HonestOpinion

Great stuff!

Yup, that is exactly how I see it and use it. I like this additional method the OP is inquiring about though. It would be a nice option although I know of no way to pull it off right now.

^^^This!!!! And it is not just the IRs and mics, it is a problem with many of the parameters in the Helix Editor. I have been concerned with and commented about the overuse of the sliding bars since the Editor first came out. It absolutely goes against every sound UI design principle to not have a drop-down menu or a similar element for any list that exceeds a very few items. This part of the Editor design is absolutely atrocious. Scrolling through a list of a over a hundred items one at a time is user abuse. How does something like this even get out of alpha testing?

I suggest we address this potential bug by delivering new HX reverbs in both stereo and mono to the Helix... ;)

That is a bummer. I wonder if the key is to import them, have their bypass state flip, export them, and then re-import them again, bypass state flips back to original setting... :P

Ha! No doubt, L6 may need to rethink those "punitive" measures. ;)

I love the reference to "a shot of cheap mezcal" in the 2.21 firmware release notes. :)

Great article and it applies to how we do intonation as well. I have read through several of these types of articles over the years and they make some good points. I just hope we are not back to implying that the problem with the tuner is people don't know how to use it properly.

Thanks for the info! What do you think are the best methods to convey this to Line6 at this point? To me the jumpiness seems so glaringly obvious I can't imagine that they do not already perceive it as a problem. It is really difficult to gauge how many users are affected from the forum but I would think the number is substantial. How can we expedite this fix and move it up in the queue? I think an Ideascale submission might well get as many negative votes as positive because there is also such a substantial portion of the user base that due to their particular guitar(s) or the fact that they use the Helix casually at home or in their studio are not feeling the pain here. The tuner display on the Helix is so nice I just can't see an external tuner as being the solution here. It might sound overly dramatic but I really do think it undermines consumers' overall confidence in the device when basic core functionality cannot be rendered properly for a wide range of users. Not only can we not get an excellent tuner but it is doubly frustrating that to some extent all efforts to convey the urgency (I use that term loosely) and even the existence of the problem seem to have been stymied. Anyway, I know it sounds like people are belaboring the point but to me it just comes down to not wanting to have to use an alternative tuner when the potential for this one is so great. It is like having the ice-cream truck driver drop your cone as he hands it to you. The tuner is tantalizingly close to being excellent but it simply does not measure up right now during a performance. I am not without hope though, Line6 was responsive to the complaints about granularity and I see no reason why they would want to leave the job partially complete. We just need to convince them that it is not quite there yet. I hope they will get around to fixing this for everyone, not just a subset of their users, sooner rather than later.

I can see where this symptom might be displayed if you put the reverb block before the amp. Any natural compression and distortion or even gating and EQ cuts employed in the high gain amp model might effectively mask the reverb. Does the reverb disappear when you palm mute on a reverb block placed after the amp and cab?

If I understand what you are asking correctly I currently know of no way to activate a block and have it persist when switching to a snapshot that does not have that block activated. The link Zooey sent you describes what I believe to be is the currently available snapshot behavior on the Helix. The "Recall" setting will allow you to return to a snapshot where you activated a block manually and still have the block active. However, I know of no setting that will allow a snapshot to reflect the state of a block that was activated in a different snapshot. The block has to have already been saved as active in the snapshot you are switching to. If someone else knows how to pull this off please chime in. This might make a good Ideascale request.

Thanks for the recommendation on how best to get this addressed. I am curious phil_m, not that I really expect an answer as you are probably not at liberty to disclose this, but is your opinion about the tuner shared by the Helix team over at Line6? When I see the beta testing team digging in their heels in this case I can't help but wonder if this is a collective opinion between Line6 staff and the testers; a bit of an echo chamber effect. I believe it is in the users' and Line6's best interest to fix this. What better way to demonstrate that items as complex as amps and advanced effects are being modeled correctly than to make a tuner that is at least as good as the majority of inexpensive alternatives in the marketplace. A tuner has a visual component that makes it very clear when it has been designed properly. It is the marketing neon sign blinking on the Helix. I would be surprised if the large clear tuner display was not viewed by L6 as one of the most visible selling points for the Helix. It sure caught my attention initially for all the right reasons and unfortunately is not delivering when I most need it to.

That is exactly the point though Peter, you were recording. Unless you were in a very expensive studio paying by the minute there is no time pressure there and the tuner does a fine job under those circumstances. Try the 30 second test and see if you can get in tune. Unless you play a 1-string guitar there is absolutely no way you are nailing it with the Helix tuner.

You know people are digging in their heels and being stubborn when you start seeing klangmaler's Groundhog Day video pop up. Break us out of this endless loop and fix the tuner!

Thanks! Don't know how I missed that.

I just wanted to say that despite my comment regarding Exxon climate change scientists I hold PeterHamm and Phil_m in high regard. At the risk of sounding like I am pandering I have to say they are both extremely technically competent and ceaselessly help out their fellow users. Their posts have been enormously helpful to me on multiple occasions. They provide their time and beta testing on behalf of the user community to Line6 for little or quite possibly no compensation. We need them on our side on this and other issues as they provide testing, feedback, and have a direct conduit to Line6. They are an important link between the user community and Line6 and we fare better when they are actively enlisted in solving a problem. They may legitimately not be seeing these issues on their rigs or not find the jumpiness to be problematic even if they are somewhat influenced by a protective stance towards Line6. I hope that the feedback they are receiving encourages them to experiment with and pursue this issue with the tuner further with Line6 despite the fact that they may feel like they are under attack. I don't think that is anyone's intention here and it is ultimately not constructive or conducive to getting a fix. Conversations on the forum do have a way of escalating sometimes when people feel strongly about an issue but I would be sad to see the collective benefit a fix would bring be sabotaged by any of the posts regarding this issue. Call me sentimental but I feel a strong sense of community with the users on this forum as well as Line6 and I think together we can get this issue straightened out, even if it is not impacting everyone.

I adjust some of the tube parameters using the same method I use to design many of my presets; I run the looper to free up my hands. I tend to set the ripple and hum down close to zero adding a bit more in when I want additional "flavor". I set the Bias according to what sounds best to me for a given amp and I also use a tip from sminchk67 (runs the Helix channel) and strum a big chord to help me find the sweet spot for the bias. Once I set the Bias I usually set the Bias-X in the same general area as the Bias unless I can easily hear a difference when I move its bar. Not for any good reason but because I find it difficult to hear a significant difference when I adjust the Bias-X bar on many of the amp models. I would be interested if anyone has a good practical method for setting Bias-X. Sag is a little tricky because not only can it change the tone and compression but it also determines the "feel" to a certain extent. I usually set it to what sounds good when the looper is playing and then I may end up adjusting it again depending on how it feels when I am playing. I believe there used to be a section under the amps on helixhelp.com that described the various tube parameters but I don't see it any more.

Good question and I don't pretend to know why it has not been fixed yet. They may have other priorities or have not reached a consensus that it needs to be fixed. I think many or us are encouraging a fix without consensus because it does not impact all users and it never will. For all I know this issue may be perceived to be a lower priority than new effects and other features judging by some of the comments here. Perhaps these sentiments are shared by Line6; their decisions are above my pay-grade. Those of us wrestling with the tuner are just attempting to move the fix up in the queue. I don't recall having said it was an easy fix although it may be. I will hazard a guess that technology that has been around for decades now and can be delivered successfully in a $19 clip-on may not be at the top of the technical difficulty pyramid. I do think it is an important fix and one that should take a high priority as a tuner that works in multiple scenarios (studio, stage) is a critical component for the Helix. The tuner, a core feature, is my number one priority as nothing else on my Helix wishlist impacts the quality of a performance as substantially as the tuner. Until it is fixed I suppose I can use another tuner but that kind of logic can ultimately be applied to swapping in an external pedal for every feature on the Helix. Using an external pedal makes sense for some of the more esoteric effects that require a whole lot of dedicated processing but basic tuner operation does not fall in that category. Besides, you want to use that thing, the Helix tuner has a hella nice display.

My comments were not directed at you. I genuinely do appreciate people offering workarounds. It is important to point out when a workaround has become an onerous substitute for fixing a problem. This is no reflection on the kind soul who has offered up a way to get around the issue in the interim, quite the opposite. Workarounds are extremely welcome and the people that come up with them are bloody saints! Although difficulty replicating a problem does complicate trying to find a fix I have a hard time imagining that this is the case here. All it takes is having to do a couple of performances or even rehearsals and testing a few guitars to see this tuner has an issue. Observing the much more copacetic behavior of a multitude of other tuners on the market makes the jumpy behavior on the Helix tuner glaringly obvious. I agree Line6 does generally have terrific customer service and nobody is saying they are not smart enough or don't care. I have no idea how you derive that from my posts. This conversation about the tuner has just been dragging on for months now and I would like to see the issue resolved. I generally find Line6 to be responsive and I am sure they are both aware of the issue and are probably trying to gauge how many people it impacts and how high a priority it is when it comes to the decision of if or when to address it.

Some very entertaining responses here but apparently "denial" is not just a river in Egypt. I cannot believe what I am hearing on this thread as people try to think and talk there way out of a problem that requires action in the form of a fix, not more "investigation" and discussion. Should we set up a multi-lateral committee to do an in depth analysis and produce a two hundred page report on the tuner? Now we are actually entertaining notions that the complaints about the tuner are due to "people not using it correctly". Seriously? A tuner is a dead simple device to use for the most part and the complaints are largely coming from players who are out performing so let's give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that if they are good enough to be paid to play most of them have probably mastered the complex art of operating a tuner. Although I appreciate the instructions regarding how to set the volume and tone and how to pluck the string, etc., I also find them inane. What performing musician has time for this kind of nonsense during a show and should a tuner really require custom guitar settings to operate properly? It is absolutely no fun and comes off as most unprofessional to be in the position of having a band or audience waiting as you try to get in tune with the Helix tuner. I have had to launch into many a song fully cognizant that my tuning was a bit off because we simply don't have the luxury of waiting for the Helix tuner to settle down and give me a definitive reading. These issues where a problem only effects a subset of the users tend to be the hardest ones to resolve because not everyone experiences the pain. In this case though that subset of users are the players who use the Helix for performance. That seems like a large enough group having a problem with a basic and critical MFX feature to be worth considering. Due to its granularity and responsiveness the tuner may be ideal for studio use. If you are not using the Helix for live performance I totally understand why you feel the tuner's sensitivity is not an issue or perhaps even a virtue. If you own a guitar(s) that happens to work perfectly with the Helix tuner I also get it. If you are one of the forum members who do beta testing and are therefor loosely affiliated with Line6 I also understand. No offence because you guys tirelessly help with the really challenging issues on the forum and are a critical resource but watching your responses on this issue is like reading a climate change report written by the lead scientist at Exxon. I can't help but think you are a bit biased. If I were in your position I would have given up the debate by now out of sheer exhaustion and gotten to work with Line6 to fix this thing. IMHO the tuner undeniably has issues for live use, ultimately I think these tuner threads will and should persist until it gets fixed. I understand the frustration (disgust?) of the developers or DI who delivered what people were asking for, a more granular tuner, and are yet again being asked to revisit it. The tuner is 90% there. The display is large and incredibly easy to see on a dark stage. The added second tuning bar provides great granularity. It is already eminently usable for home studios. This tuner could be magnificent, it just needs another revision to make it stage ready. Let's dispense with the chit-chat already and just fix this thing. Once the jumpiness is resolved we can revisit the tuner in new threads dedicated to requesting that it be polyphonic and include alternate tunings... :D

I agree with the suggestion regarding different USB ports. Also make sure you have downloaded and installed the latest 2.20 "Helix" app which includes the latest Updater, Editor, and Windows driver if you are on Windows. Hopefully the correct Editor version in combination with the right USB port will enable the Editor to see the Helix properly. Make sure to backup your presets and IRs before you run the FS 9&10 reset as this will clear your existing presets and IRs.

I don't find it unusable either, as you say it just takes too long to get correctly in tune. It is fine if you are in your home recording studio where the extra sensitivity may be handy for getting exactly in tune but it takes too long in a live situation. It even makes my bandmates antsy waiting for it in rehearsals. I have to stress I have never been obsessive about tuning although I like being in tune, I just want to quickly get "close enough for rock & roll" and be done with it.

Sure there is still the occasional person who does not find the tuner reactive or accurate enough but they are the extremely rare exception. If you look far enough back at the old tuner threads there were a ton of complaints that the tuner was not "granular" enough and that it read in tune even when it was not. There were few or NO complaints about it being jumpy. A few firmware versions ago they responded to the complaints regarding granularity with a firmware revision that made the tuner readout more granular and added the second tuning bar. That is when the complaints about it being too jumpy started and the complaints about granularity pretty much ended. Let's not start revising history by saying the complaints were alternating. We have moved from a stable tuner that people perceived as not responsive or granular enough to a jumpy tuner that I suppose you could describe as overly responsive. We just need to find a way to leverage the increased/improved granularity with a less jumpy readout or one that offers a momentary freeze (as discussed ad nauseam).

In addition to the method rcdiver57 describes above you can press Alt+LeftMouseButton on a parameter in the Editor to assign it to snapshots. Pressing Shift-Alt-LeftMouseButton will unassign it. You can also assign a parameter to snapshots on the Helix by pressing down the knob below the parameter and turning it in quick succession. Whether you use the Editor or the Helix to assign a parameter to snapshots you will see square brackets appear around the parameter value after it has been correctly assigned. Once you have the parameter assigned to snapshots a different value can be dialed in for each snapshot. You will need to save in between each snapshot if you want your snapshot parameter changes to be retained and you have the "Snapshot Edit" in global settings set to "Discard". The "Recall" setting will require you to save only once before you leave the preset.

Yes it is worth investing the resources! This is a modest request for a refinement/fix for the tuner, not a major feature. You put your finger right on the pulse and stated it perfectly. The whole problem is that the tuner is a "moving target"; way too much moving going on there. B)