rvroberts

You can arrange your shapshots however you like - keeping to the bottom row in the layout you are suggesting (which incidentally is how I run mine). Obviously, if you have filled every slot and then you change your mind, you will have to recreate one as you copy and paste snapshots. I tend to have my low gain sound on the left and the solo sound on the right and some variation like chorus somewhere in between. I also probably have amp gain and delay settings varying across the presets - but it's all just copy and paste for rearranging.

The output level on the Helix - both XLRs and 1/4" are assignable in the interface. Use the manual - if you search the manual (it's a PDF, so you should be able to just do a search like on any PDF - or just go to quick start page 9) - and you will get how to set the output to line or mic - sounds like yours is set to mic - you could set your monitor to mic - but it is probably better to set everything to line.

I was interested to hear what non US Helix users think about the 2 year warranty only for the US. Seems that thread has disappeared? - well I just get an error message??

I build my presets much like you do. I have a global EQ that seems to work very well for giving me the sound I expect at volume. Mostly I play stereo, but when the FOH will only give me one channel or is running in mono, I just go out of the left output. (I actually still use my 2 FRFR boxes on stage but I loop from one through to the other so they are both getting mono - means the same volume settings work) That automatically sums the left and right channels and gives a perfectly good mixed channel sound. If you only plug into the left output you get that by default. Still sounds pretty good!

Yep - that would be my guess!

The Amplifi should be fine - it sounds like you either aren't a live player, or you want a home system for when you are at home!?! But instead of using the Amplifi as a guitar amp, you would run the Helix into the amplifi like you do your music - so it's a clean flat sound system without any coloring from the guitar effects side. That way the Helix is totally creating the guitar sound. I use studio monitors at home - that also works fine - and is not too different to my live set up as I go FRFR and straight out to FOH. What you can combine depends totally on the setup - if you are using the music input on your Amplifi, then obviously you won't be hearing your music through that too. What I do is run it all from my computer. So the Helix is connected to the computer by USB - that lets me use the Helix as the audio interface - I come out of the Helix into the amp and speakers (if you have self powered speakers then It's a tiny bit simpler.......) The Helix will pass through the audio from the computer - music, Youtube or whatever. I use the Editor on the computer to control the Helix - all works well. But it will never be as simple as your Amplifi - it was designed to plug in a guitar and some audio and play along. Introducing the Helix is going to lead to a more complex setup.

I would just run out of the pedal board into the Helix with a classic Twin patch - you can run into way to many level matching issues if you do anything more complex (assume he's just plugging in on the night? - brave/foolhardy move for that guy!) - you will obviously need to give him a gain and tone just like on the real amp - but straight in the front is the way I'd go. (a gentle bit of noise gate might be worth adding - but he needs his own patch that is a nice fender clean that you can push to the beginning of overdrive - I'm assuming he gets his sounds with his board mainly or he is really crazy!

Assuming you have all this stuff backed up on your computer - what you are really asking is a computer related issue. You don't say what OS you are using - but If you google something like "save a directory list as a text file" or XL file or csv - a quick look seems to indicate (as you would expect) plenty of solutions. Have fun being organised!

How do you get the idea that each patch can only have 8 units? (I'm assuming a "unit" is an amp or cabinet or stomp box?) It is possible to fit 8 "units" on each path - there are potentially 4 paths - if you choose to use them - that would make 32! You will certainly run out of DSP before 32 - but I've got lots with considerably more that 8! Time to look at some YouTube videos and read the manual! Try something like this

One thing that might confuse you is that when you split a path, you have control of how much of the signal goes down each path - I first was wondering why I wasn't getting much effect from a delay in a parallel path until I realised that. If it was only getting half the level then when set full wet, it was still only a 50% mix. That parallel path thing is also a matter of taste. I have mixed 2 completely different amps to great effect that way though. Your Strymon Flint might be a slightly better reverb for some sounds - possibly say vintage tremolo - than the units in the Helix - but you can use 2 together - and personally I don't find that a problem - there are definitely some on this list that are lobbying for more and better reverb and delay units. Straight into the front of the amp, you should be able to get very close - it's more in the studio situation you might notice something you like about the Strymon that you aren't quiet getting out of the Helix. I assume you run your amp clean and get drive tones from your pedals? If so, some people have had great results using a preamp as a kind of overdrive, and it can help your amp sound a bit different to the Fender it is! EQ will also help there, But the sound of your amp and speakers will always restrict how far you can move away from the basic sound of your amp.

I must admit that since snapshots, I never use stomp mode. Now there are a few reasons for that - any combination of stomp boxes (and any modification of their settings) can be set up as a snapshot. secondly, I use a brand new patch for each song - I don't try to set the thing up like a pedalboard and not use many patches. So I never run out of Snapshots. Well in fact, I have a number of patches that do a number of songs - like a good classic rock sound with a few levels of gain and delay. - that does about 8 songs so well I don't really see the point in changing it. But I also like to use dramatically different sounds - so I've got some funk patches that use amp and pedal combos that are at the opposite end of the spectrum from that rock sound. I think that you are either willing to look at the device in front of you and say - "how can I use this thing to give me all I need to play the music I want?" Or - you can say - "my mind works this way - I want the technology to feel like it reads my mind". All perfectly fair I guess, but I suspect that most people think in a certain way about effects and amps because they had to adapt to a particular path at some point - and it's being able to see the potential of another viewpoint that gets in their way. In the end I suspect that's as likely as anything else to influence the technology we buy.

you might also find this interesting -

Have you seriously looked - Clean - Low Gain - So apart from a batch of users saying - no problem - it is so much like the amps it models, that it is more that you aren't necessarily monitoring in the same environment as you might with a cleanish Hendrix sound for example with a double stack of Marshalls behind you - that it becomes actually everything you wanted from those amps in a more predictable way - that's my experience. You do need to learn to set the thing up for your rig - you can't expect to sound like a fender blackface if you plug it into a Marshall! But if you run it FRFR, you can do an excellent impersonation of a Blackface (for example) and with the flexibility of delay after your speaker and mic - just like the studio sounds you love on the record. But if you start not wanting to buy into the digital simulation, you will find fault till you give up - you have to think of it as an amp in the studio and you are the engineer. You hear the examples I've just supplied - they might not be to your taste - I don't know because you did not pick an actual sound to have created in the Helix - but I've not found anything that I can't get an extremely good version of - with a little effort. That's something you can't do with a normal rig - it will have a range of sounds around the center on that natural sound of the amp, and might be great in that range, but unable to go outside that basic flavour. And can I have a gained up sound and turn the volume down and have the amp clean up naturally - absolutely. What's more most people's low gain sounds are likely to be augmented by a pedal - check this classic low gain pedal test - not 100% but you only know because you are A/Bing the sounds - not better or worse but just slightly different as 2 Klons would be. and a last one - it's taken me about 10-15mins to find these and write this -

I'm also very happy with a 57 mostly. But a general question - in what conditions............................... So if I'm trying to cut through the mix in a live situation, the 57 helps me do that - if I'm trying to get a sweet sound at low volume, then ribbon is good. But this is directly connected to EQ and the good old Fletcher Munson curve - that extra "thickness" is my enemy on stage in a live situation.

OK - I'm basically giving a more detailed version of the above - firstly you don't tell us how you are using the Helix - through an amp or FRFR. The Helix is like an amp in a studio with a mic on it - and you are in the control room - well if you run FRFR that is. If you are running into an amp, how are you set up? 4 cable method? And what amp and speakers?. You can't nail any sound if you are running into the front of an amp - the amp will rule the overall sound and you should mostly avoid amp and cab sims. Use the Helix as an effects rack/pedal board - don't use amps and cabs (I've seen people use preamps like a valve overdrive effectively though) If you are running FRFR, there are 2 equally valid approaches - but they both boil down to the fact that you need to tailor your EQ to a realistic guitar speaker sound - the Helix can put out way more bottom and top than a guitar speaker - so you need to deal with that. You either use high and low cuts within each patch, or you do it in global EQ. Basically anything below say 100Hz and above 5000-6000Hz is probably going to give you an unpleasant result. So cut outside those frequencies drastically. Compounding this is using IRs. As these simulate speakers, depending how they were made they might or might not have some degree if this effect built in already! From what you describe, this is where your problem starts. Downloading patches is all fine, but depending on your rig and the rig the patch was created for, the chances are you will still not get the result you are after without tweaking. Do you have a past of using amps and pedals? If so, the Helix does a really good job of duplicating that. If you don't, you are at a bit of a disadvantage creating guitar tone - as everyone is trying to produce sounds created originally the analog way. If that kind of tweaking is not for you, then you probably won't get along with the Helix - "Easy campezee" sounds Aussie to me? If you decide to sell in in a few months - let me know!

What they sat ------EXCEPT---------if you are thinking Helix LT, you won't have the other inputs - just the guitar.

Not used one - but I'd bet it would do the job fine - 1500W - sounds huge, but reality will be that it might give the impact to a guitarist on stage that you might have had with a good sized valve head and a 2x12. Just guessing that from my experience of similar systems - which is plenty for me! A bit of global EQ will no doubt be needed, but that's why you got it!

And here's another........hope some of that is useful

The idea is that you can use an amp you love into a load box instead of one of the amps in the Helix. And that is where you would put it. you would put a send to your amp in you effects chain in the normal position - generally after you effects - but that depends on what you want to achieve. You then send either into the front of the amp (the most likely solution) or the effects loop if you only want to drive the output stage. You then plug the amp into the Suhr Rective load and feed that back with a return - probably - but not absolutely necessarily - straight after the send. You then use a IR to get the effect of a speaker cab. Pass that through any reverb or delay or whatever you want post amp and mic. and come out of the Helix just like normal. You will need to set suitable levels in the send and return to suit the front of the amp and the output of the load box. Pete Thorn does it a lot especially for recording. Check his youTube stuff on it. You would want to particularly want to love that amp you are putting in the chain though - it's a fair bit of fiddling so you would want to be sure it pays off - he seems to believe it does - I've never used it - I got rid of everything in the way of old valve amps when I realised the Helix was going to do everything I needed. Here's one -

Hi - strange choice. Even the keyboard player in my band plays through what we call FRFR - that's full range flat response system. Are you only intending to play at home?. 30W is really not very much when you want to reproduce a full spectrum of sound with plenty of headroom - don't confuse this with say a 30W valve amp like say a Vox AC30 - you need a few hundred watts at least to have an amp simulated sound that feels anything like that loud (a 30W valve amp with efficient speakers can be very loud!) The price for this cube is about the same as something like the Behringer B112D http://www.music-group.com/Categories/Behringer/Loudspeaker-Systems/Portable-Speakers/B112D/p/P0AJN I can tell you with no doubt that that will put out a better sound for the Helix and a ton more level - with basic mixing options if you want to use something else too. There are a lot of self powered speakers in direct competition with the Behringer - I'd look there before the cube. Regarding mono - you use the left output on either the XLRs or the 1/4in outs to get mono - don't need to do anything extra - automatically sums the 2 channels if you don't plug in the right channel.

Hey Dunedindragon, I think you are correct as far as it goes - but I find half the problems are from people with no idea of studios, and the other half have no idea of analogue gear! When people ask stuff related to pedals and amps, a lot of it is because they have no experience of a range of valve amps with a batch of pedals. Cause you can do anything in the Helix, (and sometimes breaking all the rules can do something interesting) people ask weird stuff like why does my wah sound weird after my delay. Why does my marshall sim distort above 5........I'm possibly over exaggerating, but half the stuff here is like that. How do I get the sound of so and so.............Ever thought of looking at a video of them and see what they use on stage to get that sound? So it is a mix - lack of studio knowledge but also lack of real world amp experience - which is half of what we are simulating. Incidentally, I think that if you got enough power in your FRFR setup, you can get a pretty solid kick in the guts 4x12 felling if that's what you are after...... Obviously though most of the sounds people point at are the result of an amp and some pedals, mic'd, compressed, EQ'd and delayed in some way..... after the amp.........they just don't realise that. Just sit in a mastering suite for a few hours.

If you don't want to use your stereo system, Ik Multimedia iloud could be a possibility. Any compact full range device will work - stereo is nice though........lots of lovely delay and reverb, chorus etc in stereo........ I'd probably avoid some of the wireless systems though, they seem to have too much latency for playing guitar.

Hi Phil, There is no way! People talk of meters, but you said it at the start of your question. Perceived volume is the only one that counts when you are on stage with a band. Some sounds cut really well and some get lost - if a sound is getting lost even when you have the volume well pushed, you probably need to look at it's EQ as well as volume. What I did was find one sound that was really typical - for me that was a mid crunch - and then jumped back and forward at band level (I went into the rehearsal studio an hour before the rest turned up) and jumped back and forward from patch to patch trying to get it as close as possible. Then when the band turned up, that had put me in the ball park, but still maybe 80%. So since then I tweak anything that doesn't seem to cut through - and that will be both volume and EQ. Generally if I'm just stalling everyone on an odd occasion, they live with my fiddling! I also have a volume pedal set to global volume at the end of every patch - so I can make adjustments depending on the stage and the typical volume creep of a band over the night...... It works well - but no silver bullet!

I would be trying to get to the bottom of what it is that I like about my old valve amp - read and youtube all you can, and see if I can get something very similar out of the Helix. I have to say that I find the Helix superior to any valve amp I ever had - but that is because I like a produced sound - I keep saying in posts here that I realise some people like that raw punch in the guts of a valve amp that's cooking and moving a lot of speaker area. And I understand that from using Marshalls and Voxs over the years. What always bugged me was that you couldn't get the spatial spread you could in the studio - that it sounded different on every stage, and that it ended up 1 gig in 10 where all the magic happened. I'm so happy to have a predictable sound now - I'm so happy to know it is what people hear out front, and because I'm monitoring in stereo, I stand bathed in a broad wash of sound that I totally enjoy while knowing the rest of the band aren't damaging their ears trying to hear themselves over me (and the escalating noise as everyone compensates with their volume knob!) There are still special nights and so so nights - but that's now up to me and the other members of the band - I've eliminated bad sound as one of those reasons. On that perfect night with a valve amp was it better? - I'll never know, because I can't relive the experience with an A/B switch! What I do know is I can get a Marshall rock based sound out of the Helix that does it for me - I can get a cutting edge that does what I always loved about my Vox and I can now enjoy an American clean when I want one - all in the one song if I really wanted to! Never could have done that in the "good old days"!

I think if you opened it up and sprayed stuff in it, you got to live with the color problem..........I'm betting Line 6 would say warranty void. If you had returned it and they sprayed it - it would be their problem. Sounds minor, and I know we sometimes just need a quick fix! No downtime seems a decent result to me!