HonestOpinion

Sounds like a good plan, good luck!

You are going to have a blast with the Helix! Remember the global EQ if you need a quick overall tweak to all your presets due to the room or PA characteristics. Holding down the "Bypass" button is the shortcut for engaging it. I always bring my old rig as a backup just in case.

Good luck with your oncologist visit tomorrow!

It is always a good idea to backup presets individually, at least the ones you love, in case you end up with a bad export from a setlist (backup twice). However, I find that exporting using the "Export Setlist" link from the Helix App is much more efficient and less time consuming than trying to restore my presets one by one. That is why I keep all my customized presets in the User lists instead of the Factory lists. I never overwrite the Factory lists after an update, only the User lists. I restore/import my exported/saved "Setlists" to a User list using the "Import Setlist" link, which overwrites only the list you have selected from the pulldown menu's entire contents and loads all of my saved presets at one time. Just be careful to select the User list you want to load to in the Helix app before you run an "Import Setlist" or you may end up overwriting a Factory list. Exporting/Importing Setlists is the best way to easily restore your custom presets that I am aware of. I guess the important distinction to keep in mind is the following, this Helix App behavior is what currently dictates what list I keep my presets in and how I do backups and restores : "Import Bundle" overwrites all lists (Factory, User, and I believe Templates as well) "Import Setlist" overwrites only the list selected in the Helix App's pulldown menu. Using the "Import" link overwrites whatever single preset you have selected in the Helix app. Note: Remember that you can also backup of all your presets individually at once by highlighting them all and hitting the "Export" link.

I am not having this issue although I did not try to import a bundle after the upgrade. Which version of the Helix App (1.03 or 1.04) did you use to backup your presets with before your upgrade and which version did you use for the restore after the upgrade? Also, as mentioned elsewhere, in the future, you may want to avoid importing a bundle back in after an upgrade and instead only import User setlists; otherwise you lose the benefits of any new or tweaked factory presets as they are all overwritten with a bundle import. I know it doesn't do you any good after the fact but I have found the best way to use factory presets is to copy them to a User list first and tweak them there. That way I always have the original factory preset for reference and I don't have to worry about firmware updates overwriting my tweaked factory presets (I also always have my User lists, presets from scratch, and tweaked factory presets, backed up).

+1

Cool! Please let us know what caused it, if and when L6 lets you know. Hoping this is just a one-off. Good luck with the repair.

I am definitely not questioning the purpose of backing things up. Not only do I make sure I backup everything before an update but I do it twice in case I screwed anything up in the process or one of my backups turns out to be corrupt :huh:

I would be careful about using that particular cable again, I wonder if it is shorted. That still would hopefully not be enough to cause the mic board/circuit to fry though. Shorted cables happen all the time.

I made the instructions a little more explicit. I don't know if that will help. Not sure what is causing you an issue with this. It works 100% of the time for me. One thing you may want to try is when you are doing the export and are prompted for the folder you are exporting to, do not double click it such that you end up in the folder. Simply click it once so that it shows up in the "Select Folder" dialog box.

At the moment I use my own presets exclusively for gigs but I use the factory presets for reference and I imagine a few of them will make it into my sets at some point, modified no doubt.

I also don't understand the purpose and have asked for clarification on each firmware release whether to run this process and been advised to run it. I also think there should be a global settings backup procedure on the Helix App.

This is a really good point to bring up. A bundle seems to includes a backup of ALL presets on the Helix, factory, user, and template. If you want to restore a bundle from an old firmware version, that means any tweaks, additions, or changes to the factory presets in the new firmware will be overwritten. It is a bad plan to restore bundles from old firmware versions. Instead, you want to save your customized presets to the User lists, back them up before a firmware update using the "Export Setlist" function, and then restore them using the "Import Setlist" function to a User list after your firmware upgrade.

This is exactly how I do it!

The firmware instructions actually do say to backup your presets and IRs under the "Resetting Helix Globals / Loading the Newest Factory Presets" section. . The reason to back up presets & IRs is that, at least up until now has been that L6 recommended running the Global Reset procedure after each firmware update, and I found that things worked better if you did one, especially for the early firmware updates. However, it is a good question and I too am wondering if the global reset is still necessary and what the benefits are. The global reset seems to be optional according to the firmware instructions.

Hmm, this method might actually work better on slower older machines, I guess that leaves you with the numbering option for now. Thanks for the feedback.

This might be an excellent option if it fits. Don't get this one, I tried and it does not fit the Helix, http://www.amazon.com/Flambeau-6500SN-Tactical-Ar-Case/dp/B00C3MFDKK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1455749251&sr=8-1&keywords=Tactical+Ar+Case+-+Ar+by+Flambeau

This site just keeps getting better and better! Thanks! +1 to david7170, Duncann, and you!

I feel your pain. The firmware upgrade process would be infinitely improved by an Nvidia/AMD type approach to having the entire suite upgraded automatically with any required resets done as part of the process. Between the multiple version numbers on the Line6 Updater, the Helix App, the Windows driver, the firmware, and soon the Editor, this is a far less than ideal way to manage updates. I am also very experienced with updating complex software and I think this process could bear improvement. People spend a lot of time designing their presets and that investment of effort should be respected by consistent librarian (Helix App) behavior that can be counted on to preserve presets and their order between firmware upgrades. I have not seen any of the issues with preset restores since the last firmware upgrade however. It does not help that the basic questions I posted at the top of this topic still have not been answered by Line6. Not to speak of the fact that I have requested for months that they give clearer instructions in their firmware upgrade notes. I hate having to nag L6 for a response every time there is an upgrade. You would think they would want to make the update process as simple and problem free as possible for their users and cut down on negative feedback on the forum as well as time wasted by their support staff on phone calls. With all that said, this update seems to have gone fairly smoothly, I have not yet noticed any problems with preset restores or any other issues, granted I have only had the upgrade for a day. I also noticed that the bug in the scribble strip with a custom name for the expression pedal switch seems to have been fixed. Before when I went to a preset with a custom name, for instance "Rate", on the expression pedal switch, it would still show "EXP 1 EXP 2" until I activated the footswitch. That issue seems to have been addressed. I have noticed that there is still a small bug but only with presets where I custom named the expression switch in prior firmware versions. The bug is that the custom name always comes up lit instead of greyed out, whether or not the expression pedal switch was bypassed. However, new presets with expression switch custom names don't exhibit that behavior so I am satisfied that the custom names will work properly going forward. I am surprised L6 did not list this fix in the firmware notes, this is great! Really psyched to see this taken care of. Way to go guys, awesome!

Great tips one and all gentlemen, thanks! Yeah, prepending all my presets with a number per PeterHamm's suggestion is probably the most bullet-proof solution and was the way I was doing it but requires a bit more management and of course renaming as you swap IRs in and out. Anyway glad to see these options up here and once again I hope they add an "Export Setlist" function to the Impulse section of the Helix App so we can dispense with these workarounds.

Ok, I got you now, you were referring to the Helix App 1.04 as the "Helix app installer". Does the Helix App 1.04 prompt you to download the latest version of the "Line6 Updater", if so I had not noticed that? I am not sure it will always have the latest Windows/Mac driver although DI could answer that one.

Don't you mean the "Line 6 Updater"? What is the "Helix app installer"?

As long as firmware updates involve doing global resets (9&10 footswitch reboot) which also clears out the IRs I have found I am presented with a bit of a problem. I export all my IRs at one time in a mass export before a firmware update to a fresh directory with nothing else in it, but when I use the Helix App and return to that directory to import them, they are stored in alphabetical order in the save directory in Windows. This means that when you go to do a mass import to reload them into the Helix after a global reset they appear by default in the import window in alphabetical order. This probably is not the order the IRs were loaded on your Helix. If you import them this way (alphabetical order) they will probably no longer correspond to the IRs you set up in your presets. This means your custom presets come up with the wrong IR loaded. The way to deal with this is when you open the IR import browse window in the Helix App, sort the IRs on date. Then select them all. This will allow you to import them all at one time in the same order you exported them (even though Windows may not display the time in milliseconds in the browse window, each successive IR saved in a mass export actually has a slightly later timestamp and Windows can sort on it). Perhaps other folks have a better solution but this one is working well for me. It would be great to have an "Export Setlist" in the IR section of the Helix App so this workaround wasn't necessary. However this method seems to work pretty well when you are dealing with a lot of IRs and don't want to have to re-import them one by one, and you also want them to go back into the same IR "slot"/position on the Helix that you exported from. Note: If the Helix app import browse window is not showing "Date" as one of the columns (this is the column you need to sort on), you can do the following. Right click on the directory with your IRs, choose "Properties", select the "Customize" tab, and then select "Documents" in the "Optimize this folder for" pulldown menu. This is the process for Windows 10, it should be similar in earlier Windows versions or even on the Mac.

This is great! I had never used the Updater with Helix to install drivers and the latest version of the Helix App, only firmware.

Thanks very much for the responses GeekPimp. So to consolidate, here is the procedure Geekpimp used to successfully update from firmware ver. 1.06.0 to firmware ver. 1.06.5 (please let me know if this is not correct): Backup presets and IRs with Helix App 1.03 Download and install the Line6 Driver2 ver. 1.77 (If you are a Windows user) Download and install Line6 Updater 1.07 (some users reported issues installing this version without uninstalling the old version first, you can ignore the "certificate not signed" message) Download and install Helix App 1.04 Upgrade to 1.06.5 version of the firmware using the Line6 Updater Run the 9&10 global reset procedure Restore presets with the Helix App 1.04.