Nos402

With the Helix, they mention that since each of the 2 paths has its own pool of processing power, that if you are going to have a lot of processing such as dual amps and/or lots of effects, it's best to use both paths to get maximum processing power. So why not just have 1 big pool of processing power that just gets used up as necessary? By way of example, let's say for simplicity that you have 8 effects/amp blocks that each use 10% of the unit's TOTAL processing power. As it stands now, Path A has 50% of that power and Path B has 50% of that power, so each path could only accommodate 4-5 blocks before you'd need to start using the other path. Why not just make the processing completely dynamic? Use 100% on Path A, or B or any combo of the 2 as long as it totals 100%. Why restrict each path to a maximum of 50% of the total processing power in the unit?

Excellent! I really miss the old POD era manuals with pictures and long descriptions of each model and examples of usage and such.

I've had GREAT results using the Orban loudness meter (free download). As many others have stated, usually meters aren't terribly reliable as loudness, EQ, etc. will affect perceived loudness but I equalized all my patches using the Orban loudness meter, and they were all VERY close at my next gig. I generally just use the amp model's channel volume to make the adjustment. It's the best results I've ever had in my 30+ years of playing.

So whenever I update my Helix it always recommends saving a bundle and then overwriting everything to make sure presets are all updated and such. Now if I just save a bundle, doesn't that save ALL the presets on the Helix? Therefore, if I update, and the import the bundle, aren't I just reloading all the OLD presets? What I've been doing to be safe is just exporting my 2 user setlists that I've created, then updating, then holding buttons 7 and 8 (bottom left 2 buttons) to overwrite the presets, then importing my 2 custom user setlists. Any feedback? Thanks!

I have a Boss Stereo Volume pedal that can also be used as an expression pedal, but with the Helix, it works backwards. I'm guessing it's just a polarity incompatibility that I can't do anything about? Aside from that, I'm LOVING the Helix every bit as much as I hoped I would. So far, my only niggle is that I wish there was an "insert character" when naming patches.

Any opinions on which has the better pitch shifting? I play in one band that tunes to Eb and I've been using the JTV to achieve that but I've recently added a non-JTV guitar to my live setup as well so have programmed the HD500 to shift down to Eb when necessary. Any experiences with one being better than the other?

Yeah, I just turned down the "Hum" in the power section settings to make it usable.

Anyone else notice the new "Small Tweed" HD model has a lot of hum? You can dial it out with the "hum" setting in the power amp section but is this intentional? I haven't noticed this on any other models and noise gate does nothing to it.

But the new "Fawn" has a Normal and a Bright channel so I'm confused as well.

Luthier did NOT find anything wrong and said they sounded normal to him so I guess i'm just spoiled by the silence of digital models!

So first off let me say that I completely disassembled my JTV-69 to get the body refinished. In that process the black wire from the humbucker snapped off the circuit board on the pickup selector. I had my friend (who owns and runs a music store and knows what he's doing) solder it back on. Ever since then I've felt like the mag pickups have more hum than they should, especially the humbucker. Now, truth is, I never use them as I only use the digital modeling, but I would like them as an option in case of emergency. The thing is, I'm not even *sure* there's anything wrong. I'm wondering if I'm just so used to the silence of the digital models and am scrutinizing extra hard since I know it was disassembled and had to have that wire re-soldered and such. I took it to Guitar Center today just to compare it to a cheap $79 HSS Squier Strat in terms of noise. Again, I *think* it seems a little noisier, especially the humbucker but i'm just not sure. Took another look inside at the electronics tonight, and nothing seems amiss. I was going to have my luthier take a look at it tomorrow to see if he could find anything obvious but he's not really familiar with electronics this complex. He's used to just regular old guitars. Just wondering if anyone had any ideas about it. The one thing that baffled me is that when I looked at the offical wiring schematic it shows "shield" and "black" going to W2 but I don't see a "shield". I see Black, Green, Red, White. Of course, I know very little about wiring and such.

2 problems with that: 1. let's say I have the volume pedal at 50%. Now I hit the footswitch and it turns the wah on and volume pedal OFF and now my volume is at 100%. 2. I'm using the EXP to control amp gain.

I can't see a way to do this. You can assign a switch to turn wish on or off bit as far as I can tell the only way to switch between exp1 and exp2 is with the toe switch (or an external exp pedal).

Unfortunately, it's headphones at home (not optimal I know) and direct to PA with in-ears live.

I like to have a "master" setlist for when I'm just flying by the seat of my pants and selecting guitars and amps on the fly. Currently, each bank is a single amp, with 4 flavors of that amp (usually 4 gradual increases in gain). I'm redoing this idea from scratch because I found that just isn't very usable or efficient for many reasons (some amps just don't have a huge usable gain range, etc.). My new potential idea is to have a single patch per amp model with the EXP-1 controlling the gain. One caveat I can see of this method is that you now pretty much can't use a Wah with that setup, unless you don't mind that you have to max out your gain to activate the wah (the EXP switch has to be pressed to MAX to activate the toe switch and go into EXP-2 mode). I don't use a lot of wah so no big deal. I can always have wah specific patches. I also would like suggestions on the best (in your opinion) general all-purpose FX setups to go along with this, including where in the signal chain you would put them. Again, my initial thought is Noise gate, overdrive/dist, comp/boost, Chorus, Phaser, Reverb. I comp/boost, chorus and phaser could go so many places in so many orders in the signal chain, that I'm not sure which I prefer. It's nice to have a comp/boost in case you need a little extra solo volume, but I also run my HD500 out into a separate volume pedal with an adjustable minimum volume to have a nice global control of that. I always have such a hard time getting all the volumes adjusted evenly for live use as well. I also like to be able to just turn the amp off via a foot switch to have it dry for acoustics and such from my Variax so I try to match all volumes to the bypassed volume as well. Any other ideas, opinions, etc. are welcome. Just brainstorming the best overall, all-purpose-general setlist ideas. Thanks!

And also, now I just hope any future improvements are available as retrofitted parts I can put in THIS body!

This was totally worth the trouble of disassembling/reassembling and voiding my warranty (which was probably out any way). The image doesn't come close to doing it justice either. We used a couple of different size flakes and it shimmers with an almost 3 dimensional holographic effect.

I have a friend who has offered to refinish my JTV-69 and I was just wondering how complicated it would be to disassemble and reassemble it so I can just get him the bare body to refinish.

I've played many Strats but not a lot of Teles. In the past I always used the Tele as the twangiest, a Strat as a good compromise between a Tele and Les Paul, and a Les Paul for the beffiest most overdriven. With this latest software release though, the Strat now seems way twangier than the Tele. The Tele seems bassier. Is this true to Strats in relation to Teles?