ricksteruk

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

I'm very seriously considering getting a Helix and trying to figure the machine out - What a beast! I've been trying to answer this out by reading the manual.. but I have failed.. can anyone help? I'm wondering how the Stomp switches work when using Upper/Lower mode where it shows 4 preset switches and 4 stomp switches. My question is this: Do the Stomp switches remain the same (with the same function and label) when you switch to a different preset or do they change? I would imagine they would change, as for example if one Stomp switch was labelled "Delay" and then I switched to a patch with no delay on it, the Stomp switch would become redundant otherwise yes?

^ YES. On many songs 1) VERSE TONE 2) CHORUS TONE 3) SOLO TONE sometimes 4) MID 8 TONE

As I say I've not bought a Helix yet - I'm considering options at the moment - though in every other way it seems best unit for my needs.

Hi Folks, I really want a Helix, the form factor looks so good and it would be nice to replace existing pedals / switcher / rack into one box which can be easily labelled to see what patch is what! But I really do want some spillover sometimes.. BIG spillover.... yes I know there are ways round this "Two-Tones" in one patch and so on and this may work fine in some situations, but if not... Is there a way to use an external delay as spillover? Or to put it another way.... if I put a regular delay pedal in one of Helix's external FX loops and change presets will the master sound cut out while it's in the process of changing patches? I really want no cut out of sound when patch changing. An other possible thought for a work around would be to place a MIDI capable delay /reverb after the Helix's master/jack outs that could be turned on and off by the Helix's MIDI. Not ideal I know.... but I think it would work for my purposes using it within a tube amps FX loop mainly.

I hope we (the spillover fans) are not flogging a dead horse... With luck the horse is still alive and will get the idea of the direction we need it to go eventually ;) .... Seriously though, for me to buy a Helix for live use (and I would love to.. it sounds great!) - I need either spillover or a proper scene mode.

Interesting! I am still considering buying a Helix to replace my GSP1101(used purely for FX) and Midi footboard, and the ability of using the XLR to process my vocals at the same time as the jack for my guitar is a very big plus point. I'll be using my XR18 mixer for gigs and I'm intrigued to know how you find the Helix with your XR12. In this setup I guess you would try to run all the vocal levels in the presets pretty much equally and then use the XR12 to make any level adjustments between guitar and voice. The option to just use a Helix and no XR at all for tiny gigs would be awesome...

I was excited when the new 1.04.03 firmware was released and was hoping they'd included scenes or spillover. Imagine my disappointment when I'd read right to the end of the update notes to find it hadn't be addressed yet. I'd love to own a Helix especially for it's lovely control surface - but after checking out the new Fractal FX8 update which gives much better assignability of footswitches and a few new FX models I'm getting tempted to go in that direction. Please hurry Line 6 if you want my custom!

Totally agree. If L6 sorts this out and makes spillover work I will buy a Helix right away and so will many others I'm sure. They will sell like hot cakes!

Can anyone answer this question? I'm assuming the whole Helix output is muted at preset switches - so unfortunately it wouldn't work if that's true. That's interesting Deadlocked, thanks for sharing... I had already pretty much ruled out getting the FX8 because it lacked a few of the algorithms I was interested in.. Knowing that the CPU is struggling to keep up with the workload if you try to use scenes for spillover is a clincher. I find the important part of the quoted text above to be the final sentence.... "I guess I'll have to either give up AT LEAST half my pedalboard or just not have spillover at all. The latter is not really an option." I'd assume you need to have double the DSP available so that the unit can keep processing the old sound whilst starting on the new one.. How about having a hardware slot for an extra CPU board? That would be neat.. if you wanted spillover you could add the spillover board. That would keep the basic unit cost low for the bedroom players and give live performers the tools they need. But make it only able to do spillover - not double the available DSP.. otherwise, guess what.. people would then fill up all the available DSP with one single preset and complain that their unit couldn't do spillover!

Are you aiming at the vast majority of guitar players DI? I thought this was aimed at the more professional players. It's true most boxes don't do spillover and take time to switch between presets - but which two boxes are you thinking of?? The Digitechs I guess.. but that's not all actually... TC Electronic's G Major 2 and G major 1 have "Hard/Soft" FX Mute which allows for Delay spillover and reverbs to morph into the new sound. Also their older G-Force does spillover if you make sure the presets algorithms routings aren't too different. Axe FX's scene's pretty much make up for lack of full spill over. The failure of many boxes to do spillover is part of why people have massive racks with many different effects units each running just one particular effect and routed through a mixer back to the amp(s). That is the old fashioned way of doing things. That was the past.... I'd like to move on. Helix is a very powerful beast.. perhaps that's it's downfall here..... It's got the capability to have your vocal mic, and your guitar, and other things all running through it.... (maybe a backing track for a soloist) Imagine a soloist playing to backing tracks, routed through Helix as well as their vocal XLR and guitar... direct to the FOH. If they change presets whilst playing does the whole mix just cut out?? Silence?? If that is so, I am afraid that I consider that unacceptable. Fine for at home. Not for performing. Maybe there is a workaround now with the current Helix firmware using the same preset, but maybe not... It will probably depend how complicated your song is - I hear you can only route a particular effect parameter to be controlled one button at a time? So does that mean if you have 3 or 4 different combinations of effects within a song you are out of luck? Lots of songs have 3 different tones in them.. verse, chorus, solo for example. Even if it worked like that....you'd have to have all of the FX loaded in your preset for all the different sounds and just bypassed or whatever. So if you needed 3 complete different sounds you'd actually be cutting your DSP into thirds....you'd be better off just halfing your DSP blocks to start with... Add to that the idea that you might want to have control of your vocal effects as well and it's getting seriously complicated. Proper spillover just seems a far simpler option to me. It could be chosen to be OFF and it would work just like now, or ON and would half the number of DSP blocks you could run. Everyone would be happy. :) I really am looking forward to hearing what the future holds for Helix. I hope that I'll be a happy Helix owner one day soon. By the way, I have read this thread in it's entirety over the last few days and may I say Digital Igloo, you have been very helpful and knowledgeable throughout! Respect.

I'm REALLY interested in the Helix, looks to be pretty much the perfect unit :) The two things that will decide if I buy it are: 1) Are the front end AD/DA converters transparent enough so that it can be used in front of a tube amp with no loss of feel / tone. I've tried a few other units and whilst some sound very good, they still change the feel and sparkle.. my current Digitech GSP1101 which I am using just for FX was marketed as being "smart enough not to mess with your tone", and whilst used in my amps FX loops it's totally clean, but when you use the "pre amp" part of the GSP in 4 cable method it just robs a lot of the tube mojo from the amp... so it's just in the FX loop. If the Helix does mess with the tone in 4 cm I still would be interested in one to use in my FX loop as it's got so many other benefits over my GSP1101 - floor board configuration and the interface is pure genius - as it has the ability to act as FX for my vocals (and my acoustic!) 2) Will I be able to get seamless switching between presets (and spill over as well). I am in agreement with VicKlonin... preset spillover ought to be a no brainer. Sure Digital Igloo, it will take up half of the DSP to do this - that makes sense... but for using the Helix live it's a necessity - ( as you can probably tell DI now by the 50 odd replies you've had to write about it ) PLEASE PLEASE make Preset Spillover a selectable global option that can be turned on (and off) that would reduce the number of FX blocks by half. I could live with using my GSP to do the FX spillover for now, if it was going to be added in the future. Also, I've not really seen any videos that show the Helix's behaviour when switching presets - but there's no way it's acceptable to have silence when you change sound.. I really am hoping that is not the case!!!!! Can anyone put my mind at rest here?? This would be an instant NO BUY for me.