zappazapper

Is there a reason each amp has to be on its own path? Can't you have all blocks on a single path and use Snapshots to enable any disable the appropriate blocks for the sound you're after?

I'm not an HX Effects owner, but... I think what you want is Stomp Mode. Check out page 11 of the HX Effects manual. You can set Stomp Mode to be in "6 Swtch" mode in Global Settings > Footswitches > Stomp Mode and then use the Command Center to assign Snapshots to footswitches. By the way, Snapshot assignments in Command Center are Per-Snapshot, which means they can move around from one Snapshot to the next. For example, you can have Snapshots 1, 2, and 3 on the bottom row when you're in Snapshot 1, and Snapshots 4, 5, 6 on the bottom row when you're in Snapshot 2. That way you can always put your Snapshots in the most accessible place depending on where you are in the song. Hope this helps.

Sounds like you just really like the ampeg Well, you're running two full-range flat-response stereo systems along with a mono full-range flat-response system. Certainly not conventional. Possibly the source of all kinds of issues, not limited to more opportunities for a wrong setting somewhere, not to mention more opportunities for phase issues. It's not what I would do, but to each his own. Anyway, sounds like the issue is that you just really like the Ampeg. Moving on...

Again, I'd like to see it. I struggled with the concept of Snapshots when I first got my Helix, but slowly started to understand how it works, and now I doubt I'd be able to use a multi-fx that doesn't have a similar feature. I feel like my Snapshot game is as on point (or dare I say, "on fleek") as anybody out there, and I'd like to see a real-world scenario where 8 Snapshots is supposedly not enough, because I feel like there's a good chance that it's a matter of preset design that I could easily solve. Remember, using Snapshots doesn't preclude using Bypass and Controller Assigns as well. Some things don't need Snapshots. I typically assign Snapshots to my Stomp Footswitch Mode board along with Bypass and Controller Assigns, but I do have at least one preset where the Stomp board is all Bypass and Controller Assigns and I have to hit the MODE switch to access the Snapshots board (Global Settings > Preferences > Preset Mode Switches set to 8 Snapshots, Snapshot Mode Switches set to Manual Return). I'd have to check just how many, but I know that that particular preset has way more than 8 "sounds", whether they're called by Snapshots or by Stomp switches with either single or multiple assignments. I will admit that almost none of my presets are designed to be used for one song; they're mostly designed to be used for multiple songs. The preset I'm talking about is my "Nirvana Nevermind" preset and gapless operation is only necessary within singular songs, but because so many of the sounds are shared across the whole album, they're all in the same preset, and if I did have to immediately go from one song off that album to another, the "sound" change would be gapless just by coincidence.

It probably is. Don't sweat it. Something "sounding good" is purely subjective. It might be that the Ampeg just gives you the sound you're looking for. But many people are very pleased with how other cabs sound, so there's at least a chance that something is going kooky with your setup. No offense but your monitoring setup is at best unconventional, and at worst offers a ton of possible ways to go wrong. I would simplify for testing purposes - plug your Helix into a half-decent pair of headphones and see if you feel the same about the cabs. If you do, you probably just really like the Ampeg cab. Nothing wrong with that. If not, there's probably something going kooky with your setup and you need to put it on an elimination diet to figure out what it is. Start small, make sure everything works and sounds as expected, and add small pieces until things start to sound bad.

This would be way more useful if it could be made to process ranges of presets instead of one at a time.

I'd really like to hear this song that maxes out the Snapshots and see a video of the guy tap dancing all over his Helix. Like of course there COULD be a song so complex, but IS there?

"Lose the 8 Snapshot limit": https://line6.ideascale.com/c/idea/1054276 "Expand per-Snapshot assignments": https://line6.ideascale.com/c/idea/1054308 "Allow Input and Output block assignments to be controlled": https://line6.ideascale.com/c/idea/1054310

If I had a song that required more than 8 Snapshots, after talking myself out of slitting my wrists, I would find a place in the song where the lack of trails and a slight gap in audio created by a preset change would do the least damage. However, it did occur to me when they gave us "Per-Snapshot Command Center > HX Snpsht Values" that the 8 Snapshot limit should be expanded. I'm assuming that the limit was based on the fact that there were only 8 footswitches that could be used to call Snapshots, but now that the assignments in Stomp Footswitch Mode can be changed per Snapshot, we could theoretically create an unlimited string of Snapshot calls from a single footswitch. So for these pathetic creatures, I've created this Ideascale post: https://line6.ideascale.com/c/idea/1054276 Similarly to the first problem, if I had a song that needed that many stomps, I would accept that the problem is ME and not the Helix, and accept that I have to find somewhere in the song where a preset change isn't going to completely wreck the song (which it wouldn't anyway). However, it also occured to me when they gave us "Per-Snapshot Command Center > HX Snpsht Values", that they should also give us the ability to change Bypass and Controller assignments per-Snapshot. In fact, they should let us change everything per-Snapshot. So for these pathetic creatures, I've created this Ideascale post: https://line6.ideascale.com/c/idea/1054308 Again, something like this should come with the acceptance that the user is pushing the unit beyond it's intended design, and should accept a small gap in audio as the preset is being changed. Moreover, TPS removes half the processing power and routing options that would theoretically allow a user to do his wacky changes without necessitating a preset change in the first place. However, I don't see any logical reason why input and output block assignments wouldn't be made available for Footswitch or Snapshot control. So for these pathetic creatures, I've created this Ideascale post: https://line6.ideascale.com/c/idea/1054310 This isn't something that couldn't be done with Snapshots. This is the whole point of my argument, that users are programming individual sounds to individual presets, when the unit was designed to allow the user to program multiple sounds to a single preset and use Snapshots to switch between them. And if a user insists on programming "single sound per preset" in defiance of the intended design of the unit, then they're going to have a gap. I play in a 90s rock cover band, we have a setlist of about 50 songs, and what the guitarists that come to see us play tell me at every show is how impressed they are with the fact that I nail every single sound in every single song we play. I use 8 presets for the entire show. You can do anything you want with Snapshots if you embrace the philosophy. That sometimes means that certain chains are repeated in multiple presets, since a preset is a GROUP of sounds, and sometimes a sound has to occur in multiple presets in order for it to be available when and where you need it. Again, this is a little like buying a car with automatic transmission but insisting on switching gears manually because you learned to drive stick. Go ahead, but it's not how the thing was designed to be used. Simple signal chains are perfect for Snapshots. One just has to embrace the philosophy. That's fair. But again, gapless preset switching shouldn't be the goal. Gapless SOUND switching is the goal, which is more easily achieved with Snapshots. Again, the feature is there and people are going to use it. That's fine. My feeling is that the presence of the feature has removed the motivation for some users to learn what Snapshots are all about and how to use them and how they can do so much more with them than TPS. Anyway, I have to add my genius Ideascale posts to the main Ideascale thread XD

I'd be interested to read what you think can be done with TPS and not Snapshots, because my assertion is that it's not required, it's just preferred by people who are still in the old multi-fx paradigm. And again, fair enough, they paid their money and they can use the thing wrong if they want. But... Absolutely not. It's the guitar equivalent of insisting on using a Perly's map book when you have an Android phone with Google Maps in your pocket. It's inferior in every single way other than the alternative requires the user to temporarily struggle to learn how to use it. And I'll say a third time, it's all good, you paid for the unit, you can do what you want, but I don't have to pretend like it's some kind of "added feature". But again, as this thread is about whether gapless operation is possible, I'll concede that TPS will get you closer to gapless use than not using it, if you're not going to bother to use Snapshots in the first place.

I disagree. Look, the option is there, and anybody who pays money for their unit is allowed to operate it however they like, and they don't owe me an explanation. Game set match there. But that option was created to cater to people who refused to grow out of the "single sound per preset" paradigm that existed before L6 introduced Snapshots. There's no benefit to it other than it keeps certain users from having to take the time to learn how Snapshots work. There's nothing you can do sonically or control-wise with TPS that you couldn't do with Snapshots, and there's plenty you can do with Snapshots that you can't with TPS. But the topic of this thread is gapless transitions, and so yes, TPS is one way that a user can work in a nearly gap-free environment. I'll concede that it's probably better to use it, than to work "single sound per preset" and not use it. But there's significant benefit to using Snapshots over TPS (more blocks, completely gapless), with the only cost being that you have to read the manual and figure out how it works, which is something you should do when you drop a couple grand on a piece of equipment anyway. No cost in terms of sonics or control, or even ease-of-use once you've done the work to know how to use it.

There are just too many variables involved, as others have already mentioned, to make the process feasible in terms of time and effort. There's every reason to think it's technically possible to get an identical match of one IR by tweaking another, but there's just as much reason to think that the process of tweaking that IR will take hours, days, weeks, months, and you still might never get it exactly right. Part of the reason is that IRs are not simply EQ curves. Frequency response is captured in an IR, but so is phase. Phase is a complex thing. Speaker cabinets and microphones have their own effects on phase. The essential concept behind equalization involves manipulating phase to affect frequency response, but the way an EQ affects phase for a given frequency boost or cut is not necessarily comparable to the way a speaker or microphone affects phase with respect to its own frequency response. You could, theoretically, run frequency sweeps through both IRs, analyze the outputs, and use an equalizer to match the frequency response EXACTLY, and it still might not sound the same because the phase relationship of the frequencies are different, and there's no way to manipulate those phase relationships without then affecting then frequency response. Phase is the main reason we use impulse responses for cabinet emulation, as opposed to just EQ curves, because speaker cabinets are essentially reverb tanks that resonate and add phase differences that are unrelated to how an EQ uses phase to affect frequency response.

True Preset Spillover results in a MINIMAL gap, as even though dumping the blocks from the previous preset is independent of loading in the blocks for the next preset, there's no way to predict what the next preset is going to be until the user hits the switch to select it, so the Helix can't begin loading blocks until that happens, so that part of the gap remains. True Preset Spillover is, as the name suggests, more about allowing delay and reverb trails from the previous preset than it is about removing the audible gap between presets. It's my understanding that it was provided for those who refuse to (or "prefer not to", if I wanna be nice) embrace the Snapshots philosophy, as those of us who have embraced it know that, with a bit of creative preset design, Snapshots will provide all the spillover that TPS will, AND completely remove audible gaps that occur between sounds within a preset.

Yes. The issue with that is that the input impedance of my amp is somewhere around 470k, so if my guitar isn't plugged into it, the pickups of my guitar aren't loaded the same and I guess they output more high end (I'm no electrical engineer, that's just my understanding of the issue as explained to me on this forum). Using an input impedance of 230k on the Helix sounds closer to what I'm used to than 1M.

Fair enough.

Auto Impedance setting for Loop block https://line6.ideascale.com/c/idea/1054260

Just did... https://line6.ideascale.com/c/idea/1054260

Switching presets will always cause an audible gap. Gapless switching is possible WITHIN THE SAME PRESET by using Snapshots. The Snapshots philosophy is that audible gaps are the result of blocks from the previous preset being unloaded FROM memory, and blocks from the next preset betting loaded INTO memory. If a block is already loaded into memory but bypassed, "unbypassing" that block doesn't result in an audible gap. Similarly, bypassing multiple blocks while unbypassing other multiple blocks also doesn't result in an audible gap, since they're all already loaded into memory. Now, that's all well and fine, but switching the bypass states of multiple blocks at the same time using separate footswitches assigned to each individual block is, at best, inconvenient. So Snapshots allows us to switch the bypass states (and block parameter values, and MIDI messages, and a bunch of other things) of every block in the preset, all at the same time, using a single footswitch. It's called Snapshots because you're essentially taking pictures of the bypass states and parameter values required for each "sound" needed in a song and saving them to be recalled when needed. Since you said you don't currently own a Helix, I won't get into the details of HOW to use Snapshots for your stated "multiple amps/effects" scenario (and there is already plenty of info on the subject in the manual and here on this forum), but the point is that the Snapshots feature is specifically designed to avoid audible gaps when transitioning from wildly different sounds within a song.

I don't think you're going to get better sonics from the amp & cab sims of another product, at typical settings. I looked into Fractal stuff for a bit and the difference seems to be in the depth of parameters they offer. "Power Tube Grid Bias" and "B+ Time Constant" and stuff like that. There's a certain type of player that will be able to navigate parameters like that and create subjectively "better" tones than the Helix has to offer. There's also a certain type of player that will use parameters like that to cook up the most god awful caterwauling you've ever heard. Not every player is honest about which category they fit into. The point is, at normal, reasonable settings, it would be mostly impossible to convincingly declare one unit "better" over another.

Sorry but I'm not seeing the ability to assign a MIDI CC to the Distance parameter on the Legacy cabs. And I'm personally struggling to think of a useful application for controlling the mic distance with a switch or MIDI control, but just because it's not something I would do, doesn't mean I don't think every parameter of every block should be available to be controlled via an onboard controller or MIDI, so I'm with you on that. On the other hand, this is the first time I've noticed anyone point out the lack of MIDI access for cab parameters, so I don't know how much support from the community you'll get, which is part of what gets things like this done in upcoming updates.

When I'm connected to my amp in 4CM, I have to dial the input impedance down to 230k to make it sound the same as when I'm plugged into the amp on its own (it sounds "screamy" at 1M... it's barely audible but it feels different). But I'd prefer if the Loop block had its own impedance setting that would tell the Helix what setting to use when it's the first active block, because in order to use, let's say, a fuzz in front of my amp, I have to set the impedance back to Auto to make it sound as intended, and any Bypass Assigns or Snapshots that control that block have to also put the Input Impedance back to 230k when the block is off. So in 4CM it partially defeats the purpose of the Auto setting, since, for me at least, one of its main functions is to help me recreate the natural sound of my amp.

That's fair. I just figure that anything control/config-related (ie. anything not having to do with new amps, new cabs, new fx) is going to take longer than anything else anyway, regardless of how "simple" it is. We might as well express what we REALLY want, so that if/when they decide it's something they want to address, they have some direction. Anyway, it's rare that I edit presets on-device anymore anyway, and it's not because the order of the parameters. HX Edit is just inherently easier to use, and I don't think anything can bridge that gap. Especially since I figured out that I can get rid of the noise I get when connected to my laptop via USB if I put a DI box in between the Send and my amp's input and lift the ground. There's just no reason to bend down when everything is basically a mouse click away.

It's available as a Bypass/Controller Assign on the LT itself. It's not available in HX Edit, until I select it on the device, and then HX Edit reports that selection, and then it disappears in HX Edit if I select something else, either on-device or in HX Edit.

As far as I know I've never seen "EXP Pedal 3" come up as a possible selection for a Bypass or Controller Assign, etc. on the LT. I know the Floor has a second external expression pedal jack, but it was my understanding that the firmware knows what model it's running and doesn't offer selections for which there is no hardware. I tried plugging a TRS > 2 x TS y-cable to see if maybe they added support for a second expression pedal on that jack without mentioning it in the release notes (the jack is, after all, a TRS jack, because it is also the jack that is used for the two channels of EXT AMP external amp control), but I can only get EXP Pedal 2 to work. Anybody know what the story is here?

I'll do you one better, since what you think are the most relevant parameters might not be everybody's most relevant parameters - customizable parameter layout. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there isn't currently an operation associated with HOLDING the "ACTION" button. Maybe holding the ACTION button let's us move parameters around. "Press Knob 1-6 to select parameter", then "Press PAGE <>, Knob 1-6 to place parameter". Would that work?