rd2rk

Like I said, he needs to cooperate with you and all the others who are trying to help him. As for S-Gear, you're a professional sound designer! I wouldn't expect you to think anybody's presets are totally awesome! The point I was making is that the S-Gear presets are inspiring without requiring a huge amount of tweaking to make them minimally useful. And the tweaks provided are intuitive to anyone who's ever used an amp - bass, mid, treble, presence. Switches to shift the tonal centers for the tone stack. There's some "deep" parameters for tweakers, and a 5 band EQ on one amp for the "Boogie" type sounds. All of which and more are in the Helix. Yet, I can throw together a simple and good enough for r'n'r preset in S-Gear in a few minutes that might take hours (or days, considering the ear fatigue factor) with Helix. Sure, once I've got it in Helix there's snapshots and a million effects that make the Helix such a great performance tool, but the learning curve is steep. OP might have a point that making it simpler to get the basics by engineering out the widely complained about "FIZZ" factor (not present in S-Gear) might add appeal to a larger market who just want to plug in and go! Is there ever such a thing as too big of a market?

This kind of helps make the OP's point. Why all of this complex EQing, just to get a simple rock'n'roll sound? At home, when I want to just plug in and play, I fire up S-Gear. Almost any of the factory presets are inspiring, whether thru my studio monitors or FRFR speakers, and other than the actual amp tone stacks, there aren't any EQs! Unfortunately, taking a computer to the local beer joint is not something I care to do, which is why I have the Helix. Between GD and Fremen I've got a lot of useful presets, and JS has some great ideas for creating good sounding presets from scratch. It could be that L6 needs to have a look at what S-Gear and the aforementioned after market and YouTube guys are doing and figure out how to create basic presets that sound good without requiring a degree in sound engineering and/or endless hours of tweaking. It's nice that Helix allows a dedicated sound designer to make presets that sound exactly like any artist or any song, but the large number of complaints similar to OP's indicates that there's a lot of users who just want to plug in, twiddle a coupla knobs and rock out! THAT SAID - OP's failure to cooperate with all the people here that have tried to help him is what's causing some of us to start thinking that he's an idiot troll.

"Presently, I have one that is being rented to me so that I can see if it is going to work for me before I put out 2000.00 dollars." If I was you (and you're not actually an idiot troll), I'd return that RENTED Helix and RENT something else. This is NOT a problem with Helix, it's just simply that YOU DON'T LIKE IT! Some people like Strats, some like Les Pauls. Different strokes. No point you having a stroke over it. Just move on!

FRFR means Full Range Flat Response. Full Range means 20Hz - 20kHz. Flat Response means you get out what you put in. Most powered PA speakers are Full Range. ALL speakers color the sound one way or another, so there's really no such thing as Flat Response. BEST is totally subjective. How much do you want to spend? Lot's of people use QSC, Yamaha and JBL. All pretty pricey. There are specialty speakers like Atomic and Friedman. Also pricey. Line6 just released a new series of speakers made specifically for this purpose. Two price points. Alto makes speakers like the above mentioned QSC, Yamaha and JBL. Very affordable. Headrush just released a new speaker made for modelers. Similar to Alto in design and price (same mfr) but voiced differently and more powerful. I had been using an Alto TS210, which sounded OK. I just got the Headrush 112, sounds MUCH better. If the money becomes available, I intend to try the new L6 speaker for comparison. Bottom line, there's no definitive answer to your question, just opinions. You'll need to research the options. Lots of opinions here and on Gearpage. Just saw Geetah's response. Add that to what I've said here. Good luck and have fun!

Can the unnamed app you're using on the unidentified phone be controlled via MIDI? Is there a hardware interface available for said phone that's recognized by the app? If you answered YES to all questions, then the answer is "MAYBE".

I bought into the "lifetime upgrades" scam that Gibson perpetrated on us. I was very happy that Bandlab had resurrected Cakewalk, but I want to see Bandlab's contributions to the product before I contribute to Bandlab. If they fix the bugs and add value in some significant way, I'll be happy to donate. The initial release still loses my MIDI routings and Control Surfaces, and still sometimes crashes when adding/deleting VSTs. These are problems I didn't have while I was trying out Reaper. The one real change I noticed was in the procedure for inserting "Soft Synth" tracks, and that has a bug! Not a good start, but It might have to do with the way it works with projects created with the original product vs projects created from scratch with the new version, I haven't gotten around to trying that yet.

Maybe by the time I get it back from service there'll be an update that fixes the tuner out problem caused by the update that fixed the S/PDIF dropouts.....

I'm leaning toward interference by space aliens, but you could be right about the curse. In case it's something more mundane, I'm sending it back to L6 to figure it out. IF they ever get around to sending the RMA!

Are you using S/PDIF out?

You could go onto the Cakewalk forum and ask in the Bandlab thread. At least one of the old time Cakewalk guys was picked up by Bandlab, and is very active there. I'll bet he'd know!

If they were compatible with Cakewalk Sonar (or X3) they should be compatible with the new Bandlab version, they haven't really changed anything yet, just new branding.

Today I found out what was causing the noise over S/PDIF. Unplug G10 wireless, connect by old-fashioned cable, no noise! I was overjoyed! played for an hour, no dropouts, no weird noises. It kinda sucks, but I can live without the G10. BUT THEN... I went to dinner, came back 2 hours later, every light on the Helix was flashing like crazy. Waiting for the RMA..... AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!

Bandlab bought the "intellectual property" - the code. They did NOT buy the company, and have no responsibility, legal or otherwise, to those of us who bought the "lifetime upgrades" that Gibson sold us (yep, I bought into it too!). That said, as near as I can tell from reading the twenty+ pages of posts about it on the Cakewalk forum, Bandlab is serious about keeping Cakewalk FREE and continuing to improve it, making it a key component of their shared music production concept/platform. My hope is that, before they start adding features and integrating the shared production thing, that they FIX the many long running bugs that have plagued the program since Gibson owned it. Though mostly minor annoyances with well known work-arounds, it's the little things that will convince me to buy into a new version, should they choose to monetize it in the future. Meantime, for new users, getting the product we paid for, for FREE, is the deal of the decade!

Thumbs up on TDFKAS (the DAW formerly known as Sonar). I've used it for years and, while not without (minor) problems, it's one of the best! We longtime users are hoping that the problems of the past, caused, we like to believe, by TIAG (the idiots at Gibson) will be fixed promptly by the new owners, who seem to be honestly interested in making Cakewalk the best that it can be!

ARRRGH!!!!! I've now eliminated every other possibility. The unit IS experiencing audio dropouts using XLR straight to a powered speaker (2 different ones actually - so that's not the problem either). I still haven't isolated the S/PDIF noise, that COULD still be a problem with the Focusrite 18i20 interface (I doubt it, but have opened a support ticket with them), but I now suspect that the S/PDIF dropouts that I was experiencing might not have anything to do with the digital out. L6 is issuing an RMA. AARRRRGHHH!!!!!

After hours of re-wiring, re-flashing and reloading drivers, most of the problems seem to be gone, except for the noise thru the S/PDIF. When I had it set up to use the Helix as AI, I wasn't getting noise over USB, which may not mean anything. When I went back to using the Focusrite as AI, still noise over S/PDIF. Since that's the only AI that I have with S/PDIF, I can't really isolate the Helix to see if that's the problem. I've opened a support ticket with Focusrite, but you know how that goes. Unless it's a known problem, they'll blame the Helix. Only ONE of the four L6 service centers in the Denver area services the Helix, I'll try taking it there if Focusrite can't help.

I'd been taking a split off of 2A for the 3/4 Return with the 2nd laptops streaming feed. By setting up a separate 2B path with no input, just the 3/4 Return, that solved the problem.

GOT IT! I almost had it last night. Attached is the solution! Thanks guys!

So, tried this (see attached screenshot). Helix won't allow assigning USB 1/2 as an input, probably to avoid potential feedback problems. Assigning USB IN 1/2 to a Helix output allows me to HEAR the stream, but doesn't get it back into my DAW for recording.

I hear ya! It's lunch time here in Colorado. I'm hoping that food will revive the little grey cells...

Like I said, all painless with the Focusrite. I suspect that my needing to use 1A+2A for DSP is somehow overtaxing the Helix processor when I try to add the other inputs, which indicates that what I'm trying to do is either not possible or there's a better way.

Wait I misread that, but I think it's essentially what I already tried. Let me finish lunch and I'll try it again...

That would require being able to set Windows Audio Out to USB 1/2, not an option that I know of.

The patch didn't work, so I deleted it. It does appear that it should be do-able. It shouldn't be that difficult, but I'm not getting it. Any ideas?

To be able to record my playing along with whatever music/ streaming/backing tracks, from whatever source. YouTube and Music STREAMING services are not audio files that can be loaded into the DAW (unless they're downloaded first, BIG PITA!). Even then, downloaded/previously recorded backing tracks would have to be individually loaded in the DAW vs setting a player like WMP to play the files back randomly. Another big PITA. As stated, I don't mind using a separate laptop for playback. Less stress on the DAW laptop's CPU. If I can do all of this painlessly with my Focusrite, why can't it be done with Helix, "the heart of your home studio". Is it a mixer or not? I can set it up to work, but it seems to be stressing out the Helix's CPU, which indicates that either: The Helix is a poor excuse for a mixer, OR, I'm doing it wrong.