zooey

Love snapshots, but navigating between presets, snapshots, and stomps is awkward. Maximum access seems like one of the two snap/stomp mixes, but then there really aren't enough of either. I'm wondering what Preset Mode Switches setting folks are ending up using as they get used to snapshots, and integrate them into their gigging/jamming/playing lives.

In my case, snapshots make more sense than individual stomps for different overdrives, so I don't have to shut one stomp off to turn another one on, it's all part of the snapshots. Yes you could use them in combination, but that's not what I usually do, in this case at least. And I'm right that to remember separate settings for a parameter that doesn't have a footswitch or pedal controller assigned, that's when you MUST set its controller to Snapshots, yes?

Ah, thank you! So outside of cleaning things up, the reason to switch a parameter to snapshot control is so *manual* changes you make to it get remembered in each snapshot. Right?

Yesterday I did my first conversion of a preset with a bunch of stomps to be half stomps and half snapshots. The snapshots are overdrive levels, and the stomps are fx that can be applied to any of them (chorus, delay, etc.). Here's what I did: - Named the first 4 snapshots appropriately, for clarity - With all overdrive stomps off, saved the preset with the first snapshot (Clean) selected - Recalled the second snapshot (OD 1), which so far wasn't any different, clicked the first of my overdrive stomp buttons to turn on the blocks and apply any parameters for that level of drive, then saved the preset, defining snapshot #2 - Repeated that step for the other two overdrive levels and snapshots At that point, I expected that each snapshot would have the right things bypassed, but not the right parameter settings. I planned to go through every block, find any parameters controlled by footswitches, note which switch controlled it and the two settings for it, then set that parameter to snapshot control, and manually set the parameter to the on value in the snapshot corresponding to that stomp switch, and to the off value in the other three snaps. I started to do that, but discovered that after enabling snapshot control on a parameter, *all four snapshots had the correct values for that snapshot already*. How is that possible? I thought you had to select Snapshots as the controller for a parameter to get Helix to remember different settings per snapshot for it. When I noticed that, I short-circuited my conversion process by just setting every switch-controlled parameter to Snapshots, and that's all. There appeared to be no need to adjust the parameter's settings for each snapshot. Simpler and quicker, but unexpected, and I don't get it. Logically, that seems to say that Helix actually remembers the state of every parameter for every snapshot, whether Snapshots is selected as the controller for it or not. Can anyone confirm or deny that that's true? Is it then the case that enabling Snapshot control allows that parameter to be controlled by those settings, but the state of every parameter as of when it was saved is already part of every snapshot, whether it's being used or not? It occurred to me later that I should have done the experiment of NOT setting all those parameters to Snapshot control, to further understand what was happening, but I didn't actually do that, I just accepted the results I had, since they were what I wanted. (Really, I wouldn't want to leave things that way anyway, that mix of switch and snap control would be way too unclear, and I didn't need or want those switches involved. By choosing Snapshot control, I'd already disconnected all parameter control from the switches, so I just unhooked them all from bypassing anything, and the switch labels disappeared, as expected, since they no longer did anything.) So functionally, I got what I wanted, more easily than expected, but I feel less like I understand how snapshots work in detail than I did before I started.

I'm sure this is what you meant, but the Recall and Discard settings don't only apply to parameter changes, they affect bypass states too. I too prefer discard, but there's a consequence to be aware of. Presets remember which snapshot was active when you saved them, so saving the changes to any OTHER snapshot requires saving twice. The first save you do to save the state of that snapshot, but it also makes that the default snapshot for the preset. You then need to recall the snap you want as the default, and save again, so that's remembered as the current snapshot. I can see someone wanting Recall instead, so for example, you turn on a delay in one snapshot, and it stays on when you recall another one. Personally, I'd rather my snapshots came back in a known state -- the way I saved them -- but you do have the choice of transient changes persisting if you want it.

I have one that thinks you clicked twice when you didn't, not always, but enough to notice. For now, I'm going to wait and see how it goes. Did buy from Sweetwater, and history says Line 6 is good about this too, but obviously I rather not send it back if I don't have to.

Windows 7 Pro here, no issues (with that, anyway). Windows 7 will be supported by Microsoft for a number of years more, I didn't see any compelling reasons to sacrifice a bunch of disk space and a bunch of music apps that are known not to work with Windows 10, so I let the free upgrade deadline pass. You might want to upgrade for other reasons, but I really don't think that's your Helix issue. Do try other USB ports. I had a firmware upgrade brick my Helix, tried everything else, but eventually did try a different USB port, worked fine. Next firmware went fine using that same port. don't know why Helix is more sensitive in this regard than most things, but it appears to be. Just try it.

I'd be interested in seeing that patch, if you're thinking of posting it :)

My $0.00002... Not sure if this thread is making a distinction between fuzz and overdrive, but I find a bunch of the blocks in that general area super usable and useful. For more like organic overdrive than "fuzz", whatever that means exactly, Minotaur, Compulsive Drive, Hedgehog, Teemah, and KWB all find pretty common use with me, really like them all. Vermin and Scream less so but still useful. If fuzz here means intentionally artificial semi-bent stuff, I've used Tycoctavia, Wringer, and Arbitrator some, and I agree, they're so overdriven even with gain all the way down that they're hard to get anything fun out of. I have had some decent results adding post- and/or pre- EQ, and probably reducing the signal before them quite a bit. Industrial and I just have not got on at all, probably me, but fact; too bad for me, many people seem to really like the original. Re rotary speakers, as you say they all have have very little high end, but that's pretty much reality I think, or at any rate like all of the VST versions I have, which is several. Mixing them with a standard cab sometimes works well. The Fender, which is itself an emulation, seems the best of them to me, weird.

Pretty decent drums, percussion, and voice for just a looping guitar processor ;)

Yeah, it's hard to think of anything that'd be a real substitute for a Helix with all your personal stuff in it. There have been various discussions about that, but the bottom line is they'd all be very different, and there's nothing remotely comparable that's not also kind of a lot of money to spend on a backup rig, at least for me. Think I'm going with crossed fingers for now, but then again I'm not a gigging professional any more. That said, most people seem to get through firmware updates ok most of the time. My biggest worry in this regard isn't really that, it's just the possibility of some random failure, at the worst possible time of course.

Ha, so I gather nobody has any idea whose actual riff that is? I don't.

That Keeley Blacktop sounds seriously awesome to me, would love that in Helix. Can't say as it reminds me at all of a Big Muff, a fairly trashed one of which I have in my Box O' Stuff, but that's a good thing. The Big Muff of my memories was great for vowel-y long sustain distortion, which the Triangle does too, but I'd never have used it for the kind of organic amp-like distortion I hear from the Blacktop in those vids. (Especially the one from Keeley himself. He's clearly got quite some feel himself as a player...) Maybe I missed the boat with that, will have to check the Triangle in that light, but I'm not expecting great things.

I see what you mean, assuming a native cab effectively contains a bunch of IRs, one for every combination of mic and distance, which I think we don't know. That's a lot of IRs -- 30 cabs x 16 mics x 23 distances by my count, 11,040 total. Possible, but it's also possible that some of those dimensions are modeled separately somehow, as an IR or some other calculation process, so for instance they can apply the 3" transformation to the Royer 121 IR and run different cab IRs through that. I'm making all that up of course, but you get the idea. It's not at all clear that that's the case though, or they'd be able to offer mic and/or distance variations for external IRs too, with the caveat that the mic and/or distance characteristics from the IR itself would somehow need to be factored out to accurately replace them with others. It's possible the architecture actually does allow that, and they just haven't gotten to building it out yet, we just don't know. Anyway, regardless of all that, what we were told is that the native cabs somehow use less DSP than external ones, but that they actually are IRs at heart. That implies that whatever data they started with, they've done some pre-calculations to make them more efficient at runtime. I was just wondering if it was possible to do the same thing for external IRs too, not to provide mic and distance variations (though of course that'd be awesome!), but just to use less DSP. Given the smarts evident in the Helix architecture and implementation, it's a pretty good guess that they would have done that if they could, but again it could be that they just haven't gotten there yet.

What I wonder is if they could pre-process external IRs the same way on import, optimize them too, like the internal ones.

Quoting myself in another similar thread:

Might or might not help you, but the 2.0 update (not 2.0.1) bricked my Helix until I tried a different USB port, then it went without a hitch, and 2.0.1 went fine using that same one. I know I'm not the only person who's had that happen. Best of luck in any case.

I agree overall, dedicating individual switches to recalling a snapshot, only, would be fine. L6 has clearly put a lot of thought into which options they offer and don't, how different settings interact, and the proof of that pudding is that Helix is as approachable as it is. For every feature I want, trading it for increased complexity isn't ideal, and makes it less likely L6 will actually do it. That's what I like about your proposal -- it gives us much-needed functionality without too much mental strain. Want it Now. Seriously. Don't know what to do with snapshots in the mean time.

I find a lot of overdriven amps and stomps sound better if I pull low end out before the stages where distortion is happening, and maybe add some back in after. Helps avoid moof-ishness, which I'm not a fan of. That often means an EQ near the start of the chain, and one or more later -- post-cab, between the amp and cab, or less often, post OD but before the amp. Snapshots let you put EQs in each of those locations, but turn them on and off and adjust their settings separately for each snap.

Upvoted, definitely. I'm in pretty much exactly the same situation as you, stuck in 10 switches mode. Same performance desires, except that I use the internal amp and cab models, not a real amp, which I think you're saying is what you do, but essentially the same philosophy. I also have the same love for snapshots, but as yet it's pretty much unconsummated, because of the navigation issues and the limitation of only 4 each of snaps and stomps if you want both instantly available. I agree that switching modes on the fly is quite awkward, especially the way you have to do now, by pressing Bank Up and Down together, on the opposite side from the regular Mode switch. I have some other ideas about that, which I'll post about when they're more fully formed, but they're definitely more complex, both for Line 6 to build, and for players. Yours is the simplest solution I've run across, would add A LOT of value IMO. It does require new UI to select a snapshot (or None) for each footswitch. One possible version of that keeps everything else the same, so each switch can both recall a snapshot AND do everything else they can do now. Presumably any footswitch "commands" (block on-off, parameter changes, etc) would override the snapshot settings. That's maybe a bit tricky when they conflict, but it seems workable. Effectively it means recalling the snapshot, then applying any footswitch settings from there. Another version makes recalling a snapshot an alternative "mode" for the switch -- choose that, and it does only that, no other actions are available for that switch. That's simpler in some senses, but [a] it's quite different than it is now, it's less flexible (I do love me my flexibles!), and [c] accidentally choosing that option and having all other settings for that switch get wiped would be a drag. To avoid [c], it'd be best to not actually erase the other settings until the preset was saved, so switching back out of snapshot mode restores the last state of the other settings for that switch. A different thread proposed completely free switch assignment -- snaps, presets, or stomps -- but I prefer this, for its simplicity, and because it nearly exactly fills the most painful gap in functionality. To my mind, the advent of snapshots makes changing presets something you're more likely to do between songs than during one, but once you're there, you really do want a mix of stomps and snaps available, and 10 of them, freely mixable, would be great. Overall, great idea, I'm there, really wish it was possible right now!

Really? Not doubting you, I haven't played with this, but I just assumed the XLRs were fixed at some default level if they weren't being controlled by the big knob. Am I right that you're saying they're controlled by the last setting applied to them with the big knob, before that was disabled? That doesn't seem ideal, in that they're at some user-determined level you can't see. Also, I'd imagine that setting gets erased by a global reset, upshot of which is that you need to set it, write it down, then disable it.

At minimum, don't you need power in, guitar in, and at least one audio out to your stage rig? Plus probably an XLR or two out to the PA?

Absolutely! That was was I was getting at, maybe was a bit too obfuscated. Point was, I'm having a blast w Helix! Now about that other stuff I need to do, like get enough sleep for starters...

And use a stand for my laptop? That works too. Though for many things, I actually find working on the Helix itself to be faster. That's at least partly because I didn't want to become reliant on having a computer around, so I don't use the editor that much on purpose, mostly for backup, upgrades, and IRs. You're right that Helix time, in a "trying to make life better" sense, is ideally a mix of patch building and using it the way you're actually going to on stage, i.e., on the floor, with your feet. I worry about not spending enough time doing that, but I can't stop having patch ideas...

I've checked, really seriously dig what I came up with. Unexpectedly great tones from something that's so borked out of the box. Actually, I've been having pretty serious trouble getting to some organizational and learning stuff I want to do on Helix, and other things, because every time I go down to the studio, I pull up the last patch I was working with, and just end up playing guitar. For hours. Not doing the snapshot investigations I want to get to. Not checking out patches for some specific songs I need to handle. Not checking out IRs, or Sean Halley's patches. Not doing the ARC 2 thing on my FRFRs, or my studio monitors. Not going to bed. Just playing. It's a bad problem. Big fun though!