zooey

I don't get this: "Leave it at Multiple so I can change it to exactly what I want" If you want it to say "Multiple (2)", don't change it. If you want it to say "Eat At Joe's", just type it in, it doesn't matter what it defaulted to. If you want it to say "Tone Sovereign", yes you can type it in, but with the old behavior you didn't have to, just make that block active and hit Customize.

Prior to 2.8, if a switch had more than one block assigned, its label defaulted to "MULTIPLE (2)", but when you went to customize it, it defaulted to the name of whichever block was currently active, i.e., had its parameters showing. For instance, for a switch that turned on a drive and an EQ, you'd want to name it after the drive, not the EQ, and not "MULTIPLE (2)". To do that easily, if you made the drive block active then hit Customize, the label would default to the name of the drive. That was very handy, since you didn't have to type out the name of the main block. As of 2.8 that no longer works, customizing it defaults to "MULTIPLE (2)", same as the default label. Is there some other way to copy a block name into the switch label? If not I'd consider this a bug. Not a showstopper obviously, but worth fixing. I've reported it in the Helix Bug Reports thread, and submitted a ticket on the Line 6 site.

Prior to 2.8, if a switch had more than one block assigned, its label defaulted to "MULTIPLE (2)", but when you went to customize it, it defaulted to the name of whichever block was currently active, i.e., had its parameters showing. For instance, for a switch that turned on a drive and an EQ, you'd want to name it after the drive, not the EQ, and not "MULTIPLE (2)". To do that easily, if you made the drive block active then hit Customize, the label would default to the name of the drive. That was very handy, since you didn't have to type out the name of the main block. As of 2.8 that no longer works, customizing it defaults to "MULTIPLE (2)", same as the default label. Is there some other way to copy a block name into the switch label? If not I'd consider this a bug. Not a showstopper obviously, but worth fixing.

HIRB is now up on GitHub. Not a huge revelation, since it's just the HTML, JS, CSS, and img files you get when you browse to it, but at least it's there, and open for pull requests, issues, etc.. I don't promise to jump right on whatever you folks come up with, but still. Hope it's still useful too :)

As folks have been saying, there needs to be room for each player, both in the parts you're playing, and the frequencies you're taking up. If you have a way to do it, record the band multi-tracked, ideally also a DI track of yourself unprocessed, and maybe the other guitarist too. That would let you experiment with different tonalities, even different parts, to see how you could get things to fit together well, so everyone gets heard with impact.

Just gorgeous! I'd be worried about taking it out of the house much though.

Thanks for doing this :) No criticism intended, but I didn't hear what you heard. To me the Helix was the best defined, seemed like more upper mids than the Axe. The Thermionic had more mid-highs, but higher frequency than the Helix, and less low mids. However, using different EQ settings between the amps makes this a weird comparison. Obviously the amps themselves have controls too, not clear whether they were all set the same, but even if they were the same numerically, that's not necessarily the same effect.

May have a download solution... If so... - Do I really want to to offer modified setlist files? - Would people be comfortable with that? - You'd still have to reorder your IRs manually in Helix.

Thanks :) And agree on getting IR names. Might add support for uploading such a file, but I'm not at all sure people would want to bother creating it. Asked Line 6 for a way (see above), we'll see, not counting on it. The remapping wouldn't be that hard. One hang with that (besides some squeamishness about being responsible for modifying peoples patch data) is how to download the results. This is a browser-only app so far, and initial investigations haven't found a way for javascript to prompt for a file download without a cooperating server. My site does run ColdFusion (not used by this app), so I could handle it by uploading to the server and prompting you to download it from there, but I haven't given up on a js-only solution yet. In my experience, this approach worked at first, then Chrome started blocking it, saying the page had attempted to download multiple files automatically. Makes sense, it is a security issue in a way. The FileSaver library he mentions looks quite promising, but there are problems with the current source code, and I wasn't able to get it running initially. Haven't given up though! If anyone has any thoughts about that, or js file download in general, by all means bring em.

Are you saying the URL without www didn't work for you originally, but now it does? Or that you're now using the www version?

Kind of important question: Does anyone get a 404 using the www version of the URL? Like this: www.dave-merrill.com/helix/hirb/index.html Still talking w my provider...

You're right, no IR names in setlist files, I wish. Over on TGP I asked Frank if he could maybe get the Line 6 software crew to build some way to get the list of IR names. He said he forwarded my request, we'll see. Far as getting them out of full backups, I'm sure it's possible if you know how to parse that file format, which I don't. Excuse if this is too techie an answer, but setlist files are JSON, which is pretty human readable, with a zipped array of presets inside, also in JSON format. Once I figured out the zipping part, they're just like individual preset files, and pretty readable. Full backups are binary data, genuine gibberish to me. I doubt they're intentionally obfuscated, most likely just the raw binary data the Helix works with internally, or maybe they're like setlist files but compressed differently. I made all that up though, no actual clue. I've asked Line 6 about that format, no answer so far, don't really expect one. I bet they don't want to be responsible for software they don't write and test, or and don't want to support random developers they don't know building lord only knows what. They had nothing to do with this project either, just to be clear. Yup. Actually built it in the ColdFusion version. It's not that hard once you're in this far. But there are some fundamental differences. The big one is, what's the point, outside of idle curiosity about what you actually use? The other thing is that IR slot numbers have an obvious meaning, where block types are indicated in these files by their internal names. IR blocks are HD2_ImpulseResponse1024 and HD2_ImpulseResponse2048 for example. They might be clear to us users, or not, no reason they should be, and I don't have access to a user-speak translation table. In the end, I didn't see enough use for analysis of other block types to make space for it in the already pretty dense UI.

TBH, I did an uncharacteristic thing for me by releasing without researching and testing every possible thing, just got it out the door and into the wild. So, I'm not sure how old the firmware and editor can be and have it work. It wouldn't surprise me if it fails with pre-snapshots versions, for instance. If anyone wants to check that out and let me know, have it it, If not, I'll check it myself when I get a chance. However, I don't consider full support of versions that old a super high priority. If you're into Helix enough to be on the IR train, you probably want pretty recent firmware, and I have limited time to put into this. However, it could check the version of the files you drop (it's in there), and say what it needs. The js preset parsing code actually started out in ColdFusion quite a whole ago, but I'm not sure what version Helix was on back then. The browser-only app got started when I found out you could do unzipping in javascript, so I didn't have to build an easily user-installable ColdFusion environment -- everyon'es got a browser, right? Ported the analysis code and came up with the UI over the past two weekends, but the parsing logic is the same as in CF except for language-specific stuff, so it goes back a fair few versions.

So now there's HIRB, a Helix IR Browser, lets you see which presets use the IRs contained in a collection of Helix setlist files. Purely browser based, nothing to download or install Doesn't modify your files, just shows information about them Doesn't upload them, processing happens right in the browser Pretty much zero risk, can't corrupt your files or anything Hopefully it's pretty self-explanatory, ask here (or on TGP) if not, I'll be around when I can be. One caveat: This does look at snapshots, switches, even continuous controllers. However, it has no way of knowing whether a patch is intended to use 4 snapshots or 8, so if snapshots are in play, it'll report the IRs for all of them, even ones you never use. I think it's not really an issue, but I (or someone?) need to do more research on how snapshots you've never accessed report themselves. Copious free time... Another thing. Frank from Line 6 was going to post about this on the FB Helix group, but I'm not on FaceBook and don't want to be. So, could you guys who are be my eyes and ears there, let me know if folks there have any great ideas I should know about, hit problems, find it useful/useless, etc.. Let me know what you think.

Have you tried mixing separate IRs of those two speakers? I'm not aware of any prebuilt ones, but that means pretty much zero, there are a lot of IRs out there.

Snapshots are definitely your first stop. If you're already using them, or for some reason really don't want to be, and still need/want the same block to be switched by two stomp mode switches, you'll need to duplicate the block. If you don't have enough DSP or block slots available to do that, you're SOL. But snapshots, really.

I'm not sure what you mean by "outdated by today's impulse response standards". Technically, the formats they have are still current, so they're totally usable. Far as I know, Redwirez hasn't updated anything in a long time, but that doesn't at all mean their stuff isn't any good. Stuff doesn't have to be the New Hotness to be great.

Nice!

Also good experiences with Sweetwater. They mean to answer questions, but in all honesty, they can't put the time into every single product they sell to get as familiar as folks who use a specific one for hours every day. Here or The Gear Page is your best bet.

I second the kudos to Line 6 support, you'll find many excellent stories about them here. I've been Helix-only for a bit over 2 years, really enjoying it. Easy to work with, super flexible on many levels, and just plain fun. Can't really compare it with the real world devices it models, since in spite of playing for a really long time, I've never been anywhere near most of them, especially the amps. What I can tell you is that it's like having a gigantic toybox to go rutting around in, without spending any further money. Every so often, new toys fall from the sky, and the most recent amps and some of the recent effects they added are outstanding. You really need to try it to have any sense of how it'll be for you. Not for a half hour in a noisy store either. Find a retailer with a good return policy and dig in, for a while especially since it seems you're new to modelers. Like folks have said, the biggest differences for you would be that functionally it's a really whole recording chain, even if you're just using it live, and that you'll likely be playing through a full range speaker instead of a stack. I'm blathering on here, but you get the idea. Just try one. Any of the top-tier modelers these days are excellent, and for me, Helix hits a great balance of ease of use, great sounds, great connectivity, and semi-affordability.

And I REALLY wish the main link to a thread took you to the first post you haven't read. Isn't the 99.999% case?

Ouch. Interesting idea, but no thanks. Is there something about the tech that's inherently heavy? I haven't researched how it does its thing at all, so foo on me, but does anyone know?

One baseline angle on the value of these mods would be a listing of what the existing op-amps are, and what they'd be replaced with. That's pretty black and white, and there aren't 80 gazillion likely possibilities, proprietary wizardry, or unknown factors to evaluate. Chances are the factory parts are standard mass-produced stuff that's inherently not too expensive.

I keep getting randomly signed out on my Android phone. I'll load the page, and I'm signed in, but try to reply to a post and I'm suddenly logged out. Click the menu thingy, it offers Sign In, I click that, and usually it just logs me in immediately, without asking for a user name or password. Except sometimes it doesn't work, and I'm still logged out. Can't be I whiffed my password, it didn't ask for it. Weird, all in all. And speaking of dead horses, the announcements at the top... While I appreciate them being collapsed now, they still take up way too much room, they don't need to be full width.

Thanks for this :)