cruisinon2

We'll need more info about the rig to try and diagnose anything... are you running the HX into the front of the amp, in an FX loop, 4CM?

That's depends entirely on how old one is...

I'm no doctor, but I'll bet that there are pills for this...;)

You're problem is two-fold: 1) You're changing speakers... and speakers are half your tone, if not more. Anytime you change what you're monitoring through you can expect the tone to change... sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, depending on how different the speakers in question are. 2) Volume. Tones that you dial in at comfy bedroom volume will sound drastically different at stage volume... even when using the exact same speakers. The perceived loudness of different frequency ranges changes dramatically with volume. At lower levels mid-range frequencies are prominent, and at higher volumes both the lows and highs will be perceived as louder, and the mids drop out. It's called the Fletcher-Munson curve, and it's just how our brains operate... there's nothing you can do about it. The only solution is to EQ your patches at or very close to the volume at which you intend to use them, preferably through the same speakers, or at least through ones that are as similar as possible. A pair of small near-field studio monitors are quite different than a full stage PA system designed to throw sound around a large room at high volume...toggling back and forth between the two, with a big volume difference thrown in, is a recipe for disaster.

Like everything else in life, you get what you pay for. As for patches created on other Helix devices... they'll work just fine in the Stomp, provided that they doesn't have more than 6 blocks in the chain.... but you can expect that to be a be a problem with many patches created on units without that 6 block limit... even if a "conversation tool" existed, it wouldn't help you in such cases.

That's right... and you can lament that fact until you turn blue, but it won't change a blessed thing. Welcome to the planned obsolescence of a disposable economy. "The next big thing" is always just around the corner...and the frequency with which each new iteration arrives will only increase as technology marches on. It can't be stopped. If you obsess over it you will be in a constant state of waiting, and you'll never buy anything. That's entirely up to you, your financial situation, and whether or not you're a pack rat... but either way, it has no relevance to the rest of the conversation. Yup, so you may as well stop thinking about it. Anything that still functions when you turn it on has use... not only stuff that has tubes in it. Just because something is old doesn't make it garbage. If that were the case, then there'd never be a market for "vintage" anything... but clearly that's not the case. Hell, people love the idea of old crap so much that they actually spend good money on fake old $hit. Fender and Gibson will happily sell you a brand new guitar that's been beaten up with a belt sander and bicycle chain so that it looks like you found it in a pawn shop...POOF! instant "character", that'll be $2K, please... but I digress. See above...;)

Indeed... now everybody (including me) get the hell out of here and go be a glutton. ;)

Others will disagree... and will probably say as much, but simply put the answer is no. Start here, learn how to dial in the sounds you're looking for, and don't waste your time with someone else's patches. No two rigs, players, instruments, and listening environments are the same... as a result, there's little to no tonal continuity when the only common denominator is the Helix patch.

Yes.

The only problem you'll have is the 6 block limit in the Stomp... can't use a patch from another device if it's got more than that. Otherwise you can swap patches back and forth to your heart's content.

I want everything that Helix doesn't already have... and I want it yesterday. It's now up to L6 to find a way to make me retroactively happy. ;)

I've had numerous pairs of custom fit earplugs over the years, and they're well worth the money if you want to keep your hearing, but I've never had custom fit monitors. The obvious question is what do they sound like? Custom fit plugs are nice and comfy, and you can probably safely assume that these ones would isolate well... but if you end up hating the way they sound, then what? I doubt they'll take them back. We recently switched to in-ears, and I went with a relatively inexpensive pair of Shures... they came with a whole bunch of different sized foam tips that isolate quite well, are comfortable, and they've got the moldable wires that wrap over the top of your ears so they don't fall out on stage. I've got no complaints.

If you don't roll the volume all the way off on the guitar, sometimes it won't go into standby mode... I've noticed it a few times. Especially with noisy single coils... they can send enough signal through, that it thinks you're still playing.

Piezos rely on physical contact with the string to function. If it's only happening when using the tremolo, then it's possible that the release of string tension is causing the G string to break contact with the piezo saddle just enough to cause a momentary drop out. Also, in this particular design, the saddle's height adjustment screws need to be in contact with the bridge itself, this is the ground connection...as a result, dirt and grime under the saddle can cause intermittent drop outs too, if the ground connection is tenuous. Tremolo manipulation could easily make that worse and cause the same symptom.

That's what you call "busted"... it's service ticket time.

We could all live to be 1000, and there will never be an "amazing" factory preset.... and that's not a knock on L6. Everybody else's suck too.

I'd hafta dig out my 500X and find the patch, as it's been a bunch of years since I've played this tune live... but you can get damn close with the harmonizer set to either the melodic minor, or harmonic minor scale...I forget which at this point, but it's one of the two. It may not be 100% accurate to the original recording, but it's so friggin close, the only one who'll notice is the schmuck with perfect pitch, standing against the back wall with his arms folded, critiquing every note. There's always one...;)

Everybody. And for the handful who will claim they didn't, it was just dumb luck. Hi and low cuts are part of the solution, but not from the global EQ... that's for subtle adjustments to different listening environments, not creating tones. An EQ curve that works brilliantly for one patch will doom another. Particularly with clean vs. dirty tones, the former usually requiring far less manipulation. Cab and mic choice is critical, and is responsible for a considerable part of your tone. Are you using the Powercab's onboard cab sims, or a cab block in your LT and the flat setting on the Powercab? Try it both ways... you may prefer one over the other.

You can't do that with snapshots. The original recording is two different instruments playing a harmonized line. The best you can do to emulate that on your own is to pick a tone and play whichever line you're most comfortable with, and use a smart harmony block to create the accompanying part.

You've already got your answers above... but the ugly truth is that it wouldn't matter if there were 1000 "Rush tones" swirling about Custometone. Trying to use someone else's patches is nearly always futile. No two rigs, listening environments, or players are the same. Just because a guy from Pig's Knuckle, Arkansas swears on a stack of bibles that it sounds just like Alex Lifeson, doesn't mean that it won't sound like Tiny Tim's ukelele to you. Don't waste your time. Start with models similar to the original gear that created the tones you're after, and experiment until you find what you're looking for. You'll see results faster than waiting around for the finished product to fall into your lap... plus, you'll learn how your gear works. So the next time you want to emulate a particular tone, it'll only take you half as long to get there.

Would work better on a Weird Al record...

And don't drink the bleach under the sink...;)

Using an acoustic IR on top of an acoustic instrument is similar to what the Variax does... you're attempting to mimic an instrument of a particular make and model. The Variax can masquerade as a Strat, LP, Tele, various semi-hollows, etc etc...So in your case, if you had a burning desire to make your acoustic sound like a Martin D35, aTaylor "whatever", or Gibson J200, you could seek out the appropriate IR. Whether or not you'd like it better is anybody's guess. 3rd party IR's are not particularly expensive though, so it might be worth a few bucks to see if you like the results. Mileage varies...

Here's the rub though... it doesn't scare anybody, for two reasons: 1) Constant exposure to warnings about everything under the sun is arguably worse than no warnings at all. The same doom and gloom prognostications over and over again, result in nobody paying attention after a while...people simply get numb to it, and stop giving a $hit. When was the last time you sprang to attention after hearing a car alarm? 2) The interval between regular exposures to tiny doses of toxins and any tangible consequences, can usually be measured in decades. Humans are horrible at making this kind of association...if you do something 1000 times and nothing bad happens, you'll think nothing of doing it 1000 more times. It's the same reason that punishing the dog for something he did last week is useless. Then there's the fact that toxicity is dosage dependent... and many of the toxins that generate this constant hand-wringing are present in such infinitesimal quantities in any given product, that it's not even worth discussing. And let's not forget that the poor lab rat who died, leading to "Compound X" being declared a carcinogen, was injected with 10,000 times the dose that anybody would ever be exposed to, even if they sat down and ate absolutely everything in the automotive section at Walmart. At the end of the day, many of these cancer fears are overblown, and our benevolent despots' "solutions" are ineffective at best, if not actually making things worse.

It may have single coils and look like a Strat, but there's a whole lot more going on under the hood than usual, and everything in there is self contained. I assume that everything is grounded somewhere, but wherever it is, it ain't the trem claw. Those pickups are just super noisy...mine are too... but I bought it for the modeling, so it doesn't much matter. If I want a Strat, there are two sitting right next to the JTV. If its driving you that nuts, look into a noiseless option.