HonestOpinion

The manufacturer may set the lowest price the retailer is allowed to sell the item at, or even a specific price the retailer must sell the item at. This is not the price that they sell the item to the retailer for. It is the price that the consumer will have to pay. They sell the item to the retailer at a lower price, otherwise, as you observe, there would be no profit for the retailer.

You do indeed have that right although there are some limited routing workarounds that allow you to, for instance, bypass around a pedal or turn a distortion pedal's drive parameter down and level up, effectively making it transparent. The Helix needs the ability to create scenes but they have heard that from others and myself for months now.

Although "collusion" and "price fixing" may lean a bit towards strong language there are plenty of practices that could certainly be characterized as unfavorable to the consumer. The similarity across retailers in pricing has many causes. They range from "fixed price" policies that companies like Mesa Boogie (and even Behringer) use where they do not allow their retailers to sell their products for less than a certain price, they do this ostensibly to prevent their products from participating in a downward price spiral that devalues their product. Retailers may not actively collude but they do look at each other's prices and recognize the fact that deep discounting results in loss of profits for all of them. This results in a non-explicit consensus by many companies to keep prices roughly even. They may not be sitting around a round table in a dimly lit room together, nefariously making evil plans but there is a sort of implicit price fixing that is market driven and mutually beneficial to the retailers and has a negative impact on consumers. Many seemingly separate companies have the same parent, for example, Guitar Center, Musician's Friend, and Music & Arts are all owned by the same parent company, you are not going to see much variance in price between the three. Thin profit margins on some items can also dictate a certain price point that ends up similar across retailers. Lastly I would say the internet has simultaneously benefited and harmed the consumer. The internet allows us to find deals that would have taken years of garage sale surfing or stumbling on a tiny shop in a town in rural "Bumblef" in the past. At the same time the internet has provided a leveling effect on prices that can sometimes work to the disadvantage of the consumer, however, conversely the competition also often acts to lower prices. Everyone gets to see what the other guy is getting for an item now. I should point out that many people have received 15% or even 20% discounts on the Helix by waiting for the right coupon or sale to come along. Sometimes it comes down to whether you have the patience or opportunity to wait for the right deal.

What is the "second cab reset bug"?

I wanted to come back and agree with an earlier poster about the best way to customize the G-Tour LGW case for the Helix. This case comes with a very nice pedal board but the Helix and the pedalboard do not fit in the stock case. You will have to remove a bit of foam. DO NOT cut the stiffer foam posts as was earlier suggested by myself and others (my sincere apologies regarding that), the foam you want to remove is the soft foam in the top half of the case. SirChipAlot suggested cutting only the soft foam for a different case earlier in this topic and as it turns out this is actually the correct way to customize the G-Tour case as well! The soft foam is attached to the case by velcro so it is easy to pull out, cut, and then reposition. Just take a scissor and cut the foam lengthwise, I cut 4 rows (by "row" I mean those raised bumps in the foam). After the cut you are going to want to position the large piece of trimmed foam towards the bottom bottom of half of the lid so that it does not crush the raised/highest part of the Helix. You can save the trimmed piece in the event that you ever repurpose the case (it will stick right back in due to the velcro). You can now place the Helix on top of the pedalboard in the case (with room for cables or even additional low profile pedals in the cavity below the pedalboard). The fit is snug and I have not had the Helix move around. This is a very high quality case, with sturdy hardware, it is a bit on the heavy side but not terrible. It comes with wheels and a pedalboard that is just big enough for the Helix to fit on. So if you want a board big enough to accommodate extra pedals this is not the best choice. Personally, my goal was to get my sound through the Helix alone, without having to worry about patching in additional pedals. If I decide to add pedals down the line, I will just park them next to the board. However, the pedalboard is great, it has handles that make it easy to move around and help protect the Helix and it keeps the bottom vent and chassis of the Helix off of carpeting for better cooling and less possible exposure to spills or wet floors. The pedalboard is slightly inclined so it gives the Helix a bit more of a slant. I am very happy with this case although I can see the virtue of the backpack as well for easy stuffing into an overhead bin on an airplane or for carrying up a flight of stairs. As well padded as it appears to be, my only reservation with the backpack was that I wanted a hard case to protect the Helix's screen no matter how clumsily someone loaded up the equipment. I can see myself potentially purchasing the backpack at some point as well.

I have done gigs using the Helix direct in several different setups: into whatever the soundman had available (mostly Midas boards and old school PA equipment), through a Line6 system (L2 monitors - L3 FOH, and also through the new Turbosound iP2000 column speakers. They all sound great although the Turbosound system needed the most EQ not to get an almost digital harshness out of the Helix. I have used an L2 behind me as a sort of FRFR although ultimately I think I still prefer traveling light and going direct to the PA with my guitar coming through the monitors or through the Turbosounds placed behind me.

I just retested it and the behavior I am seeing is: the scribble strip ("WAH") comes up unlit with volume block on and the wah block off, I press the expression pedal switch and now the wah block is on and the volume block is off but the "WAH" text on the strip is still unlit (the scribble strip has not changed lit/unlit states even though the expression pedal switch has been clicked!). I press the exp. pedal switch again and now the volume block is on and the wah block is off but the "WAH" text is lit. Totally wonky and not reflective of the assignments on the pedal switch. The lit/unlit behavior is not consistent until the pedal is pressed twice. After pressing the pedal twice the scribble strip now properly alternates between lit and unlit but is lit for volume and unlit for wah (it should be the reverse). I would love to see L6 fix this behavior once and for all.

+1 Yes, that is exactly the bug I am referring to. Thank you so much for testing this! I truly appreciate it!

When you switch back to the preset, is the name, e.g. "Wah" grayed out of is it lit? If it is lit, does it correspond to the WAH being on or not? Mine always comes up lit even though the WAH is not engaged. Only after I click it twice does it start graying and lighting "properly. Thanks.

You did comment that you also would like to see scene functionality but with all due respect, I disagree with your statement that you can "already ALMOST do that kind of thing with footswitches". Yes there are some brilliant workarounds with the Helix's flexible routing but they are no substitute for true scene functionality. Anyone who has used a device with scenes is aware that it takes you to a whole new level of flexibility and ease of use. Switching between multiple amps, IRs, turning on different combinations of effects and changing their parameters with a single footswitch becomes child's play with scenes. This would be particularly true of and beneficial to a device like the Helix that is currently optimized to be used within one preset (no latency and you have spillover within a preset).

Thanks for testing this shawncooke1 but from the post you quoted it looks like an old bug with the expression switch scribble strip that got fixed in the 1.06.5 firmware. They introduced a new bug however which is in the self-quote right above this comment. If you feel so inclined please let me know if you have a fix for this "bug". Thanks!

You can point the Updater to the downloaded file instead of having it download the file.

Use the L6 Updater once you have downloaded it. http://line6.com/software/

I assign a footswitch to the output "block's" volume parameter and set the max +3db higher than the min.

As the link klangmaler provided indicates the best way right now is to numerically prefix the name of all your IRs. You can then highlight them all at one time in the Helix App and hit the "Export" link. This will dump them all into the directory of your choice. You can reimport them all at one time using the "Import" link and highlighting all the IRs in the directory you saved to.

One thing to keep in mind is that most effects have the max effect setting mixed with the max direct (dry) signal at 50% on the "Mix" parameter. For many (most) effects, at a 100% you are only getting the effected (wet) signal. This means that for instance on "Mod" effects like a chorus or a flanger you will only be getting the slightly detuned/delayed signal without the direct signal. This can sound thin and awful depending on whether you are running a stereo or mono mix and how you set up your routing. Setting the "Mix" parameter properly on effects is very important to the final sound. Setting the predelay setting too high on a reverb, having a really long delay time, or having a gate kick in erratically could also be possible causes of the symptoms you are describing but those are probably not causing your issue.

This is awesome, thanks! They may want to do a part 2 at some point that does a deeper dive and includes cool new functionality added by firmware updates such as the ability to swap footswitch assignments by touching two switches simultaneously.

The Helix Help page would be a great place to add these. http://helixhelp.com/pmwiki.php

I agree 100% that updates that change parameters that consequently force me to tweak all my presets is not at all desirable! I have definitely experienced that issue on other MFX. However, by all means bring on the updates that fix bugs, add new effects/amps, new functionality like scenes or limited spillover between presets, reduce latency or enhance the UI, etc..

Absolutely, the Helix UI as well as its array of input/output options is clearly and vastly superior to every other device on the market right now and are the reasons I chose the Helix. I would say that the addition of scene functionality is the one missing piece of the interface required to make it the benchmark for every other device to follow. The lack of scene functionality (ability to assign the same effect/block to multiple footswitches) still forces a bit of tap dancing in certain scenarios and that in my mind is the only major drawback to a UI that in almost every other respect is light years ahead of the competition.

Sorry if I am stating the obvious here, not sure whether this was clear, particularly to someone who does not yet own an L3t, but the L3t auto senses whether it is upright or horizontal and automatically sets the mode to either reference or monitor accordingly. The L3t speaker can even sense whether it is upright on the floor or pole mounted and will adjust its sound accordingly. However, if you prefer another mode (reference, monitor, electric, acoustic, etc.) you can change this by pressing the "Speaker Mode" button on the back of the L3t, regardless of the speakers spatial orientation.

Along these lines, for those of you who learn tunes off of YouTube, you may or may not be aware there is a half and even a quarter speed setting available under the settings icon.

This kind of makes sense to me from a traditional PA standpoint. You cut the low frequencies in the floor monitor mode to cut down on mud and make the highs cut through and hence make it easier for the vocalists to hear themselves. In PA reference mode you want it to be as full range as possible to handle everything a band might throw at it from the lows of a bass or a kick drum all the way up to guitars, sax, flute, etc.. As pointed out though you can set it for whatever sounds best to you.

I would be interested to see you add an example or two to the video from other MFX devices running exactly the same test as a source of comparison. It might be that the compromise for right now given the available hardware at this price point is that you get higher quality models with higher latency. I grant you, not an ideal scenario, and if the latency is substantially higher than other MFX (I have no idea if this is the case) it is an issue that should be addressed by L6 with a minimum of hemming, hawing, and fruitless and frustrating debate. As I stated before, I hope it can be improved somewhat with code optimization. I would think the amount of DSP used by a preset might play into the degree of latency. I am also curious if you get the same amount of latency with pretty much any preset that is fairly DSP intensive or are some presets much worse than others? In other words, does the degree of latency always correspond to how much DSP is used, is it worse with certain effects, or is it the same regardless of what blocks are used in the preset?

This is a very cool use of the Cabclone!