HonestOpinion

Another way to put it and a good point! Many analog/tube guitar amp pre and power sections would have the same EQ challenges if they were not being pumped through guitar cabinets designed with limited and tailored frequency responses.

All true! I think many of us grew up on the "warm" sound of tube amps with Celestion speakers and the like which have a mid bump and a steep cutoff in the frequency spectrum at both the low end and especially the high end at about 5khz. The "clarity" and frequency response of an FRFR or PA speaker can sound boomy or brittle without significant EQ adjustments. I struggle not only to retain the warmth of my analog equipment but also to reeducate my ears to new less "muted" sounds more balanced across a wider frequency range. My goal is usually to get a warm sound that also retains its sparkle and bite but does not exhaust my listeners' ears. It is easy to cross the line from cutting through the mix to icepick, that is where getting the right EQ really makes digital modeling shine.

Only when I'm the "guitarist with folded arms in the back" :D

I am not finding switching latency or lack of spillover a showstopper, but I agree, they are genuine issues. Of course, as has been repeated ad nauseum, these issues exist on almost every MFX on the market to greater or lesser degree. I love playing with the Helix now but by all means it will be a much better device when these issues are finally and completely addressed (probably in future generations of the device). I am definitely in the philosophical camp that believe that in future hardware generations both spillover and preset switching latency will be non-issues gone the way of the Dodo bird. There seems to be some disagreement on that point as some contend that the constant demand for better modeling and other features will continue to consume any added processing power. Only time will settle that debate. Currently all we can hope for is that given the current hardware, every effort to minimize latency through code optimization and perhaps some clever workarounds for limited spillover implementation between presets are provided. Personally I believe in future generations of the Helix or whatever replaces it, as processor speeds and capabilities increase, and as costs go down, at some point the decision will be made to allocate those additional resources to spillover and the lowest possible latency (within the laws of physics). Processors will get so cheap they will be throwing them around like Skittles, e.g. "we dedicated a single processor just to provide psychedelic lighting for the footswitch rings". Modeling will be so good that an incremental, potentially inaudible improvement to model quality or other features will be outweighed by customer demands and desire for low latency and spillover. In my opinion we are darn near that point now. Man does this thing sound good!

Doctor who? ;)

Yep, mine came with the flight case so my answer may not be as relevant. I purchased the Gator G-Tour LGW case for the Helix just to protect it. It came with a pedal board however and I do use it, what the heck. My thinking was the pedalboard added the following advantages: Definitely better cooling and it keeps the Helix off of carpets which might block the bottom vent. The side handles on the pedalboard and the extra height made it a little less likely that bandmembers or audience would inadvertently kick the Helix (that's my job). Lifting it a bit off the floor meant that when someone spilled a drink or the floor was wet, the Helix would not be sitting directly in the puddle (barring a direct spill onto the Helix in which case my team of nanobots with tiny sponges and hair dryers rush in).

Ok, great to see a little humor injected into a topic and I can understand where maybe most people would think having a password unlock feature would be a bridge too far (unless maybe you have an intrepid four year old crawling around in your practice area who thinks your Helix is way more fun than a Fisher-Price mobile). Backups, early and often! I am not sure about the "separate menu" implementation but I have actually thought that being able to lock/unlock a preset was a good idea since it was first posted. It is usually super easy to implement in programming terms (a simple on/off flag, flip a bit) and has been used to good effect in some applications. I think it has been explained clearly, he is not trying to have permanently locked down factory presets that can't be overwritten, he is simply looking for an option to lock/unlock a selected user preset (or maybe even a factory preset). This idea is not exactly at the top of my priority list but I still think it is a good one. It is possible in the heat of the moment to either overwrite a preset you did not intend to by saving to the wrong location, or even by saving it to the current location when you had intended to copy it elsewhere. Again, there are about a 100 things I would like to see L6 work on before this but it would be a nice feature to have.

Yes, you can easily set up the routing in the Helix to ultimately result in four distinct simultaneous inputs/outputs. You can use the four returns and sends for additional inputs/outputs in addition to the L6 Link, XLR, and 1/4 outputs and the Guitar and Aux inputs. The Helix has two routes ("A" & "B") and each of these can be split into two separate paths (two paths per route). Using four distinct inputs/outputs will divide the available DSP and blocks across the two routes. I believe the DSP will be divided in two not four(half the DSP for each pair of paths). This is an important distinction as it means that half of the Helix's total DSP can be distributed as you see fit across each pair of paths (rather than 25% of the total DSP being automatically allotted to each path). You will have a max of eight blocks available for each path (DSP allowing). DI please correct this if the DSP usage for separate paths works differently than described.

There is also always the option of going directly to the mixer and using your vocal monitor for your guitar/Helix. No guitar amp or FRFR. I have been doing this for a couple of years (even before purchasing the Helix) and I do admit that I miss the air and punch coming from behind me from a nice cab, however, the convenience, fewer possible points of failure, and most of all, the ease of just carrying in guitar and MFX unit has been awesome. Every once in a while I still bring an amp or an FRFR but it is the exception for me now.

Completely agree although I truly hope quality control and future enhancement/development are not entirely mutually exclusive; I am sure compromises between the two are required! My Stagescape M20d immediately developed problems with one of the auto sensing XLR connections causing it to drop out randomly, all my Stagescape speakers had problems with rattling fans (they fixed this issue in later production runs), and I am on my second Helix as the first had footswitch problems. All of the equipment problems I experienced have also been reported by multiple other forum members. I know it is only anecdotal but my experience has led me believe that Line6 needs to do a better job on their production line and with QC. They might want to either consider reevaluating who does their manufacturing and/or put a more rigorous QC process in place. My problems have all occurred not on cheap low end equipment but their high-end expensive, supposedly "pro" stuff. People don't write in to say "my equipment is working correctly", we tend to hear more about the equipment that has issues on the boards. I know a certain percentage of equipment from any manufacturer will have issues, and I am willing to concede that it could just be my own bad luck but between what I see on the message boards and my own experience I believe L6 could improve on dependability and QC. They have at least been very good about stepping up to offer fixes which is enough to keep me loyal but I wish they would address the dependability issues once and for all, especially on their top shelf stuff. I hate even having to post anything like this because I believe the Helix is a remarkable piece of equipment and I want as many people as possible to purchase it and encourage its ongoing development. I just think it is worth expending a little extra time and expense to make sure that the parts (most of which are top quality on the Helix) that go out the door hold up in the real world for years and that as few as possible of the inevitable bad ones that pop up on any and every production line ever make it to consumers.

Nice!

I don't have the RC-300 but I think you have the answer there, just use the outputs or the sends, and the returns on the Helix for the RC-300 and use the L6 Link to your L2ms. It probably just depends on what works and sounds best for you best in terms of routing, whether you come out of the RC-300 or the Helix to your L2ms. At some point when the signal goes to the RC-300 you will have a D/A conversion. Not that this should cause an issue. I would probably opt for looping the RC-300 in the Helix and using the L6 Link to the L2m speakers. Please let us know what works best for you.

Which version of Windows are you using (if you are using Windows) and which browser (IE, Firefox, Chrome, etc.) and browser version are you using?

I usually use the method silverhead describes but another way to do it is to press and hold the Mode button. This will bring up a mode where all the blocks are preassigned to a different footswitch and clicking any one of them will bring up all of the parameters for that block on the footswitches and allow them to be adjusted with the expression pedal. This is truly the program with your feet mode!

You are correct when you point out that comparisons need to be fair and that the Axe-FX and Kemper are far more expensive, but if you want to do fair comparisons, please also keep in mind that as far as I know Line6 has been around a lot longer and is a much larger company than for instance Fractal, with one would hope, far more marketing, distribution, and development resources at its disposal, giving it an advantage by economy of scale, number of units sold, distribution, and exposure. I have no idea how its margin on each unit compares with Axe-FX but this could be a factor as well. Although I don't know whether the purchase by Yamaha has actually provided Line6 with new resources, this partnership could at least potentially offer them yet another avenue to enhancing development cycles (although perhaps not). The fact is that for high end devices in this general price range consumers have come to expect a certain baseline of support, options, performance, periodic enhancements, and dependability. We can debate all day whether certain expectations are reasonable or not but ultimately consumers do look to the standards set by the myriad companies out there for a sort of general consensus as to what to expect when purchasing an item in this price range as well as more or less expensive devices.

I recently played a gig using the following setup. It worked quite well but I would be interested if anyone has any opinions on perhaps a better way to do things. I ran the L6 Link output from the Helix to an L2m speaker which I used as my "FRFR" monitor on stage. I then gave the soundman an XLR feed from the analog Line Thru (All Inputs) output on the back of the L2m. The reason I used the analog out on the back of the L2m speaker was that I did not have to change any of the routing on my existing presets on the Helix. The soundman gave me my guitar back in the stage monitors as well as obviously feeding it to the FOH. I imagine having the L2m behind me and also having the vocal monitors in front of me, both outputting my guitar sound, probably resulted in some phase cancellation but it still sounded pretty good and worked fairly well. I am wondering if I would have been better off just using my L2m for monitoring my guitar and not additionally having guitar in my vocal monitor? I have been using just vocal monitors for my guitar sound in the past but thought I would try using an L2m behind me as I could not predict how good the soundman or monitoring situation would be at the gig. I would love to see L6 provide more control over the "Multi" setting for the output. Ideally I would have liked to have run my electric out through the L6 Link and the XLR output, my acoustic out though the 1/4 output. My presets are set up ordinarily for sending the electric out to the XLR and the acoustic to the 1/4 outputs, direct to the mixer and out through the PA. The issue I encountered was that in order to also send out via the digital L6 Link, I had to set the output for my electric to Multi (I usually just have it set to XLR), this meant the output was also going to the 1/4 output. I ordinarily reserve the 1/4 output for the acoustic's separate feed to the mixer. Due to the Multi setting this now meant that my electric was also going out the 1/4 input reserved for the acoustic. I could have altered this by using a send block in all my presets but it would have so much easier to just globally assign the Multi output to only go to the L6 Link and XLR outputs without having it also go to the 1/4 output.

I would agree with people who assert that you should buy the Helix for what it does now. There is never a guarantee of how much future development and enhancements Line6 will devote to any given product once it is released. However, I think it is a reasonable expectation that L6 endow a device at this price point with capabilities that are in line with and rival other similar products in the market place. Easier said than done in the case of the Helix as it costs significantly less than its closest competition from Axe-FX and Kemper. I still think at $1500 many people would hope to see many more bug fixes, enhancements, effects and more amps added given the wealth of choices from other MFX units both at the bottom and the top of the price range. My perception could be totally erroneous but sometimes it almost appears to me that L6's development efforts on any specific unit get diluted by the sheer number of new products and ingenious new stuff that seems to constantly be appearing in their product pipeline. At some point you have to seriously scale up your staff and developers before you get spread too thin, or, you have to release fewer new products. As a customer it is very important to me that L6 remain loyal to those who have invested in last year's product, particularly the more expensive ones. I watched L6 essentially abandon development on the StageScape M20d very early in its lifecycle despite the fact that it initially sold at $2000. Luckily the StageScape M20d was a great product right out of the gate but lagging sales resulted in lagging development despite the investment of faith and cash by their customers. I hope the incredible demand for the Helix and the relatively hefty price results in continued support and enhancement. I can't help but look at each new product that L6 releases as both a tribute to an incredibly vibrant , creative, and forward thinking company, but also as somewhat of a threat to their commitment to the Helix and their ability to allocate adequate resources to it. All of the early adopters of the Helix have placed their trust in Line6 to dedicate the required level of development resources to the Helix for a reasonable amount of time before moving on to the next latest and greatest. I don't believe reasonable customer expectations should be sacrificed to work on the next project, and so far this does not seem to be the case. As always I hope that Line6 takes the long view and sees trust and a positive relationship with their customers as a less tangible but critical element to future profits.

Awesome tip! Wonder what kind of algorithm is used for the merge? What is the size of the merged .wav file, is it twice as large?

Thanks, make sense, I will compare the two.

I just started using the L6 link from the Helix direct to an L2m. I was surprised to see this comment. Previously I had the Helix hooked up through the mixer using the L2ms as monitors where of course they were set to Reference. I thought connecting directly to the L2m via L6 would sound better with the "Guitar" setting. Why is the PA/Reference setting better than the one intended for guitar? Is the guitar setting intended more for an analog guitar and pedals rig?

If the switch seems to work after a reboot, it might be worth reapplying the latest firmware and doing a global reset .

Actually, you don't want to use the Export Bundle option other than to have an emergency backup. The firmware upgrades up until now have included a global reset procedure which overwrites all the presets in the Factory lists. Instead, copy any presets you want to modify to a User list and modify them there. Use the Export Setlist function to save all your modified presets, do this for any User list you have presets in. Use Import Setlist to import them back in to their corresponding User list after your firmware upgrade. The problem with using Export Bundle is that after the next firmware update, if you use Import Bundle, it will overwrite all of your Factory, User, & Template lists and their presets. If there are any new presets, bug fixes, enhancements, etc. in the next firmware version's Factory presets (and there have been several in each firmware upgrade) you will overwrite them with the Factory presets from the previous firmware. You probably don't want to do that. Note: It doesn't hurt to backup your modified presets individually as well. You can do this by highlighting them all at one time and hitting the Export link. Also do yourself a favor and make two backups with different names of each list with Export Setlist just in case you end up with one that is corrupt.

Great suggestion, some kind of Windows tablet with the upcoming editor might be just the ticket for now! It would be tethered but it is no big issue to run a USB cable up a mic stand or a music stand. The major drawback of having to use a Windows based tablet is that all my other apps for live performance are on iPad. I use OnSong for lyrics and set lists(probably the dominant lyrics and set list program on the market and not available on Windows) and I also have my digital mixer control app on iPad. As a matter of fact the vast majority of performance and equipment related apps are on iPad. I can't see having two tablets on my mic stand. Maybe one on my mic stand and one on a music or a mic stand with tablet holder off to the side. Damm, thought I had dumped the music stand forever. :(

We are definitely sometimes just dreaming out loud or proposing things for future development However, some of the ideas like limited function Bluetooth apps or tethered iPad could perhaps be implemented in the present.

You and me both brother! It's also a lot easier on the back for adjustments when you are standing at a mic than bending down to the floor.