Digital_Igloo

We've been extremely transparent from the get go: "Spring 2017." So any time before June 20, provided we hit our target.

No, but not all of the details have been ironed out just yet.

We'll hopefully have a feature complete version for QA this week. Then it's continued testing and bug fixing, which isn't a small effort.

We look all over the place, but if there's any controversy, we'll need metrics to convince others to pursue an idea. Basically, talking about an idea here, the FB Users Group, The Gear Page, or other forum is like posting political platitudes to social media; submitting an idea on IdeaScale is like actually going to the voting booth.

Well, if by "Variax" he meant Variaxes at the time, he's right—they didn't have enough DSP horsepower to ever do tunings. If by "Variax" he meant any possible technology related to Variax that could possibly come out any time in the future (JTV was announced in the fall of 2010), then I suppose, yeah.

If your MIDI keyboard can trigger CCs, yes. I'm not aware of one that can assign them to the keys, but many can assign them to pads.

What year was this?

It's not a 4-OSC synth; it's a generator that runs on its own. You trigger it from momentary switches like bass pedals. :)

Sure. Or Universal Audio's approach—Home baked and third-party plugins that are designed to run on your DSP platform. Waves does this as well with their SoundGrid system. I think what some people really want is some road-worthy $300-500 box that'll magically load all their cracked plugins and run a dozen of them simultaneously with negligible latency, super-fast switching time, and hardware DSP-level stability. That will never happen. What I might suggest is a Mac Mini running nothing but MainStage with your live setup set to autoload so you don't have to launch anything. Connect it to a Blackmagic Design or Marshall Electronics rackmount LCD and control the whole thing from a RJM Mastermind controller. Closest VST/AU solution to a Helix Rack/Control I can think of.

It's nothing new—I pitched the idea to my Roland rep back in '98. Since then it's been tried dozens of times. The problem is that you end up with one of two products: A box containing a Windows-based PC that runs a moderate variety of VST plugins, but requires a fan, burly power supply, and other PC hardware. Ends up bulkier and more expensive than a laptop so people say "Meh, I'll just use my laptop." A compact but crippled UNIX box that requires a ton of weird tweaks to get a handful of select obscure-ish plugins to launch properly. Two years later all of the latest versions of the plugins won't work so you end up with a doorstop. The most successful (only successful?) hardware VST player was Receptor (and by extension, Peavey's MuseBox). There was also the SM Pro Audio V-Pedal, but that ended up vaporware—and the company was purchased by Harmon. But the real brick wall is testing and support. You can't expect every developer to guarantee their plugin works on multiple hardware VST platforms, nor can you expect hardware VST platforms to magically work with every plugin: "Hi, Spectrasonics? I can't get Omnisphere to work on my Helix." "Sorry, you'll have to call Line 6 for that." "Hi, Line 6? I can't get Omnisphere to work on my Helix." "Sorry, you'll have to call Spectrasonics for that."

Nah, it's just karma for when I used to troll Harmony Central forums back in the 90s. :D

Yeah, I updated it because a few people were looking at the original thread date and thinking that's when we last updated Helix. That's all.

You might hear a small audible glitch, as it's a real impedance circuit that's being switched. Most of the time it should be completely transparent.

Yes, but don't forget that you can quickly copy and paste all Command Center assignments from preset to preset: From the Command Center page, press ACTION and then Knob 2 (Copy All Commands). From the Command Center page of a different preset, press ACTION and then Knob 3 (Paste All Commands). Repeat step 2 for any other presets that should have the same commands.

Personally, I greatly prefer Helix Rack+Control to Helix floor, both live and in the studio. More I/O, duplicate control jacks, faster to set up, brains kept away from the punters, smaller stage footprint, etc. In the studio, I keep Helix control on my keyboard controller for quick block selection.

When POD Farm was introduced, there weren't a bunch of cheap (or free!) VST hosts available. Now that there are, we don't see an overwhelming need to spend the resources on making a standalone version, especially when those resources could go toward making Helix, Helix Rack/Control, and Helix Native better. Still, anything could happen.

Helix Native is 64-bit only.

Should be a piece of cake. Each of you get a Path/DSP.

Great! There's also the built-in 8 TEMPLATES > 04C DAW Remote (MMC) Template. Many DAWs just require you enable MMC (MIDI Machine Control) input.

We said it'd hopefully be available in February, not on February 1st.

We don't guarantee anything, but I can tell you that there's been no internal discussion about discontinuing the $300 discount for Helix/Helix Rack owners. I can imagine if we find a bunch of people misusing the program we might have to change our minds, but for now, you're good.

I really liked my JMP-1 when I had it. Moved into the box in '98 and never looked back—except when recording other bands' amps/cabs.

Barring any impact on feel due to latency within your system, it should be, yes. The good news is that you can always monitor through Helix with negligible latency while simultaneously tracking dry guitar for applying Helix Native later (or right then).

The bigger issue is the input. Very few audio interfaces have Helix's level of A/D conversion and op amps and almost none have its 123dB of dynamic range, digitally-controlled analog pad, gain-staging, and dynamic impedance circuit. We're just waiting for all the people plugging into cheap audio interfaces (or worse, the 1/8" input on their laptops) to say "It doesn't sound nearly as good as Helix!"

Definitely. If we had to rebuild every amp and effect we've done in the past, Helix would never be released and Line 6 would be bankrupt. Remember, it takes on average a man-month to model an HX amp. Helix is also decidedly NOT the replacement for POD—it's a completely different product in a completely different line. We're not beholden to POD at all, and that means we do whatever is best for Helix and Helix users. It's completely trivial with a Pitch/Synth > Dual Pitch block.