jon_bondy

I just spent 30 minutes first playing the Variax directly through (1/4" cable) and changing the tuning preset knob by hand, and then playing the Variax through the Helix while changing the presets and snapshots using the foot switches on the Helix. Same guitar, cable, and Helix, but there were no failures. Erratic failures are a real challenge. I just did a factory reset and a restore from backup, but given that I could not get it to fail today (but it failed repeatedly yesterday) it is all a muddle. Thanks for your help Jon

@codamedia Thanks for your thoughts. I am using pitch shifting that is created on-the-fly by the Helix. This cannot be done using a 1/4" cable. That is, I cannot test the full system unless using the Variax cable. Are you suggesting that I set the guitar up with some pitch shift and play it through the 1/4" jack for a while, to see if the guitar pitch shifts are stable? What do you mean by "snapshot options are not set as expected"? I switch to a patch, switch to a snapshot, and after a few minutes, without my touching any Helix or Variax controls, the pitch changes. The patch and snapshot start out working correctly, and then stop working correctly, spontaneously. I do not understand "as expected". What does "recall" and "discard" mean? Enabling and disabling patch aspects as I go through snapshots? Jon

I use my Helix combined with my Variax to let me play bass on parts of a song and take a solo in the middle. This has worked well for months, but recently there have been a variety of problems. 1) sometimes the pitch shifting does not work at all: I want to hear bass, but all I hear is normal guitar. I then try disconnecting/reconnecting the Variax, switching to another patch and back, etc. Sometimes that works, sometimes not. All unpredictable. 2) today, the low E string would suddenly shift from an octave down back up to normal tuning, with no obvious precursor (I was not touching the Helix or the guitar knobs). And sometimes on normal patches, a string would suddenly be a bass string. I would appreciate any points to help me troubleshoot this. Given the erratic and unpredictable nature of the failures, it may be challenging. Thanks. Jon

Thanks. I figured it out. The UI is basically undocumented. Under Manage, the tunings on the right are stored in the Workbench program, and those on the left are in whatever guitar you have hooked up. You select one from the left (guitar) and one from the right (Workbench) and then transfer them over, one at a time. Jon

So. Not entirely fixed, yet. If I put the Tune knob on Model for the New Variax, the Helix controls the New Variax correctly. Progress. But. The tunings controlled by the Tune knob are not the same on the Old Variax vs the New Variax. I still do not understand how to copy all of the tunings from the Old, store them on my computer, and then upload them to the New. Jon

Yes! Turning the Tuning knob on the JTV to Model fixed everything. Thank you!

I am running firmware 3.710. Every time I power up the Helix Floor, it rebuilds EVERY patch. It takes 10 or 15 minutes. I let it rebuild everything and then removed the USB cable and turned it off and then on. Now it boots without any rebuilds. If the USB connection is causing the rebuilds, I would consider this a bug, Line 6. The rebuilds are unnecessary.

All patches and tunings were generated using Workbench HD. I did a File, Save Bundle As from the 1st guitar I connected to the 2nd guitar and did a File, Open Bundle. I did a Transfer, Upload All to Variax And the tunings are not transferred. I do not see any other facilities within Workbench HD for transferring the tunings

I was using Workbench HD, but what you wrote is imprecise. Not sure what "the manual method" means. I mentioned that I saved and restored a Bundle. Can you provide an explicit, step-by-step method for the cloning, please? Thanks! Jon

I have two Variax JTV guitars and want to copy all of the settings from the 1st guitar to the 2nd one. I tried to this by saving a Bundle from the 1st one, loading it into the Workshop and then Transferring all of the settings to the 2nd guitar. That seems to have worked a bit: when I rotate the knob with the presets on it (Lester, Acoustic, etc) they are the same on the 2nd guitar as on the 1st guitar. But... The tunings on the 2nd guitar are not the same as the 1st guitar. In addition, the 2nd guitar does not work properly with my Helix. Patches that cause the 1st guitar to change key (electric capo) fail on the 2nd guitar. Any thoughts?

Thank you. Reading the manual, for any product, is always useful. For some complex products, it is not always easy to recall all of the details. Once I decided that Stomp mode was not for me, those details drifted away. And, now, the exception to that rule. What you said is very helpful. Jon

I am using the Helix in the mode where the left 2 foot switches are Bank Up/Down, the middle 4 foot switches on top select a Patch, and the middle 4 foot switches on the bottom select a Snapshot. The upper right foot switch says Preset/Stomp and the lower right says TAP. I have added a Looper to my signal chain, but cannot figure out how to assign a foot switch to the Looper. Within the HX Editor, I can right click the Looper, select Bypass Assign, and then assign (say) Footswitch 11. First off, I don't know which switches are which. Where is Footswitch 1? Upper left? Lower left? Secondly, no matter what foot switch I assign, nothing changes on the Helix, and there is no foot switch that I can press that brings up the Looper. Perhaps the [unconventional] way that I am using the foot switches means that I cannot assign a foot switch to enable/disable the Looper, but I have not seen any error messages. Thoughts? Jon

@silverhead: after spending an hour with a 'scope, trying to compare my known-good JTV-89 with the new one, I came to the same conclusion. A visual inspection of the wires in the connector in the guitar revealed that a few of them were bent. At the suggestion of my local luthier, I made a small wire hook and pulled a few of them, gently, back into place. The guitar works now.

Contact cleaner fixed my ailing VDI cable, but not the new Variax. Not many options at this time other than returning it.

The fact that the Workbench HD software works indicates that at least some of the hardware is OK. Perhaps a few contacts have some oxidation. I don't have a parts diagram to understand which pieces I could purchase (like just the connector, for example). But I agree that a simple fix seems unlikely.