qwerty42

It’s buried somewhere in this interview with Digital Igloo. Sorry, don’t remember exactly where and don’t want to dig through it to find it, but it’s in there.

This sounds like a pretty weird one, and from your description it sounds like it might be a real bug. I don't have any midi equipment handy right now so I can't test on my end, unfortunately, but if you're convinced it's a reproducible bug you should submit it as a such through a support ticket: https://line6.com/support/tickets/add.html

What you hear through your headphones that are plugged directly into the Stomp should sound identical to what you record in your DAW. If it *doesn't*, then something isn't configured correctly. Unfortunately I'm not a Mac user, so I can't help you with the configuration specifics, but there is a real problem somewhere if what you're hearing on playback doesn't sound almost exactly like what you heard from the headphone port of the Stomp. Don't give up--there is a solution to whatever the issue is.

All they are is Helix amp blocks with the settings adjusted to make them match the sound and feel of some piece of real-life hardware. The ML stuff, for example, just takes an existing Helix amp model and tweaks it to make it sound like his real amp heads. These presets also usually include custom IRs which contribute hugely to the overall sound. Is it worth it? To me, no, but I know how to edit my own patches deeply to get what I want. However, for somebody who doesn't have the time, knowledge, or desire to do so, yeah, maybe they're worth it. They're pretty limited in utility because if you move the knobs from their settings, you've already strayed from whatever specific tone it was dialed to be. FWIW, some of these 3rd party presets like Glenn Delaune's include tonematching IRs, but again, these are pretty simple to make yourself if you have a good matching eq like Izotope Ozone and Voxengo Deconvolver to create the IR. To really make these sound good, they need to be matched to your specific guitar, so again on the question of whether it's worth it...? Only if you don't want to do it yourself. Once you've purchased a few of these custom preset packs, you've spent enough to buy the tools to make the tonematches yourself. You can make stereo tonematches with a left and right channel IR with these tools which sound every bit as good as any other modeler I've heard that has built-in tonematch capability.

Monitoring through your computer's headphone jack is definitely *not* what you want to be doing, and is probably part of the reason you're hearing the delays you're hearing. I'm not a Mac user so I don't know exactly how it appears on Macs, but on Windows you need to select ASIO Helix as the audio device in your DAW. If your Helix is connected via USB to your computer, it can play back your computer's audio and your guitar simultaneously, and do it a lot better than the built in sound card of your Mac. That's how it's intended to be used. It also gives you the benefit of monitoring your guitar tones directly through the LT with zero latency, instead of hearing it looped back through the software monitoring of Logic. To summarize: -Helix should be connected via USB to your Mac -Helix ASIO should be the audio device selected in your DAW (I don't know exactly what Macs call this, so the way it's worded or selected I can't help with) -Playback from within your DAW and other apps on your computer will come back to Helix and go out through its 1/4" out ports, XLR ports, and headphone ports via USB1-2 channels by default -Your guitar input will be heard straight out of the Helix so you hear NO latency. You can do this and still record the signal going into your DAW. You just need to select Helix's USB1-2 as the input to the track in your DAW (USB1-2 is default, it can be edited in your patch), and then TURN OFF SOFTWARE MONITORING for that track. This is critical -- if you don't do that, you'll hear the direct-monitored sound of your guitar straight from Helix, as well as the software monitored sound doubled back through your DAW, with a slight delay that will make things sound odd/phasey/echo-ey/delayed/louder than they should be. As for your monitors and other stuff, you can take those out of the outputs on your Helix. Lots of options there--do what works for you. The important thing is, don't take them out of the headphone port on your Mac, otherwise you're defeating the purpose of using the far superior hardware of the Helix.

No problem! Yep, that is indeed a very good interface. Glad you're making progress. When you say you 'backed off the gain,' what are you referring to exactly? I think all you probably need to do is dial down the input level in the plugin... the thing I circled below. If that's too high, it's not all that different from running a boost or overdrive at the start of your signal chain. When you played back my sample mp3, that's already rendered as final output, so it should sound the same when you play it back no matter the volume. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you meant, but anyway, it's critical to get the guitar input level set properly into the plugin or nothing will sound as it should. Hope that helps.

Not sure if this helps, but here's my strat, neck pickup, volume 10, tone 10, using the US Double Nrm and a reverb block. Preset attached. Sounds pretty darn clean to me but maybe I'm not keyed into what you're hearing. This is recorded out of the Helix Floor, so if you're hearing more crunch than this, I'm still guessing your input levels need to come down. With a good interface and matching levels, Native and the hardware units sound virtually identical. cleansample.hlxcleansample_2.mp3

No problem. Before you take it apart though, have you tried a full factory reset? And have you also tried plugging into some of the other inputs (Aux in, effects returns) to confirm it's only the input jack? I'd also try getting a small brush used for cleaning electrical contacts and some 99% isopropyl alcohol and scrub it out, on the chance it might be a dirty jack. If it still does it after all of that, my guess is solder joint, which should just be a re-flow like you said.

This is an old post, but if it's behaving as the descriptions above were, that sounds to me like a broken input jack (cracked solder joint to the board, or something wrong with the jack itself). If it's just a cracked solder joint at the jack, that's a simple fix for a competent technician, assuming you don't want to pay for L6 to fix it. Can you make the sound cut in/out predictably by putting gentle sideways pressure on the plug in the jack?

I can definitely get clean tones without any grit on my Floor unit with the Fender amps. Your input level into Native is probably too high, if that's what you're using. What are you using as your interface into your computer? That might also be the problem (interface clipping, or again, level too hot).

@wjernigan -- tagging you here to make sure you see this, because after reading everything above this is probably the issue you've had all along ('sitar' sound). The problem is you're sending a stereo signal on a TRS cable to a balanced mono input. It flips the phase of one of the two signals and adds them, effectively canceling out anything they had in common. Things like vocals and such in the center channel will get cancelled. In short, don't do this. The RCA inputs are meant for unbalanced stereo, and the L2t simply adds them together (sum to mono). Thus these sound like you'd expect. In terms of your Helix being connected to the L2t, either a TRS (balanced) or TS (unbalanced) should work fine, *if* they're coming from a single output jack on the Helix. If you have a y-splitter merging the Left and Right outputs and are plugging those into your L2t mono balanced input, that will also sound like trash, for the same reason as above.

I mean, is kneeling and using your fingers not an option? ;) I'm just kidding, please don't take my snarkiness too seriously ;) Yep, it sounds like a small mixer you can mount at 'playing height' probably is your best solution. Don't scrap the L2t for lesser speakers, you'll likely regret it.

He doesn't have a mixer, yet. I was referring to his refusal to use the big volume knob on the top of the Helix, which still seems like the obvious solution for exactly this purpose, but inexplicably has been thrown out as a viable option, lol.

This is one of the weirdest threads I've ever read... TL;DR: 'How do you all listen to Helix? I have some of the best monitors you can get, but I want a way to turn them down without using the way to turn them down. What else should I buy?'

I mean, I'm not gonna tell you to do it, but... do it. Just do it.

If you love the Stomp that much, the full size Helix floor would probably be your favorite purchase of all time, assuming you don’t mind the size. The Stomp is super cool and incredibly compact, but with everything I do with my Floor unit I’d be sad to lose the extra DSP and all the I/O and switches. Hands down one of my best major purchases in years, I love it! Not to take away anything from the Stomp, I’m just planting seeds in your brain ;)

Yeah, possibly. The appearance of the break almost looks like there may have been a big void/flaw in the casting, but hard to tell from this single pic. Looks like the break started from where the ‘flat’ of the shaft meets the round (high stress concentration), and propagated inward. But it also looks like the whole central part of the shaft may have had a void in the metal. If the knob was pressed on at an angle when it was manufactured, that could’ve been enough to start the crack propagation. Anyway, I’ll stop boring everyone with the engineering analysis ;)

What the...? Wow, that is interesting. That’s a metal shaft potentiometer and a fatigue failure, but the appearance of the break is pretty bizarre. The point where it broke is just above where the shaft would be contacting other internal surfaces, so likely the area of max stress if the pot was seized somehow. That kind of stress would take a *significant* torque on the small knob, unless it had gotten hit at some point and a stress crack started from that. Anyway, I’m not doubting the failure at all, I’m just scratching my head trying to understand how that would happen (yes I am an engineer, haha). It looks like the broken shaft piece in the knob has a rounded shoulder... does that shoulder extend over the nut that anchors the pot? If so, seems like if the nut wasn’t threaded down far enough, it might rub on that rounded shoulder and create friction & resistance (assuming it’s adjustable, maybe locked by another nut on the other side?) Just a guess. Weird.

Bravo, bravo! Great job! :)

The Stomp is getting Command Center in firmware v3.0. Hold tight.

Hi Dori, you can adjust the extent of this with the settings of the autoswell block in the signal chain, to make it more or less sensitive. But to an extent, I don't think you'l ever get exactly what you want here, if you're comparing it to a keyboard. A keyboard has a distinct trigger of each note -- when you press a key -- which makes it simple for an effect to delay a certain amount for every note you play, because it knows exactly when that note started. It's not the same with a guitar, where the only thing that identifies the start of a note is the (sometimes subtle) volume and frequency change relative to the note before it. In short, it's much harder to make every note you play on guitar behave the way you're asking, unless you're muting every string before you pick the next, and in fact I'm not aware of any guitar effect that does quite what you're asking for.

Yes, confirmed here on my Floor unit. Seems to probably be related to the lagging output and compression meters, because the tuner gets laggy on my unit the same way the meters do. Have you reported it via a ticket to Line 6? If not, one of us needs to to make sure it's on their bug list so it gets fixed.

For the dual cab block, at least on the Helix Floor, they are indeed hard panned left and right by default. I just tested it to be sure. If you're using a MONO volume block to create the split path, and you're hearing a difference there, then what you're actually hearing is one of the paths being collapsed to a mono (center-panned) signal before it gets mixed back into the other cab, which is still hard panned. If you like that sound, you can get a similar result without the split, and by using the 'Stereo Width' block under the Stereo category of the Volume/Pan effects. Also, keep in mind that if you put any MONO blocks after ones that produce a stereo signal, your signal will get collapsed back to MONO again.

Ummm... hello... guys? Am I just silent here, or what? Yes, Fletcher-Munson effects are very, very real. but he said he did not hear this same reduction in treble freqs when using Native. I know it's super fun to the be one to solve the problem, but you're not listening to all of the symptoms as you lecture on and on about Fletcher-Munson. Yes, you may all be right. But you've skipped a critical troubleshooting step based on the info he provided. He's running his Stomp into a secondary interface, and then using that as the USB host to his DAW, as well as the output to his monitors. It's entirely possible his FocusRite box is having some kind of input-level related effect here, which only affects incoming analog signals. One simple way to test this is to get the levels up to where things sound 'right,' and record that into your DAW. Now, play it back from your DAW. Does it still sound good? Great, next step. Lower the volume within your DAW. Play it back again. Does it still sound good? If so, the problem is the analog input chain into the FocusRite. If not, then it's likely Fletcher-Munson perceived differences. You could also do as I suggested way up there, above a zillion posts about F-M, where I suggested unplugging everything from the Stomp except your guitar, plugging it directly into your monitors (take the focusrite out of the chain completely!), and see if you still hear the issue. If not, then it's the focusrite box.

Everything that rd2rk said is correct, and could very well be what you're hearing. BUT, since you are running it into a second interface and adjusting the level into that interface, then you might genuinely be hearing a freq response that varies. Read my reply and do what I suggested above ^^^^^ to rule it out. Since you said you don't hear this same difference when using Native, that makes even more suspicious of the input on your Focusrite interface... If you really are hearing something that isn't Fletcher-Munson, then it's something with the audio inputs side of your signal chain, because youtube playback or playback from your DAW does not use the input routing of the Focusrite box.