thestratmanblues

Depending upon the equipment used to listen to these patches can make a huge difference in sound quality and appreciation. Would be nice to know what kind of equipment Line 6 used to create them. Here is all the tests that I've made so far: Audio Technica ATH-M50x (38 ohms imp): Clean preset ok, overdrive/distortion preset sound is not good, some bad distortion introduced. Shure SE 535 In Ear Monitor (36 ohms imp): Sound is ok for EIM, not for create presets. Presonus Eris E5 studio monitor (5.25" Speaker), freq. response (53Hz - 22 kHz): Sound good, missing some low end obviously Mackie SRM-450 Powered Speaker Monitor/PA, freq. response (42Hz - 23 kHz): Here is where the big grin kicks in and start to play for hours... Sound is excellent compare to above items. So now, the only option I have to create my presets are the SRM-450 monitors... Would be nice to have an FRFR speaker to check the difference, but don't want to invest on this since we'll play straigh into PA, no amp on stage like we use to do with POD HD500x. About the headphone issue, this might be related to this note from Helix manual: NOTE: Helix provides plenty of gain for high impedance headphones. With lower impedance headphones, you may notice a bit of distortion if the PHONES knob is turned all the way up. This is normal. The above headphones are consider low impedance compare to a pair of Sennheiser HD650 (300 ohms).

Is this tool can open Setlist (*.hls) and Bundle (*.hlb) which are compressed base64 encoded files, or just the Preset file (*.hlx) which is already in text format and readable?

Excellent, will see what happen with it. Bug tracker would be a good idea to submit here: http://line6.ideascale.com Since you are a software developer, you might be interested by this Pod Conversion Utility available on GitHub: https://github.com/johanneszab/podhd.git

I think the best way to have this sorted out is to open up a support ticket.

Looks like 'Global' is just a flag that will override any Variax settings that are stored in each preset. It's most probably saved within Helix internal memory like some of the params found under the Menu button. It's not being saved within the Preset, nor Setlist or Bundle files. '@variax_customtuning': True, '@variax_lockctrls': 0, '@variax_magmode': True, '@variax_model': 0, '@variax_str1tuning': 0, '@variax_str2tuning': 0, '@variax_str3tuning': 0, '@variax_str4tuning': 0, '@variax_str5tuning': 0, '@variax_str6tuning': 0, '@variax_toneknob': 0.0, '@variax_volumeknob': 0.0 FYI, I did open up a ticket for the Variax Volume/Tone set to 0 instead of Don't force or even '10' like it used to be with firmware v1.2. Out of 230 presets delivered with release v1.3, 197 has these parameters set to '0'... it's bit annoying if you don't use Variax Setting set to Global.

There you go: https://github.com/thestratmanblues/l6-helix/blob/master/helix_dump.out

Thanks I'll check that out.

Color switch value table See table below for color value of the "@ledcolor" parameter: "@fs3" : [ { "@dsp" : 0, "@enabled" : false, "@group" : "block4", "@label" : "Scream 808", "@ledcolor" : 525824, "@momentary" : false, "@type" : 1 } 1037 Blue (dimmed) 3334 Turquoise (dimmed) 13055 Blue 65408 Only for Volume Pedal, not sure if this being used 67840 Green (dimmed) 196619 Violet (dimmed) 458496 Green 462860 White (dimmed) 525824 Light Orange (dimmed) 527360 Yellow (dimmed) 786434 Red (dimmed) 1049600 Dark Orange (dimmed) 3277055 Violet 7077838 White (another dimmed) for multi FS assignment... 8716032 Yellow 13676288 Light Orange 16723200 Dark Orange 16711683 Red

Confirmed it's JSON. Also, Setlist file (*.hls) and Bundle file (*.hlb) are 'base 64' encoded compressed (zlib) of JSON data as well. I've made this little Python app to dump the content of a Bundle file called "Bundle_VERSION_1_03.hlb": I'll come up with another Python to dump in a more formatted fashion way. #!/usr/bin/env python import json from pprint import pprint import base64 import zlib data = None compress_data = None data_bundle = None with open('Bundle_VERSION_1_03.hlb') as file_bundle: data = json.load(file_bundle) if 'encoded_data' in data: compress_data = base64.b64decode(data['encoded_data']) bundle = zlib.decompress(compress_data) data_bundle = json.loads(bundle) pprint(data_bundle) I'm not able to attached the full dump that the above app created, it's about 58000 lines. But here is the first few lines of the Python structure: {u'setlists': [{u'meta': {u'name': u'FACTORY 1'}, u'presets': [{u'device': 2162689, u'device_version': 16973856, u'meta': {u'build_sha': u'3600857', u'name': u'US Double Nrm'}, u'tone': {u'controllers': {u'@expPedal2': [{u'@dsp': 0, u'@group': u'block1', u'@max': 1.0, u'@min': 0.0, u'@param': u'Pedal'}]}, u'dsp0': {u'block0': {u'@enabled': False, u'@model': u'HD2_Looper', u'@path': 0, u'@position': 7, u'@stereo': False, u'@type': 6, u'Overdub': 0.0, u'Playback': 0.0, u'highCut': 20000.0, u'lowCut': 20.0}, u'block1': {u'@enabled': True, u'@model': u'HD2_VolPanVol', u'@path': 0, u'@position': 0, u'@stereo': False, u'@type': 0, u'Pedal': 1.0, u'VolumeTaper': False}, u'block2': {u'@enabled': False, u'@model': u'HD2_CompressorRedSqueeze',

Oh yes!! I didn't even think about looking into those files. It's JSON format, it will be easy to parse and edit outside Helix. Thanks for the heads up mdmayfield!

New Helix Firmware v1.03.0 available which will solve some of the bugs listed in this forum: http://line6.com/sup...-available-now/

New Helix Firmware v1.03.0 available which will solve some of the bugs listed in this forum: http://line6.com/support/forum-86/announcement-79-helix-firmware-v1030-available-now/

Related to that topic, I've submitted this idea here: http://line6.ideascale.com/a/dtd/JTV-Variax-Workbench-HD-using-Helix-VDI-as-interface/789597-23508

I had a similar issue yesterday, sound cut off, looks the Helix wasn't able to power up my JTV-59 through the VDI cable. It happen twice since I got the Helix a week ago. Since the battery inside the JTV was fully charge, I plugged a 1/4 guitar cable to verify if the Helix was still able to make some sound, it did. So to fix the issue, I unplugged both 1/4 and VDI from the JTV and plugged back only the VDI cable, JTV power and sound came back out of VDI, no need to power cycle Helix. I double check the VDI cable with a cable tester, all good. I'm using this cable with the HD500x since the last 2 years, never had any issue with it.

Thanks pinoy1, this is the most complete review I've seen so far.

For those who, like me, want to memorized all the possible Variax HD models/presets available. Enjoy! http://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=16495.0

Got mine yesterday from Long & McQuade in Laval, Qc. They apparently received and sold 4 units so far... no more in stock for now.

There is also this soft case made by SKB which should fit: http://www.skbcases.com/music/products/proddetail.php?f=&id=635&o=&offset=&c=85&s=75 B&H photo sells it for 79.99$ http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/863443-REG/SKB_1skb_sc2316_PEDALBOARD_SOFT_CASE_FOR.html Dimensions (L x W x D) Interior: 23.00 x 16.00 x 5.50" (58.42 x 40.64 x 13.97 cm) Exterior: 25.50 x 18.75 x 8.50" (64.77 x 47.63 x 21.59 cm)