malhavok

The first part of the story seems pretty convincing. I don't put any stock into the images in the editor for something like this. I saw another post from Ben Adrian on TGP or maybe in a youtube vid where he talks about one of the Line 6 original models and said something along the lines of, "I guess the artists just thought it should look like an X but it totally isn't an X."

I came from HD500 to Helix in March 2016. I was always quite happy with HD500. I had lived with it for six years. I knew how to get "my sounds" out of it quickly. I understood how effects interacted with amps and with each other. I knew which mic models sounded great on which cabs and which cabs to use with each amp. Helix had things I really wanted. The greater routing flexibility and scribble strips were too attractive and I knew each would improve my workflow greatly. I was right about that part. However, Helix is a whole new modeling engine with a whole new sound and the dual DSP requires an entirely new way of writing complex presets. I HATED Helix for about the first two weeks I owned it. It didn't sound right. It was exceedingly difficult to write a preset that used two amps and a few effects. Delay times were messed up. Mix levels weren't the same. It was just totally different in comparison to my previous six years of experience and expertise. Then I started to figure things out. Now I could never stand going back to the HD500 that is still sitting in the corner. I really need to sell that thing. The link in my signature will take you to some tones I've made for Helix which are my testament to how great a unit it is.

It is to protect the Variax jack fro accidentally having a 1/4" lead jammed in there which will royally screw it up.

I was never a fan of Spinal Puppet, but Archon was made for me. I never heard of this amp in the "real world" until I saw it in release notes. I can put it on an empty preset with default settings and no other blocks and it is instant metal bliss. As a 7-string player, I can appreciate how well it behaves on the low notes. It was made for chugging, drop-tuning, extended range, etc. Archon is a true beast, and I am in like with it.

As far as why to take some out, my best guess is Line 6 are trying to stick with no more than three banks of factory presets. Helix has eight banks, but I already use at least four set lists for my own: Guitar, Bass, Downloads, Church. I appreciate that I don't have to delete or overwrite a bunch of factory sounds to do it. In case you're counting, that still leaves me with one open bank. I name that one FACTORY OLD where I put all the deleted factory presets from 2.10 and previous updates. I'll be good until they amass more than 128 deleted presets and then I'll be scratching my head for what to do next.

I don't see any parameter tweaks to any of the presets I spot-checked while building the change list. I agree any perceived difference is likely placebo effect. It could also be due to the recommended globals reset. Some people may have forgotten to turn their input pad back on, or maybe they lost their old setting of outs to mic level, or any of a number of other globals that now cause them to have a slightly hotter output which will always sound "better" just because it's louder.

11 new presets were added, so 11 were taken out. I spot checked a bunch of the factory presets that carried over and found zero sonic changes to the parameters. You can get the list of changed presets from this other thread.

11 new presets, 11 deleted presets. I have the full list of old and new on my site here where you can also download an archive of the deleted presets: FACTORY 1 (5 removed presets) Have a Cigar Line 6 2204 Mod Pull Me Clean Pull Me Under Tom Sawyer FACTORY 2 (6 removed presets) All American Can’t Lie Lookatthis Graph Ode 2 Yer Mom The Syndrome 2.0 Travlin Riveside

Why do I keep seeing people refer to this as a Dumble, has Line 6 said somewhere that it is based on a Dumble?

I dig it. I can hear that Satch influence also!

Are you running 1/4" or XLR out? Check in the global settings for line vs. instrument level. Try the other setting. Also, run Helix volume knob on full (or turn off the knob in settings).

I am onboard the mono reverb train. I'm happy with Helix whether it has mono reverbs or not, but given a choice, I would use mono reverbs at least 80% of the time. It doesn't matter what other people use, need or feel. My personal opinion is to agree mono reverbs would be useful. I also agree the reason for no mono models here is most likely due to the holdover HD verbs.

Meaty!

I use Helix with a Dean equipped with EMG-707s. I have my input pad turned on always. I plug the Dean right into the guitar input. Sounds like this:

I despise IEMs. That's why I wear a full sized pair of studio cans on stage!

I don't think ASIO is a thing in the Mac world.

Is the popping literally recorded in the sound file or only on playback? I can record pop-free with Helix via USB with macOS but playback always has pops. As soon as I finish recording guitar takes I switch back to my other soundcard for playback and all pops go away. No amount of buffer increase has ever been able to remove the pops (for me) but the pops are not in the actual recorded file.

Lots of good info in this topic so this reply is "in addition to" and not "in place of" it. Most people say it's the sound man's job to make the band sound good. I approach my job as a worship musician differently. It is my job to make the sound man sound good, and the sound man's job to create an atmosphere conducive to worship. With that as my starting point, does it matter if people can hear my guitar solo? That said, let's dig in. Start by asking the FOH engineer about this. "Hey John, some people are telling me they can't hear the guitar solos I play. Is that your experience from the booth as well?" Maybe John will tell you about the sonic dead spots in your room where people will never be able to hear guitar solos. Maybe he'll tell you he doesn't actually know how to mix guitar solos to be heard. Maybe he'll tell you the guitar solos are really distracting and he's burying them in the mix to preserve the atmosphere. Maybe he'll tell you there's no sonic space to sit you in unless the keys stop banging away while you're playing a lead. Maybe he'll just shrug. Maybe he'll tell you to put more mids in your tone. Maybe your entire service is being mixed through a single PA speaker fifty feet above the stage that was installed in 1972 with a frequency response from 240hz to 3.8khz and there's nothing you will ever be able to do to get modern sound out of it. Point being it is a partnership and you have to work together. If you just start adding more and more mids to your tone he might be thinking, "man, that tone is mid-range-y!" and just keep cutting more and more mids each week. If you get "the shrug" from FOH then you're sunk. Insert wise saying about chains and the weakest link. Bottom line for church: if people are worshipping it doesn't matter if your solo can be heard or not. Still, take all the good advice others have offered in this thread in your quest to approach your craft with excellence.

To me, the easiest is: Computer outs -> mixer Helix outs -> mixer Mixer outs -> speakers That means you can always use computer audio whether Helix is turned on or not. Also, Helix via USB has some playback audio dropouts on OSX for some people. It's annoying if you're one of those people (I am). The above configuration totally avoids that problem. I always record Helix via USB but when I'm mixing, or playing along, I never use USB of Helix.

USB 1/2 is a stereo pair. USB 1 is the left channel while 2 is the right channel. To answer your original question, pan guitar hard left and mic hard right. If guitar goes to USB 1/2 as output, there will be no guitar in USB 2.

Micro (cents or fractions thereof) pitch shifting is a great alternative to chorus. This is because part of generating chorus effect is micro-pitch-shifting. The main difference is a chorus continuously changes the amount of pitch shift being applied while the pitch blocks will only give a static shift. That's not bad, it's just a difference in operation. A delay with modulated time is scary similar algorithm to chorus. That's why modulated delays sound so much like a chorus has been applied. Modulating a delay line also changes pitch of the delay line which is the same thing happening in a chorus.

The returns are much better suited to instrument input than the Aux in. I have no insight into why it's made that way, but second (or more) guitar/bass is better to a return than to Aux in the general case.

Awesome stuff.

I've got Pink Floyd on my "hope to have time to get all these tones done someday" list :D

If you are overwhelmed by too many options then asking for opinions will eventually get people naming every amp again and you're back to square one ;) Picking ones that work for you is best and you're off to a good start. For cleans, I am right with you on Mesa and Soldano clean channels. I love'em. Dirty is much less universal. I can say many people gravitate toward the Matchless channel 2 and jumped mode for rock or lead stuff. Those two models have such a great mid-range quality that can cut most mixes.