HonestOpinion

Brilliant! Thank you for your response and this is great to know for players who have more than two controller jacks on the amp they would like to address with the Helix.

I have to agree with you on the thread consolidation thing. It is a vastly superior use of the forum when discussions stay continuous in one topic as there is far less repetition that way. "Use the search, Luke" (shamefaced Stars Wars reference)!

People are absolutely putting up straw man arguments, latency and spillover concerns are dismissed as people requiring zero latency (we don't!) and spillover of every effect (nope), speculation about adding two DSP chips is exaggerated to "why not 50 chips?". Videos showing latency have been dismissed with comments like "who would switch presets while holding a chord?". How better to graphically display the gap between a preset switch in a video than by holding a chord or note and switching the preset? The point of the video seems to be missed entirely. Are you going to display latency in a video with a speed metal tune and switching (well that would be kind of cool)? I believe many users would definitely appreciate whatever improvements Line6 can manage on latency. You don't abandon the better for the best. I agree wholeheartedly that we don't know what Line6 has up their sleeves. I waited patiently for the editor and I am patiently waiting for improvements to the preset switching. As usual, I appreciate that it is not a priority for some players, if you have a Variax, you want that worked on, if you have a DT that is your focus, etc.. For me and I believe many other users who play out in bands this is the area of improvement that would make the Helix the undisputed current leader in the MFX world for a large number of users. It is not such a big deal in the recording studio where you can punch in your parts. Which is not to say that I don't still want more models and effects, some bug fixes, and some other features as well, but they are much further down my wishlist. This issue actually affects my ability to perform with complex patches. The latency is so close to not being a major issue, with a little work I believe it can stop being a subject of focus, so yes, any improvements, incremental or not would be hugely and warmly welcomed!

I have seen more than a couple of occurrences of "straw man" arguments on this topic. You know, where you set up a weak or imaginary argument that your "opponent" never made and then you proceed to tear it apart with ease. Most of us who are advocating for reduced latency or some form of spillover are not asking for zero latency or some perfect spillover that creates absolutely inaudible gaps (that can wait for the day after tomorrow's hardware and if you are expecting it now you are probably being unrealistic). We are simply looking to reduce latency and have some form of limited spillover that makes using multiple presets within a song as usable as possible given the hardware platform we are on. We have lapsed into making suggestions at times for future generations of hardware after repeatedly being told that little or nothing could be done with the current hardware and we should just play and design our presets differently. I am more than happy to adapt to the hardware/software as it stands to some extent and would also like it to adapt to me a bit, and the horde of players like me. I believe this is far from a dead horse, maybe a sick and ailing horse but not quite ready for the dog food factory yet. DI has dropped some promising bread crumbs about both spillover and reduced latency. For me, these are by far the most important features Line6 could work on right now as I believe the UI and ease of use is the best in class, the editor is good and will only get better, the modeling kicks arse, the effects are top shelf, and the input/output options are best in class.

I get that and I mentioned those possibilities and acknowledged that in my post. However, R&D costs can be paid back many times over by a product that blows the competition away. I don't know what the additional costs are and what they would be spread across tens/hundreds of thousands of units sold. I am simply pointing out the additional hardware is not that expensive and Digitech did manage to utilize their chips this way in a far less expensive unit. In my opinion the quality of the modeling is there, any additional modeling improvements while welcome will be incremental and largely unnoticed by musicians and drunken audience alike. Low latency and spillover however would be a huge win to musicians and very welcome to many of us who are huge fans of almost everything else about the Helix and would like to see these issues addressed.

As long as people are throwing around analogies to cars I thought I would include a silly one of my own. Music is a time based "sport". Broken into increments like quarter notes and downbeats. If Nike sold a track & field hurdler a shoe that crumpled and then recovered every second step would you ask the runner to adjust his stride and make sure to only jump the hurdles every other step? Of course not, you would ask Nike to fix the shoe. That is what we are asking for, "Line6, please fix this shoe". Wait a sec, where am I, what am I talking about, is this thing on? :P

Could someone please explain to me why it would cost $500 more for two more DSP chips? The DSP chip used by the Helix is the Analog Devices "ADSP-21469KBCZ-4". This chip is currently selling for $16.70 when you buy one thousand of them (I am sure Line6 is going to sell at least 250 Helix's [4 chips apiece please]). The two extra chips would only add $33.40 per unit to the bottom line. I have asked this question before, where is all this "extra" cost coming in if we are talking about basically just adding two inexpensive DSP chips, in return for which we get much faster switching, spillover, and the capacity to switch between presets that get to use all the DSP that two chips can provide (second set of two for switching and spillover). For people who don't care about preset switch latency and spillover, you could make a version that allows monster signal chains using all four DSP chips. I am truly curious, is it the software development, extra hardware to leverage the two chips, where is all this potential additional cost Line6 is warning us about coming from? Supporting research: Here is a link for a great review on the Helix which shows a picture of the DSP chips used in case you are wondering where I got my information from. Scroll down to the "Inside The Helix" section. http://www.tonymckenzie.com/line6-helix-effects-unit-floor-pedal-inside-and-out-review.htm Here is the Analog Devices price page for the DSP chip used in the Helix ("ADSP-21469KBCZ-4".): http://www.analog.com/en/products/processors-dsp/sharc/adsp-21469.html#product-samplebuy

Thanks!

Thanks for contributing these, you may want to post them here as well, http://line6.com/support/topic/17076-links-for-free-impulse-responses-ir-here/?hl=free+impulse+response

At least in the former updates, there would be new factory presets and they would also tweak factory presets in between firmware updates, either to make them sound better or to fix a bug (for instance in an early firmware version all the factory presets were set to an SM57 mic on the cabs by accident). When you import a bundle you overwrite all of the User and the FACTORY presets. This means you have effectively rolled back to the Factory presets from the former update. A much better way to do things is to copy factory presets you intend to tweak to a User list. Save your Setlists individually (twice) each time before an upgrade as well as a bundle just in case. After a firmware upgrade you can restore your setlists without overwriting any new and/or improved Factory presets.

Great post and I echo the sentiment that unless you design your presets with a PA speaker or FRFR they probably won't sound remotely similar to the audience who will be hearing them through the FOH setup. Setting up presets through your favorite amp may sound great but just does not accurately represent the sound delivered direct through the PA. If you set up your presets through a guitar amp there is a good chance that the guitar speaker's steep drop off at 5k will mean that your sound through the PA may be too bright and spikey unless you EQ'd your preset to cut the high end, a high end that you have not been hearing through your guitar amp's speaker. Even then you will still be missing some of the more subtle EQ adjustments. If your PA has subs or is EQ'd for good bass response there may be too much low end out in the audience as well. If you are going to use your guitar amp to design presets you are probably best off miking your amp or blending the miked amp with the direct sound from the Helix than just going direct to the mixer from the Helix with presets designed and intended for an amp. I use an L2m for dialing in my presets and it is much closer to what I hear FOH.

Go over to the Command Center, pick the switch for the scribble switch you want to rename and hit Customize.

+1 Nice diagnosis!

And a darn good beta I might add as well! Not trying to sound critical, just providing what I hope is useful feedback, that is what betas are for. Part of the beta process is to solicit impressions and ideas for improvement from end users as they are the ones who will be using the final product. Get your best suggestions in now, they won't be working on the editor forever.

It sounds like perhaps you did not run the global reset option (hold down 9& 10) after one or more of the previous updates. Hopefully Silverhead's suggestion about exporting the setlists will work. You can also try highlighting all your presets and using the "Export" link. You can then import them the same way. You may want to try exporting using a previous version of the Helix App. As of the way updates are done right now, you never want to import a bundle. It is much better to save your presets to "User" lists, and back them up with the "Export Setlist" link, and then import with "Import Setlist". Make sure you select the User list you want to import to before running the import. Good luck with this!

I notice that there are many places in the editor where a bar is used where a dropdown menu would probably be a better choice. This forces you to drag the bar accross to see the available options for a parameter one by one instead of a pulldown menu where all options would be visible. Would be nice to see pulldown menus used for text based parameter selections and the bars used for numeric values. Not sure why the UI was implemented this way? It is very different from most interfaces I have encountered.

I am running mine full screen at 1920 x 1080, which I guess is low res by some people's standards yet still easy on the eyes and it looks fantastic! Everything is framed perfectly on the screen and clearly visible. This is a great beta and I am looking forward to seeing additional features and functions added. One feature I had kind of hoped for was that the main page would show the actual name of the effect, amp, or whatever for each block instead of showing the way too vague category name ("Mod", "Distortion", "Dynamic", etc.). Line6, please consider showing the more detailed block name in the editor.

I think just getting the latency down to where it is less noticeable is the goal in mind. Zero audible latency would be awesome but I don't think anyone is expecting that (not yet anyway). Also, if it was only about 2 more DSP processors then I wish they had included them. The DSP processors on the Helix are great quality but they are also very inexpensive. The two chips without markup would have added no more than slightly over $20 per Helix (per the pricing I saw on the Analog Devices website last time I checked). Now connecting them and supporting any additional hardware/software requirements, that may be more expensive, and I have no idea what that additional cost would be. But the additional chips would have been cheap.

I would think that even if the Helix's file system works that way you would still be able to populate a dropdown list in the editor. Can't the editor "translate" the Helix's file system into a more user friendly interface?

Just in time for the new update which came out today for 1.10 which includes the new beta of the editor. :)

Fantastic to see the beta editor out! Thank you Line6! The update process was absolutely seamless, first try, no problem. As DI advised earlier, make sure you click the "Beta" box on the downloads page or you will not see the new version of the Helix App Installer. The instructions in the new firmware version for this update are brilliant. It seems every suggestion to make them concise and clear has been implemented. For the first time I have absolutely no questions. Well done and many thanks!

It is unfortunate to see people characterizing scene functionality as "too confusing". It is actually easier to use than convoluted routing schemes and has been successfully implemented and embraced by the users who have access to it on other MFX. Even if it was too complicated to implement it on the Helix's physical interface it would be great to be able to load scenes from a well designed editor page. For those who find it too confusing they could opt not to use it.

You make plenty of good points but characterizing users who think that latency and lack of spillover and scene functionality are problematic as "whiners" is perhaps less than charitable or accurate. People often tend to think other people's issues/suggestions are whining until it is an issue they are concerned about, then all of a sudden it is a valid complaint. For some users it is when is the editor going to be out, for others it is all about the models and effects, for some it is core functionality, how well it works with a Mac or the DT or the Variax, etc. ad infinitum. Staying respectful of others' concerns definitely makes it easier on everybody. I also don't mean to sound argumentative, everyone is entitled to their opinion. It does seem a bit incongruous to be someone who claims that "most of their career has been spent finding creative technology solutions" while you seem to find it silly that others are encouraging Line6 to do just that.

There is still no scene functionality in the Helix so if you are claiming that latency between patches is the way that the Helix was "designed" then it is missing a critical design element as many users cannot do everything they want within a single preset without tap dancing. Additionally the available DSP, limits what can be placed in a single preset. This is true of all MFX units. Ultimately it may prove somewhat fruitless to define the Helix by the debate over what the nomenclature ("Setlists") really means. To some it means multiple presets to a song and to some it means a single preset to a song. Many users would like to see a unit with minimal latency between presets and even spillover. Switching between presets within a song is a perfectly valid approach, easily handled by many MFX and preferred by many users. It also happens to be an approach that allows switching between more complex DSP intensive signal chains. I don't think there is anything unreasonable about these requests to make an effort to reduce latency between presets and to add whatever spillover capability possible within the current hardware, as well as adding scene functionality for those who prefer to work within a single preset. This would make for an ideal pedalboard for EVERYBODY, for those who wish to use it within a preset and those who do not. Trying to convince people that they should just ratchet down their expectations, try to jam every possible effect, amp, IR, and routing they want for a song within one preset, and change the way they play in order to adjust to the Helix's limitations may be sound and reasonable advice but I would much rather see Line6 improve the Helix. The video that one of the forum users posted clearly demonstrates that there is a problem with latency between presets. I know no one wants to hear that and the topic has been beaten to death but every time I see these posts about how people should just accept it I can't hep but think that there also needs to be persistent voices asking for something better than complacency and acceptance of these issues. One of the great virtues of the Helix is that it is head and shoulders ahead of the competition in its user interface and ease of programming. Some of that advantage is lost in the routing contortions some of us are forced into to get everything to work within one preset. I prefer to spend minimal time programming, I would rather be playing. Line6 needs to know that many of us like complex signal chains and/or just prefer the workflow of switching between presets. Latency, and the lack of scenes and spillover can be frustrating and serious limitations that need to be addressed, preferably on this version of the Helix, but if not, definitely on the next.

Was that an Anton Wilson reference? If so, awesome! B)