HonestOpinion

Cold can definitely be a problem. It is not just about playing a cold outdoor gig which is probably relatively infrequent for most bands. Much more often it is an issue when the equipment is stored in an unheated space, or has to be loaded up in the van/truck the day/night before the gig, or has to travel in cold weather, or there are back to back gigs where the equipment is not unloaded into a warm space in between because it makes no sense to unload/load twice and is too big a hassle. As others have said I think your best bet is to try and warm the equipment up by blasting the heat in the vehicle on the way to the gig if possible and letting it warm up for as long as you can once you get it inside the venue before turning it on. Condensation, rapid temperature change, and movement or use of freezing parts definitely does not contribute to equipment longevity. Sometimes unfortunately the setup time is not conducive to a long warm-up period and you just need to hope for the best. If it's any consolation things getting too hot doesn't help either... ;)

I would love to see them sticky post up a recommended procedure and proper lubricant for fixing the expression pedal squeak/friction as well!

I had intentionally avoided mentioning Fractal when I mentioned higher bit lengths for IRs because I did not want to start a discussion comparing the two units. But anyway, here goes. Fractal is supporting something that emulates the longer IRs (8192 bits) on the Ax8 which does have the same DSP chips as the Helix. You are correct that they may tie up slightly more resources but not much using Fractal's method of emulation (or so they claim). For those who are more interested in just getting the perfect modeled cab with little to no added effects, perhaps only on certain presets, the larger bit IRs (or some method to emulate them) might be just the ticket. Or, if Cliff's claim is correct the DSP cost might be minimal depending on the implementation. Higher bit IRs would also allow the use of reverb IRs for those who want to experiment with them. Don't know if this is just marketing hype but here is a blurb from the Fractal WIKI. The last bullet point details his contention that higher res larger IRs deliver a more detailed low end in particular and that he has a method of implementing them (or something emulating them) that does not use that much more DSP or storage. I don't think he is necessarily wrong about the merits of higher bit length and I bet future hardware will exclusively use higher res IRs as well perhaps as a form of convolution cab IR that "hideout" and I were discussing in another post. From the Fractal WIKI on IRs" Normal Res: 1024 samples, 20 ms. You can often use Normal Res without a noticeable impact on the tone, compared to Hi Res. The Cabinet block's Stereo mode supports two Normal Res IRs. Hi/Ultra-Res: Hi Res IRs (2040 samples, 40 ms) and Ultra-Res IRs (up to 8000 samples, 170 ms). Hi Res and Ultra-Res IR processing requires more CPU power than mono or stereo Normal Res. But Ultra-Res is more efficient than Hi Res, which results in about 4% less CPU usage with higher resolution! The Cabinet block's Stereo Ultra-Res mode supports two Ultra-Res IRs. Non-Ultra-Res IRs will be processed in stereo mode as Normal Res. If one IR is Ultra-Res and the other not, then the Ultra-Res IR will still processed as UR and the other as Normal in stereo mode. Ultra-Res speaker IR processing is a proprietary technique that enhances the spectral resolution of an IR without adding CPU burden or storage requirements. Ultra-Res IRs do not support size warping, which is why the Speaker Size parameter is unavailable in Ultra-Res mode. Cliff's comments about Ultra-Res (source):"The problem with conventional IRs is that they are too short to capture the detail in the low frequencies. There are those that maintain 20 ms is the maximum length you need to fully replicate the speaker. This would be about 1000 samples at 48 kHz. I disagree with this as I have many IRs here that exhibit significant energy beyond 20 ms. I believe the room has some influence as the low-frequency modes of the room will impact the resulting sound. The amount of this impact depends on the room, the mics, distance, etc., etc. Or perhaps certain speakers have particularly high Qs in the low frequencies. Regardless, it is my opinion that you need IRs much longer than 20 ms to fully capture the "mic'd amp in the studio" sound. My tests show that IRs of 8000 samples are required to fully capture the low-frequency detail. Unfortunately to process an 8K IR in real-time require copious processing power... Fortunately I have developed "Ultra-Res" cabinet modeling. Ultra-Res cabinet modeling provides the frequency detail of a very long IR with little or no added processing power requirements. The following image depicts the response of Ultra-Res cabinet IR processing: ..." (see thread)

Regarding amps, I don't mind if they add a couple now and then although I agree focus needs to be on fixing bugs, new effects, and features and core functionality -- both new and improvement of existing. Line6 will probably continue to work on new amps and as I already expressed they are always welcome, but I would love to see more attention given to adding more IR slots, increasing the 2048 bit limit, allowing more than one 2048 bit IR on a route, enhancing IR management/backup, adding more parameters that you can control in an IR, etc... Once you start using IRs you realize how much can be done with them and where the Helix's limitations are. I have no idea what limitations the current hardware in the Helix imposes on IR development but there are still a lot of opportunities for the Helix to improve in this arena. The IR capability is a compelling feature on the Helix with room to grow.

That is truly wacky! Opposites Day and Bizarro World. Pretty sure it won't make a difference as I suspect this is a hardware failure, but have you also tried doing a safe boot (FS 6&12) and then updating the firmware again while in safe boot mode?

Interesting point. I often design my presets with my guitar's volume and tone backed off a bit, say around 7 on a '1-10' knob. My thought is that way I have room to adjust up or down depending on how the preset sounds at the gig and also if I unexpectedly use a different guitar with a preset. Same reason I don't design my presets with the large volume knob on the Helix all the way up. I like to leave some room for quick adjustments.

I am seeing it in 2.10 on restored presets as well. Never experienced it previously.

Did you download the latest version of the Helix application, 2.10? This will install the latest version of the Editor, Updater, and driver.

Phil_m you are absolutely correct. Had a temporary moment of confusion on snapshot operation even though I seem to have fully understood its operation for months now. Chock if up to not enough coffee this morning. I don't see anything wrong with the behavior here. When you have 'Recall' set for instance on a snapshot that ordinarily has a distortion block activated, if you then bypass the distortion block, switch away from that snapshot, the distortion block will reflect whatever you last saved in that subsequently selected snapshot, not necessarily the state of the distortion you temporarily bypassed in the last selected snapshot. The difference in 'Recall' mode is that when you go back to your originally selected snapshot, the distortion will still be bypassed. Alternatively, if you had 'Discard' selected, returning to your original snapshot would now show the Distortion activated (its normal state in that snapshot in the example given). The Helix is acting as designed as far as I can see. I had to reread the text on pg. 38 of the manual.

I am on the floor Helix and I believe you are correct. For example, bypassing a block in 'Recall' mode and then selecting alternate snapshots does not reliably leave the block bypassed as you cycle through the snapshots. The bypassed block reverts back to activated when it should stay bypassed until you change it or until you switch away from the preset and come back.

I suspect there could be several challenges relating to pitch shifting and harmonizing right now, not that I would not like to see things like intelligent harmonizing and polyphonic processing and I hope they eventually make their way into the Helix: Licensing of certain technology or development of the technology in-house Development resources being first allotted to the issues that deliver the most bang for the buck to the most users. Which ones those are is of course somewhat subjective although informed to a certain extent by feedback from the forum, Facebook, TGP, etc.. Ultimately though some features are a lot more time-consuming and as a result, especially if they require additional licensing, a lot more expensive for L6 to implement. Depending on the feature or the level of effort requied they may monopolize enough resources to actually detract from other efforts. Not saying the big wins shouldn't be pursued though, they just may take more time to arrive. DSP usage -- I suspect high-end harmonizer and particularly polyphonic processing may use substantially more DSP History -- harmonizing and polyphonic processing has never been a strong point or focus for Line6, not sure why this is case. Innovation is one of their strong points. The Helix's architecture and firmware and how it interacts with these kinds of blocks

Yes, this is the observed behavior right now. Stomping on any 'unfixed' preset and invoking the 'sticky' expression pedal bug will make it look like the fixed presets have reverted to broken as well but but that is not actually the case. As soon as you short the expression pedal and restore normal operation you will notice that you cannot get the bug to appear on your fixed presets. They actually remained fixed. So the long and short of it is, make sure any preset you intend to use a snapshot on is fixed in the 2.10 version or you will have to short it to get all your 'fixed' presets to work properly again.

This is most likely just a result of the fact that doing the firmware upgrade process properly includes doing a global reset. Some of your global settings may be different now. One of the most frequent culprits is users' output setting changing from 'line' to 'mic' or vice versa. You may want to go look at your global output settings.

To test for this bug you have to click on several of the snapshots for a preset and then go back to the first snapshot. Just clicking on the preset will not reveal the bug.

How are you testing for the bug?

Just had a line show up through one of my scribble strips. Two bad footswitches on my first Helix and now this on my second. Have to say my faith in the durability of this device is severely shaken. Hope that my retailer or Line6 will take care of this without charging me. Have several gigs coming up though and can't really afford to be without my Helix. Extremely aggravating! :angry:

Thanks for posting this. Really interesting to hear this level of detail from a model designer and definitely strengthens the perception that there is serious attention to detail and effort going into the design of the amp models.

Concur with the above posts. The blinking is normal and a critical visual indicator to let you know that you have not yet selected a preset.

Fascinating, I wonder if anyone else will confirm this. Let us know if your restored presets start displaying the 'EXP 1' bug. If not, you may have discovered a process that prevents it. That would be grand!

I should add it happened a couple of times, even after a restart. Still not convinced this doesn't have something to do with auto-calibration but who knows? It seems I have seen reports of this bug prior to 2.10 but I had never encountered it before, and I have been through every firmware update. If the bug exists in prior versions then I wouldn't let this be your sole reason for deferring the update. Still, I can understand you wanting to wait for the version that is supposed to be arriving soon with some fixes.

Just had my expression pedal reset itself to 0%(1%?) by itself at practice last night on a preset I have been using for months with no issues. Don't know if it was coincidence but I never had that happen before the 2.10 update. The snapshot issue was annoying but fixable with the shorting workaround. My guitar just spontaneously cutting out was genuinely alarming. That would have been very bad news at a gig. I actually consider that behavior the number one bug that Line6 needs to sort out if indeed it is a bug in 2.10.

Thx, that is what I thought.

I had a weird issue occur today. I had to swap my Variax in for my other guitar when I broke a string. I did not have the VDI cable plugged in and I had no battery in the Variax. I was just using a standard 1/4 cable to connect the Variax to my Helix was and using the magnetic pickups only. The guitar would work normally for a little while and then all of a sudden the sound would drop out completely. Does the Variax require a battery to work on a 1/4 cable with only the magnetics? Not sure if my Helix was glitching or the Variax?

Just pressing on any preset will stop the blinking.

I have seen exactly this same behavior you are describing, but only on presets that have not been fixed using the shorting method.