HonestOpinion

I think there have been legitimate suggestions made about changing the implementation of the "Auto" setting on the impedance, e.g. having it set itself to the first active block instead of the first block. Of course that suggestion depends on how the first block "loads" the signal when it is bypassed. I would hate to lose sight though of how awesome it is that Line6 made sure that there was an impedance circuit(which is analog) that can be controlled digitally via the Helix. This allows such things as for example changing the impedance from snapshot to snapshot or through a stomp swtch. So... regardless of the final implementation on the impedance circuit, I am very happy that the capability is in there at all and it leaves room for future changes if they are deemed more desirable and in the meantime remains fairly flexible.

You definitely make a compelling argument for jumping onboard now. I'm curious, do you find yourself mostly using your Helix without cab blocks now or do you mostly run the Powercab in "Flat" mode. Just asking that question brings up another one for me. Would it be a good idea to have a "Flat" mode that does not turn on the high frequency driver? This would allow you to run cab/IR sims from the Helix through a more "neutral" sounding Powercab sim with just the guitar speaker without employing the HF driver. Does this mode already exist on the Powercab? If not I suppose you could just use whatever is currently the most uncolored neutral sounding Powercab preset other then "Flat".

Interesting stuff, and I agree, some of the interviews seem to be contradictory and I have not yet seen anything totally definitive on the subject yet. You're right, some interviewer needs to ask some very pointed questions. Not sure if this is a case of the chef not disclosing the family recipe or just inadequate reporting. I do think the compression he uses and his distinctive EQ curve as well as maybe the character of his power soak are part of the puzzle. I have an SR&D compressor module(half rack) and it makes a marked and noticeable contribution to getting a more Boston-like sound. As a matter of fact, each one of his modules you add gets you predictably and discernibly closer to that sound.

First I would try the usual remedies of switching USB connections, trying a different USB cable, and of course disconnecting anything from the other USB ports possible as well as rebooting the laptop. Also make sure you have enough free space on your laptop. If it is a corrupted preset you can often find it by backing up the setlists one by one until one of them fails. Then export the presets individually in the bad setlist by highlighting half of them and exporting. If that half of the list fails pick half of the failed list and rinse and repeat. By halving each time you will quickly find the offending preset(s). Also if you have loaded new presets to the Helix since you last restarted it try restarting it. It may rebuild the offending preset. Once and if you get a decent backup I would recommend upgrading to the 2.60 firmware and editor, and of course make sure you have a matched pair of firmware and HX Edit. Note: I have also seen defective IRs cause this behavior. Export your IRs, sort by filesize and look for one that is showing only zero or 1byte in length.

I totally hear your frustration and I think it is justified. Even though the "right" thing to do in these situations might be to post the serial number ranges for the affected units and do a mass recall, that would incur massive expenses for Line6 when the defect might not impact a significant percentage of users. All unaffected users who are not impacted benefit from lower unit costs by Line6 not incurring that recall cost. With that said, I agree with your premise that in a perfect world the company takes the hit, and is incentivized to do better QA and parts procurement in the future to avoid the bad PR and the expense of this sort of thing happening. If it is a bad part and Line6 is not to blame hopefully they can pass the cost on back to their manufacturer or parts supplier. I would agree with phil_m here, reach out to Frank Ritchotte or Will or escalate through Line6 phone support and ask them to send out a swap for you with a unit they have tested at Line6 so you don't keep having to play faulty unit roulette. I am inclined to believe they may make an exception to their usual return policy after you have encountered so many faulty units. Sorry you are having to go through the hassle on this. I have been there.

Couldn't they add this ability theoretically to the L6 Link? Same type of conversation has come up before with other L6 Link enabled devices about expanding the functionality of the L6 Link protocol. Great that you can switch the Powercab through MIDI though. I suppose if you set up a couple of preset templates so you don't have to manually add the MIDI setup every time that would be a simple way to leverage this capability. Would be great though to just be able to dial up the speaker type from a menu on the Helix.

Can't wait until Line6 adds the ability to change the speaker settings on the PowerCab from the Helix. It seems like a key ability of an FRFR designed for guitar would be to allow the high frequency driver to be engaged or bypassed from the Helix or other MFX. This allows you to use only the guitar speaker, e.g. Celestion, with for example most of the frequency response in the 70hz to 5khz range and only engage the high frequency driver when required. Switching to a preset for acoustic guitar or just an electric guitar preset that you want full range capability on would engage the high frequency driver on the PowerCab for FRFR usage. That way you get the best of both worlds depending on what a specific preset requires - conventional guitar cab or FRFR. This would eliminate a lot of the necessity to set low and high cuts as well as probably help with the way certain amp/cab models add excessive string noise when using an FRFR as a monitor. This would give the PowerCab the capability to have an electric lead guitar preset set the PowerCab to, for example, the "Cream" speaker profile (uses guitar speaker only), or have an acoustic guitar preset dial up the "Flat" setting(uses guitar speaker and coax high frequency driver). I also like the PowerCab's use of a coax design for the high frequency driver. Although I prefer direct to FOH it is a boon to guitarists who are miking their monitor. That way the mic doesn't have to be positioned between two different drivers(speakers).

The first thing I would do is check my output connections and make sure that the 'Global Settings' --> Ins/Outs --> 'Volume Knob Controls' setting is set to control the output you are feeding your monitor with. If that doesn't work I would go the usual route of backup, global reset, restore. If the global reset does not do the trick reflash with the latest firmware again.

Yep, totally agree here, as I stated earlier I also remember seeing other interviews that indicate some custom equipment on the first Boston album and contradict the article where he seems to indicate a signal chain made up of strictly commercially available products with the exception of his power soak. If you listen to the quote that comes at about 5:40 on the YouTube interview with Scholz you will hear him say directly that he was using his own customized devices on the first Boston album. There is no way that was limited just to the power soak. He doesn't go into detail so it is difficult to know whether he was talking about modding other equipment or his own homemade devices. My guess would be a combination of both. Most people know the famous story of him refusing to re-record his first album in a record company studio. Part of that had to be due to the unique equipment and setup he had. Ultimately I have to believe my ears. I hear technology and tones that were not around yet on that first album anywhere other than Scholz's studio. Additionally it simply does not make sense that a musician/inventor who had already been creating his own custom pedals and electronics for years would not have incorporated them on his first album. He is demoing the Hyperspace pedal here as he discusses the creation of the first Boston album so maybe it made its way in, not sure, can't find a direct quote regarding that but it is a fair assumption. Btw, just wanted to mention and apologies to any hardcore Boston fans, their music was always a little light and pop oriented for my tastes although some of their tunes were fantastic and they put on a great concert. My primary source of admiration for Boston is the innovative album production and the brilliance of the technology that Scholz produced although I would not want to use it on every song, far from it. Tom Scholz is just one of those fascinating examples, like Les Paul, of art and technology intersecting.

Have to admit there is no mention of any homemade technology in the article codamedia posted below about the making of "Boston" among other things. Not sure if that was just an oversight or omission by Scholz but I will have to take him at his word and assume your post above may be correct. If he did not use any homemade technology on his first album he is a genius at production(which he clearly is anyway). I will say from personal experience that simply pairing my Scholz power soak with a cranked Marshall regardless of the effects employed never produced anything close to what I hear on the Boston albums. Anecdotal I know and maybe with a collection of conventional pedals set the way he did I could have gotten closer to that sound. In all my years of fiddling around with pedals, modelers, and amps though nothing seems to quite grab his particular tone although I have heard some pretty close approximations. 'Course some of that is in his fingers too. His own products still do the best job of capturing his sound that I have heard.

Man you're not kidding, he was a hardcore fan of tubes and analog. I definitely took note of the same comments you did by Scholz regarding "anything with an MPU". I had read the same article previously myself and it definitely helps explain why Scholz never released a digital "anything". Too bad though, had he contributed his not inconsiderable talents to a team of musician programmers I think the results might have been outstanding.

Not sure that is entirely accurate although the Rockman and the modules was to some extent an attempt to reproduce with solid state what he was doing with analog equipment in the studio . I don't believe it was just clever EQ. If I correctly remember some of the interviews with him I have seen/read stated that he already had prototypes of some of the electronics that were to make their way as you point out into the products like the Rockman and the modules that came later. I think to some extent it was his prior tinkering in electronics that were already being used on the first Boston album that were later transformed into products available to the consumer. If you look at his Wikipedia entry it states he was already designing his own guitar pedals when he was a student at MIT. Hard to believe some of that hardware did not make it into his first album.

Regarding the OP's original post phil_m is right, the Helix is already for all practical purposes a digital power soak. It allows you to emulate the sound of an amp with everything cranked at whatever volume you choose. However, I have a Scholz power soak and that alone is not enough to give you the iconic Boston tone. Not even close! It requires the rest of the electronics Scholz produced. As others here have pointed out the Rockman sound was a product of the very specific compression, EQ, Marshall emulation, chorus, special sauce, etc. that Scholz, a brilliant MIT graduate , poured into that device. Love it or hate it, I can still remember how different the tones and production on the first Boston album sounded from anything that had come before. To reproduce it on the Helix would probably take a combination of some new custom Rockman effects and EQ combined with the right amp/cab blocks and then a well designed preset to leverage them. I don't think you could get that sound easily with just a for example "Rockman" block unless it encompassed all of these other blocks. I would agree that you can probably get in the ballpark of the Rockman sound with what is already on the Helix but you would be hard-pressed to get the exact mojo that the Rockman or a combination of the modules SR&D sold had. It is still shocking to me how great the tones were and what Scholz was able to accomplish with 70's era solid state. I wish he had kept his electronics company going into the current decade. It would have been interesting to see what a modern CPU powered digital modeler from him would sound like. It is such a potent combination when you get an electronics genius who also happens to be an accomplished musician with a real ear for tone. When you do, things like the Rockman technology pop out and that is a rare occurrence. And these days, to complicate matters further, you have to combine a great musical ear with an electronics genius AND a great set of programmers.

Try restarting the Helix. You will probably see a automatic rebuilding messages for the presets you loaded. Maybe that will help.

Agreed & thx for voting!

As has been indicated you can copy & paste the same preset to multiple locations but eventually keeping any modifications to those presets in synch does become a pain. Best to keep a master version of the preset, only modify that one, and just recopy it whenever you need. Ultimately it would be great if Line6 would decouple the actual presets from the setlists such that the entry in the setlist was only a pointer to the preset. That way you just change the preset in one place and any setlist entries pointing to it would inherit the changes. Vote for it here: https://line6.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Add-Setlists-to-Helix/911976-23508#idea-tab-comments

When all other comparisons are said and done I still have to say that for me the scribble strips remain one of the most compelling features of the Helix although the intelligent layout of the ample screen on the LT is a great substitute if you can't have scribble strips. One thing is clear to me, no matter what device I use as a successor to the Helix it will have to either include scribble strips or I will need to have a MIDI pedalboard that includes them to control it. The advantage of being able to see a descriptive label above the footswitch on the Helix, or in the case of the LT on a large enough screen, is a feature I don't ever want to go without again. What good is having multiple footswitches only labeled by numbers when you are dealing with potentially thousands of snapshots (8 x over a thousand presets)? What good is having multiple stomps available if you can't quickly and easily see what effect they are controlling? Btw, I would still like to see Line6 provide us with an option to using the camera icon for indicating snapshot names. This would give us back an extra six text characters for naming snapshots. Vote it up if you agree: https://line6.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Use-less-or-no-scribble-strip-spaces-to-indicate-a-snapshot/831165-23508#idea-tab-details SCRIBBLE STRIPS RULE!!!!!

^^^This! The 'Global Settings' --> Preference --> = "Transparent" setting is the one you want. The "Authentic" setting is the one that emulates spinning the delay time knob on an analog pedal as ppoceiro pointed out.

I was wondering the same thing but since the OP purchased his Helix used there is no telling how many previous firmware updates were done and hence what version of the factory presets are on his device so I provided the above method for making sure he had the latest.

Yes, sometimes but not always there are new Factory presets or modifications are made to old ones. If you have any presets in your current Factory setlists you want to save you should export them individually with the editor as you stated your objective is to load all the latest Factory presets. You can also save your old Factory presets as setlists. Make sure you have the 2.6 version of HX Edit loaded on your PC. Go to "File" in the HX Edit menu and do a "Create Backup". This will backup all of your global settings, IRs and presets. Btw, probably a good idea to back up the IRs individually as well, just highlight them all in the editor and export. I might also backup any of those "sample presets" you mentioned that you want to be sure are retained. Never hurts to have multiple and redundant backups. Doing a global reset (e.g. footswitches 9&10 on a Helix with a restart) restores the factory presets for the version of firmware currently loaded on your Helix. When you do a "Restore From Backup" (also in the "File" menu) if you expand the little arrow to the left of the "Presets" entry in the restore screen you can uncheck the two Factory setlists. This will prevent the restore process from overwriting the latest Factory presets with the ones you saved but still allow you to restore your User setlists. Your IRs will also be restored to their previous locations. After the restore process completes restart your Helix one last time and you will see your presets go through a final rebuild process automatically.

Would really help to get a few more folks testing this bug. If confirmed I think it should probably opened up as a help ticket with Line6.

Assuming that you have both HX Edit 2.6 and the 2.6 firmware loaded I think you may be right about this being related to the bug people have been reporting regarding the maxed out memory. If you happen to have Native you could probably load your preset there, delete a block and save, and then load the preset back to whatever HX device you have.

Thanks for testing! It would be interesting to see some other folks' results. Something just doesn't seem right with the snapshot bypass/active block state saving and there may be more global settings or variables involved than the ones I listed which may explain why different users are experiencing different results. Can't say for sure yet until more people run tests but my gut feeling is there is a bug here.

Strange, I am able to add new blocks in and have them show up as bypassed in every snapshot with the exception of snapshot#8. I repeated my tests and I am still getting essentially the same results. The global settings are: Footswitches --> 'Preset Mode Switches' = "8 Snapshots" Footswitches --> 'Stomp Mode Switches' = "10 Switches" Preferences --> 'Snapshot Edits' = "Discard" I add a block in snapshot#1, bypass it, save the preset and all the snapshots are saved as bypassed with the exception of snapshot#8. Now here is where it gets weird. If I select snapshot#8 (which is the only snapshot that did not bypass the block, it is active) now any other snapshot I select has the block active. Even through they weren't before I selected snapshot#8. If I go back to snapshot#1 the block is bypassed and now any other snapshot I select, as long as I don't pick snapshot#8 is bypassed again. This is with 'Snapshots Edit' = "Discard". Unless my firmware requires re-flashing or a global reset this has got to be a bug.

Thanks for testing! I was running this test on new presets built from scratch. You definitely shed some additional light on the subject and I remember some similar observations of my own when snapshots were first released. I have not tested for this bug on presets that had already been built on this or former versions of the firmware/editor. Was just doing some quick tests to help test d0stennings observations. This definitely looks like a bug to me on new presets, will have to test further to see how older presets are behaving.