ricksteruk

Have to say I'm a bit disappointed about this. My 1989 Laney Pro Tube combo doesn't switch properly either: - the LED glows dimly when it should be off, in the clean channel mode which gets reduced in volume by about 25% - as soon as you connect the cable you get a very loud ground loop hum. Now I assumed it was the fact that my amp is nearly 30 years old - but to hear that a brand new 2555X exhibits the same problem is very disappointing. I almost would go as far as to say I expect Line 6 to send out a free MIDI amp switcher unit as the Helix does not work - or maybe we should all return our Helix's and get them "repaired" with the mod above as they are obviously broken. EDIT: ^ That last sentence sounds like I'm a bit annoyed. This is true but I do still love my Helix even with this fault. I guess I can live with making up a cable/box with relays in or buying a MIDI gizmo type thing for all the other good stuff the Helix does.

Ahh that's a bummer - sorry to hear it doesn't work on your amps. I am loving the sound of the Helix with my Laney so much I was tempted to use that as my gig rig - but if I can't sort the hum I will stick to my H&K Switchblade amp which ought to work as it is MIDI switched and MIDI is supposed to have Opto Isolators on it's sockets according the standards to avoid ground loops. EDIT - Just read up on the problems with Mesas and the new Marhall 2555x. BIG BUMMER - I was thinking of getting one of the new 2525H mini Jubilee heads. They will surely have the same circuit as their big brother.

I've got my 4cm set up so that I either use a real preamp in the Helix send/return, or instead use a Helix amp block which then just feeds straight into the amps's FX return and straight to the power tubes. I've been setting up a footswitch on some patches so that I can use it like a 2 channel amp - turning on the the FX loop to connect the real preamp and turning off the Helix amp block and vice verse.

You're using a Engl preamp block from the Helix and then running into the front of the real amp? I thought the general idea of 4cm was to put some FX like wah/boosts first then send to the real amp to use it's preamp - not use Helix amp blocks. I suppose you could think of an amp block as a distortion pedal - but I'd go easy on the settings if I was running that into a real high gain amp.

Thought I'd mention that the amp is already running in 4cm. I might try unplugging those other cables and see if the hum still occurs. I think It might be easier to isolate the signal cables with a Hum Eliminator or something - not sure if one of those would work on the EXT amp socket.

I tried some recording. This is my attempt to copy my Laney AOR preamp using the Brit 2204. I used the single coil bridge pickup mode on my zexcoil. https://soundcloud.com/ricksteruk/helix-tele-singlecoil-gain-chords Unfortunately when I plugged in the USB it made a ground loop with the Laney, so there's a horrid hum when I switch the Laney on. The first riff is the Helix, the second riff is the Laney. They are both going through a simple EQ to add 3db of High Frequencies and then through the 2x12 Interstate cab block. If you compare to a previous recording I made of the Laney you can hear the differences. I think there was more gain on the preamp on the older recordings. Of course there is a lot more room in this recording too.. I mixed in a room mic that was about 6 feet away. https://soundcloud.com/ricksteruk/zexcoil-test-tele-gain-chords

Hey folks, I've been throughly testing out my Helix today and I am loving it to bits. One of the last things I got to test out was channel switching on my amps - I just tried plugging in a TRS cable from the EXT amp socket into the TRS footswitch on my Laney AOR combo and I am getting a bit of hum - a ground loop. Not only that the ground loop is stopping the amps switching from working properly - when it's supposed to be "off" there is some ground voltage leaking through and so the amps channel LED is dimly glowing when it should be off. The clean channel is not quite sounding right because of this. Any clever ideas of how to stop this ground loop from occurring? (I wonder if using the CV socket and transistor in the jack socket method as an alternative might stop the ground loop? LINK HERE

Yes - it was going through the RCF PA speaker where I noticed the Helix cab blocks attenuate too much high frequency. The RCF 712-A Mk2 speakers are good quality speakers and I'm confident in their sound - I've done live sound with them at quite a few gigs and also played back recorded music so I know they are well balanced tonally. When I listen to the Helix Factory Presets through the RCFs the overall mix is fine - there are plenty of highs there. I expect all the presets have just got excessive high EQ to compensate for the muddiness of the cabs. I set up a new preset so I could test out each part of the Helix system individually - and I split the path just before the outputs putting a cab on the XLR path and running that to the RCF while the 1/4in jack went to the amp F return. I'm comparing this to two guitar speakers - one 30 year old Celestion G12L-35 in my Laney combo, and one year old Eminence custom speaker in my Hughes & Kettner. The Eminence is a bit brighter than the Celestion, but both of them had substantially more highs than any of the Helix cabs. Of course if I bypassed the Helix cab block the RCF speaker then became incredibly unpleasantly bright and buzzy. I've been messing again since then and I've just put a Simple EQ block before my cab block to bring back some highs - it seems to have done the trick. I've also spent quite a while setting up a Brit 2204 amp block to replicate the sound of my Laney AOR preamp. The Laney is basically a hot rodded JCM800 so I've managed to get it to sound almost identical. I've set one footswitch to switch off the FX loop that feeds the Laney and switch on the Brit 2204 so I can A/B between them to tweak the amp block... I might try recording it in a bit - not recorded any audio from the Helix yet... Let's see if it gets on with Logic!

My Helix has arrived! And I LOVE IT :wub: I spent about 6 hours trying it out both through a full range PA speaker and through different two amps in 4cm. In 4cm with my 1989 Laney AOR 30 combo it sounded absolutely jaw dropping! Something to do with the rawness of the gain from the Laney combined with the smoothness of the FX in the Helix. It just might become my main rig. The only slight complaint I have is that all the cabinets remove too much High Frequencies by default. I went through them all doing an A/B test with my combo speakers and all the cabs had too much bottom end and too little HF - no matter which mic was chosen. The low was easy to remove with the cabinets Low filter (or by increasing the mic distance) - but the high filter was set on max and already was taking off too much high. I'll have to either add an EQ block before the cab, or try to find suitable IRs instead.

I spent a lot of time trying out my Helix in 4cm today being very picky and listening hard and I can't say I noticed any latency using the FX loop.

I use a H&K switchblade or Marshall JMD for covers band gigs both of which are MIDI switchable. My helix should be delivered tomorrow so I will be able to test it out soon and I'll let you know how i get on. What amp are you using?

Hmm - I don't like the sound of that :( I'm planning to use my Helix in 4cm mostly - but with my Laney, H&K or Marshall amps. Now I do know that popping when switching is caused by a build up of charge / voltage somewhere that gets released when you switch. I remember that with some true bypass pedal builds they recommend putting a small component to sort this out... think it might be as simple as a small resistor. (or was it a capacitor.. hmm). I will have to look it up to be sure. It might be possible just to wire one of these in the jack socket of the cables between the 5150III and the Helix if the two drives aren't playing with each other nicely.

I'm pretty sure that it's just going to give 1 additional switch - just a standard mono TS jack to your amp. The Helix doesn't have settings for CV1 and CV2 - there's just one CV that can be used with an expression pedal with Max/min setting or via a footswitch toggle - whereas with the Ext amp you can select 1 for tip-sleeve, 2 for ring-sleeve or both.

Yeah the kill switch idea for the piezo and mics would be a good failsafe mechanism. I don't think I'd put any mic signal through the stage amp - I've tried that before too and it just feeds back far too easily - I'd only send the mic into the FOH mix with a blend of piezo and magnetic. At the moment with my EA amp I find I get a well controlled low end from my magnetic pickup, and I use my piezo for capturing more of the woody midrange character. The Helix would give me a lot more control over the EQ of each signal... And I might even try using a Crossover Split block so I could compress the low end and the mid/high separately.

Good luck for the gig! Shows how user friendly the Helix is if you feel able to gig with it after just a few days.

Looks like the aux in is mono from the manual. :( The Returns are selectable to instrument level.. I wonder if a magnetic pickup would work well enough directly into those? Another option for the using the Helix with DB would be to use a mic into the XLR input which could be routed to the FOH via the XLRs mixed in with the pickups, and then the stage amp could just have the pick ups to avoid mic feedback.

I play double bass on quite a lot of my regular folk gigs (when travel allows.. it's bass guitar or ukelele bass in a squeeze!) I have two pickups on my DB, one magnetic and a piezo that I mix and eq in my Euphonic Audio Doubler amp. It works great, but sometimes I wish I had a compressor or a bit more comprehensive EQ. Also if I want to swap to Electric bass for a tune I need to unplug from the amp and fiddle the with amp EQ and level. The Helix could be a very handy tool for this scenario. Anyone tried it with a double bass? I also play a bit of mandolin and occasionally acoustic guitar in this band.. I bet the Helix will be awesome for this.. I can use an XLR to send these to the PA and the jack to go to my bass amp as a monitor.. nice. EDIT: By the way the main reason I've got the Helix is to use with my guitar rig of course :)

I've bought my Helix based on what it can do today not might do in the future. it is a great unit. However I fully expect bug fixes / firmware upgrades for things like the editor etc. I also expect Line 6 will deal with issues that may arise in the next year or two such as the dreaded Mac OS update or USB issues... but as with any product eventually it will not be feasible for Line 6 to support it any more. Having said that I will be VERY happy if a scene mode comes out, and more fx blocks and amps would definitely be fun.

This is very cool Doug! :) Thanks for sharing - I'm sure most folks who own a soldering iron could manage to solder a FET into a jack socket.

Thanks DI - any developments will be greatly appreciated :) I'm pretty sure I can program in my spillover needs to the current system, but a scene mode would make life much easier.

Its ordered - should be with me tomorrow with a fair wind. :D I've been mulling this one over for a few months now to see if the Helix would work for me. Can I just say a big part of my decision has been the help and support given on this forum both by fellow users and also Digital Igloo who has responded to two of my questions. It's great to get feedback and answers from the creators of the unit. Big Respect to DI and the rest of the team

One more question for tonight.. Is it possible for the Stomp switches to send MIDI program change messages? or does that only happen when you switch presets? It would be nice to use Stomp switches to select different MIDI presets / amp channels on either my Marshall JMD or H&K switchblade amps but remain within a single preset on the Helix to avoid any switching time and to retain spillover of delays and reverbs. EDIT: I think it does - the "Command Center" part of the manual shows a setting for Bank/Prog :)

Thanks DI :-) I've been mulling it all over for a month or three now, but I've decided the Helix is going to be part of my rig. A scene mode would have made my mind up earlier, but I think I can make the current system work for me on those occasions where I do need delay and reverb spillover. The creative use of different parameters mix/level etc to effectively control one block from two switches seems to be a plausible work around.

Awesome thanks glideman - so if I use that upper or lower mode as I switch between the 4 presets, the stomp switches change? That is uber cool. :-) The excitement of having the scribble strips change in front of my eyes is almost unbearable.. where's my credit card? LOL