HonestOpinion

So true, life ain't always fair (or even middlin). Have to admit I was expecting a hall more like a small gymnasium than the hallway in my home though. I think this reverb type could either use some tweaking or we could use another Hall reverb option like a Lexicon. ;)

I prefer quality and quantity but will happily settle for a compromise of the two erring as you say on the side of quality. IMHO the Helix has room to grow yet in both departments. It arguably has the best UI and physical design of anything on the market by a country mile and, especially given the price they managed to come in at, is made from extremely high quality components. When and if a few critical areas in the software catch up (bug fixes, stability, more amps and effects, scenes, spillover) the Helix fulfills its promise and then some. The Helix is already my favorite processor and guitar accessory ever by far and the only thing that has ever inspired me to make a (for me) excessive number of posts in a forum. Yep the Helix and those mysterious UFO sightings in New Mexico take up most of my posting time (just kidding about those UFOs, people get a grip, no disrespect intended to the true believers out there, the Helix generally has more crazy colored lights anyway, that might explain the whole UFO thing, maybe L6 has been working on it longer than the five years they 'fess up to, they are headquartered suspiciously close to Roswell). :D

Good suggestion, I usually use a delay along with my reverb and I don't often need a hall reverb but my band is covering an early 70's tune with a big reverb laden sound and that is when I discovered that the Hall does not sound as large as I would expect it too.

Sounds like it could be a problem with the USB connection or a driver conflict but is by any chance the editor not coming up, or disconnecting or freezing, on one of the presets that comes up in the "Rebuilding" message when you boot up the Helix? If so, I posted a workaround for this bug in the following thread: http://line6.com/support/topic/20454-grid-for-getting-rid-of-the-preset-rebuild-messages-on-boot-in-latest-firmware-1120/?p=154956

I am finding the sound of the "Hall" reverb to be more like the sound of a reverb I would associate with a large Room reverb. It does not sound big enough to me. Turning the decay and mix settings up a bit helps but the sound still does not remind me of the larger spatial sound I associate with a hall reverb. Do we need a "Stadium" reverb on the Helix? I essentially have to use a tamed down Cave reverb to get what I associate with a Hall sound. Maybe I am expecting the sound with a Hall reverb to be more akin to what I hear on a vocal and my expectations for Hall on a guitar are askew. Can anyone else confirm whether the Hall reverb is what they commonly associate with that reverb type or perhaps make some suggestions on how to get a bigger reverb sound? Thanks.

Great tutorial with some essential tips! I also use the output block for a boost that only affects volume and doesn't drive the amp or effects differently and doesn't consume an extra block. I only use a 3db boost though as 6db can be fairly substantial at stage volumes. I also order my effects a bit differently although experimentation is always great and the order you prefer may be different depending on the sound you are trying to get, as always, use your ears. I tend to usually put a compressor before my distortion as I don't want the compressor squeezing the distorted sound, that seems to kill the dynamics. I prefer the sound of a distortion being fed by a compressed signal. I also always put my delay before my reverb. I don't want the reverb which is essentially a complex series of delays causing each of these "micro" delays to be delayed again by the delay block. With the delay in front of the reverb I feel I get a more natural reverb sound on the dry and delayed signal from the delay block. Nice explanation on the parametric EQ, I actually tend to prefer a parametric EQ on the vocal to a graphic although both can be useful but I think the graphic EQ is more tailored to guitar than voice. I believe all the factory presets have the looper as the final block in a preset and always have it assigned to footswitch #5. If you want to keep your setup consistent and have the looper behave while you switch from preset to preset you may want to mimic the Line6 looper setup. Of course, all of these are just suggestions and your video does cover a lot of ground, particularly for new Helix users. Well done and thanks!

Great answer and among the advantages of this approach is the Variax is powered by the Helix's VDI connection so you don't have to worry about the battery, you retain a digital connection all the way through from the Variax to the Helix, and you get the Helix's guitar input clear to use for a second guitar.

I try to veer away from terms like "unacceptable" because I don't know exactly what caused the delay on the fix to tap tempo. I do believe an explanation as to the delay from L6 would have been reassuring as it is disturbing to see the fix to tap tempo, which many consider to be an important core feature, take so long. I also think accusing someone else of "whining" is likely to lead to a flame war in this topic which I would prefer not to see.

DunedinDragon could well be right about this being no minor change. One thing that might be a bit simpler is to allow a virtual send/return in between the preamp and amp such that although you would not be able to mix & match different preamps and amps, you would at least be able to insert effects in between the preamp and amp like the send/return loop on a guitar amplifier. I suppose even that change might involve quite a bit of coding though.

Looks like the Rocktron Banshee could be used in a Helix send/return loop. Just don't connect the "External Speaker" jack on the Banshee to the Helix.

The tap tempo issue should have been fixed immediately. After this substantial a wait I suspect there is some great new stuff headed our way.

If you go the DIY route you may want to check with L6 to see if that voids your warranty in the event you encounter a more serious issue down the road you can't fix yourself.

If you have something like the Heil Talk Box where the input to the talkbox is actually coming from the speaker output (not the send/return loop) of your amp, it might be safest to use something like the Pro Configuration setup diagram in the Heil manual with an A/B switcher where the Helix would be represented by the box labeled as "Rack FX". At no point will the signal from your amp's speaker output be going into any input on the Helix! The signal coming from your guitar amp's speaker output is post power amp and is not the same as the line level output that comes from a guitar amp's send/return loop which is post preamp. I don't think any of the inputs on the Helix are built to accommodate a signal coming directly from a power amp's output. I would ask Line6 before hooking anything like that up directly into the Helix and my guess is they will probably advise against it. If you have something like the Danalectro Free Speech Talk Box which uses its own built in amplifier and does not require input from a power amp, then I think you could use that in a Helix send/return loop with no issues. Heil Talk Box Manual http://www.jimdunlop.com/files/manuals/HT1HeilTalkboxManual.pdf

Indeed! :P

You are correct, that makes sense. He does mention it makes the noise even with the Helix and the amp off. Just not sure I understand what he is hearing the noise through when the amp is off unless it is the tube/hose on the talkbox. Electrical noise generally requires some sort of amplification and a speaker to hear (with some exceptions like fluorescent lights).

Don't want to drag personal politics into the forum but I have to say. A Donald Trump tuner analogy, now that is just damn funny and inventive! Is this a response to the forum's socialist collective approach to tuner design? ;)

This could be electrical but it almost sounds mechanical, like a fan sound being picked up by a microphonic tube that has gone bad although you say it makes the same sound with the amp off. If it happens when the amp is on I would try lightly tapping the Marshall's tubes with a pencil to see if any of them are microphonic. What is it making the sound through when the amp is off, the headphones on the Helix? Does it happen on several or many of the factory presets?

Great idea!

Thanks for the answer phil_m, good to know!

Have you tried playing with the impedance or pad global settings (do these still impact the sound when using a Variax?)? Maybe driving the fuzz with one of the overdrives placed before it with the drive all the way off might be worth experimenting with, even though that is not intuitive as you are trying to get the sound of the fuzz being first pedal in the signal chain.

You're right, some of the sound will always come down to the fingers and feel of the original guitarist as well as the strings they used, the guitar, and the equipment they recorded on. I have several guitarist friends who are passionate to say the least about the blues. They have an encyclopedic to the point of obsessive knowledge of the blues and can tell you exactly what so and so was drinking the night he recorded yea and such "B" side in 1938. They will swear it is blasphemy to use ANY pedal between a guitar and an amp. Generally, hard-core minimalists are not the ones who are going to purchase or get the most out of a Helix although some of them might be hard pressed to differentiate between a blind test of a well set up simple preset and a "real" amp and cab.

Thought I would also mention that although the cabs model's frequency response across a good part of the audio spectrum may be true to the original cabinets, it is the edges of the frequency range which seems to be too open ended and not nuanced enough. It seems that the high and low end is where the frequency response is not necessarily as accurate or reflective of the way the frequency response drops off dramatically and eventually cuts at the low and high ends of the frequency range on a real guitar speaker. Although you can use a combination of parametric and graphic EQ along with a high/low cut to more accurately emulate the steep downward slope on the high and low ends of a speaker's frequency response, it would be ideal if you had a high and low cut filter that allowed the shape or slope of the cut to be tapered such that you could get it to sort of look like the frequency response graphs on for instance the Celestion speaker website. Ultimately both frequency response and frequency range interact in getting an accurate cabinet model.

Well done, that will probably help someone out with the same issue. Looks like you just found a solution, as I was posting.

I think you may want to try rebooting your PC and the Helix. The Editor 1.12 absolutely does allow dragging and dropping of IRs. I can do it with no issue on Windows 10.

I absolutely agree, I would prefer they customized the settings for each cab's frequency range to more accurately emulate the original cab. These cabs are essentially IRs and perhaps the software they use to create the cabs does take this into account. That does not always seem to be the case though judging by how bright or boomy they often are without cuts although changing the mic can make a big difference; that still begs the question however of whether the cabs are actually reflective of the speakers they are modeling's true frequency range. I suppose if when selected the cab came up with a default high and low cut set per the speaker's specs this would still offer the user the flexibility to adjust it to taste. This would cut down on the amount of fiddling required and make different cabs even more distinctive. Of course, depending on how your preset is setup you may still require cuts elsewhere in your signal chain in addition to the cabinet cuts. Although I use AES cables and they are recommended for the digital L6 link, I also find any decent quality XLR cable will do in a pinch. I too rarely notice any significant difference when using and XLR vs. AES. They say the XLR cables become less reliable with a digital connection as the length and number of them employed (chained for instance between Line6 speakers) increase .