mileskb

All of what you said is valid if you already know what IR's you'll be using and you aren't purchasing or trading presets with someone. As example.. I just purchased Glenn's artist II presets and they come with IR's. I already had IR's in the spots he has his presets pointing to for his IR's. So I had to go through and either redo all my presets that used IR's which meant flipping through every preset I have experimented with in the past 9 months, or load the IR's into other slots and go through each of the new presets, find the IR reference and point it to the correct IR. Not very pleasant chore when all I wanted to do was load the presets and play around a bit. Workable for sure... but we're not even into the Helix for a year yet. More and more folks are creating IR's for tone matching... and well... as I mentioned above... I can only imagine what a session player must go through, or someone in a couple 3 cover bands... It may not be much of an issue today... but I think it will be soon. As I stated above, if Line6 decides to address IR Management, they'll likely come up with a solution better than any of us thought of. At least that's been their model (excuse the pun) so far. Until then, like everyone else.. renumbering, spread-sheets, and having to come up with a "plan" any time you get some new presets or IR's to play with. I do wonder if they realized the power of "tone matching" with IR's that some are using. I wouldn't have thought it would work due to the resolution one usually needs for impulse responses for rooms and such.... but they work really well. As they say... we shall see.

So I just auditioned the Tom Scholz / Boston preset from Glenn. To be fair it's a "Boston" tone, not necessarily a Tom Scholz tone, but I'm not knocking it as that is what it is supposed to be. So far just listened via headsets. One might ask what's the difference between a Tom Scholz tone and a Boston tone, and well it's that this preset is what the ALBUM recording sounds like.. not necessarily exactly what Tom sounds like live. And that's ok. I was looking more for Tom's sound pre-mastering because I don't play any Boston songs, but I use that tone. I may be able to use this preset to create the sound I'm looking for, I'll just have to see. The key is the IR that is included. It's a real education in tone and what Glenn does to just enable and disable that one IR. It would be very cool if Line6 modeled some of the Rockmodules, or just a Rockman X100 for that matter, but after listening to this preset, I'm thinking I can re-create the Rockman sound at some point just for fun using snapshots to hit the Dist, Edge, Cln1 and Cln2 with Chorus and Echo..

Preaching to the choir. Been using Rock Modules since they came out. I sold most of them when I got my Helix. I still find it fascinating that his concept in the 80's was Full Range speakers on stage, and as the modules had cab simulators in them, send the Full Range signal to FOH. No mic'd cabinets on stage. It seems it's taken a while for modelers to catch up. He doesn't think much of digital, but least not publicly, but I'm sure he must be intrigued with the likes of AxeFX, Helix and Kemper, if not for sound, for a purely engineering standpoint.

Vote it up. !!! http://line6.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Improve-Impulse-Response-IR-Management/836099-23508

I agree... I'm it's sortof covered, but not directly addressed as value added, and you are right.. it could get out of hand very quickly.. I can only imagine what a gigging musician who plays in different cover bands must go through putting setlists together. Can you imagine the flow charts and spreadsheets involved?

I'm pretty excited to see what they come up with too. I can't imagine it's not already on the "how can we do this better" list. Maybe a simple IdeaScale suggestion? Does this cover it? ====================================================== Improve IR Management The primary goal is to not have to worry about what IR is in which slot. Functionally, If a preset is loaded that references an IR that's already been loaded, it should automagically find the IR and use it, and if the IR isn't already loaded, some visual reference that a block references a non-existant IR. Value Added When adding an IR to an IR Block, only display loaded IR's. When sharing presets that reference IR's, as long as you have the IR loaded on your Helix, the preset works. Restoring IR's after a RESET/Update is just a matter of loading the IR's onto the Helix in no particular order.

We are basically on the same page, but this is where the "overthinking" may be taking place. I could be wrong as different program languages do thing differently, but as In web design as the most basic example.... I use "includes". I put all my includes in a folder. When a page loads.. if there is an include called on that page... it loads it. Like each page has a menu, so near the top of every page is a "include menu" line. When each page is loaded, the menu code is loaded, so when the page is rendered... you see a menu. Same thing for header, footer, etc.. (Probably lost a lot of folks here).. My point is.. my "includes" or functions or IR's if you will, are just sitting there in no particular order. They get pulled into memory when the page (preset) is loaded (selected). In this scenario, there is no "relinking" to happen. If for some reason I forget to load the include into the folder of includes... the page coughs with a "missing include" error. In our Helix world, that might simple be the different color IR Block noting... that IR isn't out there. I have no idea how difficult this is for the Line6 engineers. If they are anything like me it's one of two scenarios... it's either, "oh wow, just edit some procedures to implement that" or it's "oh crap... if I had only written those procedures one way instead of the way I did, I could implement this in a heartbeat... now I have to re-write the whole damn routine." Of course there is the third option... much like what happened with Snapshots and all of 2.01 ... We all had idea's for "scenes" and thoughts of how it could work... and they came up with an option for implementation that pretty much blew all the backseat programmer idea's out the water. That's kinda what I'm hoping for here. I think my idea is pretty good and fairly easy, so I'm looking to be blown away if they actually take the whole "IR Management" thing on. Other than some effects and amp models that might be left on the table and some MIDI enhancements, along with the general improvements they've been doing... I frankly can't imagine what else we need that's not going to end up being a major upgrade maybe involving replacing a chip or two. I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out they're already working on IR Management of some sort.. When IR's were just "cabinets" that was one thing, but now folks like Glenn are using IR's for tone matching... Putting a setlist together that involves IR's could start to get a little time-consuming.

I like the conversation, but I think you guys are overthinking it. The hash idea is adding a layer... Not sure if this will make sence.. but here goes.. If I have a program that uses a function... I can load that function at any time, or not at all. It only matters if it gets called and it's not there. It's not "called" by anything magic... it's called by it's name. The windows operating system uses .dll's Dynamic Link Libraries... but essentially they are functions. Ever get an error "missing .dll" then you just register (so it loads) that .dll and all is fine..?? This is a WAY oversimplification... but... for the purpose.. The way IR's are stored now, is probably an Array. There are however many slots there are. When we select an IR, it's being told go to slot 6 or whatever. It's probably just as easy to tell it to load -insert name of IR- The value added of this is that when you go to select an IR, rather than a long list of slots... some empty, some full.. you would just get a list of IR's that are loaded. In the real world example.. Someone sends you a preset, or you download a preset that uses a specific Ownhammer IR. If you already know that you have that IR loaded.... All you have to do is load the preset and rock away...

I took this comment from another thread as I really think it is the 400 lb gorilla in the room. I primarily use presets that I've purchased from either Scott or Glenn and will be using Chris as well. They all seem to speak my language so I see no reason to re-invent the wheel. I'm also still exploring my Helix. I learn things every time I fire it up, and frankly I'm glad I didn't get into too deep on my own presets as Snapshots has been the game-changer that I didn't realize I was looking for and now I feel comfortable to start. However, IR's... I'm an old fart. I need to be sitting at comfortable workstation if I'm going to do extensive editing, and if you get a bunch of presets and want to try them out.... well "a bunch of editing" is what it takes. You have to go get the IR's, than figure out what slots they go into for each preset and load them. Of course, you have to hope that the IR from another preset doesn't take that slot, else you need to load the IR into a different slot and then edit the presets to point to it. Oh yeah... and then some IR's have a recommended global EQ setting and that's something you'll want to dial in anyway... There has got to be a better way. Thinking as a programmer, functions have names. It doesn't matter how they get into memory as long as they do, and then they are called by their name. I wonder if there is a way to do this with IR's. It would seem that the current coding with modification could almost support this. To be specific... 1. You would load your IR's. Each would have to have a unique name, but that's it. Just load'em. They don't go into slots as such, just load'em until you can't load no mo... I assume the limit would be the same number of slots.. but the "slots" won't matter. 2. When you need to add an IR block, you get a list of loaded IR's. Now here's where the beauty lies... If you have loaded an IR called "Vox AC30 1a" ANY preset, that has "Vox AC30 1a" in the IR Block is going to find that IR. A couple of corollary ideas would be that if you loaded a preset that referenced an IR that you didn't have loaded yet, the IR block be maybe Yellow or some other color to let you know that an IR is being referenced that isn't loaded. Then all you need to do it load that IR if you have room. Just spit-ball'n here, but it would seem "name" based rather than "slot" based would make life a whole lot easier in the long haul. I'm sure those with more experience have idea's too. But at the very least, this would eliminate the whole annoying restore process after updates. Doesn't matter what slot, just load'em up.

The only thing I have to add is that I recorded the Helix B15 Portaflex and an actual B15 Portaflex, and the helix recording sounded more like the Portaflex, than the actual recording of the Portaflex.. I know it sounds silly to say that, but recording the actual portaflex I had to deal with distances, the room, the exact mic placement, the pre-amp used, etc etc etc.. They Helix.... ummm I plugged in the Bass, selected the Portaflex preset, and hit record.

First... as others have said, use the Helix as your interface. If for no other reason it cuts down on the number of conversions your signal goes through. Regarding compression and EQ, while the general rule is to record as dry as possible, that's also considering the "old school" technique where you are mic'ing an amp in the room to record. In this scenario, while some engineers do it, you really shouldn't put any EQ or compression on that mic that is doing the recording. However, there certainly may be compression and EQ on the front of the signal chain to achieve the sound in the room, and you'd want to leave those in place. With the Helix, things are a little different. If you are putting the Compression at the END of your signal chain this would be like putting compression AFTER the mic that is recording... you don't really want to do that. It's not part of your sound. If on the other hand your compression in up front, and part of your sound, than by all means leave it in place. Same for EQ. I would turn off Global EQ, and I would not use any EQ AFTER the cab for recording. Again, you may have some EQ up front in the signal chain to get your sound. Use of compression and EQ up front some people refer to as "sustain" and we wouldn't want to kill that. An easy way to think about all this is... Everything BEFORE the CAB in the Helix chain is equivalent to "in the room" or what's coming going to be coming out the speaker. Everything starting with, and AFTER the CAB in the signal chain is more importantly AFTER the Microphone that's pointed at the Cabinet in the signal chain.

Sometimes USB ports are internally shared, much like if you had a USB hub. Best thing is to switch ports and ensure you are using the latest drivers.

I wanted to call this one out because I think it might be low hanging fruit. I've had one for many years (just sold it recently) and the Line6 comes so close with a couple of the choices that it just seems add a little depth to one, or a little color to another and your there. I don't recall which ones I tried off the top of my head, but I remember that was my reaction... If this one just had more depth, or this one had more color, or this one had more speed, etc..

Just in case you weren't aware, there is a plethora of info on rockman.rf and perfectsoundrefurbs Although I put it aside awaiting the latest update.. I think the bucket brigade delays in the Helix can mimic the Rockman delays and I find I can tweak the Line 6 Chorus to be about spot on too. Now with the 10-band EQ I may jump back on it, but waiting for Glenn's preset for a starting point. I have used the Rockman gear since the beginning, but not to get the "Boston" sound but rather my own. The Rockman gear came so close, but was always lacking in some aspect for me. I wanted the trails of the delays longer, the chorus deeper and slower, a more spring reverb sound, and for things like the XPR, I wanted a way to gracefully bypass the compressor altogether more easily, and adjust the EQ of the signal going to the delays and reverbs. etc.. With the Helix, I have all of those capabilities, the only thing that has eluded me is getting anywhere near the sustainer sound and more importantly character. We shall see... no pressure Glenn !!! (if you're reading this).

Yep, that's what I really love about the tuner. I generally play three-piece arrangements so it's more important we are in tune as group. If it turns out I need to "tune" a little flat or sharp a couple of cents across the board due to an synth or sample I'm using.. this 2.0x update makes that a breeze. While I haven't put it to the test, it seems like I can tune faster with it too. Again, if I'm just tuning to myself or a 6-string... I just need the green bar, but if I'm tuning the 10 or 12 strings, seeing the plus or minus on the octaves and especially the doubles, really helps speed up the process.

While I haven't integrated the Helix with my XPR (sold it actually because of the Helix) I'm very familiar with the XPR. It ONLY accepts patch changes. So you can't as example, send midi to the XPR to engage the chorus. You can only pick patches. FWIW, I kept my Sustainer and an EQ, but Glenn is coming out with a Scholz preset this month... and I can't wait.. Take notice at the little "trick" at 6:26 !!!!

I hadn't seen this thread before. But I'm not sure I can help. "under $300" is "economy" not mid range.. and for "guitar cabs, vocals, acoustic guitar and double bass" I would have likely four different mic scenarios. How having said that... - For guitar cab, I use a Sennheiser e609. I use it because since I purchased them, I find they re-create what I'm hearing from the cab and they can handle high pressure. I routinely hang them over cabs get them just shy of the grill cloth. I haven't noticed anyone using them for making IR's, and I can't imagine why not, especially on a budget. I didn't get them for price, I got them because of all the mics I tested at NAMM several years back for mic'ing cabs, these seemed to be the truest. - Acoustic Guitar. You really don't want to skimp here. A Rode NT2 is nice, but if you can swing it... Nuemann TLM103. It just seems to have the right amount of everything. - Vocals, Again, Rode NT2 or my favorite, Studio Projects C3. I also have a T3 and a Nuemann M149 which are both tube mics.. but I've leaned heavily on the C3 for vocals over the years. - For the double bass... a piezo pickup is nice, but the TLM103 or the M149, or even the T3 to do the bulk of the work. The key with a large diaphragm tube mic, at least the ones I've mentioned, is you can get far enough away from the instrument to hear the tone, without the rubbing of the strings and creaking of the wood. It's a fine line... It helps if it's a nice flat room, but more often than not, the room adds a "feel" as long as it's not hurting the tone. Tube condensers are VERY sensative and VERY dynamic so unlike lets say a regular dynamic mic that when you move it away from the source is sounds "distant"... you can get a large tube condenser pretty far away, and it still sounds like your on top of it. My thought/knowledge on under $300 condenser mics is that not only are they very similar, in many cases they are the same. There are a couple of factories in China (at least as of a few years ago) that made the bulk of them. Studio Projects sets them selves apart because they are audio guys. They set out to match the classics like U87, C12 etc.. and time after time in mic shootouts, experts couldn't tell the difference or in fact many times they picked the SP thinking it was the "original". My bottom line on Microphones... forget looking at specs.. Get recommendations from people who have used them that you trust, then check the specs to make sure you're not going to hurt them. Then try them. I have three sources for microphone info. Alex at LostArtVintage.com for classic ones, the folks at SoundPure.com who do microphone shootouts of their own so they know what mics do what, why and how, and a FOH engineer that I know who puts microphones through very demanding circumstances on a daily basis.

Headpins, Chilliwack, Colin James !!!!!

I wanna say Triumph... but then again... I don't think it is... but it might be... arrrrrggghhhh I know that riff... I just can't place it !!!!!!

I'm interested mostly in his Scholz preset. I sold most of my Rockman gear, and while I have used it since the beginning, I started augmenting it early on with better reverbs and delays. I can't wait to have the similar "sound" but with the added flexibility of the Helix.

I'm thankful the browser came out, but there are actually several, what I would consider basic navigation conventions that have been altered. I get the "theory" of the sliders, much easier on tablets, but then again... and EQ with "horizontal" sliders? That's rough. Also... having knobs or small "vertical" sliders isn't really that big a deal... As example on some software when you press on the slider, it becomes a larger slider easily moved with your finger. When you take your finger off, it reverts back. Using a mouse, it doesn't need to change, so it doesn't. This seems pretty standard for remote mixing consoles which frankly you need access to sliders faster than you would ever need on a guitar in normal circumstances. If it were me... Using knobs in software now is a piece of cake. Again remote mixers do it all the time. You just press the "knob" and slide your finger up/down/left/right to make the changes as appropriate for gain or pan etc.. Same with EQ settings... just touch the knob and move your on the screen. These also work especially well with mice that have a roller or a trackball as again, you just click and slide... no having to track along a fixed point. Finally, while the display area where it shows the blocks is nice... that should scale. As long as you can distinguish the icons to click or press, anything more is a waste of precious real estate. I am NOT complaining... Just thought I would share how I would have done it. Honestly, they had a fairly short timeframe to pull this off with what I'm sure are limited resources. Afterall, an editor would be hardly of use without the Helix. Than again, with major updates like 2.01 not sure how "modular" and other design might be. Maybe now that 2.01 is in the wild, I really can't imagine too many "major" changes to the interface so maybe they'll get a chance to tweak up the editor a bit, if they want to.

Do you have the IR's loaded? I believe some of his more recent patches include IR's, but don't quote me on that. But in any case.... shoot him a note and ask for help. He's a stand up guy and supports his product.

Exactly... As I mentioned earlier, I like to rely on the gear to tune. But having said that, be it using the peterson strobe or the Helix now... I can get each string as close to the center as possible. It might not be dead center, just like the strobe drifts a little, but it's close enough that my ears, or a pair of doubled strings can't tell the difference.. Previously... tuning the doubles would sometimes be ok.. and sometimes not because I really couldn't tell how in range I was on each string. The Helix has solved that now. And yes, it takes a little getting used to, and yes you must follow PierM's advise on tuning, but we should have been doing that all along.

I have a Moser 10 string (think B.C. Rich Bich) and an Ovation Pacemaker (12-Sting)... let me say it again... Dear Line 6 engineers that worked on the Tuner display... Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! ....... and Thank You !!! (did I miss anyone?) :blink: Especially for tuning the Bich... which I actually checked before the upgrade. Granted it was close, but two of the doubled strings sets were an each end of the tolerance.... so it "sounded" out of tune and really the only way to dial it in, was by ear. That doesn't work for me. I made a pact long ago that no one would ever hear me tune on stage. While I don't play out anymore... at least not yet... I just can't stand "hearing" a guitar being tuned, even if it's mine. When I unplug the tuner, or unmute the tuner on the Helix, I expect to be playing... not still tuning... and THAT is what I have now... THANK YOU !!!! This is awesome. Now I won't have to bring my Peterson when I play, at least not for me to use.

An old school trick... Using two 10 band EQ's, one panned left, one panned right. I haven't tried it on the Helix, but it should work. Initially set up with ONE EQ, to get your sound, then clone that eq and pan them hard left and right. Then, go to each slider starting with one, say the left and alternataly bumping up 2db or down 2db go to each slider, up 2, then down 2 from the setting you determined in step one. Then go to the OTHER eq, and starting on the same side, START the first slider DOWN 2db (opposite of the other EQ where you started with 2db up) and do the same thing alternating down and up a couple of db. Make sure they are hard panned left and right and this should give a pretty full sound, or you may have to go more than 2db each. This may or may not be enough separation, but due to reasonable default Q settings on each slider, you shouldn't loose any tonal quality, your just making each side sound just a little different. Used to do this all the time to make mono cassettes sound good when converted to stereo. Now speaking of which... there used to be some nice mono > stereo and vs versa plugins for DAW... Q-Tools was a favorite. They did a real nice job. Not sure if there is enough use, but a tool like that in the helix would be nice. maybe not necessary.. haven't thought about it that much.