Digital_Igloo

Copypasta from an earlier thread: When someone unfavorably compares modelers to the tube-amp-in-a-room experience without providing both their monitoring rig/environment and expectations, I just assume they'd also be the type to say: "When I crank a 24-bit/192kHz recording of my girlfriend's voice through my $49 desktop speakers with 4" woofers in my cement block basement, it sounds nothing like when she's actually whispering in my ear at the park. Digital recording sucks!" With an identical playback system, current modeling algorithms have already been proven to fool golden-ear session guys and engineers in double-blind A/B/X listening tests. So why is this sentiment still so strong? I see four possible reasons for claiming modeling doesn't sound "real": The person is hearing said modeling out of context—for example, comparing the experience of a PA speaker, FRFR speaker, studio monitors, or headphones with that of a roaring 4x12 pointing at the back of their knees. Hence, the playback system is the bottleneck, not the modeler. SOLUTION: Use the modeler in context; that is, a preamp model into your real power amp and cab—or—learn how to compensate for how your particular playback system affects your tone. The person hasn't played the real amps and/or effects that have been modeled, and therefore has no reference for comparison. SOLUTION: Compare the actual amp and/or pedal in context, preferably in a double-blind A/B/X listening test. The person hasn't actually used a modeler, or hasn't used one in many years, and is just joining the "modelers suck" bandwagon. SOLUTION: Try one of today's top modelers IN PROPER CONTEXT (see #1). The person has fine-tuned ears, and is legitimately hearing very minor discrepancies and artifacts between the model and a recording of that particular amp, cab, mic, and mic distance combination. SOLUTION: Cool! Keep tweaking while we strive to make modeling even better. Most people who question or discredit modeling mistakenly believe they're in the #4 camp.

Any Command Center-based messages get saved with the preset, and saving presets into a different setlist should reflect the same values. Make sure Global Settings > MIDI/Tempo > MIDI PC Send/Receive is turned off so your Marshall isn't receiving redundant messages when recalling presets. If you're controlling external gear via MIDI, you should try to get in the habit of using the Command Center instead of the default MIDI PC messages. The latter won't let you reorder anything, as they're tied to the preset number, not the preset. Some boxes have a MIDI PC mapping function, and our instant commands can be used for this, except of course you get six commands per preset instead of one.

If your external devices respond to normal program change messages, you don't have to do anything—just leave that Global Setting on. If you need to send specific PC values per preset, any box would make you program individual values anyway. Or am I misunderstanding the request?

If your external devices respond to normal program change messages, you don't have to do anything—just leave that Global Setting on. If you need to send specific PC values per preset, any box would make you program individual values anyway. Or am I misunderstanding the request?

Setlists themselves don't store anything (except for custom Setlist name). Any MIDI messages set on the Command Center page are stored when saving the preset, regardless of its location. Selecting presets do however spit out PC messages by default, so if a Setlist has them in a different order, the values will be different. In this case it's best to turn off Global Settings > MIDI/Tempo > PC Send/Receive and instead create Instant (lightning bolt icon) commands.

Doesn't matter. If our lawyers say we can't talk about future plans, we don't talk about future plans. Here's a Wikipedia article on revenue recognition. Otherwise, hit up your local corporate attorney for more information.

I'm not a lawyer, but our counsel would disagree with you. An unnamed high end audio interface company once made their development roadmap public—and missed every deadline. Some users were extremely upset and IIRC, a couple threatened to sue. The public should never know a company's deadlines because those deadlines have great tendency to slip. Besides, everyone should buy a product based on what it does today, not what they think it might do in the future.

Oh, it gets way hairier than Tube Screamers. Age, humidity, batteries, power supplies, North America vs. Europe AC, conductive paint, and a thousand other things can notably alter the sound of a pedal. Amps are even worse; the history of the myriad versions of the Vox AC30 (and their countless mods) is encyclopedic. Just goes to show that the specific amp or pedal we choose to model can be as important as how we model it. :)

Patience, my friend. :)

If Helix had to incorporate every feature of every Line 6 product made before it, the thing would be the most frankensteined piece of crap ever made. If Helix had to include every model of every Line 6 product made before it, the thing would be released in 2026, and we'd all be out of a job. Quality over quantity.

This reminds me of a story about when my buddy went to a conference in Mumbai. He overheard the desk clerk ask the bellman "please deliver these to the American's room." The bellman asked "Which American? There are fifty staying in the hotel right now." The desk clerk replied "You know—the white guy!" :D

Our users are likely influenced by competing products, and IdeaScale is certainly chock full of "add this thing that company X already did!" requests. Our job is to dig through all the fluff, figure out where the real problem or friction lies, and address that—hopefully in an elegant and easy-to-use way. There are a million things we could do. Which things are actually beneficial for the vast majority of Helix users and which ones apply only to a few people to the detriment or confusion of everyone else?

Which original? Again, there have been tons of Tube Screamers and they all sound different.

Try turning the Event monitors' inputs down? IIRC, they have input trims.

The problem is that some users cherry-pick fifty features from a dozen competing products and bemoan the fact that every other box doesn't have all fifty features. If it were up to them, all modeler developers would just chase each others' tails around a big circle. Line 6 doesn't care what Roland/BOSS, Kemper, Fractal, Atomic, or others do. We care about solving musicians' problems and providing tools that help them make music in new and creative ways. If there's a sonic or usability issue with Helix, we'll do our best address it, but always in our way. Otherwise you end up with:

Removing the bottom panel shouldn't void your warranty.

There have been tons of different Tube Screamers over the years, and even consecutive serial numbers from the same batch can sound slightly different. Our model sounds exactly like our TS808.

Helix will likely never have 200 amps. Our goal has always been dead-on accuracy of specific amps (actually, a specific serial number, as two of the exact same amp can sound notably different), and you just can't get there from piecing together a library of pre-baked digital components. It takes us upwards of a month to model an amp—sometimes more—and we're not satisfied until we can fool our own people. The listening challenge we held last year paled in comparison to the tweaking we do while the amp model is actually being created. If someone really needs hundreds of amps, I'd recommend they look at the Kemper KPA. It can profile new amps all day, and it's a brilliant piece of kit. Christoph's a genius; I have his Virus B Rack in my office right now.

Compared to what? One could just as easily say competing boxes didn't leave the gate as complete products because they didn't have scribble strips, RGB LEDs, a color screen, cap-sense switches, Pedal Edit mode, four effects loops, tons of outputs, 8x8 USB audio, MIDI over USB, a full-featured Command Center, a Klon model, and 800 other things. Something isn't incomplete simply because it might not fit your particular cherry-picked checklist. What's cool is that users have ample opportunity to create a collective cherry-picked checklist. It's called IdeaScale. FWIW, we were very happy with where Helix landed at 1.00—there were dozens of features on the chopping block, but team Helix fought hard to keep them. There are three reasons why we don't talk about what's coming: Because we're a wholly-owned subsidiary of a company that's publicly traded. Anything that might be interpreted as a "promise" (including firmware updates) must be realized in full within XX amount of time or we open ourselves up for potentially serious trade law infringement. I don't understand (or care to understand) how this works, only that I'd prefer not to be scolded by Yamaha's lawyers. Because by the time something is actually announced, the public will have whipped themselves into a frenzy guessing what it might be, and by the time it actually appears, it better cure cancer and give everyone free puppies. Because that's stupid. We're a business and we have competitors who pay very close attention to what we do and say. Besides, Line 6 has more transparency than any MI company I can think of. Complaining that Line 6 needs to communicate more is like complaining that LeBron James needs to make more baskets.

Dunno... Is snark an emotion?

We're working on stuff.

Even if Helix could send MIDI clock (it can't currently), Logic wouldn't be able to hear it, as it hasn't been able to slave to incoming since... Logic 7 maybe? Logic 8? I forget.

We're not at Summer NAMM this year. Coolest thing I've seen so far is the Pearl/Slate Mimic Pro:

FW 1.13 may or may not exist and it may or may not appear sometime in mid to late July. It may or may not be mostly bug fixes. This may or may not be a red herring.

Maybe we have plans for that space?