HonestOpinion

No problem, I knew what you meant. I was just curious why you preferred the cut in the cab block instead of perhaps in an EQ block after the cab block?

Just wanted to give some credit where credit is due. The new forum layout does seem to be improving and has the potential to be better than the old one. I like the ability to jump to the last unread post and the search function seems to be working again. There are some other nice new features like the ability to correct an upvote or more importantly a downvote that was given in error. They shrunk the "Common Faqs" link to the black question mark so it is does not obscure cellphone screens as badly as it did initially although I know there are still users who would like to see it go away entirely or be implemented differently. It also seems as if the "Announcements" and pinned topics have shrunk a bit and are monopolizing less real estate although a bit more shrinkage probably wouldn't hurt. LIne6 appears to have responded to several forum user requests, even if some of them were already planned to be implemented after the initial rollout of the new forum. I am hoping the emoticons will be back at some point. Looks like they will as the menu entry for them exists, just not implemented yet. I still think the font needs to be changed to something more readable but overall I find myself more hopeful regarding the future of the forum. My guess is that more veteran users are returning to it as it seems to be steadily improving. I only wish firmware changes and fixes came out at this rate, grin (different animal I know and much more impactful).

Just curious why you recommend the Lo & Hi cuts be in the amp block(assuming you meant amp+cab block?) versus say in an EQ block after the cab or IR? This is from an old TGP post attributed to Ben Adrian, https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?posts/23609655/: The crossover filters are 4th order (4 pole) low pass and high pass. This is 24 dB per octave. IMO, this would be considered a pretty hard filter. Cabs and IRs have 2nd order (2 pole), which is 12 dB per octave. I'd consider this a medium cutoff. EQs have a 2nd order (2 pole) filter for the models which contain the Low and High Cut parameters, but there is also a little extra voicing thrown in with an additional filter to make it more musical. I play through an FRFR so I have to employ cuts to tame the high and low end. I try to roughly follow the frequency response curve of a Celestion speaker for many of my electric guitar presets, although the graphs vary to some extent depending on which exact Celestion speaker you are examining. Note - acoustic guitar and keyboard or synth presets generally don't require such drastic cuts. The three most notable drop-offs in a Celestion graph are a low-cut at 70hz, a fairly rapid decline and high-cut at 5k and an extremely dramatic drop-off at 10k. Trying to take into account the info above from Ben Adrian my method of late has been, depending on the preset, (after setting up my low cut(s)), I put in a 10k high cut in the cab/IR block because this is traditionally where the signal in a guitar speaker absolutely drops off a cliff. Then I put anything up to around a 5k high cut in an EQ block after the cab. My logic on this may be shaky but I figure that way I allow more of the full frequency spectrum from the cab/IR block through with a less severe(10k) cut in the cab/IR block. An electric guitar doesn't put out much signal that high in the frequency range anyway so I figure the cab or IR block is a good place to cut that and retain as much of the cab or IRs' original signal as possible. I then do a more severe cut at, for example 5k, in an EQ block after the cab/IR., That way the more extreme 5k cut in the EQ block will be both "more musical" according to the info from Ben Adrian and also less drastic sounding than if a 5k cut was made in the cab/IR block. Open to new strategies though for EQ cuts, particularly thru FRFR, and interested to know why people prefer a different approach or have found that it works better for them. Lastly, given the information from Ben Adrian above, the approach that uses parallel cabs mixed together using the crossover EQ's "hard" filter with a 24db per octave slope seems to be a great method for balancing lows and high and although I have experimented with it I am not currently playing with any presets that use it. Using the crossover method is definitely not the same as using high and low cuts but seems to address some related issues regarding balancing how much low and high end appear in the preset as well as taking advantage of the steeper db slope in the crossover EQ. I know there are some fairly strong proponents of this method on the forum. Seems like this approach is probably best used in combination with low/high EQ cuts.

Just to present an alternate view here. Although going into a guitar cab with a cab block dialed up in the Helix defies conventional wisdom, I still find it works just fine depending on the guitar cab being used and the preset. No cab block dialed up might be a good place to start when using a conventional guitar cab as a monitor but don't hesitate to experiment with combining it with a Helix cab. It can sound great under the right conditions, provide sonic flexibility, and give your guitar cab a completely different feel and sound that is closer to the amp/cab you may be trying to emulate. I do find an FRFR as you would anticipate is more accurate when it comes to emulating a wide variety of cabs.

The guitar pre's can be useful for someone running directly into a rack mounted power amp without a preamp. They also make sense for those running 4CM into a traditional guitar amp where the Helix's preamp block can bypass the preamp on your guitar amp such that a preset can be using a Helix preamp looped directly into the guitar amp's power amp section. Some folks use the mic tube pre block to warm up the sound from the microphone input or an acoustic guitar. The mic tube pre as well as the guitar preamps have also been used by some both before and after amp blocks to add some additional "warmth" or just modify the sound like an effect pedal. I tried the preamps initially both before and after amp blocks but found that at least for me I wasn't getting enough mileage out of it to persist, YMMV. I do find the mic 'Tube pre' useful for acoustic guitar presets.

This issue has been ongoing for so long I don't remember the L6 rationale any more for why this does not need to be fixed although I do vaguely remember that something was posted. Could you remind us or point us to the link explaining their reasoning. Thanks.

Not sure if I would want to use the mic input on the Helix as you will be using your Warm Audio mic pre into the mic pre on the Helix. Redundant and perhaps capable of damaging the Helix or your monitor. A return jack might be safer and I would make sure that you dial the level way down on your mic pre as well as the Helix's return loop until you find the correct signal strength to send into the Helix. The Send/Return jacks are TS as far as I know. Each Return input is mono, you definitely need two to run a stereo input. The safest option is probably just using the Helix mic pre but I assume you have already tried that and still want the sound of your Warm Audio mic pre.

Always great advice! And thanks for including a cautionary tale to illustrate the point.

I'm cutting weight wherever I can in my rig. I'm still waiting for someone to develop "quantum" FOH speakers and monitors, just a small field generator to carry. Speaker weight, the final frontier. :-)

As others here have noted volume block placement is strictly a matter of personal preference. I put mine after everything including my amp/cab but before any delay based effects like reverb or delay so that their tails don't get cutoff when I go heel-down on the expression pedal. I use the volume knob on my guitar in the conventional manner to control the amount of signal driving the amp and effects, like for example, the distortion block. The guitar's volume control changes the character of the blocks it is driving and the expression pedal is strictly for volume control and swells. This approach gives the volume knob on my guitar and the expression pedal distinctly different functions. The volume block is always set to logarithmic because swells sound much better that way.

I see the fact that the IR blocks in a presets point to a Helix slot number rather than to a specific IR to be made more problematic by the 128 slot limit. I don't think this issue is unique to the Helix as other modelers use the same approach. If you replace the IR in one of your IR slots with another one, every preset pointing to the old IR in that slot is updated. Great, except not always, sometimes you only want one specific preset to use the new IR. When that is the case you use a different/new IR slot for that specific preset. That's all well and good but I find myself having to juggle more and more often as to which of my 128 IR slots, all of which are filled, will become the victim that gets the old IR swapped out and the new one swapped in. This requires going back and potentially reviewing every preset that used the old IR to make sure that it sounds ok with the new one being placed in the old slot. Unfortunately there is no easy way to see a list of which presets correspond to an IR. An IR management tool that allowed you to scroll through your IRs and list the presets used by each one would be really handy. I suppose even if more IR slots were made available there will be players who will always fill every one of them up. In my particular case and I think many other users as well,, another 128 or more slots available would not only allow me to have a wider selection on "permanent" tap but also allow more "swap" space for trying out new IRs. For me the 128 slot limit means that the longer I have my Helix the more inviolable each IR slot becomes and the fewer I have available to swap in new IRs. This is due to the fact that existing IRs/slots are connected to multiple presets and swapping one out has a higher and higher percentage chance of impacting presets pointing to the old IR that I don't necessarily want pointing to the new IR. One other thought on this subject. An approach that might be interesting with IRs is for you to at least have the option to backup/save a preset with its corresponding IR. That way when the preset is restored you would also have the option to restore it with its original IR rather than the one currently residing in that slot which may be different. Not sure how the restore process would work in this case. Anyway, talk about first world problems. The Helix cabs are great IMHO and the ability to use IRs offers infinite possibilities. I am still advocating though for the option for one or more of the current eight setlists to be designated as an "IR-list" and allowed to be used for IRs instead of presets. I think this would be a great option for users who would be happier with a couple of fewer setlists and a couple of additional IR lists. This solution would have zero impact on users who would like to continue with things just as they are but also accommodate those of us who need additional storage space for IRs. Vote it up here: https://line6.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Add-additional-slots-for-IRs/892101-23508#idea-tab-comments

Good catch! I am sure this info will save some other HX users a troubleshooting headache. Glad to see the issue resolved.

It would be great if Line6 provided brief descriptions of new effects/amps and their parameters in the same release notes that they announce the new effects in. Hopefully those release notes all get compiled at some point in an updated manual revision but at least they would be out there in the wild.

It shows up like that everywhere. This bug has been reported previously. Hopefully they get around to fixing it at some point.

Is the latency reduced if you assign the volume block at the beginning of the signal chain on the HX Effects? Does it make a difference if the only thing dialed up on the HX Effects is a volume block? Just trying to see if you can localize the latency on the HX to something else in the HX signal path or if it is just inherent when using the expression pedal on the HD500 with the HX. Also wondering if you get the same level of latency on both the 'Linear' and 'Logarithmic' settings on the HX. I know having to set the HX to 'Linear' would defeat the purpose of what you are trying to do. Just wondering if it makes a difference.

I agree, I find128 IR slots insufficient for my needs. Reminds me of the days when the first portable mp3 players(think iPod) came out and could host something like a total of 100 tunes(if you bought the deluxe model). I am sure people also commented back then "who could possibly want more than a 100 songs". Well, lots of people actually and capacity grew steadily to accommodate thousands of tunes. I don't consider myself an IR fanatic either. I am not the guy who spends his days auditioning IRs. I do have a few different packs though and find the 128 limit makes auditioning and storing the IRs I want readily available much more of a chore than it needs to be. As I have posted here and on Ideascale in the past I would love to see the Helix allow setlists be designated as either setlists or IR lists (Helix preset and IR files are roughly about the same size). That way you could say have, for example, five setlists and three IR lists(128 slots each). Alternatively I hope the next version of the Helix includes a USB port for a flash drive that allows IRs as well as other data like additional setlists to be stored and input into the Helix.

Good to see the page-number hyperlinks restored! Thanks!

Is there any chance you have an aggressive setting on the noise gate in the input block? This can be one possible cause of the sound cutting off as you have described.

Not sure what the link is for the thread but essentially it boils down to if you want to use external out on the tuner out you have to roll back to the 2.53 firmware. It is a known bug in the 2.54 firmware. I am sure it is on their short list to fix it in the next firmware revision.

Man do I agree with this post, particularly when it comes to crunch and lead sounds. My experience when it comes to an FRFR rig with the Helix and some other modelers as well is don't hesitate to make aggressive cuts to 5k or less if necessary. Some amp/cab combinations require them and some don't. These steep cuts can quickly turn a harsh fizzy tone through an FRFR into something buttery and great. That doesn't mean I don't still search for and sometimes find more surgical EQ cuts. As noted by others a steep cut can pull out too much of the bite and the "good stuff" on the high end but overall I find that when using an FRFR as a monitor these fairly substantial cuts are sometimes the quickest way to getting a better tone. It has occurred to many of us who use an FRFR "Hey, isn't that harsh stuff already supposed to be cut out by the cab model?". A perfectly legitimate assumption but I find it is often just not the case. You may have to provide cuts, sometimes quite drastic, with some presets combined with some FRFRs, until things sound right to you. Despite how you think it "should" work. The guitar tones we all know and love were not produced on FRFRs, they were produced with guitar amps and cabs with limited frequency response over 5k. However these tones can be reproduced beautifully on FRFRs but sometimes you just have to radically limit the high end and cut some of the lows. I think it is just a fact that an FRFR has a tendency to more easily introduce harsh high and low end frequencies, fizz, and even string noise, than a traditional guitar amp/cab. You often have to EQ that stuff out and sometimes it gets a bit tricky. FRFRs require more work. As FRFRs become an even more popular method of monitoring guitar it would not hurt if the modelers made some changes to accommodate them more easily such as customized EQ curves/profiles, as some modelers have provided in the past, or even dynamically customized EQ. Actually I think that time is here but for the present in return for using an FRFR you can get fantastic electric guitar tones, great full range acoustic guitar and synth guitar tones as well as vocals. When the presets are EQ'd properly FRFRs provide tones that much more closely resemble the amps they were modeled after. It is a lot easier for your Helix to get close to the sound of a Vox AC30 if it is not pumping into a Marshall amp and cab. Even if that sounds great too. Just different.

According to the firmware update instructions this step is no longer necessary but I still do it sometimes. Your question is a good one, I've wondered the same thing. It would be great if someone from Line6 would chime in and state definitively once and for all whether it is still a good idea to execute the global reset after a firmware update. Their silence on the subject I suppose could be construed as an answer in the form of "if we didn't say to do it in the firmware upgrade instructions then it is not necessary."

Coincidental this thread just popped up again. During band rehearsal this very evening my bass player looked over at me tuning using the Helix and said, and I quote "That is the jumpiest tuner I have ever seen, how do you tune on that thing?". Yes I have the tuner input set to only "Guitar" and I explained to him how to keep his eye primarily on the bottom bar instead of the top. Still... when the instability on the tuner is so evident that other players in the band notice and comment on how poorly the tuner is behaving it is definitely an issue . I use the Helix exclusively for live performance due to its embarrassment of riches in other departments but for the love of all things musical, please fix the bloody tuner already.

I hate to be critical about the new forum because I feel I haven't used it enough yet but something about the new look and methods of navigation have vastly decreased the amount of time I spend on the forum - some might say that is a good thing. The new font and the way it shows up in various browsers makes it more difficult to differentiate between the bolded unread topics and the already read ones. The new look does not seem to be as condensed as the old one and IMHO seems somehow too busy and crowded. I find it more difficult to scan quickly through the list of topics. I also agree that the pinned topics and posts are chewing up too much real-estate now and would benefit from an expand/collapse function. I can tell someone put in a lot of time and effort designing the new look and functions and it deserves to be given a chance but so far it feels like they improved it until they broke it. If I were Line6 I would keep an eye on metrics like how many posts and views there are on the redesigned forum versus the old format. My guess is that other than the increase from new HX FX users the forum usage is going to lower substantially. Hope I am wrong but I am just finding the new design to be sub-optimal. I think one simple improvement would be to change the font being used. It is much less readable than the old one and has this issue where some letters look bolded even when they are not. That is part of what is causing the difficulty with quickly scanning the topics for unread ones. With the old font unread topics seemed to jump out visually. As previously mentioned it would be great to see the last poster and page numbers restored under the topic headings. And where are the emoticons? Having a smiley face available isn't just for brightening up a post, it is for conveying humor, irony, sarcasm, or jest in a written format where your expression and tone can't be seen/heard and hence someone might otherwise get offended. The emoticons really need to be restored. I think some of the new forum functionality should be combined with some of the things that worked so well, particularly the topic view, in the old forum.

You are correct that there is no 10 stomp footswitches option available on the LT but the rest of the functionality for footswitches is similar to the Helix's operation. You probably have this sorted out by now but just in case I wanted to add this clarification. I think part of the confusion was that you can assign a footswitch to invoke a snapshot or a stomp. When you are in for example 'Performance View' and not explicitly in one of the other modes such as "snapshot" or "stomp" mode, your footswitches will default to whatever arrangement you have selected in Global Settings --> Footswitches --> 'Preset Mode Switches'. For example "Snap/Stomp", snapshots on top row, stomps on the bottom. When you explicitly select FS6(Stomp mode) now all eight footswitches show your up to eight stomp assignments on each footswitch. If you press both Bank switches(Snapshot mode) at the same time you enter Snapshot mode and all eight snapshots will be available on each footswitch. So one key is understanding the difference between assigning your parameters and bypass states to to a snapshot or a stomp and then being able to use the mode that displays the combination of stomps, snapshots or even presets that you want to select from. After you have done your assignments you will need to be aware of which mode(e.g stomp or snapshot, or neither) you are in so that you have either all snaps, all stomps, or in the case of the Performance View, some combination of stomps, snapshots, or presets available on the footswitches.

No kidding, they should jump on this one. Understandable that they broke one part of the output processing (tuner) while fixing another (S/PDIF) or perhaps when they fixed the pop noise in the tuner but they should answer this by getting another well QA'd fix out as rapidly as possible.