duncann

Yeah. What Alex said. Or have separate presets for each "scene". But then you'll have to deal with an audio interruption. I know that Helix is capable of parameter control - min and max - via footswitch.

Use both, and any other speaker systems you may have. Things may sound good on one system, but bad on another. If you can get things sounding fairly good on a number of systems, chances are it will sound good enough on most systems. I'm not referring to a single guitar tone, but a finished mix that contains a guitar tone. If you make a tone as standalone and intend to use it with other components of the music, don't expect good results. When constructing a preset, it must be built around the rest of the music, as well as the other components built around the guitar tone. Everything should ideally work together and compliment everything else. I suppose a lot of this can be done within the DAW, and might be the more correct of way, and even easier way, of doing things; I don't know for sure as I've never really had any formal training for this stuff. But I've had decent enough results with trying to get things correct as much as possible at the sound source, or the HD in your case.

The looper is a mono block.

Not sure what you could be seeing with that. The HD doesn't, or shouldn't, respond to an incoming CC15 (unless you just chose that arbitrarily), only 051 - 059. And those are just toggles, so it doesn't matter what the value is. 001 and 002 are attached to the EXP controllers and the value for these do matter, but obviously aren't switches. There are some other CC#s that allow control of the looper, tap tempo, and tuner mode. Take a look at appendix 'B' in the advanced guide for specifics on that.

Other than using either EXP1 or EXP2 as you mentioned, the switches can only toggle the block on or off. They cannot control a parameter of a given block.

It kind of sounds like for the part I think you mean, starting at 2:50, in addition to flanging, perhaps some whammy, an octave, being mixed in, which could be done with the expression pedal. Also sounds double tracked, which could be simulated fairly well using a dual pitch block.

The magic that happens when I play my guitar through Helix has not worn off yet for me. There are times when the magic isn't there, but when it's gone, I know at some point it will be back. I'd honestly say the same thing about the HD if I had never gotten Helix, but Helix provides a much more potent magic.

Took a quick listen to The Warmth. Sounds like there's a lot going on in that song, effectwise. You gave yourself a good challenge. If you haven't already, try and find out what the real equipment the guitarist used is, and how it's set up.

When you go to make a preset, just make sure to remember to toggle it using the toe switch before saving the preset. Also, the toe switch can be difficult to operate, especially if you're using your hand, or it's on a carpeted surface, so don't be afraid to use some force. As far as I know, there is no global setting for this. Two other things: if you put a volume block in a preset, it will automatically assign EXP2 to its position parameter, and using a wah block will automatically assign its position parameter to EXP1. Have fun with your new Helix. There's lots to explore and the learning curve is fairly minimal, but it's easy to get lost in all the options Helix provides. You may find sometimes that when you want to accomplish something, there is often multiple ways to achieve your objective.

I would think it's more along your second idea, most likely in the heel position. You bring up a good point about an unwanted turning off while in operation. Unless it only shuts off after a couple of seconds, and only while in the heel position. Or they control the mix of the wah automatically so when in the heel position, the mix would decrease to zero slowly, a couple of seconds. The opposite would happen on engagement, but much more quickly, fractions of a second. But then what would happen if you have, or want, the mix also controlled by an expression pedal? Is an auto-engaging wah now a global option so that when set to on, you lose the ability to control mix? How does a real one work without it constantly shutting off while in operation? Because even when on and in the heel position, it must change the tone somewhat?

Most of the amps from the packs that are for the HD are part of Helix. There are no packs for Helix (but still free updates coming). In fact, the packs for the HD were done using the HX modeling process and then ported to the HD.

I'd assume he's using 1024 sample blocks instead of 2048. Otherwise there certainly wouldn't be enough DSP.

Hmm. I can't get it to keep path 1B when right-clicking and clearing a solitary block on path 1B. Both the block and the path vanish, as expected. Only thing I can think of is do you get the same behavior for any preset location?

Looks like a bug in the editor. How did you get it to do that? Is the same thing shown on unit itself?

That's the thing. It wouldn't work if the goal is to toggle the wah, since exp3 is an expression controller. I think the best you could do to make it work is to assign it to the wah's mix parameter, from 0 to 100, or whatever maximum you usually have it at. So I guess that particular mission pedal would be useful for the floor version after all. That's assuming the Helix would properly auto calibrate the toe-switch when used with exp3, and not freak out. Not sure what kind of jack is used on it either, ts or trs. But even if it didn't work, it probably wouldn't be hard to modify the pedal switch to make it work. It is only $10 more.

Well, there ya go. Chances are if someone has an idea, someone else had the idea first, and more completely. Lol.

Yep. Same here. I don't like the idea of all kinds of appendages hanging everywhere. Defeats the purpose of Helix a bit, despite the marketing of Line 6 saying it's the center piece of a rig.

Could get a real one. Or hook the HD in Helix. Or get an M5 to hook into Helix. Or do what I did and just say f*ck it, and take your frustration out on the next person you meet. Lol.

I do exactly this for the reason you state. The question I asked, why one would want to do this, was in reference to the mission pedal made for Helix Rack, which has the toe switch, which would allow you to plug the pedal part into EXP2 and the toe switch into EXP3 for the floor version of Helix. I don't really see any reason to spend the extra $10 for this function when you already have ten just like it already on Helix, with the added possibility of making then momentary.

Good idea, but the headphone volume control is out of the digital domain, so I doubt this would be possible. It's also not present on the diagnostic boot mode (4 & 5).

Wow. That's certainly a unique and feature-full expression pedal. Somewhat expensive at $220. Then again, for what it does, maybe not.

I think I have noticed something similar. Noticeable but subtle. Thinness and trebly describe it pretty well. I'll add a bit of phasing in there too, which might be what's causing the lack of bass. I haven't used it for dive bombs, but the other way, going up an octave, and gradually fading it in with the dry signal. This is one of the few effects I prefer from the HD. The HD pitch glide seems to track better as well.

Someone else experienced what you seem to be and I can also confirmed this behavior. Hopefully Line 6 is aware of it and considers it not expected behavior. It's been reported in the bug thread here: http://line6.com/support/topic/16083-helix-bug-reports/?p=152547

You can still have an external expression pedal hooked up while keeping the onboard pedal for EXP1 and EXP2 by plugging the external into the EXP3 jack. If you plug the external into EXP2, the onboard will control EXP1 only. So in either case, you can definitely use the onboard for volume and the external for wah and other stuff. To toggle the wah, or other effect, assigned to the external, just assign it to one of Helix's switches. It's not the same as a toe switch or auto-activation, but still works. Plus there's the other alternative of setting up the wah so that when in the heel position (set mix to a low value), the tone is essentially transparent. I bet you could probably make that work, but why? It wouldn't behave any differently from the other ten switches for when you want to control min and max values, with the exception of one additional downside which is: whatever EXP2 is assigned to control would have to go to the toe position before engaging the EXP3 switch, which might not be what you want.

The only thing that comes to mind why this occurs would be phase issues caused by processing delays? Also, keep in mind that your hearing can change from day to day for a multitude of reasons. Happens to me all time where I think a tone I made sounds good one day but the next day - or more rarely week(s) - later I suddenly notice something I don't like and wonder what I thinking at the time when I thought it sounded good. And to take things a step further, sometimes I don't do anything about a tone that I suddenly notice 'went bad'. The next day it sounds fine. Damn inconsistencies in the human machine.