WickedFinger

When are we going to get a printable file version of the manual? Some of us like to read and understand things to make better use of the unit's features. Especially with the upgrades coming for Showcase and Proxy. The on screen stuff is great and all but something of this depth and complexity needs a manual.

I had an original Helix and while I liked the programming and setup, the effects loops pass through were a deal kill for me. I went on to try a bunch of modeler units, except for full on Fractal. Maybe had I gone Fractal that might have done it for me. Instead I tried many, a thousand different variations. Just never happy w the tones and feel. Then I came to Universal Audio's amp pedal modelers, 4 of those in a bypass switcher were just amazing, not just real amp sounds but maybe better as tube amps are moody and degrade w time. Reading on the features and improvements of the Stadium XL I decided to bite the apple once again and sold off tons of stuff for the hope Line 6 would bring the torch. I would have stayed w my UAFX rig and been happy but I wanted the promise of greater integration, more amps and cab IR abilities. So far just baby steps trying to find my way around the Stadium. NO printable file manual yet (come on guys and include the models list in a printable file!) Some of us like to attend flight school before taking the plane up. That being said the features on the Stadium are indeed workable and usable merely by using the on-board info stuff and bumbling around. So far the amps are floating my boat in sound and feel, very happy w the new Agoura stuff. Std effects are still the hit and miss of Line 6 stuff, some good some unusable, typical. I've never been a fan of most digital pedal mimics outside of delays/reverbs and some modulation. Stadium has the best of what you would expect from modeled effects. I mainly was after high end delays and reverbs. I wanted to be able to pipe in my hand picked unmatched pedals and later on, hopefully see if Proxy can create a close mimic. I wanted the unit for amps and anything else is just icing, a lot of icing on this cake. Possibilities are yet to be imagined, a supreme Star Trek level technical ecstasy. Looking forward to learning the unit more and upcoming additions and upgrades. My search for the best amp modeling capability has reached a mountain top. I cannot imagine anything "better" nor ease of use. Did I mention how much fun it is messing with this unit? The mere aspect of having fun playing is over looked, while there are certainly tons of options and params everywhere one does not seem to fall into the typical black hole of option paralysis I usually fall into.

Can we get some printable files of the manual and model lists?

Supposedly on release day?? is there any advance copy available for those of use already on the wait list? I would love to study on the unit's features before unboxing.

That's OK, I just sold it. I dig like the Helix once I got the right IRs it started really happening for me. It's just I am not 30 anymore and spending so much time tweaking and headphone work is something I need to start getting away from. The Helix has an infinite param adjust variability and I am getting where I cannot keep wrapping my head around so many options. I need to be able to just shut up and play my guitar, so I get to leave this website in peace. I do not want to say where my next gear acquisition will lead but I am deciding between two really amazing options. (Not Fractal or Kemper BTW) Anyway, so long to you Helix mavens, I enjoyed the forum and using the Helix. I hope the next upgrade rings the cow bell. Helix has a lot of potential but L6 has to take a hard turn away from the whole POD mentality and cheese effects thing. Not sure they can but they will sink or float on how they update the Helix. So long campers.

up on Reverb.com for $1200, includes my IR package and my presets, pro bound double side sheet protected manual for Helix and PC/Mac editor. Still making payments on it so nothing lower. Never gigged, never out of the studio/sound room, always dust covered. Why? It's not that I do not dig the unit and get some great tones, just that I have an insatiable desire to keep changing my rig. If no takers I will just keep using it but I have some ideas I want to try. If I let it go I do not have to deal with two payment things and having a gear conflict of too much stuff to use.

.... return of GAME OF THRONES! Can I just have an Avengers movie with just Scarlet? She is so fine.

I dislike the whole 57 vocal mic thing many so seem to love, Jim's are by far the best sounding but for me its the larger condensers CV4 I like, to me the 57 IRs, I have tried so many, while very popular apparently, to me sound so thin and mid rangy, the guitar is already midrange. I prefer Ribbon mics. Like to see JIm get some Ribbon mics. He does not have a bad IR in the bunch, even his 57 stuff is good which is not an easy thing for me. Really do not care for that sound. I also have some Ownhammer Ribbon mics I like a lot as well. I think its more like the recording guys like that sound and frequency restricted response and the 57 thing, to me I like I more rich and full range sound. Roseberry's IRs get a big thumbs up from me. Seems like he has something in there no matter your preferred tone ideal. Dig the Neve stuff as well, love to have a Mesa Cali V EQ curve on one of those notching about -3db at 750hz and a slight V on the low and high end. Dig the Thump 1 a lot myself.

I gave up using traditional guitar amps a long time ago. The Helix is my latest working of a non guitar amp rig. If you are using the Helix to run into an amp and not using the modeling, you wasted a whole lot of money. I do like a few cabs using the Coles 4038 what I was hating as that 57 and similar mics even on various IRs that sound is so thin and midrangy. I finally got some Ribbon mic IRs I like and stopped using the internal cabs. Some of the 4x12s with the 4038 sounded pretty good to me providing one does not choke off the frequency response like many seem to do. I am not interested in a thin midrange guitar sound and that seems to be a raving fav among many. What I was trying to get at in the former post was how much mics alter the sound and why can't there be some sort of DI like thing which gets the amp sound without coloring it so much with speaker and mic IRs. A bad speaker sim or IR can ruin an amp tone real quick or make it exceedingly difficult to get the tone one is after as is it the amp or the IR? Can a great IR make a crappy amp model sound good, maybe. Impulse Response seems to be the name of the game. I guess the point is you cannot use an amp without an IR whereas on your normal rig using your speakers natural sound you do not need a coloring IR and mic thing. I use a blend combination of a high end guitar speaker loaded 4x12 and a FRFR rig.

I think my fav is the weeper, at least it is more versatile to my various external pedals. I've messed with them all and seem to keep coming back to the weeper, chromes and thoaty but sometimes the sweep range is not all that great and for sure I turn mine down -3db seems to do well. The Teardrop is very mild if one wants a very light wah.

I thought I was getting a pretty good tone using the stock hybrid cabs in particular some of the 4x12s with the 4028 Coles Ribbon which I like for its more warmer less harsh rendering. Everything was going along, I tried about a hundred free IRs and just did not care for them. After trying some of Jim Roseberry's IRs (here on site) and buying some Ownhammer IRs for the Ribbon mics, the difference was pretty amazing. Of the 128 I now have loaded from Roseberry and Ownhammer none are bad, they are all good just a matter of minute changes in tone. Getting some better IRs made me keep the Helix, matters now where they go with the next update. Regarding IRs while I know many tend to love the 57 stuff, I really do not like that mic, for one thing it is a vocal engineered mic with a mid range bump right where I find the sound to be thin and high ended mid rangy. I much prefer the larger condenser mics like the CV4 and the Ownhammer Ribbon mics. Nice to be able to move the mic across the speaker surface and distance away using the series of IRs. Makes all the difference in the world for me. Ownhammer was only $15 and Roseberry gave a bunch of his out for free to beta them. Great stuff. I can get a decent sound using the internal cabs but the wrong mic and they sound terrible.

I look to the Mel9 as merely a background generator, but all in all the real Mellotron was a moody breakdown beast, they must have cut a hundred takes capturing it. Mine goes out on feed into my Trio line and then on to the FRFR rig. I see no other way to use these type of pedals than isolate them. I find a few settings pretty novel and others not so much but, yeah it is very much like a real oddball Mellotron in all its glory. I was using the Cello mode with my guitar feeds off, playing the Game of Thrones theme and my wife actually came up into the sound room very impressed by the accuracy of the tone and feel. The Quint is doing well for me, other than its novel +5th there are others comparable, tracking is notable to be sure. You have a wide range of adjustments. Since I always loved the lower -5th harmonizer mode on my Whammy V I may at some point return to it. I got a Ricochet Whammy and wish I had just gotten another Whammy V maybe even the DT downtune model and been ahead of the game. The Quint and a few others have the advantage of running multiple octaves and the 5th on the Quint but that has limited usage aspect. I find some interesting enhancements keeping the blend down and more subtle levels on my std tone. I would have much rather have a lower -5th than up. My advice in the pedal acquisition for better effects is the Whammy V, does it all but no multiple 8vas. I hate old version Gitchout whammys so which one did they bother to model, an old one of course. The Whammy V is true bypass, polyphonic and just wicked.

99.9% of everything I sample off the custom tone thing failed my 2 sec test, just a short sound test and yep that was a waste of time. Mysterious Ways, that one I remember was as if someone had not heard the song much less knew what that filter was.

I use mainly the Thump and mud ones but I would really like to know what is going on in each of them to help me make use of them better. I tend to like a sharp Q notch at 750hz like Mesa uses on their V EQ thing. I do not like my low end chopped off, just sub sonics. Many of my pedals have bass contour and EQ at 80Hz so if you cut at 100hz that kills that. I tend to just like the speakers natural roll off. Not crazy about chpooing a cabinets response off, I can see the recording need and use of that but I am more a live sound guy. I tend to use the Cali Mesa EQ a lot using moderate levels of boost and about a -3db notch at 750hz. Be nice to hear what a Neve quality IR would sound like replacing that. By the way Jim, I want to thank you for opening up the world of IRs to me, so many I tried I just did not like and yours seems to not have a bad one. I began to realize what I had not liked about the many other ones I tried. I like those large diaphragm like the CV4 and just crazy over Ribbon mics. I got some Ownhammer ribbon mic ones and several of yours are my go to IR list.

I think making use of an upfront mastering EQ block for different guitars is probably a must, also to control their individual levels or perhaps a volume pedal. My presets are always so busy I am constantly looking for ways to combine things. Like rig an expression pedal to the level on said EQ instead of having to use an EQ and volume pedal block. Another fav is using just one good sounding reverb and a exp pedal rigged to control the decay. You can add more expression pedals as well to the Helix, quite useful things indeed. The Helix especially allowing for impedance, input gate or input pad will sound different for each guitar and is a more an issue of higher fidelity. Using FRFR or even higher end guitar speakers is perhaps a better way to go, as using real tubes with the Helix is not necessarily helping or assisting the amp model structure. I have seen L6 tech recommend not using a tube power amp as the model is designed incorporating the response and effect of the power amp in the various amp models they render. Another trick I am fond of using is putting the MIC Studio Tube Preamp (gain 4, level 10.0, impedance line) in front of all my amp models and often I use a 2nd one post as a boost. They add a little tube essence to the preset and mesh internally really well. Makes all my amp models sound better, And oh yeah, took me a while to really understand the whole IR thing, many free ones I tried I just did not like, when I finally discovered I liked RIbbon mics and more a 4x12 thing better IRs were vastly better than what I have gotten on the internal L6 hybrid cab things and I had some of those sounding pretty good.

Yep, BadFinger. I remember first hearing that, such a cool tune.

Personally, I am not into buying patches and I find the custom tone stuff largely excruciating. However, I see nothing wrong in someone offering a product and if someone wants to buy it then that's great, there is always a market for selling just about anything. Not only is it true that ones guitar sound delivery system and their very hands and technique will be infinitely different but sort of the whole point the entire issue of the Helix itself is the programming and tweaking aspect. If you do not wish to program anything or figure out how to create your own personal presets, then I ponder why you would want such a tool which was created with that in mind. Seems like trying to cop a band's sound or a songs sound might be novel but seems largely more novice or that trapped in a cover band thing and even then if you really try to play exactly like someone else what are you really accomplishing as a musician? I think one thing should be apparent when playing someone else's tune that you interpret it and add your own touch to it. While I dearly love playing a lot of Jimmy Page's more exotic works they always sound like me and I often play things differently than he would do but the same notes and overall composition but adding my own sense of how I would approach the tune. If you watch Pagey a lot he plays things differently all the time and god how does he sound just like a song when he changes his gear like the rest of us a lot, he doesn't sound the same is how. While I can see the value in perhaps using more advanced well designed presets to improve your sense of programming and how things are done, sounding like something had always seemed like the marketing tool to entice young players. Can't say I ever designed a rig to sound like someone else. But get that Les Paul mid position cool tone, a certain overdrive or distortion structure but using it to play my own stuff or twice removed from its origin. Now probably when you are going to need to pay for and buy for the Helix are better IRs and finding the ones you like can be a learning experience. I found I was picky on them as I was a preset. I tried hundreds of free ones, and was starting to wonder what everyone was talking about. Got some that Roseberry created and suddenly, oh there is something hear that does make amps sound better. I discovered I love Ribbon mics and I like 4x12 cabs so I went after IRs using that and man has that improved my very best designed presets to the point where I am keeping my Helix. Cheese effects and other's presets, not my thing but if you dig them have at them.

Really digging these IRs. I love the low end response. Most high gain pedals like my Palladium Gainstage have bass boost EQ centered at 80hz, so if you cut above that you kill the pedals ability. I low end cut for subsonic and some high end but I try not to squeeze down the speakers natural spectrum range and roll off. Any needed fine tune tweaking can be done with EQ or those cool Neve tone IR's, I like to let the speakers breath. I get the need for recording mavens to squeeze guitar response to fit into a mix for recording but I am after the most massive rich sounding live tones that can be done. I run a high end loaded 4x12 stereo wired and a pair of EV 15" FRFR's so I can run massive levels of low end, plus I often use a T-Rex Quint octave pedal. Have to say there's none of them I do not like. CV4 really nice, liking the center and edge positions myself. Really improved my Helix, I cannot hardly go back and listen to my prior presets w the Helix hybrid cabs and I had some of those really sounding good.. Still not really getting the 16-24 bit thing, are the 24 much better sounding worth the DSP use? I been trying the 16s and they seem to be doing the deal. wondering if I should try and go the 24's. My main go to amp is the Cali Mesa series. Sounds great. I cannot believe all the free IR's I have tried and just did not like them. Too much 57 all the time. I like the larger mics. KIll for some Ribbon's like the Coles 4038. Anyone who has the opportunity to check out this amazing array of IR's will appreciate the new life they give to the Helix, some really well done stuff here.

That is what I love about the guitar, those special times when everything is just perfect and the tones are just to die for. Ever since I switched to Les Pauls I get that experience more often. I was using the Mesa Cali Ch 1 the other night with my array of loop routing and god it just killed. I'm a Pagey nut and I had some of the best tones I ever got using that Mesa CLN. Of course I have an array of external pedals for my drives and gains but that model in particular loves pedals. I use my trick of having a MIC Tube Preamp before and after my amp model which imparts more of real tube tone plus integrating the new Neve tone mod IRs I got form Roseberry on my post Tube preamp which also works for boost. I finally got the Helix narrowed down to just a few models I like without a million options when you first start. Maybe its a lot of bucks for just a few great sound amp models, but all things considered one good high end tube head cost more.

Dude if you ever do Ribbon mics I'd pay for those. I am sure you could get some great ones. I know everyone likes the 57 but let me be one who does not care for them. I am very sure if Trower recorded Bridge of Sighs with a 57 or like it would not have been the iconic massive sound it is. I think that is why I have not cared for so many IRs I have tried, too many use the 57 all the time. Which I do not get because it is a vocal mic and the 58 was intended for instruments. Anyway, love me some Ribbon mic, but the large condensers are doing well.

I am new to the whole IR thing and I do not get the size either. Mine are 48 but 16 or 24bit, and the 16 is to not have any loss in fidelity. Beats me. Why use more DSP if it does not matter?

Beats me how obviously some thought these were so good they had to upload them. I hear the pro ones you buy are really good but I also hear that about a lot of the custom tone area. I know I've been playing a long time and have developed a sense of tweaking and adjustments to things, but what are these cats hearing? No wonder they want more cheesy effects in the Helix, maybe there are some decent presets in there but everyone I try is just god awful. Sometimes I feel like it's a joke or something. Mysterious Ways indeed. I know be positive, OK you only suck half as much as your tones indicate.

I find I also after resending your saved bundle file to restore your presets (you hopefully saved before the update) I have to re save the bundle file again back to the PC or my unit would do this "rebuilding presets" mode thing taking 4-5mins every time I turned it on. Resaving the bundle back to the PC stopped it. And Yep that final reset Global thing is often overlooked. There are other reset functions you can do on the Helix w the switches and turning the power on. Might be in certain weird things you might have to run through these to start the unit from a fresh clean state. I found these for future ref: What are the secret bootup shortcuts? (DO note the last one, might be just what you need.) Hold FS5 and FS12 while powering Helix: Clears EVERYTHING Hold FS5 and FS6 while powering Helix: Restores backdoor and user-selectable Global parameters to factory Hold FS7 and FS8 while powering Helix: Restores presets and setlists to factory Hold FS8 and FS9 while powering Helix: Restores presets, setlists, and IRs to factory Hold FS9 and FS10 while powering Helix: Restores presets, setlists, IRs, and both backdoor and user-selectable Global parameters to factory Hold FS10 and FS11 while powering Helix: Upgrades existing presets to latest format Hold FS11 and FS12 while powering Helix: In the unlikely situation where Helix may freeze, clears only the current preset without affecting other setlists and presets Hold FS6 and FS12 while powering Helix: In the unlikely situation where Helix may not boot, enters "Safe Mode," allowing for installing the newest firmware

I do know on the floor unit you need to reset Globals or you get problems. Probably a similar thing in resetting the rack.