HonestOpinion

Great post! For some there can be no substitute to a stout click of engagement. This will be most welcome to them.

Good point. Not sure if you were referring to the comment about mic versus line level but just in case...I don't own them but I think the Altos accept either line or mic level and you simply set the input volume knob level appropriately. I was referring to the fact that if you have whatever you are monitoring the Helix with set up for mic level output from the Helix and you do a global reset and that output ends up, unbeknownst to you, set to line, it can impact your sound.

Cool idea, voted!

Could one of your output settings be set to Line instead of Mic since you did your global reset? Just spitballing here as it sounds like you lost "feel" and you report the overdriven tones not sounding as "rich or powerful". Both of these symptoms might be attributed to a lower signal level at the outputs.

Thanks!

I have not used my M20d in quite a while but I also remember having problems trimming channels low enough in certain scenarios. That mixer does not seem to have a very dramatic cut when the faders are cranked all the way down. The M20d probably could have used a bit more latitude on the low end of the fader(knob) or an additional available db cut setting. I think you will just have to find spots in the Helix signal chain to attenuate the level going to the M20d. Another option might be to use a DI that has a db cut switch. That way you could keep the signal coming out of the Helix nice and hot but reduce it before it hits the M20d.

I appreciate the request but I am not much for posting my own stuff online here. Cheers.

The nice thing about being able to alternate back and forth between the modified and default snapshot settings is you can save either one before you switch away from the preset. You might decide you want your modified snapshot to be the default next time you pull that preset up. Or, as you suggest, don't save and leave the snapshot in its original state. Either way you can take advantage of the sort of limited redo/undo functionality this new change would offer to help design your snapshots/presets.

Lots of interesting ideas on implementation in this post!

I really like what willjrock did here regarding his experiment although things got a bit awkward conversationally there for a second. I am not sure his sample size was large enough and additionally, in the spirit of the "scientific method", his experiment probably should be repeated by someone else, and his findings confirmed. Perhaps there were presets or factors that he did not test or the changes were extremely subtle. Replicating results and improving on testing methodology is an important part of the arriving at the truth of the matter (don't mean to make it sound like we are curing cancer here :P ). Ultimately though I truly appreciate that there was an honest effort made to substantiate an assertion with facts rather than opinion. Not saying that opinion does not turn out to be correct a certain percentage of the time but I personally am much more powerfully swayed by efforts like willj's to methodically offer proof. We try to replicate each other's findings when there are bugs reported so why not do it when advances are reported. Good on both willjrock for doing his best to investigate as well as lulu_m for providing an alternate if less embraced opinion. I admit I am still on the fence until more evidence comes in or my own ears dictate an anecdotal conclusion. Maybe the sound is better overall or on particular presets, maybe it is not. I am not yet convinced one way or the other but much like the way amsdenj resolved a question about IRs by extensively testing them I am a big fan of seeing people objectively provide evidence for their findings where possible. Hard evidence tends to make me lean towards its direction off that aforementioned fence I am currently sitting on. You know what they say about opinions and how everyone has one. I can be a lazy bastich when it come to issues like this and am always happy to see some folks motivated enough to break out the test tubes and beakers. I do appreciate the OP's enthusiasm about the new update and his claims may yet be substantiated but you have to tip your hat to the attempts at academic and scientific rigor applied periodically on this forum. In the words of Quentin Tarantino, there are some "big brains" on here. Occasionally their methods may be flawed (not saying that is the case here) and they may not always be correct but you have to give them props for the effort and how frequently their facts do end up bearing out. They provide some firma to the terra. :)

Click on the "Help" > "About Helix" link in the upper left-hand menu of the Editor to see the Editor version. As you correctly pointed out the Firmware version is not the same as the Editor version and it is the Firmware version that is displayed below (not in) the menu. If you have not done it already make sure you download and install the latest "Helix" app version which includes the latest Editor, Updater, and Windows driver(if on Windows OS). The latest Editor version is 2.20. It is a good idea to double check your Editor and firmware version this way after every upgrade, and make sure you have the version of the Editor that matches your firmware. Note: The version numbers for the Editor and firmware are usually but have not always been the same for matched pairs of firmware and Editor; in other words the version of the Editor that must be used for that version of the firmware. This will probably change in the near future when Line6 modifies their upgrade process.

Enhance snapshot mode switching functionality https://line6.ideasc...es/891389-23508

I tried as much as possible to incorporate the concise verbiage and suggestions everyone provided as I could in an Ideascale entry for this and still managed to make it wordier than I would have liked. I hope the idea is able to convey the concept to both the experienced users who are already familiar with the existing snapshot modes as well as someone who may be newer to those options. Feel free to make clarifying comments and thanks again everyone for the assist. Ideas, sometimes you need to go it alone and some times, like this one, it takes a village (please resist temptation here to make village idiot joke :D ). Vote it up here! https://line6.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Enhance-Snapshot-switching-modes/891389-23508

I think this is great. Despite my overly complicated post this was actually exactly what I was proposing. Thank you zooey and bsd512 for expressing it in a much more concise manner. Btw, the reason I got a bit long-winded about the behavior is I was trying to demonstrate that moving between footswitches would retain the current "Recall" behavior but that alternating on the same switch would give you the choice of "Recall" or "Discard". Seems in retrospect I could have said that in one line though ;)

Maybe my explanation got too convoluted, this is exactly what I was proposing. Two states the default("Discard") and modified("Recall"), consecutive presses alternate back and forth between them. Simple and easy to invoke or get back to either state with the added benefit of being able to compare changes to the default.

After listening to everyone's suggestions this is the notion that comes to mind for me. I heard the following concerns and they all make sense to me although I suppose depending on the particulars of how the hardware/firmware of the Helix switches are implemented some of these concerns might turn out to be non-issues Possible issues with method for invoking Discard/Recall: Double Tap - easy to tap twice by accident and invoke state change accidentally, also potential latency on switching as firmware is waiting for second tap Tap & Hold - again possible latency as software waits to see whether there is a "tap" or a "tap and hold", or latency as firmware waits for sufficient hold time on the footswitch to indicate a state change request Second consecutive tap (differentiated from a Double tap) - Again this method could easily be invoked accidentally I think now my preferred method would be the following. This could be a third option, a mode e.g. "Hybrid" that would be an addition to the current "Discard" and "Recall" modes. I suppose it could also just be the default action for the "Recall" mode. "Hybrid Mode" - Operates similarly to "Recall" mode does now. However, I would make successive, consecutive clicks (not double-clicks) on a snapshot alternate between the 'Discard" and the 'Recall' versions of the snapshot. This would work as follows. Switch away to another snapshot and come back to your initial snapshot and any changes you made to the default settings in your initial snapshot will have been retained (current Helix behavior for the "Recall" mode). However, hit the same snapshot switch again and your default values for that snapshot are reloaded. Hit the same snapshot footswitch another time and you go back to your modified("Recall") version of the snapshot, hit it again and you are back at the default("Discard") values for the snapshot.....ad infinitum. This would allow you to go back and forth between your default("Discard") and your modified("Recall") version of the snapshot. Would be darn handy for doing tone comparisons too; sort of a very limited undo/redo capability. The only potential drawback I see to this method is if you accidentally tapped twice you might end up with the "Discard" rather than the "Recall" version of your snapshot but simply tapping again would return you back to the "Recall" version. Of course this all presupposes that the Helix could dynamically "remember" both your default and modified states of each snapshot but that is essentially what it is doing now with the static versions of the snapshots already. More detailed example of proposed behavior: Snapshot 1 phaser default = bypassed Activate phaser in Snapshot 1 Switch to Snapshot 2 Return to Snapshot 1; the phaser is still activated which was not the default for Snapshot 1 Click again on Snapshot 1; the snapshot reloads its default values and phaser is bypassed per the snapshot's default settings Click again on Snapshot 1; your modified values from prior snapshot changes are restored and phaser is activated again Rinse and repeat, each successive click switches between "Discard" and "Recall" values.

You will need to be in some configuration of the Helix that shows snapshots on the footswitches to see the custom color you selected. You can get into Snapshot mode by pressing the BANK Up and BANK Down footswitches simultaneously. Many people opt to set up their pedalboard with an option that always shows the snapshots on the footswitches by default rather than using the above method. You can set that preference with the 'Preset Mode Switches' parameter under 'Global Settings' > 'Footswitches'. Just select any of the options with "Snap" in the title or select "8 Snapshots". Any of those settings should set the snapshots to display on either the bottom, top, or both rows of footswitches by default. From the Helix manual: By default, Preset footswitch mode displays eight presets (four on each row). Choose from "8 Presets," "Preset/Stomp" (one bank of presets on the top row, switches from stomp mode on the bottom row), "Stomp/Preset" (switches from stomp mode on the top row, one bank of presets on the bottom row), "Preset/Snap" (one bank of presets on the top row, Snapshots 1-4 on the bottom row), "Snap/Preset" (Snapshots 1-4 on the top row, one bank of presets on the bottom row), "Snap/Stomp" (Snapshots 1-4 on the top row, switches from stomp mode on the bottom row), "Stomp/Snap" (switches from stomp mode on the top row, Snapshots 1-4 on the bottom row), and "8 Snapshots" (Snapshots 1-8).

I hear you and I am not expecting a level of detail that gets into proprietary information but there is some more detailed level of description of what was changed that lies between the incredibly general "improvements" and for example the way too granular "the values in lines 3008 and 5127 of the code were changed". Either way I am not sitting around fretting about it and am more than happy to enjoy the benefits of a device that is constantly being improved, even if the how and what are somewhat opaque.

I am not in any way denying that perhaps the overall sound of the Helix or the factory presets has been improved but empirical evidence and more in-depth descriptions from L6 regarding changes are a beautiful thing. Perhaps there were some improvements to the factory presets per the release notes or even critical changes to the sound of the entire device but until someone actually shows the differences on a scope or the like between the old and new presets it is hard to be sure if the sounds have changed substantially. To be honest, I don't use the factory presets enough to know one way or the other. It would be nice if L6 provided more specifics with their general point regarding "improvements"; I would love to know exactly what they tweaked. There is the ever present placebo effect and also always the chance that the global reset changes your settings such that everything sounds better. Anyway, always glad to hear that L6 are working on "improvements" to the sound of the Helix, subtle or sweeping. Improvements are most welcome. It is just the retentive "anal"ytical part of my brain would love to know more precisely what they are.

Any chance your global settings are not setup to display snapshots on either the bottom, top, or both rows, of footswitches?

Thanks for all the great ideas and feedback folks. Please keep the ideas coming. I guess I will put an idea up in Ideascale with your suggestions as to implementation and hopefully leave it up to Line6 to pick the best way to do it. The overarching concept being to make either "Recall" or "Discard" be easily accessible on the fly during a performance.

DI's bullet point got me thinking about what would seem to be most useful switch behavior when I move between snapshots. I use my Helix with the Snapshots Edit global option set to "Recall" because I frequently prefer my ad hoc changes within a snapshot to be retained when I switch away from one snapshot and then return. Unlike "Discard" mode, when you are in "Recall" mode, hitting the snapshot a second time does not reload the stored snapshot's settings. I assume this is as designed. There are times however when you would also like to quickly return to your default snapshot settings. The change below or something like it may have already been requested by the original post this was excerpted from (don't remember the rest of the post). Interested in others' thoughts on this and how and what their preferred behavior would be. Behavior change for Snapshot Edits in "Recall" mode?: A great capability to add would be to allow the user to essentially have both a "Recall" and "Discard" mode available at the click of a footswitch. So for example, a second click, or a prolonged click on a snapshot with "Recall" mode set would reload the snapshots's default settings. Let's say you are in "Recall mode and your snapshot has the phaser and distortion bypassed as a default. When you stomp/activate the phaser-distortion and then go to another snapshot and return to the one with the phaser and distortion, they are both still active. The proposed new behavior would be that holding down the snapshot button or hitting it a second time(not sure what the best implementation would be) would reload the snapshot's default settings (distortion-phaser=bypassed). This would essentially give you the choice between and the benefits of both the "Recall" and "Discard" snapshot modes simultaneously depending on how you used the footswitch.

I believe the reboot is automatic although I can't remember for sure from when I upgraded. Perhaps the firmware did not actually fully install. Might be worth running the firmware upgrade process again and then doing the global reset.

Echo everything Silverhead said and just wanted to add that, although there are rarely changes to it, the Templates setlist also gets replaced when the global reset gets excecuted. If you have your own custom Templates you will want to save them off before global reset. The 2.20 upgrade included a new template at 32D in the Templates setlist that gives you a template to play with the new '3 Note Generator'.

I use the numbered prefix method jbuhajla recommended and find this to be the easiest and fastest method for backups and restores but an alternative method is to take and save a screenshot of your IRs using the PrtScn key on your keyboard and using that to restore presets to their proper positions.