Verne-Bunsen

The factory presets change from update to update, appearing and disappearing, so if you are particularly fond of any of those specifically you may opt to back them up. Otherwise, if you don't have IRs or presets of your own then you are correct, no backups necessary. Do note that your global settings will not transfer, so if you've done any tinkering in there that you want to preserve then make sure to take some notes.

Hi Satch, and welcome! There is a pinned thread at the top of this forum titled "Latest Helix Firmware". It contains the relevant links and detailed instructions. Good luck and enjoy!

Glad to see that such service is being rendered and likewise glad to see it recognized and appreciated in a thread like this. Pats-on-the-back all around 😄

I played with that workaround a good while back and ultimately didn't gel with it, might could be worth re-visiting it though. Thanks for the reminder!

This thread is going to cost me a lot of preset slots...

I don't need any more switches, but I'd sure like to be able to utilize the ones I've got with a little more flexibility. 10-Stomps mode with 2 or 3 switches as Snapshots...

Can't say I'd ever heard of this, but it makes for an interesting read. I'm currently sitting at an airport as opposed to sitting at my Helix, so I have not yet checked it out with my own ears. It's on my list to play around with when I get back though... http://www.singlecoil.com/docs/magic-six.pdf

Yeah...

I know this is an oldie, but I had the same question and contacted Line 6 about it; thought it prudent to add their input to this thread for future searchers. They confirmed what was concluded here: "You're good to go using an external switch. Your proposed set up will not damage the Helix at all. Have fun!"

I'm choosing, maybe naively, to give them the benefit of the doubt on the new auto-swell, and say that it isn't actually broken on delivery. I suspect that it probably works exactly like it's supposed to, but that the guy who designed it had a different idea of what that should look like than many of us did. I'm still trying to figure it out myself. I don't know that I expect a "fix" because I'm not sure they'll consider it broken. The volume control thing is different to me though. It was a known issue before release and it's a bit baffling to me that it would not be addressed before launch. Many around here find it trivial and maybe that was Line 6's assessment as well, but it's quite a niussance for how I use it and I suspect I'm not the only one. I do hope it will be addressed with a patch soon; one of the beta tester guys here on the forum alluded that something was in the works, so hopefully that plays out.

I started this thread, and to go directly to answering the question: yes, Helix has gotten much better for me, and it did so long before 2.20. I attribute my issues to 45% user inexperience, 45% user neurosis, 10% Helix behaviours. Experience with the machine has taught me the importance of the Hi and Lo cuts, learning to utilize them was probably the single biggest thing in my learning curve. What I am calling the "neurosis" bit was big too. When I plug straight into a tube amp, I know going in that it's going to sound great and as a result I never really obsessed with my tube amp tones. They didn't require any obsessing. My Strat into my Blues Deluxe or my Les Paul into my SuperSonic sounded good, end of story. With Helix I scrutinized my tones far more, and that's when I keyed into the "fizz". And once you hear it, you don't un-hear it. What I have noticed in the time since, listening to things with a more developed ear, is that some of that same fizz is present in my tube amps and my friends tube amps and in some of my favorite recorded guitar tones, I just hadn't ever noticed it. But it's there. So yeah, I was being a bit neurotic. The 10% I attribute to Helix behaviour comes from the fact that I believe there is too much of this top end fizziness. I wouldn't mind if it were a bit less present. But bottom line: I love Helix and the tones I get out of it and my experience with it gets better and better as I learn more and more about operating it. Most of my tone-related problems with Helix sounds have ultimately been user issues, and I've managed to overcome most of them by getting better as a user. Going from a completely green modeling noob to where I am now has been a long trek; it's not like a tube amp where you just plug in and it sounds perfect. It takes some work and it takes some dedication. Helix has it all once you start figuring out how to get at it. I hope that the others that were sharing my experience at the time of this thread have likewise made it through to the next part of the curve!

Rockdoc, do you have any video or audio of your bands performances posted anywhere? I'd love to hear some.

Done and done (and done).

From the reports thats what I thought as well. That would have been a non-issue. I had intended on sitting this one out as well, but I did some IR shopping and had to re-organize all of my IRs anyway, so I figured I'd just do it while I was in there. I'm not currently using any of the new stuff, so I'm actually considering rolling back a version.

Agreed, this would be an excellent piece of functionality. There are a few different Ideascale submissions on the subject, vote them up! https://line6.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Multiple-splitting-options-for-Path-A-and-B/833936-23508 https://line6.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Multiple-splits-per-path/860596-23508 https://line6.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Multiple-Parallel-Paths/860595-23508

I just performed the update a couple of nights ago and must say this issue was immediately a nuisance. It's not limited to changing the volume while playing, the step changes are happening whether you are hearing them or not. I control the volume of my monitor with the master volume and it is frustrating to A) want a volume that is somewhere between the "steps" and B ) have to play while adjusting the volume because the large dead band between "steps" means you don't actually know when it's changing unless you can hear it. It was previously very intuitive. Not something I'd generally bother to gripe about but mostly this bug seems to be dismissed as trivial and I'd like to voice that there are those of us for whom it's actually a problem. I do hope that it will be addressed and not just be the new norm.

Cool, voted!

I agree wholeheartedly. Is there an Ideascale submission for this? i can't remember having seen one but I'd sure give it a vote.

Actually I betcha this yields some pretty interesting stuff. Lately I've been using 3rd part IRs rather than the stock cabs, but how I use them is largely the same. I tend to split my patches with pre-amp effects and the amp on path 1 and IRs and post-amp effects on path 2. I almost always use two IRs in parallel, and often treat them to different reverb and/or delay. If I'm using a spring reverb I tend to prefer how they perform in between the amp and IR. Sometimes I like tremolos there as well but it depends. I tend to like the high and low cuts to be set very differently on cleans than on dirty stuff, so I usually assign them to snapshots. In some cases I've even assigned the IR number to snapshots allowing you to change IRs from one snap to the next. I've just purchased some of 3Sigma's Acoustic IRs and I've been using them first in the chain followed by a mic pre, so kind of like mic'ing an acoustic body. Seems to work pretty well.

My first attempt at updating last night was met with "Update Failed!" Fortunately cycling the power and trying again worked. Not without some shortness of breath... I do hope that updating the update process is on their radar, 'cause it isn't any fun....

That's how I ended up landing on it too, someone here made a post about having discovered it so I got intrigued and investigated. Glad to pass it forward! I would be very interested to hear this!

I glossed over the Park for a long time, till I discovered that it was super awesome and now it's one of my go-to's.

I don't have any answers for you, but I'll be very interested to see what comes up here. I'm just beginning to look at adding pedals via the loops and I've read an awful lot about how noisy they are. Might end up just running the stuff pre-Helix if it's as bad as it's made out to be...

Thanks HO! I didn't know it before, but turns out I'm one of those "stout click of engagement" types myself. I really like how this works, although I do miss the second external pedal a bit. I'm thinking I'll get over it. How often do you vibe/trem/phase/flange and wah simultaneously anyway, right? And there's always the onboard. If nothing else I may get a physical volume pedal to put in a loop and free the onboard up for other duties as assigned. It's good to have options.

Or, "How I Learned To Love the Auto-On". [edit for clarification: This procedure is specific to Helix's "EXP" inputs, as the Helix Floor has no "Toe Switch" input. Helix Rack and Helix Stomp are configured differently and the switch configuration described here will not yield the desired results....] A little background. While the on board expression pedal with toe switch is a great feature, the motion of the pedal was "off" for me as far as wah went. I wanted it to feel like a wah pedal and it just didn't move like one. So, I gutted a wah enclosure and turned it into an expression pedal following this thread: http://line6.com/support/topic/21821-modding-a-cry-baby-to-make-an-expression-pedal/?do=findComment&comment=169079 Correct feel: check. Separate foot switch to toggle it on and off: Lamesville... I had thought that the position based auto-on feature for expression pedals would be the be-all-end-all for me, but I couldn't ever get anything set up that worked for me. I always ended up with it switching off-on-off-on whilst rocking the wah. So I set about to find a way to make an external expression pedal with a toe switch work. The good news: it can be done. The bad news: it requires both of your external expression pedal jacks. Stuff you need: An expression pedal with a spot for a toe switch, a 3PDT switch (standard "true-bypass" style guitar pedal switch), a jack (not pictured, whoops! It's just a regular old mono guitar jack...) and a 10k resistor. In this case I used a 15k resistor because it's what I had in my parts bin, it's fine for this purpose. The Helix sees an open circuit as "No Pedal Present", a dead short from tip to sleeve as 0% on the expression pedal position, and 10k ohms between tip and sleeve as 100%. So what I want is for one position of the switch to jump straight from tip to sleeve and for the other position to put the resistor in the between. In a 3PDT switch the middle row of lugs is common and connects to the left or right row depending on the switch position. That makes it a pretty easy configuration to wire up: The black and white wires on the center row go to the jack tip and sleeve respectively, the black jumper on the left connects them directly in position 1 and the resistor on the right connects them with 15k ohms resistance in position 2. Again, 10k is spec for 100%, 15k still registers as 100%. Testing it on the meter: Looking good! Now testing it with Helix. For this I hooked it up to EXP2 and loaded a wah, then assigned both the position and bypass to it so that I could see it functioning. I set the bypass threshold at 20% (could be anything bigger than 0%, really) and no delay. What I want to see is OFF at position 0% and ON at position 100%. Frickin' sweet. Hook it up and stuff it in the enclosure. I marked the jacks externally so I'd remember which goes where.... I connected the switch to EXP2 and the Expression pot to EXP3, so by assigning bypass to EXP2 and position control to EXP3 I've got a toe-switchable external expression pedal! It works just like it should, I really like it. You can still use the expression pedal to control other things as long as you remember that if any of them are ON when you go to use the wah you'll be manipulating both of them. The only downside to this arrangement for me is that I've been running two external expression pedals, one of which was assigned to vibe with auto-on. Auto-on works wonderfully for that application. I can still use the external expression pedal to control it but I'll have to toggle it with a Helix footswitch. Nothings free.... Anyway, I hope someone finds this useful, or at least of interest!