Garhel

Hi - hopefully a really quick one - when i've assigned 2 or 3 pedals to one switch, it titles itself as "multiple", and i can't find anywhere in the editor or the device itself to change this. I've done a search here and can't find this answered previously. I'm sure it's something simple, but can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks, Gary

Great - thanks for the response and help - the more I play with it the more I'm getting it!

Absolute Music in the UK had 2 in stock yesterday. One is now at my house, the other is still showing as available ;-)

Maybe that post was too long for people to get through... In summary the question was is there a "best practice" for using IRs? I've been downloading customtones and notice that people place them in different places - before cabs, after cabs, and sometimes with no cabs at all. I'm not really clear on how they're supposed to work, and any guidance would be wonderful.

I think someone's trying just a bit too hard. I guess subtlety is not a strong point for some people... I always find it funny that some people get so wedded to a particular "product" that to say anything positive about something else is like cheating on their wife. You see it in the Les Paul forums, when the dreaded PRS is uttered. Must be some pretty insecure people out there if you can only be happy with your choices by rubbishing other people's. Peace, live and let live, love what you got...

Well, I finally picked her up this morning, but she sat in the car all day while I had to work. The guy in the shop was chatty, loved the Helix, wants one when he's got the cash together, warned me the presets were sh*t (his description!). I also picked up one of the new Alto TS speakers - the logic being that our PA has the same speakers, and if I can make the Helix sound good through this one, that should hopefully make translating to gig sound a bit easier. Who knows. Finally got home about 6pm, unpacked the speaker and Helix, switched them on, found the Helix was on an earlier firmware version, got the Mac, downloaded the updater, updated the Helix, Used the editor to squirt in some IRs I've been downloading over the last few weeks, connected everything together, and grabbed a guitar! This might seem like a fairly laborious start, but I was surprised at how easy and seamlessly this worked - it was all done in 15 mins... I wasn't expecting a lot from the presets, so I wasn't disappointed. After spending 15 mins scrolling through one anaemic preset after another, I thought sod it, let's just get on with making one of my own. I was aiming for something clean and sparkly, but a few wrong amp choices later i accidentally found myself with a really nice edge of break up Fenderish tone, which I loved, and couldn't resist adding a few more bits and pieces. I experimented a bit on this one patch, and found that moving cabs, IRs into different paths seemed to make a huge difference. I was enjoying myself so much I forgot to have dinner! I then struck upon the idea to see how others piece their patches together and came across a great YouTube tutorial by Glenn Delaune, that took you through block by block how he put together a Gilmour patch. If i was the Lord of Helix I would almost make this mandatory! By following every step I learned a huge amount of things, from setting multiple function switches, max and min parameter settings, multiple amps, a great trick for a clean boost, some nifty tricks with reverb, some ideas on using the expression pedals creatively. And most importantly it sounded awesome. I've used a variety of Mesa, Orange, Blackstar and a long gone Engl as my gigging amps for the last few years, but I'm pretty sure this unit is going to work beautifully in their stead. I called it a night a little after midnight, with 3 patches under my belt that I'm really pleased with, and I did manage a great funky clean patch. This thing sounds awesome, and the Alto is surprisingly great. Now, my question - I've noticed that some people use IRs in between an amp and cab, some after the amp in the loop, returning to the output stream after a cab, and some just don't use a cab at all, and just take the IR straight to an eq. Mis there an accepted "correct" way to use IRs, and are there any pros and cons to each approach? Just from my experimenting tonight I found it made quite a difference :-\ Tomorrow nights mission is a good rock rhythm tone and lead tone. Highway to Hell, and Rebel Yell here we go ;-) Cheers, Gary

I got the call this evening to let me know mine has arrived in to stock - I'll collect it in the morning :-) A few other stores are advertising stock for end of May, so guessing there'll be a few around from today onwards in the UK. Wonder how long they'll stick around for?

Ordered mine in the UK 3 weeks ago, expecting it by end of May... Nowhere seems to have them as a "walk through the door" purchase over here...

Good advice. I'm pretty much sold on the floor unit, but as someone coming from the traditional amp and pedals setup, just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something obvious. I'm a bit nervous about having over a grands worth of gear on the floor, but I'm sure once it's had a few gigs I'll feel less worried! I'm sure I feel the same with a new guitar, but my PRS is getting pretty banged up after 10 years of practice and gigging, and it never really crosses my mind anymore...

Well, after a bit of advice and a lot of surfing, and then a few hours with the demo unit in my local store, I've taken the plunge and ordered the floor unit, but it won't be here until the end of May. However, now I'm pondering whether the rack unit would be better. I mostly want it for live playing so logically it seems the floor unit would be the best fit, but has anybody experienced both, and are there any pros and cons that people have come across that perhaps are beyond the obvious or that weren't expected? The extra few quid isn't an issue, but I could have the rack and controller straight away, not that I mind waiting. Either way, very excited and can't wait to get deep into playing with it and getting some settings sorted out for my gigs. I'm also going to go for the Alto 212 speaker as a quick and cheap way to get going, I've heard lots of good things about these in a live environment for the very reasonable price.

Sounds good, and thank you everybody else - time to go and try a few!

Perfect, thanks all. I'll try and get the store to set this up for me in their stage room and see what it feels like. I'll try it with a few different speaker set ups within my budget and see what I like, but it sounds like it would be a goer :-)

Thanks Peter Our drummer likes to hear the cabs, he'd have the guitar and bass cabs directly behind him if he could!!! We use the older Altos for our PA system and they work really well for what we need (pubs and clubs), I just don't know if the Helix delivers a strong output signal in comparison to our desk, although logically I can't see why it would be any different? I've demo'd the Helix at my local store, but not through a FRFR type set up - I'm sold on its capabilities, just lookng for some guidance from someone who's used this type of setup...

In the band I play in I'm using a traditional amp/cab/pedals set-up, but am really taken with the idea of replacing this with a rig based around the Helix. Does anybody have experience of using the Helix with an active PA speaker such as the Alto TS212? I would go into our PA direct for the sound our audience hears, but would like to use the speaker almost like I use my cab now - behind me as a backline. A couple of questions : would this be loud enough for me to hear over the drum kit and bass? Would the quality be good? Any experience of this type of set-up, or perhaps advice on a better alternative without having to spend lots of money would be much appreciated! :-)

I've been using my 150 with the Express footswitch as my gigging amp for the last couple of months, and it's working out pretty well, but because of only having the 4 tones available it's definitely a compromise. If Line6 want this to be considered as a gigging amp as well as just a practice amp, having access via the amp, and preferably via the footswitch, to a couple more banks would seem an obvious step to me. Fingers crossed it's on the list... Cheers, Gary