littlespaceman

The question I've always asked myself is given how ridiculously fragile, expensive and essential touchscreens are on ALL devices that have them, and how only the manufacturers are capable of installing them completely dust free (who hasn't tied themselves in knots trying to get that last bit of dust out when installing a screen protector, only to make it worse and then throwing away the protector altogether and repeating the process 18 times?!) WHY OH WHY don't the manufacturers install something at the factory that ISN'T flimsy and designed to be peeled off, just to be messily replaced with a thicker version that you've bought on Amazon??

Perfect, just what I wanted, thank you. Now, the only thing is to request that the Block parameters disappear from view when in the Play view - I really don't need them there, and they take up valuable screen space; the Play view could be much larger without that bit at the bottom, as pointed out by John Nathan Corey here, at 7 mins 50 seconds;

There’s a lot of discussion about how the Quad Cortex volume functions as a master output attenuator and is designed to be set at 100% (unity gain) for most live and recording applications’. Is the Helix Stadium volume different, and it’s absolutely fine to operate it at whatever volume level suits you / your situation? Or should you be trying to leave it at, say, 0.0dB, and change the volume levels at the mixer (or whatever the sound source is)?

As the title says really - coming from the Quad Cortex it’s what I’m used to (no scribble strips on QC either so they use a similar display to the Helix Play view) and I like the Play view on the Stadium as it’s a much nicer screen than the QC. It would be really helpful though if it was possible to bring up the Play view with a footswitch, is this possible? In my scenario the Stadium is on the floor, you’ve bent down to tweak a parameter, stood back up again but forgot to access the Play view before you did - so being able to access it via a f/s would save a lot of bending down and getting back up again

Ha, good point, of course it didn’t have a touch screen did it! Sorry, that’s my memory playing tricks with me. Perhaps there was a short cut to turn block on/off via the joystick? Highlight it and double-press or something. Either way, the way this works on the Quad Cortex is actually really good - so when you’re on the Home page, you simply double tap on a block and it toggles it on or off

Thanks guys,seems counter intuitive to me but I see where you’re coming from!

Returning to Helix universe after a few years away with the Quad Cortex, to give the Stadium a try (I previously had the Helix Mk 1) The main thing that made me come back is the Showcase function, Of which the Mixer is an important part. I’m puzzled by this with the mixer though; when I have a volume turned down, or muted, I would expect NOT to see the green/amber/red sound level bar show above the position of the volume knob. Eg, if the volume is at zero, I wouldn’t expect to see the level bar displaying at all. in the Matrix mixer however, this does happen - see the pic. Am I missing something here? Is there a reason it does this? I haven’t seen anything like that on other digital mixers. Or is this a bug (perhaps a known one? Im new here!) that will be addressed?

Thank you. I’ll try that - but if you’re editing on the Home Screen, reaching across to tap the footswitch (do you mean ‘press’ as you would if you were using your foot, or literally tap to utilise the capacitive function?) that relatively time consuming compared to tapping the block icon to turn on / off. I’m also curious to know if I do recall correctly and on the original Helix you could turn a block on/off by tapping the icon? Re the user manual, you’re right, I do prefer a normal pdf manual however, than the online type of manual they have for the Stadium. I’ve looked but can’t see the manual anywhere in simple psf formaf, am I missing some?

Returning to Helix universe after a few years away with the Quad Cortex, to give the Stadium a try (I previously had the Helix Mk 1) My memory isn’t what it used to be, but I could have sworn that when you’re on the Home Screen (or Grid in QC speak) on the original Helix, there was a shortcut to turn blocks on / off. I forget what it was, as it’s been a few years, but to give you an idea, on the QC you double tap a block to toggle it on or off. I feel like on the original Helix you pressed and held the block icon, to toggle it. Have I imagined this, or was it possible to do this on the original Helix? Because I’ve tried it on the Stadium, and it doesn’t work that way - which is a shame, as it’s a really handy feature

The main reason I sold my Catalyst Mk 1 is that the FX loop was fixed in place pre the effects block, meaning the Catalyst was useless with a looper as any delay effect you added would affect the entire loop, resulting in a complete mess of noise. In comparison the Boss Katana software allows you to change the fx loop position per preset, so you can place it pre or post the effects. Does anyone know if the Catalyst firmware update and/or the new CX amps have this feature?

Ok, so I've just noticed that the PC has a physical 'Low Cut' switch on the back - I've never noticed it before! - and the used PC has that 'Low Cut' switch set to on. So problem solved, thank you all for the suggestions and help!

I'm actually using them with a Quad Cortex (shhh, might get in to trouble here!) so no L6 Link... But thanks for the info about R2D2's post, I'll look for it...

Curious to know if anyone else has experienced this; I have just picked up a (second hand) PC 112+ to go with one I bought new some years ago, to run as a stereo rig. To my surprise, the second hand one (although it's used it's in excellent condition) sound slightly 'different' to my original one; it doesn't sound bad, but it doesn't sound quite as good; a bit more treble-y, and not quite as full sounding. It's a subtle difference but I noticed it enough to check the settings carefully; I'm using both in Flat mode, and as far as I can see the settings are identical. Also both are running the latest firmware (v2.something as far as I can recall) Any thoughts, anyone?

I've been asking this question for months; I was then made aware that no-one from Line 6 monitors this forum (seems odd to me that on a Line 6 forum no-one from Line 6 monitors!) so I posted on Idea-Scale. No response from anyone in Line 6, and a few angry replies from people telling me I'm the one with the problem for criticising the Catalyst for what IMHO is a flaw in the design. Not sure why people get so angry about these things but there you go...

Yes, IMHO the FX loop being before the on board modulation effects is a major flaw of the Catalyst amps, although for some reason some people feel the need to angrily tell me on this forum that I'm the one with the problem because I bought an amp that doesn't do what I wanted it to do...

Well it's taken me ages to work this out, largely because I haven't played with the amp for a while (I find it not as user-friendly as I would like) but I've now worked out the best way to use a Looper pedal in the FX loop and also use the onboard delay, WITHOUT the delay affecting everything you've recorded in your loop and therefore sounding awful. To recap, the problem is 1) If you set the on board FX to POST, this places them post the preamp and importantly, post the FX Loop. Unfortunately this means that everything you have recorded on a looper pedal, in the FX loop, is affected by the on board FX when you turn them on... 2)...unless you set the FX to PRE. But have you ever heard delay before a distorted preamp? Sounds horrible. This was always the stumbling block for me; you can't therefore use the onboard FX with an looper in the FX Loop to record a rhythm track, and then solo over the top, if you also want to use the onboard delay. So the solution? Well, it's stupidly simple really - use an external distortion pedal and have the onboard FX set to PRE! This places the drive/boost at the very front of the signal chain, so even when set to PRE the onboard delay is after the distortion, so you don't get the problems of delay-before-distortion. And because you now have the delay BEFORE the looper (in the FX loop) you now don't have the problem of having the delay affecting everything you've recorded on your looper. So, to summarise - it works. Is it ideal? IMHO no, because I still think not being able to choose the position of the FX loop in software is a major limitation, and it seems strange that the only workaround for this issue is to use external boost/drives on an amp that has them built in; but of course you only have limited control over the onboard boost/drives so using an external one is not such a bad option after all perhaps...

This might help answer your question

I'm still waiting for an Xsonic firmware to allow the Airstep Multi to act as a USB host for the Catalyst 60. It's been quite a long time coming, and I believe they are still working on it, but I am losing patience and therefore I am thinking of selling the Catalyst. I don't want the Cat 100 as it has the same issue that I don't like about the Cat 60, which is to say that the FX loop is not useable if you wish to place a looper pedal and use the onboard time based effects, as the FX loop is placed BEFORE the built in effects. This means that if you record a rhythm track on a looper, placed in the FX loop, and then want to add a lead track over the top, turning the built in delay on or off will also affect anything that has already been recorded to the looper.

Yes, it’s definitely true that the other amp I’d get(Boss Nextone Special) if I was to exchange the Cat is a very different beast, both in concept, use and price, so some might consider it an odd choice. But they do sound absolutely fantastic!

it’s just gone midnight here in London, and I’ve crept downstairs to try this out (otherwise I probably wouldn’t be able to sleep, ha ha) Funnily enough, when the amp is very first turned on, with the Boss FS6 connected, the very first press of the button that changes channel, does cause the boost or whatever else is assigned to the other foot switch to momentarily engage (as you suggest, it is less than a second) however, on every subsequent press of the channel change foot switch after that, it does not happen. It is probably worth mentioning that - IF you are using a single TRS cable, see attached pic - the footswitches operate in the opposite sense to how I would expect them to, so footswitch A is boost or effect, and footswitch B is channel change. Changing the polarity on FS6, does not change this. However if you are using a Y cable, and connecting the TRS end at the amp in to the mono A and B jacks on the pedal I believe it operates the other way around

A perfectly valid point; but my issue with this is that the Cat being a multiple ‘2 channel amp’ box is itself the subject of much debate (see other threads here), largely because they haven’t implemented this properly either; so if I was to change Amp 1 (ie Bank 1) Channel A to B and then I wanted to move to another ‘2 channel amp’ by selecting Amp 2 (ie Bank 2) rather than switch to Amp/Bank 2 as a new amp, and start you off with Amp 2, Channel A, it takes you to Channel B because that is what you had selected in the previous Amp/Bank. Again that seems nonsensical (not just to me!) I’ve used L6 products for a long time too, so while I partly trust them to resolve this sort of thing I think it’s a fair argument to say that having been in the game a long time they shouldn’t be releasing products that need issues like this resolving.

Without wishing to teach you to suck eggs, have you raised the input levels on the PCab? I came across a video recently showing how one guy set up his power cabs to about +6 dB, and then uses the volume of his modeller at a set position, and having done that on my power cab I have to say my modeller (Headrush) sounds much better and more natural than it did before - in short it sounds great and although the Cat as a PC substitute is ok, it doesn’t sound nearly as good as the PC now I have it set up better.

Thanks for the reply. I suppose if I was trying to do something completely outlandish with the Catalyst, then I would be more in agreement with you, but what I’m trying to do - use a looper in the FX loop, and still be able to use the on-board effects - surely has to be one of the most common applications for an FX Loop in guitar amps today. And most other brands implement the FX loops on their amps to allow this, so it just seems like an opportunity missed for Line 6 not to do the same. it is a significant problem for me with the Catalyst, which is a shame because in every other way I like the amp very much. The best solution would be that it is fixable via firmware. I have posted on ideascale about this, but I have yet to know what the answer is. If I was to summarise however, I would argue that if Line 6 did make the position of the Fx loop switchable like the Boss amps do, no one would complain, but the fact that they haven’t does cause reason to - I can’t believe I’m the only person on the planet that has an issue with this. Another way of looking at it is that they have created the Catalyst to be a great value, great sounding amp, which implies it will attract a wide target audience. Yet the way the effects loop doesn’t play nicely with loopers, which are generically extremely widely used pedals, seems entirely counterintuitive. And the idea of returning the amp is a valid one, and believe me I consider it most days - but whether I do or don’t, I wouldn’t think that sort of conversation is what Line 6 intended people to be having about the Catalyst because - at the moment at least (I’m being optimistic that L6 care about my opinion and/or that a firmware update is capable of resolving this) - the marketing claim is that it is a simple and straightforward amp to use, yet not being able to use a looper with the onboard effects (which are a major selling point for the Catalsyt) seems non-sensical to me.

I use the Catalyst with a BOSS FS6 footswitch and I don't have this problem...

A couple of things; I'm intrigued you don't think the Cat is designed to rival the Kat; I may have fallen for the hype on You Tube that this is supposed to be Line 6's attempt to grab some of that market. Personally I don't like the sound of the Kat, but I do like the way you can configure the position of the FX loop etc. What I don't understand is the concept of the Catalyst being both a grab and go amp with basic FX, AND an AITR solution for modellers; as a grab and go it sounds good but IMHO isn't user friendly because of some of the issues we are discussing here (for example the channel switching issue - not something I want to have to deal with in what is supposed to be a simple and easy to use amp) As an AITR, yes it's a solution but why would you want to use a £240 amp with a £1200 unit like a Helix, when the amp isn't FRFR? Surely you'd then end up having to either create your Helix presets using monitors, and accept that it sounds different if you play it through your Catalyst, or you end up tweaking your Helix presets when you play it through the Cat, only to find it doesn't sound like you thought it would through a PA, which presumably if you have a Helix is what you're going to play through when/if you use it live. In other words, it's nice that it can be used as a powered speaker but to my ears it doesn't replace the PowerCab. In terms of due diligence, I thought I'd done mine too, but sadly neither the L6 website not the Cat manual gives you as much information as for example Boss do, about things like the position of the FX Loop - so I was surprised and disappointed when I found that I can't use a looper in the FX loop, AND use the onboard effects, without those effects affecting the entire loop itself (presumably because the FX loop is placed before the onboard fx, and not after them) And I only found that out at home because it simply isn't possible to try all the things I want to try with the amp in a local guitar shop. I'd also go as far as to say that due diligence is hard to achieve when the sales pitch / marketing / website themselves are a bit misleading. Please understand I'm not trying to be antagonistic here; I'm just becoming increasingly disappointed in the functionality of the Catalyst (not the sounds, I think they're pretty good) and it seems to me that some aspects of the amp are flawed conceptually - but I'm happy to stand corrected if I have misunderstood things (for example my issue with the fx loop position)