dickbanks

Likely the previous owner spilled something on it.

The Yamaha THR-10C does a pretty good job at FRFR on the clean settings. Brand new is $300, but I've seen used ones at ~$150. I discovered this by accident when my Line 6 L2T that I use for rehearsals had to go in for service. Substituted the THR-10C and sent the 1/4 out on the Helix to the input. Pretty decent sound--and plenty loud enough for the rehearsal space. And it runs on batteries or power supply.

Rather than messing with the Global EQ (I keep it flat), I just place an EQ block at the end of all my patches. I set it to knock the high and low end (110 Hz and 4500 Hz). So when I'm practicing at home, I engage it to remove the "fizz." In the mix with the band, it stays OFF to let the "fizz" come through.

I can also highly recommend Chad Boston's "Line 6 Premium Support and Presets" on Facebook. He has one video, "Episode 8: Fizz" that alone is worth the price of the membership. That one is currently on YouTube--don't know for how long. Bottom line: high gain on one guitar needs to be a little "fizzy" to cut through the mix with a full band. Don't know if that is an issue with the pursuit of good high gain tone for you, but it was for me.

My "other tuner" is a Boss GP-10. It's more stable but less sensitive. I don't get increments in cents like the Helix. i think the Helix is very responsive to what is happening when you twist the tuner and pick the string, with corresponding pitch response (sinusoidal stable). Not sure you can have both sensitive AND stable--I'm not a mechanical engineer, but there is some oscillation when you tighten the string. L6 could make two global settings: "Hysteresis Mode" for those of us who want to tune fast and don't care about a couple of cents either way, and "Sensitive Mode" for users who need tight tuning (like in the recording studio).

Just like the real Vox AC-30. Line 6 did a nice job with that amp emulation. And with the AC-15. I own one, with a greenback. With the "MIC preamp" trick in front (or after), I think the Helix sounds more like the AC-15 than the AC-15 does, If that is possible. It sounds better, more tube-like, and you can easily eliminate that nasty bright front-end (that people eliminate on the real amp by cutting the caps. But my personal favorite amp is the WhoWatt100. I'll never own a real Hiwatt DR-103, and I really have no idea what one sounds like. But the WhoWatt amp covers a lot of ground for me--nice cleans, and dirtiest up nicely with single-coils.

Absolutely send it back. My L2T is at the service center here in Kansas City (an issue unrelated to yours)--has been there over a month, Not to impugn the service center owner--he's just swamped with work. You will probably have a working unit in your hands faster on an RMA. Mine is a year old. I was in no huge hurry, and I know the gentleman, so I chose to have the work done locally, rather than RMA. I use mine as a stage monitor, and I have a backup. If you Google this buzzing issue, you will see that more than a few have had this problem, with L2 and L3 units. That PRS ought to sound like cream coming out of that speaker. See http://line6.com/support/topic/5721-l2t-vibration-and-rattling-noise/page-2.

I see your point, and agree, especially since the 1/4 in from the Helix is almost noiseless...

True. But if you have access to a decent FRFR while tweaking, once it's good on one, it will be good on the other. At least good enough for the sound engineer anyway... And typically I can get to about the 90% solution on a sound I want in about the first 5 minutes. But it's that last 10% that takes time and patience.

My rig: Fender Strat Elite to Helix to Stagescape (M20d) to L3T (2, stereo) + L2T (monitor). All L6 links, except from Helix to M20d (why is that?). The 3-band EQ on the Stagescape is excellent for finishing off a tube amp-like sound. My personal tube amp of choice is my Vox AC15, and I can get really close to it's sound with that rig. Close but not dead on. Actually I think it's a little better. And I don't personally use the 4 cable method--I like the sound I get just going serial. Anyway, cruisinon2 said it best--whatever you go with will only sound good after you have spent time tweaking it. I struggle with that, you know, time I could be playing instead of tweaking the electronics. And then I have to remind myself that part of being an ELECTRIC guitarist is the "electric" part--that the sound after the guitar is also important. Otherwise, play an acoustic and be happy. So make your choice, go to work, and be happy with it. :)

What I know of it is in the video above.

Sounds pretty good to me, but like I said before--I'm the last player you should trust for how something "sounds." It's nice that, at least with the Helix, you don't have to give up your one delay, you can just run multiple instances of them in series (or parallel). When I tried 2 or 3 in parallel, trying to get an even heavier tone, I started getting the other effects instead, like flanger, phaser, etc. Makes sense--the delay feedback of the second delay will be out of phase from the first.

Has anyone tried John Dale's "delay shelving" technique on a Helix? He calls it a "filter mod." His technique is for the Yamaha THR10 mini-amp, and I tried it on my THR10C (the bluesy, classic rock version of that same amp) and it is amazing on that amp. Really kills a lot of the "transistor sound," and produces more of a "tube sound." Like always, not exactly a tube sound, but really close... I tried it today with my Strat (Fender N4 pickups) and Helix, with the WhoWatt 100 Amp/Cab and Transistor Tape Delay selected, using various very short (0.8 ms) delay, ~70% feedback, ~50 mix, and got basically the same results. Delay before amp, after amp, cascaded delays, with/without distortion, experimenting like that. It sounds to me to be better than "EQ shelving," because it sounds like there are still some high freq harmonics coming through, along with the "thicker sound." I always hate giving up the Strat "quack" for thicker tone, and this method seems to produce both. It's like I have much heavier strings--my actual strings are 9-11.5-15-26-32-38, so really very light. I have to be honest though, I can never trust my ears much for this sort of thing--too many years around jet engines. But it does sound good to me. Cascading delays in this way produces lots of other effects of course, like phasing, flanger, Roto-Vibe, etc, but that's what all of these are anyway, just various modulated delays. This single tape delay, however seems to produce a "string-thickening" effect... I feel foolish posting this--I can't be the first on this forum to try this, but I could find no post that discusses this technique. So if there are relevant posts, I will humbly apologize and join that thread...

Also the obvious fact that high gain means high gain of everything--sweetness, and noise..

I can speak to the PJ tuning. Much of that sound comes from the relative tightness and looseness of the strings being really tuned differently, which you obviously won't get from the Variax alt tuning. But you will be very close!

I bought Glenn's patches really for the express reason that I could watch him go through them one by one on you-tube to see how they sound with a seasoned professional. To me they were a much more valuable starting point than the stock presets, and I learned a ton about IRs, snapshots, etc. Now I really don't use any of those whole patches, but I use bits and pieces of a lot of them. Now I prefer to build my own from scratch--now that I know what the unit is capable of. For me it was all about maximizing time playing, and minimizing time spent twiddling with electronics...

...but you did discover stomp mode, which is also very cool! :)

Almost guaranteed to be common mode interference, i.e conducted along the ground plane. Try a line isolator, to swap unbalanced for balanced, like this: http://www.fullcompass.com/prod/124129-Ebtech-HE2XLR (There are many). Or, if you have a DI Box you could borrow from someone (does the same thing, churches and other regular music venues have LOTS of them, otherwise they are $$$). Just realize that you will always face this issue--especially live with lights...

Very nice protection, plus if you add some chains and handcuffs, you could have that Blues Brothers thing goin', walkin' into the club! :)

I never change my sound that much at a gig, but it seems to me you could use a couple of expression pedals; the one on the Helix, and an external one to make the linear parameter changes you need. But I am not an expert on what you can assign the pedal to, and what you can't. I just use it for wah or volume. However, others on this forum are masters of this. This really brings up a good point about why players go the "multi-effects pedal" route vs stomp boxes. The first is "I want to find *my* sound(s)." The second is "I want to sound just like [fill in the blank]." Seems to me that the Helix is great for both. You just have to experiment. I'm really only interested in the first. My sound (one of them) is a Fender GC-1 Strat connected to a Boss GP-10 set to ES-355 (divided pickup, with a small amount of Fender Classic Tweed amp as "preamp") mixed with stock ceramic pickups, line-returned to the Helix with Deluxe compressor and an IR I got from Greg Delaune in series with the Vox AC-15 amp, and lots of effects combinations loaded as snapshots, EQ at the end. When I want to sound "Stratty," I turn up the mag pickups, and when I want to sound "dotty," up comes the divided pickup. Took me a year of gigs and basement time to zone in on all that. It was definitely worth it. :) Now I'm working on a Les Paul sound...

So you use the dice from a board game, six sided with dots, like for craps, monopoly, etc, only you use just one. The idea, all you know is you want to get through 12 attempts at what you are playing, without really thinking about how many you have done, or have to go. A mind trick really. You just concentrate on what you are trying to play.

You know, before I even try out gear, multi-effects units, etc, I check out the health of the user forum. And this one is excellent! Otherwise I take a pass. Haven't seen an owner's manual yet that can match a healthy, active online forum. Especially one where the company chimes in occasionally.

When I get stuck on something, I get one die out. Start at 1, play the piece, go to 2, play again. All the way up to 6, and then back down from 6 back to 1. Now you have tried it 12 times, really without thinking about how many times you played it, just concentrating on the piece. At the end of the 12 tries, ask yourself, "did I get better, the same, or is it worse now?" If the last two are true (same or worse), quit on it and try again tomorrow. Your brain needs more time to rewire to get it down--and that happens while you sleep. Continuing to play it more in the same sitting (same day) will only frustrate you more. On the other hand, if it's better, congrats, play it some more! I try to play the first thing after waking up, and the last thing before bed. Even if those are really short periods, 15-30 minutes. Because the brain is great for learning something new overnight, and for remembering (and digesting) the last thing you did before sleep. Like Meatloaf said, "let me sleep on it." None of these are my original ideas BTW--stuff I learned in a Brain Science course I took for my MSEd. And remember, there was a time when Randy Rhoads told his mom, "I'll never be a lead guitar player." Can you imagine? Even the very best players get frustrated at times...

Mix in some delays in parallel works for matching reverbs to recordings. This works for me with worship music--where all types of reverbs are used.

I use this same setup for band rehearsal; Helix and Line 6 L2T. Have to keep the -20dB pad engaged on the L2T so that everyone goes home with their hearing intact! You will LOVE this setup, very clean!