antonio1961

I think aesthetically the only thing that looks a bit naff is the control pedal, which looks plastic, but i could be proved wrong.

The Pod name is a bit confusing tbh , and there's nothing new from a Helix owners perspective, but we are probably not their target market anyway. If there's less tinkering involved, then the stock presets will need to be top notch.

Thought that was another photoshop job there when i first saw it :-) Looks interesting though.

Yes, they do seem like they have a long way to go, to get to some sort of finished article, and i envisage them having to fly by the seat of their pants for a good while yet , probably right up till the first units are shipped out. There's no question they got the inspiration for the design from the Helix , replicating the whole network of people ,and the level of support behind the Helix is going to take some doing though. There was a demo that appeared to have been done straight after the live feed, but it didn't sound at all like anything unique to me. Out of curiosity ,and to try and compare product launches,I had a look at some of the first posts on here ,and it seems there are some similarities with the Cortex, in that some people did pre order the Helix without knowing exactly what they were buying, the only difference (And it's a major one ) being, ..that L6 were already well established. I'd genuinely never heard of Neural til this week ,though i'm probably not a huge plug-in user anyway, so i presume i'm in a minority there, .. it's not a negative ,it's just an observation. Seems some were asking back then why there was no touchscreen on the Helix? , wi-fi, bluetooth ?, and more,.. all probably ended up serving as groundwork for the Cortex.:-) Our own personal choices from a design perspective can vary hugely, but four and a half years later and this quote from Digital Igloo still rings true for me. '"One of the first Helix UI/UX designs had a touchscreen. We tested it, and touch footswitches ended up being way faster and more elegant in practice".

Thanks, did that , seems there are both intelligent pitch shifting ,and an intelligent harmoniser ,as as well as a synth block, which i presume is similar to the Helix drone, but sounds like it could be a bit more musical. Whatever next ?...the ability to store loops .

Just watched yesterday's live stream ,l find it a bit lazy that they couldn't hook it up to let people hear it, especially when there were guitars hanging on the wall behind them. Also ,would've been easy to set a camera on to the screen to see it actually working too. Although i appreciate the need for them to set the unit up properly prior to any sort of demo ,I'm still not totally convinced that the two that were on the desktop were actually fully operational ones. If i had created what they describe as 'The most powerful floor modeler on the planet' , then i would be screaming it from the rooftops at every opportunity, and i didn't get that at all from yesterdays live stream. What i did get, was the impression that the NAMM show is where they will be properly demoed, because it seemed to me that they are still actually working on the finished product. A few sketchy answers to certain questions too, and i was quite surprised that CEO Doug didn't seem to be at all familiar with term 'intelligent pitch shifter', though tbf ,the effects side of things is not necessarily his forte..

There are only two certainties in life.

I think you're being kind describing it as 'Hideous' :-)

Tbf, that could be any modeller/fx processor that you are listening to , there's absolutely nothing in that vid that would make me even moderately interested in parting with $1500. Seems like the touchscreen and the tech specs are enough for a few though.

From the offset, no, or poor monitoring ,denotes a recipe for disaster imo. A monitor is your lifeline on stage, and the value of a good monitor should never be underestimated , as i've done gigs with poor, or completely useless ones before, and not enjoyed those gigs at all. No sound engineer worth his salt would put a performer ,or band, up on stage without good monitoring. Putting myself in your shoes, i'd want something familiar sounding, and would tend to concentrate more on what the Helix can offer. It can sound immense through a pa ,and mine is set up so that it's at it's best sounding with all the foh mixer controls set flat, that way there is less time spent tweaking the sound at a gig. Simplest set up for me would be 4cm on the Marshall with no fx loop block added in the Helix , so bypassing the Marshall's preamp ,and don't get hung up about switching off speaker sim either, if it sounds good,..then use it , i use mine in that way with a Mesa amp ,and find that it sounds great even with the speaker sims left in. Use the vol knob to control just 1/4 outs ,as you definitely don't want to touch the foh sound . You will then effectively disable the Marshall's volume controls, and instead make the Helix vol control ,your amp volume control, and if you've balanced all your tones properly ,then you should have no issues... ...Unfortunately if you start turning the amp up too much ,this will undoubtably have a knock on effect with the other musicians, and you may end up with a volume war on stage ,which is never a good idea,..so yes,...good monitoring.

The term "Analysis paralysis" springs to mind here, .. i think that the options are pretty wide and varied for two guitarists .

First thing i did with my Helix was to try and get it to sound exactly like my Mesa Express gigging amp, only difference being that i could possibly have all four channels rather than the two. As the Mesa was/is my main gigging amp and i know it works for me live ,it made sense to me to use it as a benchmark , so i set up my amp alongside a frfr monitor ,set all the controls on the amp flat ,and did an ab test on both till i was happy ,once that's done it just a matter of eq'ing from the Helix back to what i actually use. So i now have 4 presets which are are my modelled versions of the 4 channels on my amp, which i can effects to . The Helix is put out front via mixer to the pa ,then also sent to my floor monitor ,but i also have the actual amp behind me too in 4cm ,and the whole thing sounds immense. I've never been a huge fan of mic'ing an amp , as levels can be inconsistent, so i no longer have this problem, and the big knob is exclusively for amp volume if needed, so all avenues covered. If my amp breaks down ,then i also have no worries, but it's really just a crutch these days. The one thing i did find was that the Mesa Express high gain tones to me, are better matched to the Helix Marshall amps, than the Mesa stuff . I suppose the matching is only as good as the user, but i do have a lot of experience with the Mesa and have done many gigs with it ,and did it over three or four sessions to get it just right, .. but time well worth it imo. Seems to react the same with any guitar, as it should too. I don't really purchase many presets, due to the massive amount of configurations involved ,but i would definitely be interested in any that had been done in this way, because although not all amps are modelled on the Helix, that doesn't necessarily mean that with some clever tweaking, that you can't attain that amp sound. My feeling is that the Helix gives me all the tools ,and i just need to learn how to use them properly.

I wouldn't watch it,...it just encourages them.

Yes, as was mentioned by Kilrahi, the fx loop on or off is the difference between your amps preamp and a selected Helix one. Also , If you add an ext amp lead from the Helix to your amp, then you'll also be able to choose which amp channel is selected, which would give you even more flexibility.

Not much i'd change about the floor, though i do miss my old G-System's footswitches, they were the best of any multi-fx unit i've owned, and with using the snapshots feature more on the Helix, it'd be nice to have them on it... Yeah, i know there are switch topper things, but they are a bit crap imo.

I've never used the midi features on the Helix, but thinking that it could be useful in a live band situation for triggering maybe a synth to help fill out ,and give more depth to certain songs. I'm essentially a guitarist with limited keyboard skills ,but i believe that with something along the lines of a Roland JD XI that stuff could be pre programmed, and triggered via the Helix ? I'd love to know if you use the Helix in this way, and just exactly how creative you can get with it . Thanks.

No issues whatsoever on my mid 2011 iMac . My last Windows laptop was stolen from me ,it was a pretty high spec too, and though i really missed it at the time, i now can't help but think that the thief did me a favour. If i plugged hardware into it it would say "What exactly do you think you're doing ?" Whereas my current iMac says "Hey you've plugged something in, lets get that working for you".

In this case ,the guitar,, and Charlies fingers ,are the two major contributors to the tone. That effect is easily achievable with most multi fx these days,, fairly sure there are a good few stock presets on the Helix that will do that, and then some.

I have some sympathy for you op. You work a 10 hr day ,do 2-4 gigs per week, and what with all the holidays and buying cars , ..I'm struggling to wonder how you even found the time to do an update.

Only scratched the surface, but loving the new pedal position indicator btw :-)

Absolutely flawless, no issues whatsoever using OS X.

I have also heard some positive feedback about the Code, so wouldn't worry too much about any negativity there. Don't know much about the custom speakers that they use, but with it being a modelling amp ,and the ability to disable the onboard stuff, it may be well suited with a Helix. I tried a similar thing with a Fender Mustang with great results, so there's no reason why it shouldn't work for you.

Agree 100% on this , and sorry to derail the ot a bit Glenn, but heard some really nice sounding harmonies there without any of the other two band members moving their lips :-) Are you using some sort of vocal harmoniser?

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John Squier used a Fender twin reverb in the early days ,his effects included an Ibanez Tube Screamer and a Boss CS-1 Chorus ,so You’d be looking at the Helix versions which are the US Double Nrm amp model, along with the scream 808 and 70’s chorus ,probably throw in some reverb for good measure, this combination should get you near to the tone on She Bangs the Drums.