pro devices... (and Behringer isn't exactly high-end)

1 hour ago, kringle said:

 

Totally agree, I’d go so far as to say this is now mandatory of anything produced 2020 and beyond.  If they tried to push out a Helix 2 with no way to wirelessly have complete management over it then I’d wager it would be shredded in reviews and by the community. And something as high-end as a Helix will have to use high-speed WiFi as well, no crappy Bluetooth.

You mean the way that the latest Fractal product came with a Bluetooth feature that worked with a smartphone to edi-- Uh... never mind... oh yeah, it didn't...

Honestly, editing from a phone is an amateur feature more than a pro feature, and Helix is pro gear.

51 minutes ago, ReeV0 said:

 

Hey, I just tried this for the Poly Pitch effect (to use FS1 to either change it from -12 or 0).

 

It works fine which changing from 0 to -12, but then when changing from -12 to 0 there's a lag and it takes a long time to ramp up and get through all the 12 notes. Anyone know why this might be?

Poly pitch is the only block that does this, and it is on purpose, and it's switchable, I think, in the FX block. Also, try using MOMENTARY for Poly pitch, and you can step on the switch to ramp up (or down) and then release to ramp back. It is SO FREAKING COOL!

46 minutes ago, molul said:

I have a Helix LT. My problem is that I have both paths full of effects on almost every patch (I create a patch per song, and each song has lots of different effects).

 

My proposal is: let users add whatever effects they want to a patch, just don't let them enable all of them. Let users enable effects until dsp runs out. That way you could have two amps in the same patch, but you would only be able to enable one of them.

 

Maybe, technologically, it's something imposible.

It is, in fact, technically not possible. Not the way the unit is made to work. Only way to switch between two different blocks is to have both loaded in the preset. That's just the way it works.

4 hours ago, bypassvalve said:

 

amp in the room sound is ambient reflections, spatial cues your ears can pick up on to tell your brain what kind of a space you're in. the dual delay at the end, set on i think 7 and 8 ms. 1ms is like 1 foot, you can experiment with the size and mix, at 16% mix it's subtle but you can tell when it's gone

mic scout 84.hlx 6.85 kB · 1 download

It is not just that imho. It is the way that a guitar speaker moves air vs. the way that an FRFR does.

The delay has nothing to do with it if your FRFR and your "real amp" are the same distance from your ears.

8 hours ago, bypassvalve said:

 

when they put it in front of the power amp where it's supposed to go it will be perfect

YES! I know everybody loves listening to that super awesome wet stereo reverb... but... put one of the legacy spring reverbs BEFORE your amp in the chain.

Thank us later.

2 hours ago, BartBlackMagic said:

With the Helix I believe they are almost on par with a top quality tube amp sound-wise but I don't believe they will be able to match the sound and feel with the current processing power/architecture/algorithms. That last bit could require a new approach. The sound is great but as a player you notice you're not playing the real deal.

I believe the Neural DSP Quad Cortex could set a new standard. I really look forward to test it and I hope for Line6 to have an answer ready in the coming year.

Sorry, but imho, that "feel" you want is the "amp in the room" which is accomplished by having a real guitar speaker pushing a certain amount of air. Nothing else.

11 hours ago, datacommando said:

Time for my medication, it may stop the voices. AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGH!

It will not stop the voices... do not ask me how I know this...

4 minutes ago, joeycronin said:

No biggie, Guess I'm just loyal to them because they treated me well for over 40 years. They have always back their products on life time coverage and I've used it a few times. I'm going to try the SE535 later this week. They are truly a higher end product and should be for the price. 

VERY different kind of product, but very excellent.

And, when you are tweaking for live use, I find that IEM-style headphones work best.

7 hours ago, mritt said:

I have discovered a weird EQ bug in one of my presets. Snapshot 1 plays fine but when I switch to another snapshot all of the 2khz bands suddenly become +15dB - which is not how I had them set. Then when I switch back to snapshot 1, it too now says +15dB. If I double click the preset (reload) snapshot 1 corrects itself. But if I change snapshots again, the +15dB problem returns. I've imported an old exported backup I made months ago before installing 3.0 and it has the same problem even when saved in a different preset slot.

 

Helix LT running HXedit 3.0 with 3.0 firmware upgraded recently from fw 2.82.

Windows 7 machine 32GB ram

 

Here are some screenshots and the preset.

I saw something similar to this in a beta build of an older firmware. It might be a corrupt preset. First. Try saving to another slot and then back. You MIGHT have to delete the EQ block and put it back in, but try that first.

12 hours ago, joeycronin said:

These are the Pro4s, not cheep Koss can. It isn't an overdirve issue from the headphone pre amp as far as I can tell. I've used them may times for mixing with no issues.  But to the question what is the experience with others and headphone. I should try my wireless setup as a discribed in the previous post.

Sorry, still not a huge fan. I know that some broadcast folks use them, but there's a reason you never see them on the shelf in a Music store.

I think they probably have a harshness inherent in them. I do find that my open back DT990s (Beyer) sound fantastic with Helix, and any closed back headphones are only good for when I have to have no bleed because I'm tracking vocals.