HonestOpinion

Funny title for a topic but maybe there is more here than meets the eye. I'm sure everyone has taken note of the fact that the new HX Edit version is 2.51 but the firmware version is 2.50. Perhaps they are planning on releasing a 2.51 firmware in short order to fix some of the bugs that have been reported in the new firmware or to address known ones? Of course let's hope there are no bugs in the new Editor or that would muck up that whole plan to re-synch the Editor and firmware revision numbers. Gonna need a new HX Edit revision number and firmware number if that is the case. ;)

The usual advice about backing up and refreshing the firmware or trying a global reset first. However, this looks like it could be a hardware issue. Don't know if the Helix uses ribbon cables but maybe something like a loose connection. I would contact Line6 support if a global reset or firmware reapplication does not help.

Great, you are halfway home. Now that you have HX Edit 2.51 installed Open up the "Line6 Updater". Do not attempt to click directly on the firmware file. Forget that firmware file, you are not going to use it unless you have a terrible internet connection. The Updater will walk you through the rest of the upgrade process and grab the correct firmware file for you. Just point and click. Btw, make sure you don't have the Line6 Updater and the Editor up on your computer at the same time. Hopefully it will be seamless as long as you are not experiencing a poor internet connection. Good luck!

Forgive me if you have already tried the usual stuff recommended here. Uninstall the Line6 software and reinstall HX Edit 2.51. Unplug everything from your USB and other ports until you only have a mouse and keyboard attached. Reboot your computer. Close every program and process you can. Now try every USB port. If none of th attached USB ports are working, although it usually makes things worse, if you have a USB hub laying around, try that. Not a Mac user but if nothing is working and there are any crash logs you can check, see if they offer any threads you can follow. If this works you can reattach your peripherals one by one again as well as restarting processes or programs until you nail down what specifically is causing the issue.

Have you tried moving the low and high cuts on the reverb around instead of just setting them to "Off"? I wonder if this would help. You also might try experimenting with the amp's mid, treble, bass, master, etc. settings to see if there are any EQ ranges on the amp that trigger a more robust response from the reverb. I would be interested in the results of this experiment. Please post back if you get around to it.

All the mono reverbs I have tried, if I remember correctly, operate like most of the effects on the Helix where 50% is the maximum level of effect mixed with the max direct signal. As you move past 50% you get less and less direct signal until at 100% you have nothing but effect. That may not be the type of tone the OP is looking for as using that method makes the reverb louder than the direct signal although it is certainly an option and maybe you could use the mix control to mitigate it somewhat. You do bring up another interesting point though. I have not tried it on this particular preset but maybe one easy workaround here is to put the reverb in a split/merge loop at 100% and just mix it into the signal path to taste. That will probably get the OP all the reverb he wants although it will eat up a loop. I still think it is worth examining why this is happening although maybe the reverb is just getting washed out as phil_m postulated. This is probably one of those situations where I might just move to another combination of blocks. Not ideal I know.

^^^^^ This! Don't try to open the firmware file directly and of course you want to have the proper one for your OS. But really, don't even bother downloading the Updater and firmware separately. Make backups with your current editor and download the correct version of HX Edit 2.51 for your OS and device. Unpack/install HX Edit 2.51 and it will automatically install the latest editor, Updater, and driver(if on Windows) on your computer. Then run the Line6 Updater and it will guide you through pulling down the correct firmware file and automatically install it for you and run through the upgrade process. One of the only reasons to ever download the firmware file separately is if you have a spotty internet connection that cannot be depended on to be persistent through the download portion of the Line6 Updater process. The Updater does provide an optional manual process for installing the firmware from your local hard drive but you never want to use that option unless you are forced to. The only other reasons to download a firmware(Flash) file are if you would like to keep the firmware file for posterity or a rollback if required(highly unlikely).

Good additional point, in at least many of the prior firmware versions, not only copying a user preset to a new location, but importing one from CustomTone, retail presets, or your own preset backups from a prior version would generate a rebuild of those specific presets upon the next startup - normal behavior. Just something to keep in mind before you spend three hours editing newly imported presets. Again, it probably does not make a difference or I would think tons of people would have complained about issues but restarting first might be a good idea. This is another one of those subtler behaviors on the Helix that I would love to see someone from Line6 weigh in on. If the subsequent rebuild after editing doesn't make a difference, great. If it does than eventually it would be preferable if the action of importing a legacy preset would immediately trigger whatever the final rebuild sequence is so it did not have to wait for a restart. If the rebuild is strictly a "clerical" process and does not affect preset editing prior to rebuild then it does not matter when it occurs. I suspect that is the case but would love to get a confirmation on that. This issue has been brought up in the forum for years, particularly after every firmware release, and I don't ever remember Line6 posting something regarding its impact or lack thereof. Maybe their lack of commentary on the subject is their way of saying it has no impact but it would be nice to know for sure.

I usually place my reverbs after my cab too and that was my first thought but that does not appear to be the only or primary issue with this preset. I tested the OP's sample preset above with reverb after the cab and it still does not appear to be generating as much reverb as you would expect. I think in this case phil_m's post above is more to the point and maybe re-positioning the high cut filter would help. It does not appear to be the positioning of the reverb that is the primary issue here though. Could be something else going on as well with this particular combination of blocks. I just have not ever encountered this issue before on my presets. It seems almost as if the reverb is not responding as strongly as usual to the dominant frequencies being generated by this particular amp, at least at its default settings. Definitely worthy of closer examination.

The Helix warranty is transferable so as long as you are still within the first two years and have some documentation(copy of receipt, etc.) from the original owner you should be able to get it serviced under warranty. As MusicLaw indicated I would get a hold of Line6 right away. They may be able to help you out even if you don't have documentation. Also, if you are still under warranty they now offer two years of extended warranty service but you are supposed to purchase it apparently while you are still under the original warranty. Might be well worth doing with the bucks you saved on a used device for the peace of mind.

In most of the prior firmware versions the first time you restart the Helix after a reset following a firmware upgrade you will see all the rebuild messages again. For most users that is the last time they will see those messages although there have been occasions where one or two presets would seem to get rebuilt upon restart every time. Also for at least some of the firmware revisions every time you copied a user preset to a new location it would get rebuilt at the next startup. Haven't paid close enough attention to notice if it is still doing that. Point is you should not be seeing all the presets rebuilding on your next startup(maybe a couple). This behavior is why it has been recommended to always restart your Helix an additional time after an update to allow the final rebuild before you start editing your presets. Editing them before this final rebuild probably/maybe doesn't have any impact but it makes me feel better to do the final rebuild first.

Interesting and that is why I included the caveat "hopefully" use less DSP. You are right they may have found optimizations for the HX effects that don't exist in the legacy ones or there could even be some kind of additional "translation" code layer required for the Legacy effects that uses up a bit of DSP. Total speculation on my part though. I also was hoping to use them when my DSP got squeezed. As you say though, let's not look a gift horse in the mouth, even if the horse is a little overweight. ;)

You do benefit from the beefed up hardware and faster more powerful dual DSPs on the Helix even when they are running legacy code as well as the fact that they may hopefully use less DSP than some of the HX effects so either way the new(old) legacy effects are a gift.

I can confirm that, I was able to get it working in FL Studio as well.

I was wondering the same thing. Did HX Effects have a 2.40 release? The OP does not specify what device they have. And as pointed out contacting Microsoft for an Apple issue is going to get you nowhere.

I have actually been having problems with automation of Native in Tracktion. Currently using T6 because it is free and a nice well thought out DAW. Even contacted Tracktion directly and was unable to get it working correctly. No help from the forum yet on automation in Tracktion either. Seems to a problem with that specific DAW as it works in others. Maybe it is just a configuration issue but I have been unable to figure it out yet. I have been able to automate other plug-ins in Tracktion with no issue, just not Native. Automation is definitely the way to go for precise changes but being able to switch snapshots via MIDI footswitch would come in handy for me as well. Free DAW for those who want it: https://www.tracktion.com/products/t6-daw

Right now I manually select it from the snapshots dropdown in Native. Looks pretty much like the HX Edit interface. The advantage is now you can load up all your Helix snapshots to Native. In the prior version only the active snapshot in a preset was loaded. If you had four snapshots set up in your Helix preset, only one of them loaded to Native. I did not see anything in the new Native 1.5 release notes about new MIDI implementation so I am not sure if you will be able to select snapshots using MIDI yet. I believe full MIDI implementation is still one of the features yet to come to Native. Of course I have only had the new version for a few hours. Maybe someone else can shed more light on this subject.

You have to love some of the incredibly positive aspects of Line6's unifying the codebase for the HX family(Helix, LT, Native, HX FX). I was able to upgrade my Helix to the latest firmware(2.50) with all the great new stuff that brings and also to download the latest version of Native(1.5) today. It is an embarrassment of riches, just awesome! Btw the new Native version has in my opinion the most important addition they could have made right now - SNAPSHOTS! The first thing I did after updating the Helix and Native was to re-import all my presets from the Helix to Native, with their attendant snapshots. You gotta love it! It is really amazing to see all these products upgrade roughly simultaneously and able to exchange data. Fantastic accomplishment! :)

It's an interesting question. There are enough potential variables in the following test that the results would almost certainly be inaccurate but all other things being equal and just as a "thought experiment" this would be kind of interesting. I just threw up in my mouth a little saying the phrase "thought experiment". I suppose one way you could test cut precedence within a single parametric block would be to put a single parametric with both your selected parametric band cut and the high/low cut on Path 1. On Path 2 place two parametric blocks next to each other with one having only the exact same high/low cut as the parametric band cut you put on Path 1 and the other having exactly the same parametric high/low cut. Then solo the outputs from Path 1 and Path 2 and compare them. Now swap the positions of the two parametric blocks on Path 2 and compare them with Path 1 again. If the signal on Path 2 on only one of the two swapped positions in Path 2 matched the signal on Path 1 you could theoretically infer the precedence of the signal path on Path 1 through a single parametric block. If neither swapped position of the two parametric block on Path 2 was the same you could infer that the single parametric on Path 1 was processing the signal to both the band cuts and the high/low cuts simultaneously. If both swapped positions on Path 2 were identical you could infer that either you did not have enough of a cut dialed up to make an audible difference or it just didn't matter. ;) However, have to stress this as only a thought experiment under ideal conditions due to real world variables that would probably invalidate the results such as for example the two paths on the Helix having inherently slightly different sounds. I suppose you could get around that problem by only using Path 1 for the test with three parametric blocks - one parametric for the single block test and the other two parametrics for your swap test comparison. And there is the fact that even if there is a precedence order to which cut is processed first within the single parametric block on Path 1 the signal might take longer to pass between the two separate parametric blocks on Path 2 and be subject to some modification in the signal path as it was passed from one block to the other, rendering your comparison invalid. I am sure there are probably a ton of other potential variables that I haven't considered that would render this test null and void. I'm sure someone else is thinking right now, they could improve this test with phase inversion and see if the two approaches cancel each other out. I can't believe I just typed this inane idea out, I should delete it immediately. Or maybe Line6 could just tell us how parametric precedence or lack thereof works. Sheesh, I need a hobby, oh that's right, I already have one, I mean a different hobby. :)

Not that it should happen when a reverb is placed between the amp and the cab but just curious, does this happen when you run the reverb after the cab or only when you run it between the amp and the cab? Update: I tested this myself with the signal path you listed above as well as re-positioning the reverb after the cab. I wouldn't exactly call the amount of reverb overwhelming but not inaudible either. I can definitely see where you would expect to hear a lot more reverb on the 50% setting which is essentially the reverb maxed out but still mixed with the direct signal. Cranking up the decay definitely makes it more apparent but that should not be required. Strange, in most of my presets which tend to be quite a bit more loaded up than this I have to dial down the mix on the reverb not to overwhelm the preset with too much. I can see where this would be less reverb than expected. If I were assessing the reverb just by this patch I would have to agree that there is less reverb present than there should be.

Wondering if you unchecked all of the categories under the 'Presets' heading in the HX Edit 2.51 "Restore From Backup" screen if it would overwrite only the Factory and Template presets with the ones from the latest firmware without overriding your user presets? Unchecking the Factory and Template setlists was how you kept the latest ones using the restore backup screen in HX Edit 2.30. Will it install the latest using this method in HX Edit 2.51? Alluded to this elsewhere but was wondering if anyone had tried it or if Line6 could let us know if it works. Seems like an easier method than doing a global reset and then having to restore the user setlists. If this works it would prevent even having to restore/overwrite your user presets from backup and would load just the newest Factory and Template presets via HX Edit's "Restore From Backup" screen.

Making the assumption then that the new firmware update "in place" process essentially does whatever required a manual global footswitch reset in the pre 2.30 firmware versions, which subsequently then required the reloading of all user presets. It looks like reloading your user presets is no longer required. They will still be there and upgraded after the firmware update. Btw, I just did the firmware update. If you personally have loaded the new factory presets, what is a specific thing in the new Space Cadet preset at 32A that I could use to visually differentiate it from the old Space Cadet preset? Crazy thought but just wondering if you unchecked all of the categories under the 'Presets' heading in the HX Edit 2.51 "Restore From Backup" screen if it would overwrite the Factory and Template presets with the ones from the latest firmware? Unchecking the Factory setlists was how you kept the latest ones using the restore backup screen in HX Edit 2.30. If so this would be an alternative to doing a footswitch global reset and then having to restore your User presets. Update: Btw silverhead, the fact that the new firmware update process does the firmware upgrade "in place" without necessitating the restore of the presets makes the question of which version of the backups you should have for a restore to 2.50 less important as you can just get a new HX Edit 2.51 backup after the firmware upgrade. The only people who might need to know which version it was best to restore would be the rare cases where someone either had a catastrophic failure during the upgrade that corrupted the presets on their Helix, or someone who had to clear their presets in order for the firmware upgrade to complete properly.

Unfortunately I can't definitively answer this but see this post: http://line6.com/support/topic/31856-v250-installation-procedure/?p=244728

Specracer986, do you see the new Factory preset at 32A that Silverhead mentions? Also are you seeing the 2.51 for the editor and 2.50 for the firmware? If not I wonder if this begs the question that willjrock asked earlier of whether or not you need to a global reset with the footswiches after upgrading, especially if you are NOT going to do a restore via HX Edit. The manual global reset seems to have been a deprecated procedure since 2.30 but maybe you still need to do it if you don't do a restore. And regarding cruisinon2's comment, I also thought a restore was required, at least in prior versions, to upgrade all the user's presets to the new firmware version. I had kind of assumed that the restore process since the HX Edit 2.3 version also did the global reset automatically that prior to that had to be done manually. The one caveat was that if you left the Factory and Template setlists unchecked you would get the newest Factory and Template presets instead of overwriting them with the ones from your old firmware. I wonder if it is possible that without doing an explicit restore that you have yet to upgrade your user presets to the latest firmware and are also quite possibly not seeing the newest factory presets? In other words, if you have presets from a prior firmware version is it mandatory to do either a restore from HX Edit or a global footswitch reset to get all your presets up to the latest firmware version?

Cheers, still not sure I have it right. Won't know until someone like you gets the direct skinny from Line6 or someone at Line6 posts directly to address the confusion. Like I said in my earlier posts it may not even make a difference which backup version you restore (HX Edit 2.30, HX Edit 2.51 pre 2.50 firmware update, or HX Edit 2.51 post 2.50 firmware update). If it does matter getting it right definitely might help head off weird issues with presets down the line. In the meantime I intend to follow the installation instructions in the Line6 Updater to the letter although I am going to hold off just a wee bit longer in hopes of getting a more concrete resolution from Line6. I'm usually on the bleeding edge but hoping to get an answer on this first. Stop taunting me with your tales of unicorns, Leprechauns, new effects, and presets ye early adopters. :D