brue58ski

I've thought for awhile that tube amps would start to get more and more rare given the limited things tubes are being used for and how toxic they are to make. They are so toxic, and therefore expensive, to make here, that they don't even try to make them in the good 'ole USA. But, gee golly, where do they make them? I'll give you a hint, their enviormental guidelines aren't quite as stringent as they are in America.

You can "freeze" either the 1/4" or XLR. I freeze the XLR's which leaves the 1/4" to be controlled by the main vol knob. By the way, freezing an output equals having the vol knob turned completely up.

Very interesting you're seeing a color bar test pattern there. So there is a color bar generator somewhere in one of the Helix's chips. I work in TV. I would be curious, are you hearing 1000Hz tone coming out of the unit? That would be VERY interesting.

There is a setting that I am completely unfamiliar with that uses the position of an expression pedal to turn the effect it's controlling on and off. Sounds like you need to change the "Switch" to "Footswitch" I think. Not sure. I believe "Switch" tells what is controlling it. Position is where the pedal needs to be (that position or lower I believe so at 10% the pedal would need to be there or lower) for this to work and Wait is how much time the pedal needs to be in that position or lower to turn it off. In your case 1000ms or,in other words, 1 second. Something like that anyway. So I'm almost positive it's normal behavior, you just need to change it

You haven't heard me play. ;)

Interesting. I thought if you left the Variax in Standard it would always remain in standard tuning and ignore any commands to change it. Looks like that's not the case. I know it's to ignore any tunings programmed into the Variax itself and just assumed it meant any command to change the tuning from anything. I wish Line 6 would fix/reorganize, whatever you want to call it, the way Helix talks to the Variax so it behaves a bit more like how people expect. I always have a fantasy of Helix edit having a kind of internal Workbench so you could program a guitar per patch that doesn't come from the Variax's memory. Body, pickups, etc. Basically everything Workbench does but the guitar model is stored in the patch, not in the Variax.

WHAT????? You get paid??

One approach many people take in creating patches in amp modelers is not as yourself next to an amp. They approach it as if they are in an audio control booth with the amp miced, in the studio. And as you can see with all of the mic choices, that's really what is being simulated. It's not an amp per say, but an amp that's been mic'd and being listened to in a studio control booth. This is how I tend to approach it as well. That's why people add that stuff. They are acting like they are in a studio at an audio board which is also a more accurate representation of what's being simulated here. And your setup is ideal for this approach.

Very nice list. Thank you!

What you say makes sense but I just saw a post that showed that that's not always going to be true. The example he gave is he was able to add an HX tube screamer in a certain patch but the legacy Tube Screamer was to big. Wouldn't let him add it instead of the HX version.

Sorry.Sorry.Sorry.Sorry.Sorry.Sorry.Sorry.Sorry.Sorry.Sorry.Sorry.Sorry.Sorry.Sorry.Sorry.Sorry.Sorry.Sorry.Sorry.Sorry.Sorry.Sorry.Sorry.Sorry.Sorry.Sorry.Sorry. I just had to do it. :D

They were considered very good by most in the day. My concern would be, it's been my experience that when things are ported over, they aren't exactly the same as the old ones. I haven't checked anything out yet, so I can't currently speak to the truth of that in this case.

There's a firmware upgrade available????? Funny, I haven't heard a peep about this! ;) :P :D

I thought the old firmware was 2.30. If your Helix does say 2.40, I think there may be a bigger issue.

It will go to standard tuning but "Custom" has to be selected and then just make the "custom tuning" standard tuning. Essentially you have to decide what tuning you want for each patch, even if it's standard, and keep every patch in Custom tuning. Kind of a PITA.

You could get a new one. http://www.fullcompass.com/prod/253911-Line-6-50-04-0066

What I did is I did a backup of everything (which, theorectically, you already did during the upgrade process) and then did a factory reset (turn Helix off, hold down buttons 9 & 10 and turn back on while holding them down. Release when the screen says "Will reset Globals and restore stock Presets, Setlists and IRs".) I then saved those (it's just 3 setlists) and then restored the afoermentioned backup. Have checked to see what's new in them.

I'm not sure if this is true but if they maintain what they were in the M-Series you can go here. http://line6.com/support/page/kb/_/effects-controllers/m5-m9-m13/stereomono-fx-routing-table-r127 Besides the defintions of what the mono/stereo designations mean, there's a document at the bottom you can download that tells what each of the FX are. I have a feeling it's going to confuse more than enlighten.

Are there any new factory presets if I reset the Helix after upgrading?

I use the scribble strips and those don't solve the problem. I do a lot of my editing on the computer in the Helix Editor. And, as you said, you have to assign them for them to show up in performance mode. Which makes even more steps that wouldn't be necessary if this simple little thing were added. And if I used every available block, there wouldn't be enough scribble strips. And if I had, for example 4 delays in a patch, one at the beginning, two in the middle, one at the end, your "solution" doesn't tell me where in the path they are. And no, I don't remember where everything is in every one of my patches. Let alone a patch I may have gotten from someone else.

The only thing I can think of is the version numbers not matching. I believe the updater and the Helix's firmware have to have compatible version numbers. What those currently are or were I don't know. Maybe compare dates. The last few updates have also had an installer update associated with them.

The thing that kind of gets me is that it then completely defeats storing tunings in the Variax. Yeah, not the end of the world. But given these are essentially their flagship products. you'd think the incorporation of the two together would be more seamless.

I definitely agree with this as a stop gap. Or if they do nothing else. But it does seem silly to me to have a product that doesn't utilize one of the coolest things the Variax does. The ability to have pre-programmed tunings in the Variax. The banjo is a good example. If I want to create a patch using the banjo model I can't save time and use the tuning programmed into the Variax, I have to reprogram every string and switch it to Custom.

I, and many others I believe, would find it to be very helpful. I guess technically, nothing is absolutely neccesary. And I'm more on the "put the name in the label" side than having an icon. For example, If I see "808" under the Distortion icon, I know two things. It's a distortion and it's the Tube Screamer. Otherwise I have two things, the icon and the label, telling me the same exact thing. That's a waste of precious screen real estate to me. And makes me have to do several more things to find out what kind of distortion is programmed in that block. Why not keep the current icons and just label them what they are. Or better yet; let me label them. I get why you wouldn't use them. And that's fine. But I would. A lot!

Yummy!!