cruisinon2

Ok... but a laptop might be called upon to do any one of 10,000 very different tasks, the success or failure of which might really be dependent on genuinely knowing what's under the hood so that you don't find yourself in a "you can't get there from here" scenario...but a modeler either does the one thing it's designed to do, and do it well, or it doesn't. And the assessment of said performance is almost entirely subjective and directly related to an individual's personal experience with these kinds of tools. In the end, I fail to see how a reading a spec sheet beforehand will aid in the above determination one way or the other, for one simple reason: I'm no dummy, but I'm also not tech savvy on a super granular, component level, either... you could almost tell me that Helix's innards consist of a really smart hamster named Lou, who manually implements whatever changes I make in real time on a tiny laptop, and I'd be hard-pressed to disagree. Similarly, you could rattle off the name(s) of the latest and greatest processing chips, and it wouldn't mean any more or less to me than if you called them Fred and Ethel... and I know I'm not alone in this regard. So it's not hard to understand why they don't bother to publish the majority of those specs...Joe Average neither knows nor cares, and for the minority who do, some are bound to whine loudly and publicly (just like Captain Video, above) about anything they've judged to be substandard. So if you're Line 6, what's the upside? The only question I need answered is "will 'Device X' serve my needs, or not?"... and I can't get that from a spec sheet. There's exactly one way to find out. Just my 2 cents.

I was thinking of upgrading my kidneys... how big should I go? ;)

Yeah, I get that... however, it's a safe bet that the overwhelming majority of users own just one Helix product. And even for those who do have more than one, it seems rather cumbersome to try and edit both simultaneously. So I'll stick with my original assessment...I would not have assumed that such a feature would exist, and it wouldn't surprise me if it never occurred to the guys who wrote the software, either.

I doubt that's possible... the software simply identifies the type of device(s) that you've connected. I can't imagine why the devs would have allowed that to be edited.

Same reason as everything else in life...$$$. Variax is a niche product that the overwhelming majority of the guitar playing world is either completely unaware of, or not interested in. Now he's got a signature guitar that'll appeal to the other 99.97% of the market.

For the former, the only cost is the time you'll have to spend turning the patch into something you can actually use... and the latter requires you to pay for the privilege of doing exactly the same thing...;) Save yourself both the time and the money, and do it from scratch... in the long run, you'll waste less time and have extra beer money.

Take your shirt off and showcase your chiseled 60 year old abs...;)

Truer words have never been spoken, lol...I don't even remember what Mac OS I'm running now...At this point I only update if forced to by an application that won't run on whatever I have. Grew tired of every update $hitting the bed for everything else I connect to the damn laptop...

Unfortunately posting in here won't help you... nobody who can help you win at this. If you can't open a service ticket, your only option is to try and get someone on the phone

Or just boost using the amp block's 'Chanel volume' parameter... for the 2 or 3 dB boost you'll need for leads, it won't affect your tone.

Don't feel bad...nobody's asking me to play Madison Square Garden, either...;)

Ok... so I'm not exactly sure where we disagree... Volume is critical as you said (global EQ, Fletcher Munson, etc). Speaker choice perhaps less so, but still significant. No patch that I've ever tinkered with at a nice comfy living room volume through a pair of 5" monitors or headphones has ever worked at stage volume without significant adjustments... and that's difficult, if not impossible to do at home and outside a mix. If there something wrong with my ears or approach, so be it... but that's been my experience for years on end. As such, I've kept different set lists for each scenario forever... all of them tweaked in context.

This will always be the case, and the issue is two-fold: 1) You are switching to a different output device(s) 2) You are almost certainly playing at a much higher volume than at home. Patches must be dialed in as you intend to use them, meaning through the same (or at least similar) speakers, and at or close to the same volume. There is no substitute for this... especially the volume, which is an ENORMOUS variable. This cannot be stated emphatically enough.... perception of tone varies drastically with volume. Nothing that you dial in at home with headphones will translate to live use without significant adjustments.

Thank you, thank you... remember folks, the 9:30 show is completely different from the 7:30 show. Please don't forget to tip your servers...;)

Well that's new Well that's new... on the bright side, Line 6 has actually done you an enormous favor. They have saved you countless hours of downloading and auditioning patch after useless patch from the Sewer of Wasted Time that is Customtone...;) On a side note, I'll give 8 to 5 odds that you've purchased a stolen unit...

Let me save you the suspense...you can't "new gear" your way out of this problem.... because the monitors are not the problem. And the headphones are not the problem. The problem is that the monitors are monitors, and the headphones are headphones...you could spend the rest of your life trying to make one behave like the other, and you will fail. Every time. You must adapt to what they are capable of doing, because they're not gonna change...their frequency responses and projection capabilities are what they are. As such, you could invest in a pair of every model of studio monitor on earth, and none of those will sound just like your headphones, either. It's a losing battle. The need to make EQ adjustments from one output to another is inevitable, and that will never change. Learning to use different pieces of gear as they are intended to be used, and accepting the strengths and limitations of each, is the only way to get happy results. Anything else is an unattainable fantasy. Either way, good luck...I have no intention of repeating myself any further. It'll either sink in eventually, or it won't.

A completely different device IS creating the sound. Your chosen output device accounts for a tremendous % of your tone...headphones are not studio monitors, and studio monitors are not a PA. And like it or not, EQ is the way out. The only way. Will you ever achieve 100%, indistinguishable continuity between headphones and other output methods? Probably not... because they are very different, they're used in different ways, and that will never change. If you want to though, you can get damn close... but not until you accept what's happening in the first place. I have successfully navigated around this issue for years, not because I'm omniscient or some kind of savant, but because I learned how... stumbling along the way like everybody else. You can disagree all you want... but your predicament is not new, nor is your reaction to it... the steadfast rejection of what's actually going on is the default response of many. You'll find 1000 other threads around here documenting the exact same sequence of events. The same initial question, the same answers provided, and the same "Nope. Can't be." blanket rejection of said answers... it actually gets rather tiresome. We'd all love a miraculous solution that allows for identical tones to emerge, completely independent of what we're monitoring through, and the volume at which we're listening, but that isn't gonna happen, because it's impossible. Your only option is to make it happen with the appropriate adjustments. It's work. Annoying, time consuming, and at times difficult work... but on the bright side, you only have to do it once. You get used to monitoring with one particular output method, and when you switch to another it's a gut punch, because all of a sudden it sounds nothing like what you're used to hearing, and initially it can be a bit confusing as to why. But that doesn't change the fact that there's precisely one answer, which multiple people have already provided... and it is straightforward: Dial in your sounds through the same output, and at or close to the same volume as you intend to use them. Hit 'save'. Often. Or keep searching for a magic bullet that doesn't exist. No matter how convinced you are that you'll be the guy to find it, you won't. This is all about the physics of sound production of various different devices, how and at what proximity they interact with your ears, and the biology of perception. You can't win a fight with any of those things... you can only learn to work around them, and manipulate your gear so that it produces something useful.

And it's never going to, not without (often significant) adjustments,... that's the whole point.The sooner you accept that, the easier this will get. Different output = different sound. End of story. There is no magic workaround, no push-button solution. Patches must be tailored for their intended use. That "perfect" sound that you dialed in at a nice comfy volume with headphones will not sound the same through studio monitors, or cranked to stage volume through some other FRFR/PA speaker. I keep three set lists... one tweaked for headphones, one for studio monitors, and one for live use. EQ is your friend... and the need to make adjustments based on how you intend to use a given patch will never go away.

Yup... and that's the way it'll always be, for all the reasons that everyone has already outlined. It's not supernatural, there's nothing "wrong" with your Helix, nor is it deficient in some way compared to anything else on the market. You are simply comparing two completely different kinds of output devices. They will never sound the same. Period. Pick any other modeler on the face of the earth and conduct the same 'experiment'... and you'll get the exact same results.

It's perfectly capable of doing both... But different output devices will always yield different tones... it's inevitable. Headphones and studio monitors are fundamentally different. The cans are right on top of your ears... monitors are a mile away, relatively speaking, and positioned off-axis. The miracle, would be if they actually did sound identical... In fact, that's the fantasy that is requested time and time again on these very forums... but that magic formula doesn't exist. If you change the output, your tone will change. Period. EQ appropriate to the task will forever be the only way to take a patch designed for one scenario, and successfully adapt it to another.

Well it's nice that they seem to have addressed the issue...still a little annoyed that I'll have to drop another $100 to get back the device I originally purchased. Oh well... life goes on.

Don't waste your time with that guy... he shows up periodically, usually when a new "Helix sucks" thread appears (or an old one resurfaces), to vomit the same negative assessment of every modeler under the sun. His ears are better than yours, his experience more profound, and skills more refined. Just ask him... he'll be only too happy to tell you, because he can't help himself. You see, that's why he and he alone can tell just how substandard all modelers actually are, while you, wallowing in your "tone-deafness", continue to labor under the delusion that it sounds great. Just know that if you continue to engage him, that's exactly how the conversation will go... he knows better, and you're just a poor slob who can't tell the difference between a pile of $hit and Thanksgiving dinner... this scenario ain't new.

Nope.

4th Yeah, well that's the Fractal "mystique", such as it is... it's either buy and try, or find somebody who owns one and tinker with it for a while. At this point, holiday sales and promos aside, things cost what they cost, no matter where you're buying them... the Music Mafia has made sure of that...;) Probably not. Helix is almost 6 years old at this point, and while development is still ongoing, like everything else, it won't be forever... and to date, there's been no indication from above that they intend to mirror Fractal's bottomless pit of negligible impact parameters, between which...even if you had bat ears...you'd be hard pressed to hear a significant difference. Are there still free updates? Yes, and they'll typically contain a couple of new models. Will you see the Fractal frequency of updates? No, not even close, nor will you ever have 300 models to choose from, or whatever the hell the Axe FX is up to these days.

What you're asking for probably can't be done, as I don't think parameters can be effectively "vanished" as if they were never there, just by clicking a box. They would likely have to create a completely separate model that lacks any added parameters that don't exist in the "real world" device....and the odds of that happening are slim to none. Regardless, feature requests need to go in Ideascale...nobody "official" will see this in here.