HonestOpinion

LOL :D

I hear putting a dead mouse next to the nut and wrapping a wet towel and 3 feet of acoustic baffling around the guitar strings helps with the tuner as well. :angry: But in all seriousness thanks ramirezdan and hideout for the tips on how to reduce the jumpiness. I agree with Spikey on this one though, if other devices can get it right so can the Helix. I think we all agree a better solution is definitely just to activate the tuner and have it work correctly but I will use your suggestions until L6 gets around to this issue. Until then I am sure this method will result in me forgetting to reset sooner or later and have half a tune played with a toneless neck pickup rendition of something that should have had full tone knob on the bridge pickup. ;)

Good call, on second read that does appear to be what he is requesting. He can use snapshots to do this as well if his amp has MIDI channel switching. Perhaps what he is asking though is for the capability to do this with the 'Ext. Amp' controller output?

LOL, I want one! Too bad you can't seem to play lead with these. I wonder how long before the tatoo/implant version of this becomes available. No shirt required. :lol:

It already does this. Just set up two (or three) amp channels in a preset and have all but one bypassed in your first snapshot. Your subsequent snapshots can bypass the first (second) amp channel and this will allow you to switch between the channels. Generally I use the separate amp models and use the same cab(s) or IR(s) for all the amp blocks as I don't want to use up too much DSP by using the Amp+cab models. I use snapshots this way all the time. It is easy to emulate a multi-channel amp this way. I name the snapshots 'Clean', 'Crunch', 'Lead', etc..

I wanted to make one more observation about why stability in a tuner is so important as a complementary feature to granularity. Although it is wonderful if everyone in the band can tune perfectly to let's say for example A 440, what is of greater importance is that all of the strings on the guitar be in tune relative to each other. Being a few cents off from other instruments in the band is not nearly as noticeable as when the strings on the guitar are out of tune with each other. I know if we take into account 'true temper' this discussion could get a lot more complicated so I will intentionally sidestep it. Though not ideal, usually it is no big deal if every one of my strings is 2 cents below tune as long as they are all 2 cents below or somewhere in that immediate neighborhood and in relative tune to each other. What I am getting at is that if the display freezes for a second or two, for example 500ms after a string is plucked then, I have a better chance of tuning my strings correctly relative to each other. Yes, maybe in actuality the string's frequency is changing slightly in real time and the moment I selected to freeze is not exactly reflective of the current tuning of the string but I have the same frozen moment or 'snapshot' on each string to tune to (I am not referring to the 'snapshots' in Helix parlance). Perhaps different string gauges (thinner higher strings, thicker lower strings) require a slightly different moment to grab that 'snapshot' but even that could be accounted for to some extent. Making a truly great tuner is clearly not easy, but there might be ways to improve this one. Anyway, I digressed and started to get caught in the technical weeds for a moment there. I should just return to my point that I would give up some granularity for stability although I hope we can get both. Ultimately the goal in my opinion at least for performance is to get as close to in tune as possible as quickly as possible. I am not trying to set the intonation on a stage or at practice, just tune as quickly and accurately as I can. Just having a solid anchored moment of reference is what is most critical so I can stop tuning and move on to the next string. I am assuming the closer that 'anchored moment' is to an average of the string's actual tuning shortly after being plucked, since it is never completely constant, the better.

I am not surprised to see the incredible design of the Helix inspire imitators. It was not difficult to anticipate this happening. Although it will probably take quite a few firmware updates for the Headrush unit to even begin to compete with the Helix (if ever), it looks like the Headrush is specifically targeting some areas that the Helix either decided to go another direction with or is still working on. In particular the touchscreen and the 'gapless' preset switching jumped out at me. I am curious as to how the quad-core DSP processor compares with the two SHARC processors on the Helix in terms of processing power. There are certainly far less I/O options available on the Headrush. I would not be surprised if this unit either comes out, or descends to a lower price point than the Helix. As always I hope these alternative products encourage healthy competition and innovation.

This is not an academic exercise to me. I find it really frustrating as well as it causes a more noticeable delay when I try to tune between songs during a show. It needs to freeze for a second and then go back to hyper-granularity mode. Before we had a tuner that was not granular enough and therefor showed you in tune with a stable display even when you were not quite at the reference tone. Now we have a tuner that is so sensitive and jumpy that you can't get a stable readout for long enough to figure out where to stop tuning. There has to be a compromise between granularity and usability here. I am hoping we don't go through months more of debate regarding tuner technology and how accurately the tuner is reflecting what the string is actually doing. The requirement here is entirely practical. We just need a tuner that can be quickly and accurately tuned while we have an audience and a band impatiently waiting for the next song in the setlist. The idea of having to employ an external tuner is just repugnant to me when the tuner on the Helix is so convenient and has such an awesome display and so much potential.

Personally I would say if your Helix is levitating when you play wah that you are clearly doing something right and both the ghost of Hendrix and I definitely want to come and see your next show. :D Seriously though I think phil_m's suggestion of using the auto-engage feature is the way to go if you don't like using the toe switch unless someone has a suggestion on how to make it engage more easily. You can also assign the wah to be on in a snapshot and just change snapshots, or you can assign the wah to a different footswitch. From the 2.10 firmware notes: - Auto Enable/Bypass blocks from EXP 1/2/3 and Variax Volume/Tone Knobs—Processing blocks (such as Wah, Pitch Wham, etc.) can now be enabled/bypassed by simply moving EXP 1, EXP 2, EXP 3, or Variax’s Volume or Tone knob. Click the Bypass Assign tab. From the source pulldown menu (normally reads “Noneâ€), select the desired switch. When selecting a continuous controller as a switch, Position and Wait sliders appear.

What a drag! I agree with most of the statements previously made here. This soundman is a serious dinosaur and like the other members of his species will no doubt soon be rendered obsolete by an extinction level event. In the meantime if the gig pays well enough or is in some other manner worthwhile I would just bite the bullet and concede to his ridiculous requirements. I would not elect to alienate the club owner or lollipop the soundman off enough to sabotage my gig. The other option of course is just to refuse to play there. Other than getting a petition to the owner from many local bands (in which case maybe you all get blackballed) or flooding his facebook and email account with articles on modeling and modern sound engineering practices you may just have to wait for this mule to age out, hybrid mule and triceratops that is (an effort to stick with the dinosaur metaphor ). I have run into some difficult soundmen in my time but most can be a bit more flexible if approached with reason, courtesy, and respect. This guy sounds like an exception and it appears that as long as he is there you may just have to do things 'his way' or come up with a combination of optical illusions and a paper mache amp for him to mic. Perhaps you could randomly loop in old Abba clips periodically and volunteer a direct connection at some point to alleviate the problem. At the very least I would insist in my rider that there be a 75lb box of M&Ms in the green room with all the brown ones removed. Good luck!!

Agreed, there is a ton of great stuff in jaminjimlp's dropbox. Thanks for the effort! Check it out!!

I thought I would revive this thread just in case people were waxing nostalgic for it. Once again kudos for the enhanced tuner a few firmware versions ago but I still find it way too jumpy. I really think this should be addressed. It makes the tuner very difficult to use and it slows me down during performances and generally fails to do an expert job of tuning. I am surprised there are not more people having an issue with this. Let's fix this rabid mongoose on meth once and for all. Don't make me have to take out my tuning fork, divining rod, and sextant. ;)

I think the real point of threads like this is that it would be great to have wireless connectivity to the Helix. The mechanism used be it WiFi or Bluetooth or whatever is certainly worthy of discussion and important but not the central issue. There are new Bluetooth protocols like 'Bluetooth 5' coming out that are supposed to be much faster and more robust. As others have pointed out WiFi is an option and there are also extremely fast WiFi protocols coming. I don't agree with the characterization that wireless options are somehow not 'pro' or childish toys or the like. I use a Bluetooth pedal to flip pages for lyrics on an iPad onstage and it works great, WiFi is what allows wireless adjustment of my PA from anywhere in the room and many digital mixers offer it at this point. It might be kind of cool to set a guitar loop going on the Helix and then walk out and adjust settings from somewhere in the front of the house; essentially wirelessly adjusting the sound on the Helix the same way I do for the PA . Setting a tablet up for eye level on-the-fly adjustments from a mic/music stand or an armchair, and tone-matching might be nice to have as well. Oh, and how exactly is USB 'professional' level connectivity? We have seen thousands of posts from people having problems with USB connectivity for everything from firmware updates to Editor and DAW connectivity. If USB is the 'pro' level standard it clearly requires improvement, not by Line6 necessarily but by the computer industry as it has proven to be a problematic way of connecting for years for many devices and users. It is also worth remembering how slow USB was and still is to some extent. Only with USB 3 did we start to see decent transfer rates for hardware like external hard drives. Wireless technology is maturing in the same manner and becoming a viable mechanism for more data intensive connectivity. The one place I do share a concern with many of the posters is that each added capability dilutes development efforts and potentially detracts from other features. That is always a point of concern especially when a new capability means supporting additonal OS platforms as well as additional applications. Still, I am sure these same concerns were expressed when the first WiFI tablet app was offered for use with digitial mixers and yet still it has become a central and much used and appreciated feature of many mixers. I have accepted that the current version of Helix may never have wireless connectivity but I think it is eminently worthy of consideration in the next Helix version.

http://helixhelp.com/pmwiki.php?n=Main.Amps

I think you may be right about there having been an early firmware release where the versions did not match. That is why I qualified my original response with "at least as far as I can remember". They have been matching them up for a while now though and I think we all got kind of used to making sure our Editor and firmware versions matched. I think there are a couple of salient points here, the first being that the Update process is going to get improved and simplified at some point, and the second being that until then it seems that, at least for the moment, making sure that you have the latest version of the Editor matched up to the latest version of the firmware is your best course of action. If you decide to stay on an older version of the firmware, make sure you have the matching Editor, Updater, and driver in place. After this last update we can say that versions usually match, but not necessarily. Best thing to do is keep your eye on the forum posts regarding updates and also analyze the contents of the downloads section to see if there is a version of the 'Flash Memory' download that matches the 'Helix' app version. That is what tipped me off to the fact that the versions would not match on this firmware update. Regardless of whether you are using a version of the firmware that has the same version number or not for the Editor, periodically checking before and after you run updates to make sure you have the corresponding matched Editor and Firmware even if they are numbered differently is a good practice.

I have seen this problem across presets in every firmware version. Once you set the 'Variax Setttings' parameter back to 'Per Preset' on the Input block, every Variax preset regains its model and custom tuning. Even though this parameter is set within a preset it acts like a global setting and affects all other Variax presets. Does doing this not help with getting the proper settings back in presets with Variax snapshots?

Actually that is a great idea just to keep the procedure consistent with prior updates. Otherwise, perhaps we are seeing a break with the paradigm we have seen in the past of matching versions. I know L6 is working on revamping the entire firmware update procedure so the matching versions exercise may become moot at some point anyway (presumably in 2017).

I also would have like have seen Bluetooth/tablet connectivity for the Helix. It is quite usable without however including perhaps the best onboard interface ever designed. You can connect a Windows tablet by USB cable to the Helix and use the Helix Editor but you need a tablet with a full fledged USB connection. Many/most tablets running Windows don't have fully functional USB ports unless you connect their sometimes optional keyboards. There are also remote connectivity apps that allow an iPad to run an app remotely that is running on another computer but this would require you have both a computer directly tethered by USB to your Helix running the Editor and then use your tablet to manage it. There are some threads on the forum using this setup.

First you would have to be in stomp mode to fire off the looper by accident. And as you say there is Murphey's Law but it would be easy enough to assign the looper to the footswitch you would be least likely to hit by accident. Or, alternatively, you could just not assign the looper to a footswitch at all or not even include it in presets you intend to use for a live performance. The looper is an optional block and can be left out of a preset.

In all the previous firmware versions, at least as far as I can remember, there has been an Editor version that matched the firmware version. The 2.12 firmware release is a notable exception and as other have observed there is no 2.12 version of the Editor available in the Downloads section of the L6 website. The usual rule of matching the Editor to the firmware version does not apply in this case unless L6 decides to release a 2.12 version of the Editor. The Editor will continue to be the 2.11 version, even after you update the firmware to 2.12. So at least for now and for the first time I can remember, the correct combination of the Editor and firmware are different versions. After this firmware update your Editor should be version 2.11 and your firmware should be 2.12. Note: This version mismatch applies as of the date of this post. I can't say whether or not L6 will add a 2.12 Editor version at some future date or whether they will simply move on to the next release and perhaps once again match the Editor to the Firmware version as they have in their prior firmware releases.

Thanks once again for putting these into a firmware release. The shortcuts are incredibly helpful and actually encourage greater and more complex use of snapshots for those who are inclined to design presets with the Editor. I use them all the time! I have done my best to help publicize them in more recent posts as they did not exist as of when I made this earlier post back in July. They allow me to quickly assign a large number of parameters to snapshots which I now do with most every preset I design. Glad to see this loose end get tied up for anyone who was unaware that these keyboard shortcuts exist.

If it weren't for the fact that you say this is only happening on one model my first guess would have been that if you are playing through a powered speaker it is starting to have a failure. I have had failing powered speakers that displayed this exact behavior. After they started to warm up the volume would start to die and the tone would change as well, often becoming somewhat distorted.

:)

Is your comment referring to not requiring a separate driver file? The 'Helix' app for Windows includes the driver which get installed along with the Editor and the Updater when you install the 'Helix' app. I always assumed the process was essentially the same for a Mac (which I don't own). Is there no driver included with the Mac version of 'Helix' app? Can some Mac users confirm this?

I have the 3Sigma acoustic IRs and they are nice but I still find I get my best tones with an acoustic guitar dialing the mix down on the IR to around 50%. I hear the same nastiness you described when the IR is at 100%. I am using the IR for coloration but still find the meat of the sound is in the direct acoustic.