bsd512

Tons of great advice in this thread, and is greatly appreciated from the folks contributing. I will definitely be absorbing it and learning. From what you're describing it sounds like we are in a similar position. I'm 50 y/o now and played for a few years as a teenager. I got to a certain level on my own - never had a guitar lesson ever, mainly listening to records and playing by ear. Due to life circumstances, I stopped playing. I recently picked it back up after not playing for 35 years and quickly renewed my love for playing the guitar and kick myself daily for ever stopping. After playing again for about a year later in life, I had all the same concerns you do. And since I'd never had any instruction when the first few years as a teenager I never payed much attention to how I picked or anything - I just did what felt natural and didn't give it a second thought or even know any better to give it a second thought. But now at 50 after 35 years of not playing, I started to question all that after the plethora of youtube advice and instruction available (if only youtube and the internet was available when I was a teenager :)) I questioned whether I was even holding the pick right, and wondered about all the things I might be doing wrong but don't know it. And stressed somewhat about it. So I found a local guitar instructor after interviewing a few that seemed would work out for me. He said he'd watch my playing, help correct any technique issues, evaluate my form, whether I appeared tensed up in the shoulders and all that - sounded exactly like what I wanted. I told him going in was Ok at some things, but knew I lacked basic fundamentals (no lessons and all that) and wasn't even sure if I was doing even the most basic of things correctly. I'm 8 lessons in now (8 weeks). The first 4 lessons he had me working on chording, timing, learning a few songs and a few other things. I think he was mainly evaluating where I was during that time but he didn't come out and say that. At the 5th 1-hour lesson, he stepped back and concluded I was rather unique in that he would categorize me as an "advanced" player. BUT ... as I predicted, there are some very basic stuff that I just didn't know or couldn't do well - like some simple strumming rhythms, chord construction beyond the basics, etc, and big void in music theory itself. Since I was worried about picking technique and things I asked him about that and he said I actually had exceptional right hand picking and left hand fretting technique, learned all the songs he threw at me in the first few lessons very quickly and so on. And I learned I'm largely an economy picker, though unconsciously I alternate pick sometimes and economy other times. I didn't know any better at the time as I self-taught, that's just what I naturally gravitated toward on my own. So he's now focusing me on filling in the basic things I never learned early on that I would have had I had lessons, and has said my overall technique is really good - he's not making any recommendations on anything related to that. What that did, though, is give me confidence that I'm at least doing OK in terms of picking, fretting, muting, yada yada. And now's the time to fill in some of the basic building blocks that more experienced players started with early on, so that I can more productively advance beyond where I am now. My instructor doesn't really give me particular riffs or anything - he's more of a coach, guiding down the right path to fill in my gaps. All the hard work of digging in deep into a particular area is still up to me and lots of practice. But I feel that's what I've needed - a coach to point me down the right path to the areas I need to study and practice in order to achieve the goals I want. And that's very helpful to me as it keeps me from "stressing over picking technique" when that's not a problem, and instead I can improve much more productively by learning how to construct more advanced chords for different voicings that I didn't know were possible before, opening up the crazy complex world of music theory a little bit at a time, and with the odd trick or technique thrown in for good measure. And I have no grand aspirations, I just want to improve myself and make an already extremely enjoyable and therapeutic activity EVEN more enjoyable. It's not unusual that I'll go up to my play room at 6 or 7pm in the evening, tell my wife I'll be down in an hour or so, and then look up at the clock and it's 3am in the morning and I'll wonder where the time has gone. Feels like total immersion for me and that's one of the reasons I enjoy it so much - outside life and stress just melts away when I have a guitar in my hand and a Helix at my feet. :) So my recommendation is to hook up with an experience instructor who will evaluate your playing, your strengths, your weaknesses, and help you go from there.

Wow that sounded great! I tend to agree with duncann on the soldano. Maybe just a bit more volume, but still thought it sounded perfectly fine. I thought the shiva part was a little too much front-and-center ... unless that's what you were going for, and then if so, leave it. :) But I liked that the soldano seemed to be pushed back into the mix a little more - it was still prominent, but didn't dominate over everything else. Great job! Lightyears ahead of what I can do. :-)

Kind of puts it into perspective, doesn't it? :) I think I recently priced out my Mac Pro "dream machine" and it sub-totaled for $9k+. What??? Yeah, that's not happening. I am running a 2009 cheesegrater Mac Pro that is humming along quite nicely running Logic Pro X, intensive electronics CAD software, a number of code compilers and cross compilers for embedded development, about 853 USB devices most of which are my own frankenstein creations, dozens of TB of internal disks, 64GB RAM, video editing and a boatload of other stuff. It's pretty old but it's solid and I can't remember the last time it crashed. But I'll be d!mned if I'm gonna pay anywhere close to that to update it. I'll keep it on life support if I have to. :)

Totally understand this is not your main point, but I'd tend to doubt it would be based on Linux due to the viral nature of the "open" source GPL license which essentially requires all changes and updates to be made freely available. Doesn't mean companies don't do it, but if so they do open themselves up to be sued to release their source. It has happened in the past. The BSD variants don't have this viral nature and are often used in devices you'd never expect, like cameras and many other sophisticated embedded electronics. And since we're all guessing at this point, I would tend to think they are more likely using a proprietary commercially licensed RTOS or one developed in-house. Just guessing, though. Could be totally wrong, but I can't help but think about Line 6 developers and their knee slapping belly laughs at our guesses. :)

Sorry - I'm not familiar with the Mono stuff. But just looking at a few photos on-line though, the build quality of the Mono stuff appears a little above this bag.

It has maybe a half an inch of pretty soft padding, not the most protection one might want if the worst happened. I wouldn't want to drop it on concrete or anything. I'd say moderate protection. But the Helix itself is pretty tough - I doubt dropping it on concrete even without the bag would hurt it much, not that I'd want to do that. There's a Line 6 video of that somewhere - drop test in the parking lot, I think, and even kicking the knobs with boots on and all kinds of cringe-worthy endurance testing. Yes, I gasped when I saw it - it's hard to watch. :) If you're looking for something that is really hardened and protective especially if other people are handling your gear, I'd probably avoid this bag. It's pretty nice for what it is, but it's not industrial quality.

Just got home from work and took these - here ya go. I'm sure it's not as rugged as the Line 6 bag, but it's sufficient for my use. Helix, powerstrip, and cables in the backpack, powered PA speaker in one hand, guitar in the other. Pretty portable and handy.

That was great!

Figured I'd post my first recording with it. I know I'm no where near as good of a player as all of the people on this board - all you guys and girls are pretty amazing players as evidenced by the SoundCloud clips and songs you've posted. I figured I'd post it up anyway - I'm loving this new guitar. Bridge pickup. On the Helix, this is the Angl Meteor (ENGL Fireball) feeding an OwnHammer Orange 2x12 combo-mic'd cabinet IR followed by a little delay and reverb. I also recently acquired EZDrummer 2, which I think sounds better than Logic's built-in drummer and is easier to customize. Logic's drummer is nice but is somewhat hard to control if you want something specific - there are ways around that, but it's somewhat cumbersome and time-consuming. EZDrummer definitely puts the EZ in making drum tracks. Anyway - hope you like it. I didn't spend a lot of time on it - came up with it yesterday, tweaked it a little last night, and recorded it this morning. Helix, a decent DAW (Logic in my case), and a virtual drummer make the process pretty easy - at least for getting something rough like this done pretty quickly. I know there's way more involved for professional quality stuff, but for an amateur like me, it's never been easier. https://soundcloud.com/user-22828532/x-62-110

Thanks very much for the recommendation. I got EZ Drummer 2 and it's working out great!

I tried your patch and very much liked it. Thank you for sharing!

Zipper, then the flap covers the zipper and secures by velcro.

I can confirm the Helix fits nicely in this backpack keyboard bag - I'm sure it's not the quality of the Line 6 bag, but at less than half the price, it works very well: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006KEILD8/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Thanks, all! I am very very happy with her. I'm coming from an ultra thin neck Schecter with active pickups so it's a little getting used to for me. The neck shape is a bit different from a traditional Les Paul, though, so that eases the transition somewhat. The 2017 Standard HP has an asymmetrical neck, sort of like half-a-tear-drop shape with the thicker side under the low E string where your thumb would be, so for me it still feels and plays great, but still thicker than the Schecter I'm used to. I love it, though. Thanks! It's the Heritage Cherry Sunburst Standard HP. All of them. :) Ok, not really, I do have a day job but I'm having a lot of fun going back through my patches I made for my active-pickup Schecter and listening and enjoying. They all sound great, and I think the crunchier amps like the Litigator definitely sound better (to me) with this guitar. But I still like the higher gain Angl Meteor by itself and the various JCM models with a little overdrive in front. But I really need to explore more of the amps available in the Helix - the tones from this guitar are giving me a new appreciation for many of the amps I didn't really pay much attention to before, like the Soup Pro, Matchstick Jump and those of that feel. Hard to pin-point it, they just sound "better" and more organic. :) And there's so much variation possible within the guitar itself - the volume and tone knobs have a more pronounced affect, the two pickups can be split or tapped with the push pull knobs, and with one setting just the inner coils of both pickups are combined which is subtle but distinctly noticeable, too. Much is possible!

I had a Roland KC-110 I got for an ultra-portable FRFR'ish solution, it's even battery powered. It was pretty decent. From the reviews I saws, folks seem to like it more than the Cube. But for the money, it fell a little short. I ended up exchanging it for a TS212. The TS212 is not quite as portable, but it's portable enough and I'm pretty happy with it. I did need to add a global EQ for when I play through it vs my L3t - the TS212 seems much more boomy while the L3t matches my studio monitors much more closely. On the other hand, while I don't really gig, I do load up and go to friends house and play, and the L3t is a little big and heavy for that. The TS212 works fine for it - with a backpack (not the Helix backpack), it's just one trip from the car. Helix in the backpack, guitar in one hand, TS212 in the other. If I wasn't penny pinching, I'd have gotten the L2t instead of the TS212, but it's about 3x the price and a bit heavier, and for my purposes, the TS212 was fine for taking to a friends house and jamming. I did consider one of the Spider V's and would have used the aux input from the Helix and had a 2nd amp for other stuff, but elected for just the TS212. I kind of flipped a coin on that one.

Oh, and @Spikey - it has a built-in tuner - it tunes itself. G-force is pretty great! :)

It's the Standard HP. Thanks!

Thanks! I've been wanting one of these since forever. It's my first - and pretty much blows my toy allowance for the year. Probably food, too. Beans and rice from hear on out. :lol: But I finally got one! It's everything I'd hoped.

It arrived today. Makes my Helix sound even better. :)

While it is much more, this should also solve, indirectly, the requests for a standalone editor as it would presumably allow one to make patches and edits without the hardware being connected and upload them later.

Mine froze last night on 2.12, Mac OS X El Capitan, USB connected. I just got a new Variax guitar. I plugged in using the VDI cable, went to switch to a blank preset to try it out, and instead of switching to the new preset, it froze. Reboot cleared it. That's the first time 2.12 (or anything after 2.0) has frozen up on me.

I think all such statements have an implied "We believe ..." or "In our opinion ... " prefixed to them. It's up to the marketplace to prove or disprove them. :)

You that that right on customer service! I just got the shipping confirmation, and it should be here tomorrow. And the SW rep e-mailed me glamor shots of it they plan to use for their photo gallery. Never had anyone do that before - serial number matches the photos and everything, so not just stock photos - this is my guitar. :)

Oh well, GAS just took over and I picked up the duo pack. Previously I had purchased just individual cabinets - but this is like a mega-pack with all those speaker combinations. On the cabs I'd purchased before, each cab generally had two different kinds of speakers and the combination of the two. This one has four - much more to go through. I rarely venture beyond the "quick start" and "summary" directories, though, which are plenty for me, so that keeps things reasonably sane. I'm really liking what they are calling their "bold" mix which wasn't present in the previous cabinets I purchased: "a proprietary mix that has a forward midrange with a slightly relaxed top and bottom end."

Dang, I really want to get that California Duo pack. But then I have go through the hard process of deciding what IRs I'm gonna boot in order to make room for the new ones. I sooo wish we had more than 128 slots for IRs in the Helix.