HonestOpinion

Thanks DI!

Voted and here is the link for nippyjun's idea to retain the Tuner settings properly. http://line6.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Tuner-output-setting-needs-to-be-remembered/818690-23508

You are absolutely right! I would say this almost qualifies as a bug rather than a feature request. Changes to the "Reference" or the "Offset" parameter do stick after a restart but the "Tuner Out" parameter does not. That makes the behavior inconsistent. All your tuner parameter selections should be retained after restart. Btw, I am on Firmware ver. 1.10.0.

Bonjour, Asterix & Obelisk & Helix :D

Hold down the Tap footswitch until the Tuner comes up. You will see a "Tuner Out" parameter. Set this to "Multi" instead of "Mute". The tuner parameter options are global and will "stick" from one preset to the next once you change them. See page 31 of the manual if you want more details.

Definitely going to pick one of these up. I have used other manufacturers' crappy versions of this type of implementation of wireless (no battery powered belt pack required). Even though the quality and the wireless tech were not impressive, not requiring a cable running to a belt pack is incredibly convenient. Additionally, I have always found the cord running out to the belt pack to be a primary point of failure with the old style wireless units (the jacks on the belt pack and the connecting cables go bad). It appears Line6 has managed to make an affordable model with good modern wireless technology, add to that that it actually recharges the battery from the base unit. Great idea and a good place to park the transmitter during breaks! Better mechanical design less prone to failure, easier to use, and green and economical -- wireless units eat batteries for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I am all over this thing when it comes out next month (hopefully).

Have to agree with you, I also have the XR18; the complete lack of documentation is just weird and the WIKI is nowhere near adequate . Even the iPad, Android, and PC apps lack a simple help page. The Line6 docs are quite good by comparison and hopefully the user WIKI (HelixHelp.com) will flesh them out even more over the years with more details and tips & tricks. I support companies in the digital age providing their documents in electronic form; adequate detail, good graphics, the ability to electronically search them, and extensive indexing make them even better. I am also a huge fan of a moderated and well designed WIKI that can provide enormous added value from users who can ultimately contribute years of experience with the product. Once the company provides a certain baseline document I would prefer they spend their resources on product improvement with perhaps occasional revisions to the manual where necessary. I understand those who still prefer a printed doc in front of them but I do encourage moving forward with the greener, and once you get used to it, superior method of using electronic docs for those who have access to tablets, notebooks, and the like. Btw, even though I disagree with losdudechris on his post I don't see any reason to continue slamming him. I think the opposing and prevailing point of view has been expressed in no uncertain terms and that is probably adequate.

LOL!

Yeah, maybe those psychedelic colored LEDs remind you of a Fisher-Price toy or your first Grateful Dead show but they are unbelievably helpful on a dark stage. Love 'em! Now if I could only figure out how to trigger them to flash and change colors with a footswitch I could leave our light show at home. :D

Thanks for this! A picture would be great if you can manage.

Save a tree, electronic manuals are a more environmentally sound alternative. As has been pointed out they have the capacity to stay more current and are searchable. You always have the alternative to print it out but with the trend towards reading them on PC's and tablets people often don't even bother any more.

Here is a quote from the article on using 4CM with the 500HDx link I provided: The first method uses ‘Instrument Level’ (-10dBV) throughout and is probably best if you want to use the HD500 for effects only. The second method is an alternative setup for if you want to use the HD500 for both modeling and effects, in situations where your ‘real’ amplifier pre-amp is much louder than the modelled ones’. It uses ‘Line Level’ (+4dBU) on the HD output but turns down the real pre-amps. This effectively gives you more headroom the modelled pre-amps.

I am not using the 4CM method so this may not apply but rather than a gradual roll off of the highs as you describe I generally use a high cut at somewhere between 5-8khz either in the cab sim or after it to dramatically cut everything above that frequency range.

As someone who used the Behringer FCB1010 to control a Fractal Ultra, I understand that sentiment well of finally just wanting to cave and get the Helix controller. Especially to get proper bidirectional communication and have switches and displays accurately reflecting the states on the rack unit. However, if you are using a popular controller maybe someone can send you a config file for the editor for your MIDI controller that works with the Helix Rack. Don't know how likely that is yet however given how new the Helix Rack is. I am assuming you have already been up and back on pages 48-49 of the Helix manual.

I totally agree with your vision of where guitar processing is heading although I don't think the Helix will end up being that controller although its already not inconsiderable capacities in that regard may well extend its usable life as you pointed out. We are already seeing devices designed this way from the ground up (the Zoom C5 1.t was an immature example of this). The future of these units may well be providing the physical interface to DAWs and processing that reside solely on PC's and tablets or perhaps at first downloading parts of their programming for latency reasons to the physical interface but most of the heavy lifting will eventually be done on the tablet/pc with the switching handled by a physical device that does nothing but essentially manipulate plugins and applications. Akin to the model of the separate controller and Helix but all you will require will be the controller for switching and I/O, and your PC or tablet. Tablets processing will still have to get a lot faster and more powerful as well as accelerating the communication between the tablet and the controller before this can replace something like the Helix for live use. Especially if the tablet has to pass the signal back to the controller for output (I/O located on the controller).

Excellent, definitely preferring this method to opening the chassis!

Thanks!

Btw, here is the YouTube video review by the same fellow who authored the above article. Great review if you are in the mood for a video marathon. This review is getting a little long in the tooth now as it was done when the Helix was first released but it is still impressive in scope and detail.

Here is a graphic for 4CM setup: https://youtu.be/Wvz3L8bJb1w?t=117 This allows you to route effects like compression and distortion into your guitar amplifier's preamp (same as if you used pedals between the guitar and the amp in a conventional setup) but send effects such as most commonly reverb and delay, but also some modulation effects or even EQ in between the preamp and power amp sections of your guitar amplifier where they often sound best. You will have to set up the routing and effects send/return blocks in your Helix presets properly to accomplish this. There is a useful template for setting up 4CM in the Helix Templates setlist. Here is a link not for the Helix but it has some good tips. http://amplifya.com/setting-up-your-tube-amp-with-a-pod-hd500/ Here is a good Helix YouTube video for 4CM setup:

Glad to hear you are enjoying your Helix, it is more fun than a barrel of monkeys. I am thinking the loss of highs may have something to do with your setup/equipment as I think most people find the cab highs to be rich (I usually have to EQ/cut them on the high end) going through full range equipment like a PA speaker. Are you hearing the same loss of highs when you go direct to the PA speaker? I also end up as you have found cutting the low end as well. There is certainly no harm using EQ to adjust to your particular setup though. The global EQ might help as well so that if you change rigs you don't have to modify all your presets again.

Some possibilities that jump to mind are a wet/dry routing or phasing issue, an issue with where the effects loop is placed in the effect chain, a long delay or reverb, or even an intermittent cable that is giving the illusion of latency. Or you could always have a defective unit but I would look to other causes first.

Great resource thanks! My thanks to everyone for posting these great utility links. I have renamed the topic in honor of the other resources posted here. Starting to be sorry I spent the time to write a script but at least it has surfaced some excellent alternatives to going through IRs renaming them one at a time.

I agree that there is no way you can anticipate these days when a new product is going to come down the pipeline. I buy these days with the full realization that the next version might come out on day 31 of my 30 day return period. However, there is no doubt that this does suck for the consumer. And, with the pace of technology and development increasing steadily, this is only going to get worse, not better. "Just in time" (JIT) manufacturing may somewhat help alleviate some of this but right now it is not in the interest of corporate profits to inform the consumer of their company's product cycle and unless the consumer exerts enough pressure to change what has become standard industry practice, many purchasers will continue to get zapped at the end of life of a product, as the new one comes out scant days or months after their return period has expired. That is definitely a fact of life right now and perhaps for the foreseeable future. Robert Anton Wilson (great sci-fi writer, physicist and psychologist) wrote about this phenomenon -- statisticians, mathematicians and the like tracked the rate of new inventions, patents, etc. and we are now doubling in frequency at an incredible rate, and that rate is ever increasing. With the ability to ever more rapidly process and access massive amounts of data, and more and more interconnected people on the planet, it gets harder and harder to have a new idea that someone else does not come up with shortly after. This leads to more rapid production and product release. Some companies like some of the phone service providers have come up with new models like "Apple for Life" where you can trade in your old phone each time a new one comes out. This service comes with a fee but does prevent a total or almost total loss on the old hardware and enables the consumer to always have the latest product, so we are seeing new sales models emerge in this increasingly shorter cycle of innovation. It is not unthinkable to imagine a sales model like this eventually being offered in the music technology world for companies with short product cycles. Just from an environmental perspective I would love to see an alternate model where some of this hardware could be retrofitted (for a fee), extending its life, enhancing its function, and sparing the landfills. So, here we sit in a rapidly changing consumer landscape, sometimes taking the hit when we purchase near the ever shortening end of a product's shelf life. For right now I think the best you can do is enjoy what you have and make the most of it. For innovative companies like Line6 where we know there is going to be something new in short order in the pipeline, all we can do is hope they will support their customers by improving their products after release for a "reasonable" amount of time, whatever that is. That period of time should probably be longer for their more expensive products. There are other companies like Roland/Boss for instance with a different sales/development model. They usually have much longer sales cycles, the products they release tend not to be upgraded for years at a time and when they are released they tend to be bullet proof, last for 25 years without repair, are relatively bug free, do NOT have a Boss written editor, are feature rich, but... you can expect little to no improvement after release. This is not the Line6 model. Their products tend to come to market in quick succession and are improved during the sales cycle(even if years have gone into their development like the Helix), so the expectations of a Line6 product should be, and are different, than for instance a Boss product. I go into a purchase knowing that sometimes I am not going to time it ideally. For right now, I understand the disappointment of consumers who get caught up at the end of a sales cycle and I look for new sales models, ongoing support and development, and responsible corporate ethics to mitigate the pain of being the guy who ends up with yesterday's technology at today's price.

Nice utility! Or you can use squish & Python to convert or just rewrite the script in Bash or some other shell script. This is a pretty good site on converting from DOS to Shell script. http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~hwloidl/docs/abs-guide/dosbatch.html

A nice enhancement to this script would be to be to add intelligence to it to pick up at the highest number and only add new number prefixes to the IRs that are not already numbered.