Paulzx

Buying new is the safest bet of course. I bought my Helix floor as a used unit but it was mint, it was from Ebay, and the seller had excellent feedback, so I was confident in that purchase. You have to be patient sometimes to get the right deal if it's a used purchase, and perhaps make an offer on one that is in good condition.

Agree with the Elevators. The main problem you have got is that it could take some time before you stumble across something that doesn't work as it should, the USB jack might be damaged etc and you won't know until you hook it up to HX edit or update it etc. If it was ebay, where you have some protection should the item not be in working order as described, I would be more tempted, but maybe not somewhere you have no come back should you find a problem. I have seen a number of floor units and LT's for sale, ebay, reverb etc. Might be a few dollars more but much better condition.

Interesting thread to watch. Much of what has been said has been my experience also. I have a Fractal now running alongside my Helix, which I'm discussing over at TGP. I haven't used anything on the Helix update yet, it sounds promising though. I will say though, after a long time trying I finally dialled in a Helix modded 2204 tone that I'm very pleased with. It may not solve the bright cap thing but there are some good tones achievable for those who want to put the effort in. And.. the request for Marshall tones and amps should not be dismissed, its a huge area for high gain players. It's not a small thing!

You're in my territory.. I use the Helix almost exclusively for high gain stuff, marshall being my most used tone. However, I will tell you the Plexi and the 800 on the Helix are rubbish. The modded 2204 though, is very good, and that amp really is the go to amp in the Helix for hard rock and metal. Pair that amp with some of the new cabs and you can get some pretty nice results.

Don't worry, you always get the obligatory sarcastic reply from someone. Most people just want to try and help. So the solution to your issue is for him to duplicate his bedroom presets and save a copy for live playing so he has two set lists basically, one for each scenario. The live presets just need to be re edited at live volume level in your rehearsal place. That should just be a case of re editing the amp and cab settings for that environment. I do find with my Helix Floor that I need to have a copy of my presets not only for volume differences but also for different guitars. Basically any time you change one of the factors, be it guitar, environment, volume, you need to edit the preset. I don't use the global eq for that, I much prefer a nicely dialled preset copy.

I can give you a short check list to solve that with those sort of tones, but first thing to look at is how you're listening to it. Headphones, as good as they are for practising quietly, produce a very different sound to a guitar cab or FRFR speakers, very artificial sounding. Maybe someone here can suggest some headphones that solve that but in my experience, none of them sound the way the Helix sounds through real speakers. So are you only using headphones or are you going between speakers and headphones?

Yep, I keep mentioning this over on the TGP and on the Fractal forum, the cab update really opened things up especially for high gain players. I've got a very nice JMP1 type Marshall tone using two blended cabs one of which is the Cali IV. All my high gain presets were previously using IR's because the original cabs were horrible for the most part, I know some people used them but most high gain players moved to IR's very quickly. However, for the most part now, my high gain presets have all moved back to these new cabs because they do have an edge over the IR's. That update probably stopped me moving to another platform to be honest.

I can't watch the video at the moment I'm at work.. what's the verdict on the sound - all quite similar or is anything standing out?

I've cured it, I just put the biggest pair of shoes on I could find! I'm kidding of course lol I need to check those global foot switch settings when I get back home

Ah well this is a good clue then. But we don't know what settings in the globals are causing it? What's the easiest way to do this - factory reset, install latest firmware, install backed up presets without global settings etc?

Not barefoot but yes to socks.. I will look into this!

Hello All, I mentioned this a while back when RD2RK helped me out understanding how to program command centre, but the problem persists! So no issues using command centre or programming it. I've used it multiple times on presets to create a nice pedal board when in stomp mode. However, occasionally but not every time, when in stomp mode and playing, the display will suddenly jump into the command centre window and it's doing it randomly on more than one preset - so it's literally as if I have pressed a button to access command centre halfway through playing a song. It doesn't affect any of the pedal board selections or patches, it's just the display, so you end up pressing the home button to get back to your standard signal chain display. It's just very annoying, knowing it shouldn't happen. I wondered if anyone else had seen this issue also?

I cannot agree with that. I had both HD500's and then the Helix floor, and the Helix, with some knowledge and tweaking, will go close to most real world high gain tones, I should know, I'm the most fussy high gain player of all time. The HD500 was okay and yes it made some noise, but it was never really totally convincing on the high gain, and that was the general perception of that device at the time. Things took a quantum leap with the Helix, and the other current modelers. I think it may just be your perception of the sound you're hearing from the 500 and perhaps not getting the best out of the Helix? Certainly I considered getting rid of my helix many times, but I steadily became much better at dialling it in, to the point where only something really mega would see me changing - but I would never consider going back to a 500! My Helix crunch tones have plenty of guts, but they're all different, some have no bass and really cut through, some have bass and a bit of thump, my point is, it can do it all if you know how.

This is interesting. The FM9 is a great unit for sure, but I don't think I would give up my Helix floor at this point just due to familiarity and functionality. My impression is that if you're playing anything other than high gain, it may not noticeably be any different in terms of sound quality. Are the FM9 Marshall tones noticeably any better than the Helix, does anyone know?

Mostly the 3.50 fandom was around the cabs I think, we all agreed the new cabs were a big improvement. I don't recall many saying the presets were great, I'm sure they are better but in general the factory presets are pretty dire to be honest. I don't know why that is but it doesn't really matter because one of the first things you learn about Helix is that you need to build your own presets.