billbassler

I as yet have been unable to get the Expression pedal to toggle between EXP1 and EXP2. Page 6, Item 16 of the manual mentions "Expression Pedal Activate the hidden toe switch to toggle between EXP1 and EXP2. The scribble strip above tells you which one is active." To test this, I created a test patch that contained a Wah assigned to controller Exp1 and Volume Control assigned to Exp2 (default volume assignment). The pedal scribble strip above the pedal has always shown EXP2 highlighted. So based on this, the pedal is correctly controlling EXP2/the volume control. No issue there. I assume that "activate the hidden toe switch" means that I should rock the pedal forward and when I reach the limit of travel the scribble strip it would highlight EXP1 and therefore toggle on control of the Wah assigned to EXP1. However, it does not. And I cannot toggle the pedal to EXP1 or highlight EXP1 in the scribble strip ... ever. What am I missing. Is there something else that I need to do? Or should I contact service? I feel nor hear any switch when I press the pedal towards my toes. Something stupid I'm doing I assume. Another question is with my volume and wah example, if I could toggle the expression pedal between EXP1 and EXP2 what will the setting of the device be that I toggled away from? e.g. If I press forward on the volume to switch to wah will the volume be at 100%? That would not be good.

I disagree with idea that confirming a Save is the same thing as explicitly marking a preset, group or set list a non-editable. The scenario where you might misread the location in the prompt specifying where you intend to save a preset is the perfect example. If an explicit lock was set I would receive a notification that the preset, group or set list is locked and I need to go to an interface to explicitly unlock it before I can edit it. If I'm only presented with the location and I misread it, without a prompt that explicitly locked that item I can very easily do something that I didn't intend. If a could I would lock the Factory groups and any solid long term presets. If I ever mistakenly try to overwrite a locked preset I will know immediately. If I really want to edit the preset I will unlock it. BTW, most of the other units I've had had a lock capability and locked the factory presets by default.

It's fairly easy to mistakenly overwrite any preset. And I haven't found if there is a way to lock a preset for editing. Backing up and restoring your presets shouldn't be the only defense against this. So is there a way to lock a preset so that I have to explicitly remove the lock prior to editing? Also, I accidentally overwrote a factory preset and I'd like restore just that preset without a full restore. Is there a place where a bundle or singles of factory presets reside? I'd like to keep the originals for reference purposes.

There are a lot of good ideas here. But I must say I tried using the A-B template per Iknowathingortwo. And it's just what I was looking for. One stomp on one footswitch switches between 2 completely separate amp + fx chains. Perfect! All I needed to do was build the two chains and match the output levels. Now I'm trying to figure out how in the "h" the preset works. Need to get much better in inspecting the routing components. Maybe some detailed info on how best to do this exists. The manual is a little thin in this regard so far.

Pretty new to Helix. What's the best way to set up a preset to go from clean with a chorus to a lead tone with maybe with a distortion pedal? Would need to instantenously switch between sounds. I'm thinking maybe parallel routes each with an amp/cab and fxs. e.g. route 1 - clean amp/cab + chorus route 2 - dirty am/cab + distortion pedal somewhere after these the signal merges to a common delay and reverb. I assume the basic routing is feasible. The thing I don't know about how would I toggle the clean and dirty paths using a footswitch. Or is there a better way to achieve this within a preset? Or is there some way to achieve it with multiple presets? Are there any factory or downloadable patches that achieve this sort of thing that I can tweak?

There's no information on importing custom tones in the Helix manual that I've seen so far. But I see that there already a bunch of custom tones for Helix on the Line6 site. I found this video of what needs to be installed on your computer (only MacOS is shown) to update the Helix firmware, view Helix presets on your computer and supposedly to import/export downloaded tones. I have a Windows 7 PC. I installed the both the Line6 Updater and the Line6 driver2 version. 1.76.0.1. When I open the Updater application with the Helix plugged in I see the Helix and the ability to update the firmware. What I don't see is an obvious way to view presets on the Helix or a way to import a custom tone. Other than the updatable firmware versions there is an option for "Local file". No menu items other than sign out. Is there currently a version of a Helix editor for Windows? I saw something on this forum about coming soon. Is this the case? Or is there something else that needs to be installed?