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DannyMcO

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    I have a bad case of Gear Acquisition Syndrome that rears its head every so often. Most recently, I realized I wasn't getting what I wanted from some high-end boutique pedals and rackmounts, and happily stumbled across the Helix. A couple of weeks later, I owned it, and a Variax. And then another Variax.

    The Line 6 stuff I've owned in the past has typically been kept for a long time, and sold with regret; I had great experiences with the delay, distortion and modulation modelers, among others.

    Hoping the Helix won't let me "touch the bottom" of its editing capabilities for awhile.
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  1. Just updated to 3.6 from 3.5, and once it was done and I'd restored my prior presets, FS8's scribble strip went blank. The FS itself works fine, and behaves as if nothing had changed, but the display is blank. In fairness, I don't know if it happened at the 3.6 update or the restore of my presets, but it definitely stopped working at some period of time between the firmware update and the restore of backups to the now-updated Helix Floor. Anybody else have this happen right next to the 3.6 firmware update?
  2. Come on, my dude. You're really going to claim to know anything about me or my situation based on my choice of gear? You have now met 1 gigging musician who prefers the 4 cable setup (well, 5 cable setup, in this case). I'm not "way out of [anyone's] league". I like what I like and I save up for it if I know I want to buy it. You like what you like, and maybe your financial situation is different, but you, too, could just as easily be a doctor or a lawyer as you might be a waiter or handyman or full-time musician. None of those things are really any better or worse than the others, and there are plenty of penny pinchers in higher paying day jobs as there are big spenders in less lucrative bill-paying gigs. And it only takes one modest check from even a smaller-sized label to result in a rig upgrade. But I'm not going to judge you for what you like or what your rig contains. You played through tubes awhile and found Helix is a better solution? Well, does it work for you? AWE. SOME. Good on ya for avoiding the GAS that some of us (myself 100% included) have. But consider - say someone asks us what our favorite colors are. You say yours is red, I say mine is green. Will either of us ever convince the other that our 100% subjective preference is wrong? Kind of an exercise in futility, no? And we probably shouldn't read into our favorites, either...for all either of us knows, the other could just as easily be achromatopsic as tetrachromatic. Or, for that matter, an accountant. ;-) If I have anything to say about the Line 6 ecosystem that I had been exclusively using (prior to my recent shift), it's that it got me to think a lot more about live performances in stereo. Stereo effects through headphones always sounded cool through other multieffects units I've owned, but without the signal path editing and robust i/o of the Helix, they weren't as easily realized. Add in the Powercab control through the Helix and AES Link, and suddenly everything stereo was pretty easily attainable. Probably the only downside for me (aside from having to come here to figure out the best way to wire it), is that the Mesa weighs a damn ton. But for the sounds I prefer to produce, the actual, the physical Mark VII in my stereo rig is worth its weight in gold. Which, coincidentally, was the actual retail price of it.
  3. I think you may be of the mind that I might be playing straight sounds in stereo - for example, a single tone being played identically to both channels. That's not what drives my use case. My latest project will have me routing into the Mesa for its preamp tones (which I prefer over the model) in mono out of the Mesa effects loop into the Helix, where it will then be used in nonidentical (l/r signal) stereo effects - probably the easiest examples I can think of are things like l/r swells & wahs, ping pong delays, stereo tremolo and l/r rotary speaker emulations (rather than "loud/soft" mono Univibe types), or even combinations of multiple such effects. Since I'm using the Mesa pre-amp for most of the tone and bypassing the preamp of the second channel amp, the second amp in the stereo setup doesn't matter so much as long as the amp circuit/cab/cone combo produces the Mesa's (and Helix') tone somewhat accurately. So it could just have easily been a used Blues Deluxe or some other amp with an actual effects loop to route into (7cM). But since I already own the Powercab, I'm trying not to make my Guitar Center salesman's commission check any larger than what was produce by the Mesa/Music Man Silhouette/Charvel Pro Mod ticket he got from me already in the last month. That aside, whether the sounds coming out of stereo channels are in phase or not, there will still be sweet spots as well as dead spots for listening, given that the waves still need to reach across physical distances to a listener's ear based on sound wavelengths and wave periods. My PA and even my home stereo subwoofer has phase buttons on it specifically to combat this, though all it really does is move sweet/dead spots somewhere else in the room.
  4. Maybe you should stop hanging out in gay bars? Kidding. But if a gay dude tried to use logic to convert me (which is what you're describing, rather than chicanery), it'd be even less effective than him trying to trick me, because there's both conscious ("There isn't anything someone can tell me that would make me prefer a man over a woman") and subconscious ("I'm hetero") thought involved. Not that "tricking" me is even really an option to begin with. I mean, can someone "trick" you into preferring something you 100% do not prefer? For instance, there's nothing anyone will ever be able to say, no information they can present me with and no trick they can pull on me that's ever gonna get me to love raw onions. Similarly, nobody's gonna get me to swap my orientation with anything less than some kind of MKULTRA level mind control. If it were possible to "trick" me into being gay or trans or whatever, then the problem wouldn't be that they were trying to trick me into being it, it'd be that I was trying to trick myself that my [closeted] sexual/gender identity wasn't actually true.
  5. Is "Why" meant to be a "What are the advantages you expect to gain from this setup"? Or is it more of a "Why the heck would you do that?"
  6. I've played out with JTV69 into Helix + Powercab 112+ pair for years. I'm well aware of its capabilities...but have you ever tried to convince someone that they were wrong about their favorite color, or that your favorite band should be their favorite band, or that objective reality did not agree with whatever their taste was in something? I like Mesa's sounds - the clean, the crunch & the leads. The Mark VII has a lot going for it that I like better than what I was getting via Helix + 2 Powercabs. I'm sure you believe in what you say about Helix' amp & cab modeling - but as strong as that belief is for you? My own belief is that the Mesa does it for me, closer to my taste and more easily. Yes, Helix has a lot of models. Many of them are good, or even great. There probably isn't much you're going to tell me in that direction that I haven't already personally experienced professionally. But my favorite color is my favorite color. I'll certainly listen politely as you extol the virtues of your favorite color, but you're simply not a good enough salesperson to get me to change a deeply held personal preference borne out of years of experience using the very product in question. Thanks for the answer, though!
  7. The Mark VII is brand spanking new, but mono only; I could go and buy a cheap Fender amp for the stereo channel, but I already own the Powercab.
  8. Hey all - How do I wire up a Helix, a Mesa Mark VII and a Powercab 112+ to create a stereo rig, while properly using the effects loops? Is it actually possible, or do I need to get a cheapie amp with an effects loop to replace the Powercab? Clearly neither the 4 or 7 cable methods work; is this maybe a 5 or 6 cable setup? I'm a little stumped. Mods: cross posted to Powercab. If one or the other is inappropriate, please delete at your discretion.
  9. Unless you're talking about the 2 year old Line 6 Facebook post on Alexandria Ashpond, I can only guess you're referring to Line 6's parent, Yamaha? A Google search for either "lgbt" or "lgbtq" or "pride month" in the line6.com domain didn't reveal anything. I mean, its far from perfect, but I for one have no idea what you're talking about with Line 6 specifically. But is it really that important to you? Why do you care? Nobody's trying to trick you into being gay -- or if they could ever be remotely successful even if they were. While I was looking for the Line 6 post that you found offensive, I also took a look through the forums here, and while I see from your post above that Pride references somehow detract from your experience here, I can't seem to find the posts of yours that should logically follow that complain about things like Yahama's posts on Mother's Day, Father's Day, Black History Month, Autism Awareness Month, Hispanic Heritage Month post, Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month, or any other segments of the population they make products for, like houses of worship. So is your thought that Yamaha should just sit down and STFU about anything that isn't an actual musical instrument? That they shouldn't be involved in the communities of the people who buy and use their products? They should just focus on devices for "producing great sounds". That it shouldn't matter for them at a commercial level if some of the people Yamaha sponsors use their voice to speak out for LGBT equality/pride while they're also popularizing Yamaha products? If that's your thought, then it seems you need to ignore that "In all its interactions with stakeholders, the Yamaha Group seeks through its business activities to exceed customer expectations and create excitement. Through activities grounded in the fields of sound and music, [Yamaha] will continue to share passion and performance and enrich culture along with people around the world. Yamaha & its portfolio of companies does more than ruffle LGBT-related feathers of people who for whatever reason find it objectionable. Among other things, they also make donations of their gear to public school music programs - even though music education isn't what Yamaha does. They ensure that forestry supporting their businesses is environmentally sustainable, even though, financially, it probably doesn't matter to them. They help their employees raise money for charities including a children's hospital, and the American Cancer Society - all activities that have literally zero to do with actually "producing great sounds". But I don't see you writing about your concern for any of Yamaha's (or Line 6's, or whoever's) other non-LGBT, non-"producing great sounds" activities. Yamaha or Line 6 or whoever it was that got your dander op with an LGBT post? They weren't aiming that at you. Similarly to the way they didn't aim the Mother's Day, Father's Day, Black History, Hispanic Heritage, AAPI, Autism awareness and/or worship posts at you (as appropriate). If the fact that Yamaha or Line 6 or whoever has LGBT customers that they want to market to and acknowledge bothers you, and/or if the fact that LGBT customers of theirs might benefit from being marketed to/acknowledged, then it might be worthwhile to examine why it's only that one customer constituency that bugs you so much. Because unless I'm missing something, it seems like all the Yamaha group posts about all their other customer constituencies have slipped right past you, unnoticed.
  10. Hey all - How do I wire up a Helix, a Mesa Mark VII and a Powercab 112+ to create a stereo rig, while properly using the effects loops? Is it actually possible, or do I need to get a cheapie amp with an effects loop to replace the Powercab? Clearly neither the 4 or 7 cable methods work; is this maybe a 5 or 6 cable setup? I'm a little stumped. Mods: cross posted to Helix. If one or the other is inappropriate, please delete at your discretion.
  11. Way beck when Pink Floyd used to issue quadraphonic albums... but their amazing live shows were either in stereo or <:gasp!> mono. Using Helix with Powercabs, is there any way to send a quadraphonic mix out to (for example) allow a phaser or flanger or vibe/Leslie wash to envelope the audience? Or to have echoes 'chase' around the venue? Or to have different sounds coming from each of 4 PowerCabs linked to each other in any way? I have an experimental group I work with that I really want to achieve this with, and though I own 2 PowerCab 112 Pluses, a Helix and a couple of Variaxes, if it can legitimately be achieved, I'll add to my existing Line 6 ecosystem...but speakers are large, so if I don't have to have 2 more amps taking up space in my already-packed music room, would really like to avoid it. Anyone out there ever actually achieve live quadraphonic with Helix, Variax and PowerCab 112 Plus? How'd you do it?
  12. Finally opened up my Helix to lubricate the pedal... ...and found that one of the shoulder washers (the cylindrical ones that go around the bolt, with a perpendicular flat section) had actually broken. Where the heck does one get replacements for it? I don't even know what precise size it is as it seems to be metric, so I can't just order it online. And FullCompass does not have them. Help!
  13. Thanks so much on this. SUPER helpful, exactly what I was looking for.
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