cruisinon2

If the unit is new and you're using the correct power supply, then the technical term for it is "busted". Return it for a new one...

If it makes you feel any better, doing that never made any sense to me... if your master volume is dimed all the time, you have no headroom. If you need a little more volume, then what? In a live situation, you can't go combing through every patch you're gonna use that night to boost the output blocks. I use an L2T as a floor monitor, and the master volume on that thing is at the back, facing the floor... not exactly convenient to get at, if need a boost. I leave the L2T's master volume around noon, and I rarely have to have Helix's master volume much past 10 or 11 o'clock....any more than that and I'll blow myself into next week.

Well that seems very odd, as it is still a current product. Don't know what to tell you, and I have no idea what you've actually done as far as seeking assistance...but you're still not likely to find any solutions in here. Nobody here works for the company, so it isn't much of a "last hope".

In Helix's global settings, "MIDI over USB" must be turned on, otherwise Workbench won't realize that the Variax is connected... try that. Took me a while to figure it out, and when I opened a support ticket about the issue, all I got as a suggestion was "try a different USB port, and don't use a hub". Why it's never mentioned that this setting needs to be turned on is baffling to me, but I digress...Anyway, it worked for me, I never use anything but the VDI cable, and have no trouble connecting to Workbench through Helix.

I wonder if he likes Andy Summers...;)

I believe the underlying sentiment behind his statement was "In the name of all that is decent and holy, please let this bring and end to this pointless discussion". Clearly it has had the opposite effect....

Uh oh...they'll subpoena these threads, and the NSA will "unmask" us all, lol

Make sure it's not just a love it/ hate it thing. We need a category for "my complete and utter indifference cannot be measured with existing technology" ...;)

You can, but you have to choose "sort by date" at the top when you open a thread. Every time. Every thread... lol If I had to guess, I'd say that the task of designing this forum software was given to an engineer who's never been on a forum... it absolutely reeks of "They asked for features x,y, and z... so here they are: Thud". With little to no regard for how one function interacts with the next, or how folks actually utilize things in the wild. I've seen it before... by day I work in medical imaging (CT, MR, nuclear medicine), and there is a certain company which shall remain nameless, that builds equipment that produces stunning images, and has every function you'd ever need or want... but you can't find them, because every menu and display looks the same, much like this forum's layout. And when you do manage to locate whatever it is your looking for after combing through 42 sub-menus, what should be easily accomplished with a mouse click, instead requires 3 focus groups and a Congressional inquiry before it lets you proceed. It almost seems intentionally counterintuitive.... and that's what this forum is now. First time I saw it, I thought I was at work, lol. ;)

Never played anything but my JTV...couldn't tell ya.

Transplanting the guts into a Strat, while certainly possible, is not as simple as swapping a set of pickups... and you will likely find that the sound of the models is affected by a different guitar body. Won't necessarily be a bad thing, but its a bigger undertaking than you think... you're not gonna fit everything into the existing cavity on a Strat body. Routing awaits...

15 stomp boxes? You playing guitar, or a pipe organ? Actually, I think some organs have fewer pedals than that...;)

Lol... honestly, I'd love to know what the point of this thread is. Are we being asked to agree or disagree as to whether two global brands, which have both existed for decades, are "well known"? There's nothing to discuss...asking a bunch of musicians if Gibson and Yamaha are well known is like polling everyone with a driver's license to see if they've ever heard of Ford or Chevy. Anybody answering "no" to either of those questions should be confined... but I digress, lol. Things are getting weird in here today, lol...

Who's Gibson? Never heard of 'em....

The modeling algorithms are what they are, and they have no idea whether they're installed in a lefty or righty guitar...

I'll bet you ten bucks that you're gonna be sorry you asked that question...lol

Woo hoo! Round 237 begins... saddle up boys and girls!!!

Well that's a relief... seems I'm curious after all. Who knew? And just yesterday I agreed to be on the cover of the July issue of "Indifferent Sad-Sack" magazine... if they find out I like stuff, it's gonna ruin my interview...;)

Sweetwater is generally very good about customer service... it's actually borderline creepy, lol. If you're within their 30 day return window, just tell them you want another one. No point in mucking around with a repair if you can just start fresh. Good luck!

Congratulations on being the most curious guy in the room. Fortunately for me, my "puzzling" lack of curiosity has not prevented me from getting what I need from this unit... so I'm content to live with the shame. Theoretical "optimum" values are exactly that... theoretical. They guarantee nothing with regard to the wholly subjective assessment of tone, and as such, they are essentially worthless. So you can obsess over them if you like, but they're not a magic bullet. And even if they were, there are none to be found in here, so droning on about it in this forum will never get you any closer to these mystical values you seek, should they even exist.

As said above, if you've stripped the head of the screw, a new hex key won't help you, but many times in a pinch, when a hex-head screw got stripped, I've used a star-key instead. Most multi-head screwdriver sets will have a few of these, along with the usual flat head, Phillips, and hex options... you'll just have to see which size fits. Chances are one of them will grab just fine, unless the hex head is so mangled that it's completely rounded out. Should be able to find a set for $10-$15... they're good to have around. No need to spend big $$ for heavy duty stuff... you're not working on a motorcycle, and the screws in question shouldn't be torqued to a million ft-lbs anyway. An inexpensive set will do just fine.

that font HAS to go... this forum is difficult enough to read as it is, now. lol

Amen... and for a guy who's said more than once that he wants fewer parameters to tweak, he's doing an awfully good job of doing the exact opposite. Leaving things alone is the simplest thing in the world to accomplish.

There's always gonna be a gap when switching presets...how noticeable it'll be will depend largely on what's being toggled on and off, or how dramatic the change in effect parameters is from one preset to the next. Sometimes you'll notice it more than others... Just use snapshots. There's really not a whole hell of a lot of "delving" to do, and nothing particularly mysterious about them. They're stupid easy to use, and then none of this is will be an issue.

Agreed...but they're clearly NOT the Shuriken's target demographic, lol. I'd bet money that neither of those guys (or 99% of devotees of their respective styles, for that matter) would be caught dead playing a baritone-scale axe with a "Jetsons" aesthetic, and fancy electronics that let you tune down to frequencies that only whales can hear...lol