brue58ski

Agree to disagree? As long as I get my 2,000,000 amps I will. ;) Just kidding, I absolutely agree to disagree. I do like discussing things but it does seem to be a case of diminishing returns. Wait a minute!! Isn't that your reason for less amps?!? Damn. I just proved you right!!! DOH!!! As far as finding the one. Isn't that what many guitar players who could afford it did when there were no amp sims? Not all of them but there would be no boutique amp market if many didn't. There will always be players who like all of the choices. I would be one of them. Those that don't, don't have to use all of them.

Every ice cream shop I'm aware of, has more flavors than those three. There's a reason for that. And I've never heard any "regrets" in any of them. Everyone seems to be happy.

What else should they invest their time in then? I know they are working on many other things as well. It's not just amps. That just happens to be one of the things they are investing in. And let's not forget their main thing is amp simulation. Shouldn't they spend some time on that? That's what they do. So Line 6 the amp sim company should stop developing more amp sims and focus on what? The tuner?!?! (That was a joke by the way). And in what way should they differentiate themselves from their competitors that they haven't already done so? What feature set would be better? What is it Line 6, the amp sim company, should work on instead of amp sims? Someone there should, shouldn't they? And I've never gotten the impression that Line 6 was trying to match anyone's features. They do try to match the features that people request, which often includes features on other products. But their stated focus is on what their customers want and not what other companies do. I guess they could be lying.

I don't agree that the 201st model probably won't get me there. There are several amps the Helix provides that I can't get the sound I get from them, from any other amps I've tried. And if you are overlooking the capabilities of any single amp model then that's your problem. You (not you personally) need a little more self discipline. I always tell people that ask, "how do I pick an amp from so many choices" to spend at least a whole day pulling all you can out of one amp. And spend some time with each sound you create from that one amp. Like we used to do when all we could afford was one amp. You have a choice, you can be given a key to a room chock full of amps or the key to a room with only a couple of amps. I think the answer to that choice is obvious. And if you actually do prefer the room with only a couple of amps that's fine. But I don't think you others choices should be limited because of that.

Re the first paragraph. Are you referring to Fractal or Line 6. And I don't know what the "invitation" to purchase means. So far, Line 6 isn't asking people to purchase any amps like they have done before. Is that a Fractal thing or are you referring to Line 6's official IR's? I only used Fractal as an example so I can see why you would have thought I was specifically referring to them. I was thinking of all amp sim creators, Line 6, Digitech, Boss, Amplifire, etc., as far as having more amps. Sorry, I should have made a more generic statement. I'm not sure what the "you can have one when we deem you worthy" refers to. I'm aware of no test or competition I have supposed win to prove my worth to "have one". And have one what? What does that refer to. Perhaps I missed a post of yours. Re the second paragraph. One reason they (Line 6) are doing OK is because they offer a wide variety of amps. If they just offered let's say 1 Vox, 1 Marshall, 1 Fender, and 1 Hiwatt amp, I don't think they would have sold as many Helixes. So I would say that yes, having many options is necessary to remain competitive in the "amp simulation" business. Since the main thing about Line 6 is amp simulation, that would be the thing I would think they would want to provide the most of. Just from a business point of view. I'm not sure what else they should be focusing on more? Should they, Line 6, the amp sim company, stop simulating more amps? And, looking at most of the amp simulation products, the amp sim companies seem to agree, given all of the amp options they provide. I personally use a lot of the different amps. It's fun for me. And I've never understood people who complain about too much choice in this case. If you're getting what you want, why would you care if I get what I want? I mean you don't have to use them. So what's the big deal? I am pretty sure that every amp the Helix provides is used by someone somewhere. So it provides a service for both customers. Those that only want to use a few amps, and those that want to use many amps. I'm rambling a bit but does that make sense?

I would say the idea is not so much an expectation that everyone would fervently use every single amp in there, but to sell the most, you need to provide the most options. As an example, one guy may just need a Hiwatt and a Vox. Another a Fender and a Marshall. Using your logic, the premise that you shouldn't have 4 amps because they each only use two doesn't really work. Now just extrapolate that out. I may only use, let's say 5, or even 20, amps of the 200, but I'll bet they won't be the same 5 or 20 that other people use. Ya gotta provide as many "flavors" as you can, in order to satisfy as many customers as possible. Thereby making everyone happy. If Fractal had the 200 amps but didn't provide the 4 or 5 you want to use among them, would you still get it?

Much better!!! ;)

Eh? What's that you say. Sorry sonny, yer gonna half ta type a little louder. I'm a bit deef ya know. Which explains my Helix purchase. I ain't an actual guitar player, but the guy at the store assured me I'd be one as soon as I got it. 'Course 'cause I'm so old and hard of hearing, I can't tell if I'm any good or not. :D

I can't help but think that only "actual guitar players" would buy a $1500 piece of equipment for guitar playing. Why would someone one who's not an "actual guitar player" buy something like this? And as an old guy I can assure you, there is never too much time. You young whipper snappers will find that out later. ;)

You can create and store tunings from the guitar itself if you want to. When the USB interface is flashing red it means it's not getting any info/signal from the guitar. Have you tried a different CAT-5 cable?

I found the link and edited my post after you posted. I'll put it here as well. It's at the end of the thread. Had to divide it into two docs. By the way, just about everything in them was from the TGP Helix post which is over 2000 large. I got about 500 posts in before the first "juicy" Helix info showed up.

Yeah I agree. There is a bunch of info about the amps and effects used and the backstories about how they were created and useful inside info about the parameters and how to use them over there by the guys that did them. Never seen that here. I went through and compiled a word doc with everything I found over there. I posted it here at the bottom of the thread Like you I don't understand why it seems to be a better informed place.

Not that you asked but, there are 6 different Helix products. Right now, there are differences in the "core" of, I think, two groups of them so before this next upgrade they would have to code things two times to accommodate the differences between them. With the coming update, they won't have to do that anymore. They fixed the "core" so it's the same in everything. And they appear to have made the Helix program itself overall more efficient. So it will be able to do more things. It basically means they won't have to spend as much time "coding" so we get updates sooner. (Oh boy!) and some things that they couldn't do before they are able to do now because they've tweaked it. There were a couple of amps they couldn't do before but because of the tweaking, are able to now. Don't know what amps they are.

One of the premises of unity gain is that the input, output and source settings are the same in regards to line, mic or instrument. That's just audio 101. I was just trying to make a simple way of thinking about how to set the Master volume, not get into a lesson on input and output levels. I just don't have the time for that. Regarding this statement, " You cannot accomplish UNITY output when both I/O are set to instrument and you plug a LINE source to the input! ", I would submit that technically you would. It would kind of be the same as if you had a mic going into a mic level input and had a mic level output but put the mic in front of a jet engine. It would just become very distorted and probably be limited/compressed by the input's circuitry and it would reflect that level at the output. The Helix itself would add no gain once the signal went through the convertors. This is still an oversimplification of what's going on but i don't have a semester to teach you all what little I know about audio.

Sorry yes. Should have included that.

Here's one bottom line which might help. The Master volume knob is setup such that it is unity gain when it is turned all the way up. What does that mean? I'm glad you asked that. It means that if there are no blocks in your path, the level you put into the Helix will be reflected at the output. In fact when you disengage the Master volume from controllin the XLR ouptuts, 1/4" ouputs or both, those outputs then act as if the Master volume was turned all the way up. That's how I do it since my XLR's are disengaged from the Master volume knob. In fact the comment that the Master volume acts as an attenuator is correct. It doesn't ever boost the signal, it only makes it lower.

I didn't think you were specifically talking about me, it was about the TGP thread and when I posted my response to you, guesses and prophecies were not part of that conversation (that could have changed by now). Certainly not rumors which was what your first post declared. At that time there were no rumors about anything in that thread. Nor guesses or prophecies for that matter. Lots of debates, requests and yes, general silliness, but NO rumors which is what my post (and I thought yours given the words you chose to use) was specifically referring to. I was just pointing out that particular inaccuracy. No more, no less. (I just looked at the thread. Still no rumors, guesses or prophecies. In fact, it's kind of turned into a how to handle IR's debate.)

The only stench I currently smell ain't coming from any rumors, let alone disproven ones.....;)

I'm not sure what rumor you're talking about. I only quoted what Digital Igloo said and there was no more info other than it's coming next year. I've seen nothing else. DI wouldn't say it if it was merely a rumor. Lot's of what people hope is being posted over there in TGP. But no rumors to be disproven. Not yet anyway.

One "trick" I used to do is to treat cabs like a bunch of different EQ curves when going into a guitar amp and/or speaker. If using a computer, after trying without cabs, add cabs and start at the top. Use an arrow key to quickly go down the list. To even make it easier, put the looper at the beginning of your patch, record a lick, riff or whatever, and while that's looping, change the cabs. Its amazing sometimes the sound you can get from doing just that.

Right click below where the per preset button is. Where the model names are. You should get a menu with many different options. Snapshots is at the bottom. Select that. The Model will then be in parentheses just to tell you it is controlled by something. In this case, snapshots.

That does seem odd. Is it that you can name them but only name them through HX Edit maybe?

This is pretty much why I had a debate with myself as to whether to post it here or not.

I'm just going with what Gunmetal said and other than what I posted here, there really isn't any other new info. At least as of now.

That is the thread where I got my info from. Although not everyone can go there I guess.