Digital_Igloo

Press MENU (three lines icon) and then Knob 6 (Global Settings). Press HOME. Does Helix stay on the Global Settings page? If so, you probably have a bad HOME button. Hit CS up and they'll get you sorted. If not, it works fine, but note that 80-90% of what people do on Helix is from the Home screen already.

This was very deliberate on our part. The stretch goal has always been to get people to play more guitar and by extension, help take the industry back from spacebar DJs.

From either the hardware or editor, add an Impulse Response block. With the IR block selected, either: ​​Drag an IR file from the Impulses tab onto the IR Select slider. As you drag, you'll see the parameter outlined. —OR— Drag the IR Select slider right to select the desired IR from the Impulses list You can't drag an IR directly to the signal flow view, as they're not blocks—they're files for utilizing within either a 1024 or 2048-sample IR block (if you can't hear the difference, always choose 1024).

Press MENU and then Knob 6 (Global Settings). Use the joystick to select the Footswitches submenu and turn Knob 2 (Preset Mode Switches) to "Lower Row." Four Stomps appear on the top row and four presets appear on the bottom row (like HD500X's default state) To view 8 stomps, just press MODE to select Stomp footswitch mode. Global Settings are not accessible from the editor software.

All pros, no cons. You'll get a ton of new features, everything will be way easier to use, you can edit with your feet, the skies will open up and death metal unicorns will trumpet your arrival... Plus, future Helix Rack features may assume you have Helix Control anyway.

Helix has two stereo line ins—Return 1/2 and Return 3/4. iPods don't come with 1/8" TRS > 1/8" TRS cables, so if you have to buy a cable anyway, get an 1/8" TRS > 2x 1/4" TS cable instead.

I've read those requests as people not wanting the looper to get in the way. The requests weren't just from IdeaScale either—we heard the same stuff in sit-down interviews, one-on-one discussions, forum posts, etc. Again, I'm all for a hardcore feature-packed looper in Helix. But it'd likely be the rabbit hole to end all rabbit holes, at the expense of everything else people want. We have ideas on how to add looper stuff without falling off the cliff, tho', and specific, detailed feature requests (as opposed to "add the equivalent of a $500 dedicated looper made by a dedicated looper team over two years") are always welcome. I'm hesitant to alter Helix's existing workflow, however. For example, letting people add any switch from any mode to any switch in any other mode would make things more difficult for everyone, including people who avoid loopers like the plague.

What determines whether a path is inactive or active? A dozen or more parameters could render signal across any given path to be either muted or barely audible.

Bug. Will be fixed in the next rev.

FWIW, I'm a hardcore looper guy, but knowing what I do about hardcore looper guys, it's safe to say we're an incredibly fickle bunch. We'd all want Helix to behave exactly like our personal favorite looper (mine's the Electrix Repeater), and if it didn't, we'd complain nonstop. And then the TC Ditto guys would scream "where's my easy-to-use one button looper?!" So instead, we just trusted IdeaScale to tell us where Helix's looper should go. That said, Helix's switches have no silkscreen, so there's nothing precluding us from adding our take on a full-featured multitrack looper, although it'd be tricky to switch memory management over to flash.

Here were the top three requests we received regarding HD500X's looper: Disable the looper so I won't accidentally engage it during a gig Let me use the Looper footswitch for something else Free up the Looper's DSP (and/or block location) for more effects Helix's looper is RAM-based; it doesn't stream to and from dedicated flash.

I don't have an H9 (although I want one), but presumably you would keep it at 100% wet and control the wet/dry mix from Helix's FX Loop block's Mix parameter. 50% is a good starting point, but trust your ears. If the XLR R is not connected, Helix automatically sums both sides to mono from the XLR L.

I wish I could pass a law that for every [box X] vs. [box Y] thread, there must be five [Modelers] vs. [Tube Amps and Pedals] threads. Fractal, Kemper, Atomic, and Line 6 are in this fight together.

We certainly want to create a bigger range of high quality amps and effects for Helix, but our goal has always been for Helix to be the centerpiece of a much larger touring or studio rig. We don't want you to sell your other gear. "If only Line 6 would do/add [X], I could sell [Y]." NOPE "If only Line 6 could make it easier to incorporate [X], creating great-sounding, unique tones could be so much faster and more fun." YES!

If a 15-year-old kid created an amazing-sounding Helix model, we'd be thrilled. True story: A 15-year-old once hacked POD XT's firmware to add a post EQ and we hired him right out of high school. He ended up as one of Helix's system architects, so never say never. Personally, I have no issue with opening our modeling tools to the public, but they're immensely complicated and tweaky in their current form. The main reason we don't go open source is the cost and complexity of creating easy-to-use tools and then supporting an army of armchair sound designers. Would you rather have Ben make more models or spend all week answering emails from people who don't understand tube amp bias? Yamaha would likely not have a say in the matter; Line 6 is a separate company.

We're working on some stuff. If the next rev's fully cooked by Summer NAMM (June 23rd), bonus, but we wouldn't delay or push release to sync it up. FW 1.06 just so happened to line up with Winter NAMM, and we didn't quite make it (released the following Tuesday, IIRC).

If you mean syncing delays to TAP, just press the Delay block's Time parameter knob and it'll change to a note value, synced to Helix's tempo. If you mean syncing delays to incoming MIDI beat clock, Helix doesn't currently do this.

Yamaha acquired Line 6 in January of 2014 and most of us found out a week before the public did. Helix's design was all but complete by then. As supportive as Yamaha's been, Helix would've been exactly the same* with or without them. It's absolutely, positively a Line 6 product. *Except for the Pac Man shortcut, which was one of their firmware guys' ideas.

The DT990s are available in 32 Ω, 250 Ω, and 600 Ω variants. If you have the 32 Ω pair (designed for listening to iPods or other consumer-level devices), any decent level from Helix's headphone output could easily cause them to distort. I use Sennheiser HD600s (300 Ω). They sound fantastic.

Helix can control up to 64 parameters with any min/max value (even reverse min/max value) from any combination of EXP 1 or EXP 2. The EXP Toe switch can be assigned to bypass/enable up to 8 blocks simultaneously. If you're talking about heel bypass, no, Helix doesn't currently do this.

I'll go out on a limb and say your playback system is easily 50-60% of your tone. If it's important to scratch that "amp in the room" itch, the only thing that may make you happy is... an amp in the room. You could certainly run Helix preamp models into the FX returns on the back of your amp and get very, very close to the real thing. If you're not terribly picky, there are FRFR (Full-Range Flat Response) speaker solutions that, if placed in a similar location and with the same size drivers, have satisfied a lot of users. In this case, you'd use full amp and cab models and the FRFR speaker just makes things louder. An inexpensive PA speaker or studio monitors will likely never make any modeler sound like an amp in the room. That's not a limitation of modeling, but a limitation of physics, acoustics, and loudspeaker design.

Here's my studio rig:

Ah, got it. No, there's no MIDI mapping for incoming PC messages, as Helix (or Helix Rack with Helix Control) is designed to be the centerpiece/master control of your entire rig. Its control functionality is considerably more powerful (and immensely easier to use!) than the B@#$%ger. Now excuse me while I crawl into the corner, sobbing. Okay, I'm back with the only sales hat I ever wear: Helix Control. There are so many editing, navigation, control, and visual feedback features you'd be missing out on (not to mention future stuff we can't yet talk about!)—Helix Control is easily 50% of what makes Helix Rack a Helix. At one point, I pushed to have Helix Rack and Control sold only as a bundle. In fact, if I won the lottery, I'd just buy Helix Control for every Helix Rack owner. It's that important. :)

Yes, Helix can do this. However, by default, it spits out PC messages that map to its own presets (01A is PC# 000, 01B is PC# 001, etc.); you'll want to turn this off first: Press MENU and then Knob 6 (Global Settings). Use the joystick to select the MIDI/Tempo page and turn Knob 4 (MIDI PC Send/Receive) to "Off." Next, you want to assign specific PC messages to each preset: Press MENU and then Knob 3 (Command Center). Use the joystick to select one of the Instant (lightning bolt icon) commands. These are messages that are sent instantly when the preset is recalled. Turn Knob 1 to select "Bank/PC" and then Knobs 2-5 to set the Bank/PC message's values. I don't believe your JMP-1 requires Bank Select messages, so leave Knobs 3 and 4 set to "Off." Press SAVE twice to save the preset. Recalling the preset will now transmit that Bank/PC message to your JMP-1.

Yes, but it's not like just turing on a pipe. Variax Workbench HD also needs to be updated. The more votes the better.