cruisinon2

It's not like it's a foregone conclusion...I have no random volume fluctuation issues, and I use the LA Comp all over the place.

Ugh...

Patches are recalled with whatever snapshot was selected when the patch was last saved. If you want everything to load with "snapshot 1", you have to go through each one, and save it with that snapshot selected. There's no global setting that'll do it for you... at least not currently.

No... as they say up in Maine, "You can't get there from here", lol. Neither machine can run software written for the other platform anyway... they're 100% mutually exclusive. You couldn't have done that if you wanted to.

You didn't get prompted... it's a separate operation from the update itself, and you have to initiate it yourself. So you didn't "miss" anything per se... you just didn't move on to the next step. But it's entirely optional. I've never bothered with it, through however many firmware updates I've done since getting this thing a couple years ago.

Post your thread here, otherwise you'll be waiting until the end of time for an answer: https://line6.com/support/forum/24-spider-iv-spider-online/

As stated in the update instructions... which I strongly suggest you read in it's entirety before doing anything else...the "boot failure" message is 100% normal. All you have to do to continue is click "ok" in L6 Updater when the message appears on the Helix display.

You'll only lose stuff if you go through the process of loading the new factory presets after the update itself is completed...that wipes out everything, including the user set lists. If you skip that step, everything should be right where you left it before you did anything.

IR's simulate mic-ed guitar speakers, same as the onboard cab blocks in Helix. Some kind of cabinet emulation is necessary with any type of FRFR output if you want your tone to sound anything like what we all typically associate with an electric guitar. There wouldn't be much point to an IR made from an FRFR speaker, because that's not what makes a guitar sound like what it is. It would be the redundant... like running a Marshall cab sim through an actual Marshall cabinet. There is no such thing. If guitar cabinets were full range, they wouldn't sound like guitar cabinets, they'd sound like PA speakers or studio monitors. The (severely) limited frequency response and directional nature of guitar cabinets is what makes them sound like what they are. Alter that too much, and you wouldn't have a "guitar tone" anymore. Acoustic and keyboard amps are pretty close to FRFR systems as it is, so again, making an IR to simulate what you've already got sitting in front of you as your monitor, is redundant. That'll never work... the only time using no cab sims makes sense, is if you're monitoring through an actual guitar cabinet. I think you may be a little confused as to what IR's are for...they're not supposed to be neutral. They're emulations of specific speaker and mic combinations that are decidedly NOT neutral, intended to be monitored through the clean slate of an FRFR output... your monitor itself is the only thing you want "neutral". A neutral IR coming out of a neutral FRFR speaker won't sound produce a "guitar tone", as we all know it.

Lol... just when you think you've heard it all. Trying to make a country's guitar players think their pickups suddenly died is a super-weird trade war tactic, though...;)

So what you're saying is that it sucks tone, feel, and dynamics? ;) The point of the 4CM is to allow you to place some FX before your amp's input, and others after the preamp section and tone stack. Without more info about exactly what you have in the HX signal chain, and which ones are before or after the amp, nobody will be able to help you much. It's possible that by rearranging a few things, you might get better results... there are plenty of guys using HX FX with tube amps in 4CM, who are perfectly happy with it.

U nnn n If anything it's probably a safer bet than Windows, what with the driver issues somes have had, etc. Went like clockwork on my Macbook Pro running the latest geologic formation OS, whatever the hell it is. Since I couldn't care less about factory presets and didn't bother loading the new ones, there wasn't even a need to restore a backup... everything was right where I'd left it. Whole thing was done inside of 20 minutes, including the restart and patch re-build process. It'll be fine... assuming that you pay attention and follow the instructions, you've got a better chance of getting hit by a crosstown bus than having any significant issues with the update process itself.

Most of the time, the backup stuff stays in the car, unless it's needed. So no, it's not defeating the purpose. And should something critical fail, the alternative is NO GIG. So what's worse... bringing an extra piece of gear that you probably won't need, or going home with your tail between your legs? Does Helix fail often? I suspect not... the Whine Brigade is a lot of things, but shy ain't one of them...I think we'd be hearing about it loudly and at length, were that the case. But "unlikely" doesn't mean "impossible"... and as I said earlier, it's a computer and therefore unpredictable. Has mine died on me at a gig? Not yet, no...but that's no guarantee that it won't happen tomorrow. Everything on earth fails sooner or later. An old school analog rig isn't immune either. I had a Marshall 9100 power amp start billowing smoke on stage once. Another time a Carvin TS100 died at sound-check, minus the smoke that time. Those incidents were probably 15 years apart... not exactly what you'd call "often", but that's of ZERO comfort in the moment. The only thing that would have made it worse would have been packing up and going home because I had no backup. Yet another time, in my rack-gear days, a brand friggin' new MIDI footpedal decided to stop functioning between sets...I had thrown caution to the wind that night, and didn't have a backup... hell, it was new. What were the odds? Not fun, and not a mistake I'll make again. Many moons ago I saw Yngwie at a small club in NY... watched him blow up 3 Plexi heads inside of 10 minutes...don't think I've ever seen an angrier human being, lol. Anyway, you get the point... things go wrong, usually with no warning. Don't care if you gig once every 6 months, or 5 nights a week... sooner or later, you're gonna have a problem. "Sorry folks, show's over", isn't much of a Plan B... and you'll never play at that place again.

But, but, but, but....I PAID for updates 2 years ago when I bought my Helix. THEY OWE ME!!!! ;)

Didn't realize there's only one set list on the Stomp... if that's the case, then you'd have to keep your amp/no amp patches isolated within the one list you've got. Assuming that you haven't filled every available slot, you should have enough room to do that... just label them accordingly.

1) In many cases, yes. Does that mean that the firmware is bug-free? No... there will always be some issue(s) that requires fixing. But they're not universal, and some of the issues are usage-dependent, and may not affect you anyway. It's largely a moot point anyway though, as 2.81 has already been released. A number of the initial bugs have already been addressed. 2) You're a clean slate... with no Helix experience at all, the firmware version you're running is entirely irrelevant, imho... so you might as well start with the "latest and greatest". It'll spare having to get reacquainted with whatever little things change from update to update, where stuff is located in various menus, or how certain things are displayed, etc. etc. Just start with 2.81... it'll be less work.

In the long run it's gonna save you a lot of time if you maintain different set lists for each scenario...I know you've said you don't want to do that, but the alternative is to be in a constant state of editing back and forth. Yes it'll take a little time initially, but you only have to do it once... with the process you're opting for instead, you'll never be finished.

You can do that now... whatever state the patch is in when it is saved, is exactly how it will be recalled the next time it's selected. So if you want all your patches to load with "snapshot 2" engaged, just save them all that way.

Two of everything that's mission-critical... gigging is notoriously unpredictable, lol. Sounds like you're reasonably well-prepared, but you really should have something to use as a backup in the unlikely event that your Helix decides to commit suicide 2 minutes before showtime. Knock wood, mine's been rock-solid...but it's a computer, and computers do weird $hit, often at somewhat less than opportune moments. If you're lucky it'll happen at home when it doesn't matter, but when was the last time you had car trouble in the driveway? Ideally, I'd have a spare Helix so I wouldn't have to think at all if something goes wrong, but I'm not a full time pro, so I have a hard time justifying the expense. But I still have my My 500X, which I gigged with for years...it's always with me, just in case.

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking for. You can only have one patch loaded at any given time... how would globally toggling snapshots on patches that aren't currently in use be of any benefit?

That makes more sense...

Seems odd that they would skip over a more recent Variax model. My JTV works just fine with Helix...I can switch models, tunings, bounce back and forth between models and mag pickups. What firmware are you running?

Lol... you're not wrong. But you know what the best part of this debate is? Even if we got an update process with a one- click "DUH!" button tomorrow, there would still be multiple Forrest Gumps out there who'd find a way to screw that up, too. And what would happen next? A demand to return to a multi-step process, complete with clearly written instructions, because obviously the software can't be trusted to do more than one thing at a time. It's as predictable as the tides...nobody's ever happy, nothing is ever good enough, and someone or something else is always to blame. "User error? Me? Couldn't be"...it would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic.

I like convenience as much as the next guy, and as far as I'm concerned there's nothing in this life that can't be improved upon...but as long as we continue to gear everything to the lowest common denominator, not only will nothing get better, it'll likely get worse. What we shouldn't be excusing is stupidity and willful ignorance...but half the time not only are they excused, they're rewarded. On a long enough timeline, there won't be enough capable people left to do all the hand-holding and massaging of "feelings". When the world is entirely peopled by morons and emotional cripples, then what? An end run around the "Duh factor" is not the answer. Brains and thicker skins are what we need. Once upon a time schools taught reading comprehension, critical thinking, and problem solving...now we teach kids how to pass useless standardized tests that a chimpanzee would roll his eyes at, and instead of "sticks and stones", it's "words hurt". Everyone enjoying the results so far? Anyone armed with the least bit of any one of the aforementioned skills, will never be "intimidated" by a list of written instructions, regardless of length. But instead we've decided that it's not necessary to think, everything must be idiot-proofed, and the advent of the "McLawsuit" has ensured that the truly exceptional idiots who dumb their way past the filters, get paid for mind numbing stupidity. It's not gonna end well... "Beauty fades... dumb is forever." - Judge Judy ;)

I'm fihting the urge to type "DUH!" into Google translate, just to see what it would spit out for various native tongues...