duncann

Haha. Falcon 3.0. I remember playing that with my buddy over 14.4k! (You actually had to read/study the rather large manual too.) Just recently I was going through a bunch of old crap and found an ISA interface US Robotics 56k, still in the original box. Took it to the local computer store for recycling, a bit late I guess.

Lol. Say that to someone 15 or 20 years ago. Spectrum here, with occasional forum slowdowns.

Another drastic option would be to completely remove the knobs, decreasing greatly the chance of movement.

What you're looking for might be found here: http://foobazaar.com/podhd/toneGuide/cabsMics#dualCab-phase, towards the end of the document you'll download.

The only differences would be the obvious separation of devices and Helix Rack/Control would cost around 300 more. If you're going to use it for just recording and playing, you could also use your DAW, Reaper works well. The downside of that, for unplanned sessions, would be a clumsy-at-best on-demand control. For more preemptive control it works great.

This sounds similar to this: http://line6.com/support/topic/24970-mark-iv-model-loss-of-gain-after-extended-playing-session/ I maybe open a support ticket.

You can certainly set the footswitches, looper switch, tap switch, exp toe, and expression controllers on the HD to send various midi data: Midi channel, cc toggle, cc, program change, bank change, and note on for everything except the expression controllers. For the expression controllers it's midi channel, cc, and min and max values. So I guess the answer would be yes, you could use the HD for controlling Helix Rack. But if you decide to do it this way, you're going to be missing out on a lot of cool usability features that makes Helix unique. Mostly the scribble strips, which once used, will make you wonder why this wasn't done for mass consumption ages ago. And there's really no going back once you do use them. Then again, you might have zero need, ever, for this sort of thing. Another thing to consider is that the HD as a midi controller might be buggy. If it is, it will very likely never be fixed.

It's just the input and output blocks. It's probably better to just use the analog loops for the flexibility alone.

..

http://line6.com/support/topic/23488-compressors-explained/?p=178763

That looks to be for a variax. Made by arislaf. For a sample of what that preset sounds like: https://soundcloud.com/aris-laf/sitar

So it probably was an obstruction messing with things. Glad you got it working. I let my Helix get rather dusty at times and it doesn't seem to result in any problems, but hairs or dander might do it. Do you have any disrespectful animals crawling around on it?

I'm not sure about a specific preset to replicate a sitar, but obviously it would be some sort of clean preset. More importantly is probably the technique you use when playing. Try to stay on the G and B strings, and develop a light palm muting techinque in combination with great attention to pick attack, which should generally be rather aggressive. But keep in mind that it's never going to really sound exactly like a sitar, only close.

I wouldn't be so quick to abandon the way you're doing it now. Maybe refine the process. There are a couple of reasons, one of which you pointed out already, which is a sort of forced practice. The other reason may or may not apply depending on what's being played. Looking for ways to discard actually playing the guitar can have consequences, the most notable of which is you're potentially throwing away a large chunk of the equation, which is the unquantifiable 'feeling' of a preset in action, not to mention the lost practice opportunities. The looper, or other equivalencies such as a DAW, can have their uses though. If the parts are an easy rhythm or something else where the practice isn't needed or the feeling isn't important, then I'd say look for a shorter way through, refining the process.

That's all really cool. My favorite was the rip, peal, tear, destroy. Lol. Makes me think there's a blind god roaming around out there, upset that it can't see.

I'd first probably try backing everything up with whatever version of the editor you're using now. I would guess it would work. But if it doesn't work: When you go to the Line 6 download page, you should see a very long list, the entire history, of firmware and software released for Helix. So download what's called Helix version 1.04. Uninstall whatever version you're using now and install version 1.04. It should contain everything: the drivers, the updater, and the editor. Once you do that, you should be able to perform a backup. Then you can proceed to download Helix version 2.21, which contains the drivers, the updater, and the editor. You might want to uninstall everything Helix related rather than installing version 2.21 over the older version because I can recall there being a directory structure change at some point which caused some problems.

Ahh. Not certain. I suppose it might depend somewhat on the amp? There are other forum members here with more knowledge (i.e. greater than zero, lol), about actual amps, how they function, and any dynamics between different parameters, so hopefully one of them might chime in.

On amps that don't actually have a master volume, this control is there in the modeled amp. It is not tied to gain, so it can be changed independently. The only way I can think to link two or more parameters like you want, and to have them change smoothly I assume, is to assign them to an expression controller. If the smoothness isn't needed, you could do the same with a switch, either latching or momentarily, using min and max values.

This is how I do it on Helix with Reaper: In Reaper, I have a track that's going to be the processed track. As a sub-track I have the dry track with a hardware output of 3/4. I normally have this track muted unless I'm going to reamp. Arm the processed track for recording, and set the track's monitoring to ON or AUTO. On Helix, set the input of your preset to USB 3/4 and the output to USB 1/2. To make things easier if you plan on reamping a lot, make two presets, one for reamping only. I've probably forgotten something, but at the moment I think that should be it.

In addition to the reamping info above, if the final processed track requires some sort of initial manual expression control, such as a wah, volume, or whatever else, you can record this midi data at the same time as the dry track, over USB. Then when you want to reamp, you can send the recorded midi data back to helix at the same time as the dry track, as well as any other midi control for snapshots, toggling blocks, etc. All this is pretty straightforward using Reaper.

I get good results by using and tweaking a multiband compressor before a SVT Bright. Try to find a good combination of drive and master volume to get a good clean tone. I find about 6.5 for master volume and 3.x for drive. Adding the mesa EQ block after the amp can help as well for finding your desired tonal qualities. I also don't use the active EQ on my bass guitar.

Did you run the Line 6 License Manager to authorize the bass pack? You will also need v2.62 of the firmware and the latest version of HD Edit, v2.26 (if you use it). Once you have all of that you should be good to go. The amp names to look for are: SVT Brt SVT Nrm G Cougar 800 And the cabs: 810 Beast 410 Rhino I think that's it. Also, if you hold the 'view' button on the device to get to the system menus and go to page 12, it should say what HD packs are installed.

It's a bit disconcerting that a piece of software, whatever it is, is removing firewall rules without you're knowledge.