HonestOpinion

Whether its time delay or pitch modulation or both, throw in a little randomized variation on stacked parts for vocals or guitars and things start sounding more like actual humans singing or playing together.

Not really. You can download and install it but the editor requires an HX device be connected to really see or do anything with it. Lots of videos out there although you've probably seen them.

One of the parts of the Mimiq's secret sauce for getting things to sound more like a real double track, is I believe a small pitch shift with a randomizing function that constantly modifies how many cents the pitch changes by. I'm wondering if that is essentially what the 'Slop' setting does on the Helix's "Double Take". If so I wouldn't mind seeing the 'Slop' parameter make its way into the harmonizer/pitch shifters as well. Tends to give them a more natural organic sound.

As MusicLaw said one option may be these modern automotive booster/jumpers with small light and powerful rechargeable lithium batteries. There are a ton of them available on Amazon. Also as he already pointed out many of them have the required USB ports that can provide 9v to a portable device rather than the 12v used for jumping a dead car battery. You will want to order a USB to barrel type connector with the correct polarity for the HX Stomp unless you get lucky enough to find a charger where it is included. The adapters are under $10 on Amazon. Here's one that lists its ability to provide 3 amps at 9v from the USB port. The HX Stomp should only pull as many amps as it requires. Many of the batteries that provide at least 2 amps may be listed as having "fast charging" for the USB ports. This generally means they provide at least 2 amps. I would look around for the best price though and get one with as high a "mAh" rating as possible as this will determine how long the battery will last on a single charge and potentially how consistent the current is as the battery starts to run out of steam. Many of them come with both a DC power supply(cigarette lighter socket) for your car and AC power supply for home for recharging the battery. If that is important to you check for both power supply types to be included. https://www.amazon.com/Battery-FLYLINKTECH-15000mAh-Capacity-Portable/dp/B085G97YQ5/ref=sr_1_16?dchild=1&keywords=9v+battery+booster&qid=1594841720&sr=8-16

Have you tried setting the global setting 'Ins/Outs' --> 'Guitar In Pad' = "On"? Does this happen with every patch? Make sure the master on the amp block is relatively high and the drive is low. Try cutting back on the amp's tonestack(treble, mids in particular). Btw, sounded like there was some string buzz against the frets in there as well. Might want to make sure your action and pickup height is set properly. Would also run my tests with the input block's noise gate bypassed.

When you say "no changes you make are stored or recalled" are you talking about the LT or the PowerCab+? You may already be aware of this but just in case - when you use the L6 Link, changes you make to the PC+ parameters from the LT will be reflected by the PC+ but stored on the LT, not the PC+. Note: save your LT preset. The LT essentially just uses a single preset on the PC+ as a workbench for whatever the preset you have dialed up on the LT is configuring on the PC+. The next time you dial up that preset on your LT, the PC+ will configure itself to the settings you selected for it in your LT preset.

When you went to 2.92 or reverted to 2.91 did you start by downloading the corresponding "HX Edit" package? When you go to the Help-->About entry on the HX Edit menu what version of the editor are you seeing? Also, have you tried doing a global reset?

Sorry if I missed your post elsewhere. This sounds like a welcome positive slant on the XLR Out phantom power issue that people might find explains the design decision quite nicely even if they don't agree with it. You sound like you have an engineering or electronics background. What is the "EXTRA FEATURE that line6 added to improve performance"? Does the omission of an anti-pop circuit improve performance? If that is the case is the performance increase sufficient enough to warrant the omission?

Man that brings back some great camping memories!

There are various images of homemade sun sheilds. floating around the internet. You can use cardboard, wood, plastic, etc.. You can also buy an automotive sun shield off Amazon although it might look a bit sloppy on stage and might be less effective at certain sun angles. Part of the challenge with any of these solutions is what to do when the sun is overhead and behind you. Some times might require using a sun shield of some sort and also reorienting the board(more perpendicular to the stage). I've been thinking of how to address this for a while having been caught flat-footed on outdoor gigs before and having to make due with whatever cases were available to throw some shade.. One of the fastest and cheapest DIY projects I can think of would be to take one of those cheap clear or colored plastic storage bins and turn it upside down over the Helix. You know, those bins you might use to carry cables and other loose stuff in. They come in a variety of sizes with varying heights. Cut out a good size square in the front of it for foot access and as much of the top as you need to see the switches and screen. Make sure to drill extra ventilation holes here and there(in the plastic bin, not the Helix :-) if necessary to keep the device from overheating. Spray-paint the outside white for maximum heat reflection or whatever color/design or band logo you prefer. Flat colors would probably help cut down on reflections. I guess you could cover it with colored tape or even bumper stickers if you prefer not to paint. Or just start with a dark colored bin. Seems like it would be inexpensive, relatively quick and easy to build, light and highly customizable. The biggest pain would probably be cutting the plastic and getting the spray paint to adhere "semi"-permanently to the plastic. Maybe rough up the plastic with some sandpaper before painting. Now that I'm talking about it I'm inspired to give it a try myself. Might even make a good beer deflector for indoor gigs.

Fair enough. I understand you were referring specifically to the XLR out jacks(or connectors if you prefer) and functionality is obviously critically important to their operation. However when you say "bad quality" most people's thoughts instantly leap to inferior manufacturing and/or substandard materials, not necessarily problems with functionality, or more to the point, the way that Line 6 designed them to be connected internally. That is why your initial comment elicited the comments and questions above.

Glad you got it figured out but just wanted to mention that at least on the Helix you can import IRs from the Documents directory as well as using the drag and drop method. Not sure why it did not work for you.

Looks like my question already got responded to with great alacrity. Ok, I was already aware of the phantom power issue and that is a legitimate gripe with the Helix. @Sascha your post did make it sound as if the XLR jacks were low quality. The way they were implemented in regards to phantom power is very problematic and should definitely be fixed, at least in the subsequent generations of hardware. That is, as others have already pointed out, not the same as implying that they are "bad quality" jacks. While several of your criticisms of some of the hardware and design choices made for the Helix are perfectly legitimate there is also a wealth of high quality components and design in the box as well. it seems like this might be a good time to trot out this fairly exhaustive early review(see link below) of the Helix from a reviewer who actually took it apart and did a deep dive. You may feel somewhat reassured with his well founded conclusion that the Helix is incredibly well designed with some top notch components. At least in many important respects. It does have room to improve but starts with a very solid foundation. I will stipulate one thing however and I realize it is strictly anecdotal and based on my own experiences with a fairly broad number of Line 6 products. I generally come to Line 6 because of their incredibly innovative technology with its intuitive interfaces that offer a wealth of options but are still unbelievably easy to use. It appears(to me) that they do need to work on reliability and design when it comes to some of the hardware they use and connect with on their devices. I have personally owned several Line 6 devices that have had what are essentially primarily not computer/electronic but instead connectivity/control and mechanical problems and failures. Either way they provide incredible tools for making music. The Helix still remains the first modeler, after many years of trying just about every one on the market, that was able to woo me away from stomp pedals and tube amps and cause me to actually switch over to playing gigs entirely with a modeler. For that alone they deserve major props. Before the Helix every modeler I tried either ended up at best on my pedalboard being strictly used for effects only or got relegated to the dustbin in favor of my analog stomps and a tube amp. https://tonymckenzie.com/line6-helix-effects-unit-floor-pedal-inside-and-out-review.htm

What's the issue with the XLR outs?

I think one change we might see is a merging of high end modeling with some of the tone matching technology we have seen in lower end amps like the Line6 Amplifi and now the Spark amp. You would have an advanced modeler like a Helix along with a proprietary mapped and matched FRFR sold as a bundle. You would need to have a matched modeler and monitor in order to more accurately predict what sound is going to be delivered. Predictability for the finished product would be the key to accurate reproduction. As we all have experienced, selecting a CustomTone preset for any given song can sound wildly different from the original tone depending on what equipment the user is monitoring with. You would select any tune and seconds later have a close reproduction of the guitar or bass tone used on it. Rather than analyzing the tone and then trying to match it to an existing library of tones in the cloud as tone matching appears to be done now, the tone and effects used would be rendered accurately onboard. No tone tweaking required at all other than any customization you might want to add and no requirement for a month of Ben Adrian's time to create a faithful model. Not a revolutionary concept here, just one that has not been applied to top tier modelers yet. I could see this becoming a crutch for some users who might miss out on developing their own unique tones but it would be a popular feature nonetheless.

On the flip side, other than the speaker wearing in nicely with time your tube amp will never get any better than the day you bought it. Also no tubes to replace and no biasing required. Don't get me wrong, I love a great tube amp but each piece of gear has its advantages. Personally I love a good firmware update. I put them squarely in the plus column. With that said Line6 has some room to improve on their update process although I don't remember having any issues with my PC+ upgrade.

I have seen several posts to this effect including one from a fellow who actually repurchased another set of exactly the same IRs at the sample rate required for his PC+. Although I have not tried it myself yet I wonder if you could convert your favorite incompatible IRs to the proper format using a piece of freeware/shareware such as this free utility from Voxengo. If anyone here has any experience with this tool maybe they can comment on it. You might want to contribute a few bucks to the author if it works for you. https://www.voxengo.com/product/r8brain/

An upgrade that retains the global settings cuts down on a huge number of errant "my HX device is broken or different from before the upgrade" support calls and posts. Although the restore of the global settings may have been Line6's only objective and the only reason they posted that in the update instructions I did not make that assumption. You will notice they did not instruct you to uncheck your user/factory setlists(that is a restore option) and only restore the global settings. For all I know there might have been some additional piece of processing that ensured a smoother upgrade on your setlists if they were restored as well. I actually was curious as to whether the intent was just the globals or if restore was also necessary for reprocessing the presets to be compatible with the new firmware when I saw the instructions on my last upgrade. Without more detailed guidance from Line6 I try to follow the upgrade instructions to the letter. Since Line6 did not include the reason for the restore, that included the setlists/presets.

Just trying to make the point that where the cut is started(e.g. 5khz vs. 12khz) should make a fairly audible difference no matter which slope you select. Hillman1312 ran his test using a "sine wave sweep from 10-15khz". I guess I would expect, as his results showed, to hear and see less of difference in the output if I compared the two cuts(6khz/-6db and and 12khz/-12db) if I started my sine wave sweep test at 10khz as he did. I would expect to see a more dramatic difference if I started sweeping from 5khz. To belabor the point, I get what you're saying but there is a whole lot of space in between a cut at 5.8-6khz and 12khz as @Hilman1312 was referring to in the Jason Sadites video(he rocks!). That means that yes, maybe the cut(-24db in your example) looks similar by the time you hit 20khz, or even as you go above 10khz. You would think however there would be a fairly audible difference between a cut that starts at 5khz and one that starts at 12khz, regardless of slope or whether the db level of the two different cuts converge as they approach the top end of the frequency range at 20khz. At say around 10-12khz and beyond, which slope you used shouldn't make as much difference in tone as there is less guitar to be heard up there.

This is a very interesting result. Can you explain why a high cut at 5.8-6.0khz would be roughly the same on an IR block as a Hi/Lo cut on an EQ block at 12khz? The 6db versus 12db cut respectively should only account for the steepness of the slope of the cut. I don't understand why the two different cuts would be giving similar sonic results when cut in such radically different parts of the frequency spectrum. Seems like some other variable would be involved here such as the impact of cutting within the IR instead of after/before it. The difference in the slope of the EQs alone would not seem to be sufficient to account for this result.

I hear you. I did not think the "Both" setting would be what you were looking for but as long as you were opening a ticket on the "Press" and "Touch" settings it made sense to check if the "Both" setting was working correctly. Good luck getting a fix on this. I hope some other HX Stomp users chime in to confirm they have the same problem or maybe that it is working properly for them. That would be most helpful for confirmation and troubleshooting. Maybe this issue has already been discussed elsewhere. I know variations of it have.

LOL, if other users are seeing this, having to resort to using an A/B switcher is well, less than ideal. Firmware revision please. It would be helpful like I said earlier to hear some other HX Stomp users report on how this setting is acting on their Stomps just to make sure you don't have an issue that could be fixed via global reset or a firmware reinstall. I can see where barefoot playing would be less than preferable until this is sorted, I might try using the "Both" setting to hopefully at least get consistent behavior and would definitely consider playing with shoes and an expression of consternation on till this is fixed :-)

Although heavier and offering less potential L/R separation, getting a single 212 Powercab is an option to getting two PC+'s for running in stereo. I'm agnostic as to whether people opt to use FRFR, traditional guitar amp/cab, or Powercab. Personally I prefer an FRFR for gigging but maybe that will change as I get more comfortable with my PC+. My hat is off to anyone who runs 7CM. You couldn't get me to do that on a bet. The fewer cables and less possible points of failure the happier I am. Love those H&K amps. Lots of great Helix integration via MIDI to be had there. Heh, more cables :-)

Hi, I reread your original post as well as the second one you posted and still not clear entirely clear what the issue is although it does appear you may have discovered a bug. That is why I asked for further clarification. Maybe this is just some confusion on my part as to how the HX Stomp works as I have a Helix but the behavior you are describing seems to be, at least in part, as designed. Your post seems to be addressing two issues. The first being that the "Touch, Press, Both" options do not appear to be working as expected. You may indeed have found a bug there and perhaps the LED should not be switching when "Press" is set. Not sure if there is a difference in the way they programmed this to work between the Helix and the HX Stomp but your experience definitely does not seem to be per what the manual indicates. The second issue would be the rest of the behavior of the touch & press which appear to be operating the way I would expect. Here is one point of minor confusion for me. Your first post states "the display will cycle between the two assigned effects, and the LED inverts". Were you referring to the amp blocks and not effects there? That muddied the water for me a bit but I think I know what you meant. Also in your first post you state "Effectively, the LED is random and useless to indicate "channel" state.". In your second post you say "When I hit the button, the amp currently on the display remains unchanged but the LED toggles and audio changes to the other amp." The way I read them these two statements seem to be contradictory. If as you say the "LED toggles and the audio changes to the other amp", then why are you also saying "the LED is random and useless to indicate "channel" state""? At least when set to "Press", it sounds to me like the assigned item in the display is changing, the LED is lighting/dimming, and the amp model is switching as designed. The main problem appears to be that (still with the "Press" setting on) that when you touch the switch it still switches assignments. Again, that sounds like it could be a legit bug. Text from the HX Stomp manual for the Touch, Press, Both global setting: "When set to "Touch," touching a Stomp mode switch selects its assigned item(s) but pressing doesn't. When set to "Press," pressing a Stomp mode switch selects its assigned item(s) but touching doesn't (helpful if you insist on playing barefoot). When set to "Both," either touching or pressing will select the assigned item. The default is "Touch."" Judging by the text in the manual you do appear to have found a bug if when you have this set to "Press" it is still selecting "its assigned item" when you have only touched it. Sorry, took me a while to wind through all the posts in this topic and essentially come to the same conclusion as Codamedia that contacting Line6 might be the best way to get this addressed and get clarification on the intended behavior and what the manual is stating versus the actual behavior. Might be helpful if some other HX Stomp users could verify that they are seeing the same behavior you are on the "Press" setting. Btw, is the "Both" setting working properly?

What Silverhead said, a nice piece of Helix history. Line 6 also came out with several new devices using HX technology that were not technically a "Helix". The LT, HX Stomp, and HX FX were released after the Helix, all of which use essentially the same editor. I think the branding was that these were all part of one line of equipment - the "HX" line, but not necessarily a Helix so "HX Edit" makes more sense as the name of the one editor to rule them all. Btw, I have been asking since practically the first firmware upgrades that the file that we download actually be renamed to something like the HX Bundle. The fact that that download actually contains not only the editor but also the required drivers and updater has been a source of infinite confusion for newer users. At least it looks like now the updater has been integrated into HX Edit. That is one less component users have to worry about getting the right version of. Of course there is still confusion because it would appear that although you can now be automatically alerted when there is a new latest firmware version and download and install it from your current version of HX Edit it is still unclear as to whether or not you also have to download and install the latest version of HX Edit. As far as i can tell, if there is one, you do. Ideally a one stop shop upgrade process would automatically update the editor, drivers, updater, and firmware all at the same time. We seem to be still at some interim phase of a truly mature upgrade process. Better than it used to be but still prone to leaving users unaware of what steps they need to take. Sometimes a new firmware version comes out without a corresponding editor version. I think the latest hotfix from 2.90 to 2.91 was a perfect example of how firmware and editor can still get out of synch with each other when only the firmware is updated through HX Edit . There was never a 2.91 version of HX Edit, only 2.91 firmware. For users who have since used the 2.90 version of HX Edit to upgrade to the 2.92 firmware I wonder how many of them are unaware that there is also a 2.92 version of HX Edit. Ideally HX Edit 2.90 would upgrade the firmware to 2.92 and also upgrade itself to HX Edit 2.92. If it is already doing this please let us know Line6, but I don't believe that is currently the case(could be wrong). As far as I know you still have to manually download and install the latest version of HX Edit(2.92 right now). At least that is the way I did it.