duncann

Way off topic, but: One thing I find I never, ever do since I started playing guitar again a few years back, is to sit down and practice for the sake of practicing. My main focus is always on composition and creativity first, and if I see something in my mind that I'm physically unable to execute, that's when practicing comes in. Then persistence. Then stubbornness. But this all stems from creativity, and of course a nice tone, which is a secondary priority, that today's technology easily provides. When I first started learning guitar, however, I'm certain I practiced for it's own sake; I probably even thought it a chore, now that I think of it, and thanks to you for pointing this out more aptly. But I kept at it, and kept bothering with it. Hmmm. Don't know why that is. It contradicts what I said above. I guess when you get to a point where the physical skills of playing become second nature and seemingly impossible to forget, the amount of freedom you can allocate towards creativity increases, and practicing to develop physical skills diminishes. Bass guitar is a nice instrument to play. Never really learned to play it. I just play it like I play a six-string, cause it seems to work for me that way. No way could I play the bass without a pick. Lol. Since I got Helix, I don't tweak things nearly as much as when I used the HD. I can't say whether that's because I've learned to temper my tweaking self, or the fact that Helix takes much less effort to get the sound you're looking for.

Selection of a good IR would probably help. One that comes to mind is from Redwirez: 'redwirez\Modern\ENGLProV30s\TAB-Funkenwerk SM57'. More specifically from this cab and mic: cone edge and a close distance.

Of course. Lol. Duh on me.

If you always have one delay on and the other off, using snapshots and note division, or milliseconds, would achieve what you want by setting the global 'Tempo Select' to per snapshot. Set up each snapshot appropriately, with one delay off, one on, and the desired BPM for each snapshot. If both delays are going to be on at the same time, using millisecond values and one BPM value would be the only way that I can see. Or another way to say it is you can't have a separate BPM for each delay block if they are both on at the same time, so you're restricted to using milliseconds. The 'Tempo Select' global setting wouldn't matter in this case. Hopefully I didn't misunderstand what you're trying to do.

To further improve the auto-engage feature for wahs, I wonder if they could add an adjustable fade-in time, maybe 0 to 500ms, that would automatically change the wah's mix parameter from a min to a max when auto-engage function is triggered. Might help to smooth things a little.

Does anyone ever use the password feature in computer BIOSes?

An interesting thought. I don't know either what it's like to grow up with the technology available today. I also don't know the consequences to a person's thought processes an always available technology from birth might be. But it can't be that difficult to constantly remind yourself that technology, a guitar processor in this case, is only a tool. You still have to use this helpful tool to try and create something unique, or at least a clone of something unique. As far as creating something being hard work, I disagree. Working at it hard might be required, but if you really enjoy the guitar, and music in general, none of it is hard work, which can be a phrase with negative connotations, but rather an absolutely delightful and intensely focusing activity. That's how it is for me anyway. Without this component, why bother?

I've never had a single dropout over USB in about a year and a half.

A second and third thing the HD has over Helix: a usable, lengthy collection of filter and synth effects, and a properly working auto-volume.

Haven't had a problem doing this yet. In any event, it shouldn't matter because you're about to do a global reset anyway. Beyond that, even when Helix is idle and apparently doing nothing, it must always be doing something behind the scenes and is therefore busy. So when power is cut during these times, is it risky? But still, the idea of resetting the globals before flashing is an excellent idea.

Even easier might be: After the firmware flash is done and the device automatically power cycles, when the message of rebuilding presets shows up, manually cut the power. Now do the global reset. This way, there's no need to save the factory presets, and you don't have to wait for the factory presets to go through a rebuild process at all.

I used to like the flutter effect but have grown to dislike it. One of the reasons I like the Ultralite (spikey, yep that's the other one in the case) so much. It's not that you can't flutter, but it's a tighter and shorter flutter with less intensity. More importantly though, it greatly helps to lessen unwanted flutter when the bar isn't in use, such as over-enthusiastically hitting a string.

Nice. Looks a little strange to me as I'm so used to seeing this guitar with the pickguard it came with (I have the same exact guitar). This guitar pairs really well with Helix, as you know, and is an absolute joy to play, which I'm reminded of every time I pick it up. It's also good to see an Ibanez instead of another Gibson or Fender. You really should get yourself an Ultralite tremolo arm. It's expensive but it's the best tremolo arm ever.

Damn. And here I always thought we all were tweaking cosmological constants.

I like to use a stereo dual pitch block with cents 2 (or 1) set to 2.0 and delay 2 (or 1) set to 4.0ms. You can fiddle with these settings to your liking, for example on one side use a greater delay (or only delay), such as 27ms. Also mess with the V1 pan and V2 pan to further adjust the total separation. I'm sure there are other ways to do this as well, besides a dual pitch block.

On a delay, with feedback zero, there will still be one repeat, assuming the time parameter is not zero. Increasing feedback can make the repeats greater than one. To get more of what it sounds like you want, tie the echo's mix parameter to the same expression controller, so that when you have heel down, mix is zero, essentially disabling the echo block. Or, if you want everything that happens between the min and max, forget about assigning the mix parameter, but instead assign the echo block to a footswitch to toggle it on and off. This requires more physical actions though.

No. :) But since you went there, and assuming you met, what's he like? Anything like Chuck from the show Supernatural?

Not sure if this preset: PBack-10.zip is the type of voices (sort of monkish) you're looking for. It's the preset I use on my song Radiative Embrace at the beginning and end. Note that the source of the sound in the song is still a guitar and nothing else.

I thought they fixed this as well. I recall reading you may have to remove the volume block from the preset and add it in again.

I would say this is real. Taken from the latest driver's inf: ClassName = "Helix" USB\VID_0E41&PID_4241.DeviceDesc="Line 6 Helix" USB\VID_0E41&PID_4242.DeviceDesc="Line 6 Helix Rack" USB\VID_0E41&PID_4244.DeviceDesc="Line 6 Helix LT" PodHD2.DeviceDesc="Line 6 Helix"

Have you done the global reset? That's the only reason why I can think those presets wouldn't show up.

A Swell Time. And the one mentioned above, Secret Travel. Both are in factory 2. Only two I've found, but I didn't look at them all. Secret Travel is interesting, but the swell effect isn't why; it's littered with delays. I think you're right in that it was released before being ready, or worse, and I hate to say it, maybe it's just poorly designed. The way it is now, I don't I think I'd find much use for it all. I was really looking forward to this effect. Oh well. I fired up the HD to refresh my memory of what its auto-volume is like. Way better. Simple. And does exactly what you think it would do. The only thing missing from it is the ability to adjust the swell time for being longer, thinking second(s).

Exactly.

If you add a title tag to the wav files, when you import them, it will use that, essentially discarding the 001, 002, ...

I've found that just using a three digit prefix is not always reliable, sometimes putting things out of order. I use the three digit prefix for sorting within the file manager, but I also put a title tag in the file of the same name without the prefix. That way, when you use the import function, you select all of them and they'll be imported without the number prefix. This gives you an extra three characters for more descriptive naming. Of course, doing things this way relies on always importing all your IRs at once. And Inserting IRs somewhere in your list can be troublesome.