tedulrich

You don't need a paid subscription to Acrobat to do markups, Reader will do them. My subscription only covers Lightroom and Photoshop for my photo and design work, and I use Reader DC for PDF handling. When you open a document there should be a "Comment" option on the right sidebar, which will open a toolbar near the top. That toolbar gives you specific tools for highlighting or underlining text, adding comment blocks, and the like. You're not actually editing the content of the file, just making notes as you might in a paper manual. It's a lot cleaner that way. Below are where you can enable the toolbar and start using it.

Excellent. If anyone needs me I'll be on the 17th floor, caulking the tiles in the second bathroom of the fifth master bedroom.

I'm guessing it's Batman.

For immediate control during performance, you can use expression pedals. If you don't need immediate control you can drop into edit mode and change block parameters via the footswitches and onboard expression pedal.

Seriously. Photography is one of my gigs, and I've bought exactly ONE lens and ONE camera body new. All else has been refurb or used market.

Awesome, thanks for the insight!

You have to reassign the input block to 'Multi' or whichever channel you use, and the effects may need a little tweaking to suit your particular guitar, but I just loaded it on mine this morning and it sounds pretty good with my PRS coil tapped. To CBTL: Out of curiosity, why the studio preamp in front of the guitar amps? I didn't notice a huge difference with or without it, just curious about your reasoning behind them. Thanks for putting this out there for us!!

Nice! Stuff like this makes me want a Variax, but I don't know that I could hang up my beloved PRS to do it. :(

Ironically, they stock it at one of my local stores here in Virginia Beach. That is, if I'm not mistaking it with the LPT5000 model. I certainly would ditch the lower shelf, unless I decided to stick my M5 on it. I was originally eyeing it to put my MacBook over my MIDI keyboard on a small desk.

I'd attach this to the aforementioned music stand. It would probably work with my amp stand as well, though I'd want to lock the upper arms in place somehow first. https://on-stage.com/products/view/11744/117494

For what it's worth, when working with mine I keep it on the old Proline amp stand I used for combos and 2x12 cabs prior to getting Helix. With the back arms up I can even put it at an angle to see the screen better. I use a couple of elastic ties as "stops" to keep it from sliding. My MacBook sits on a desk nearby.

Hey Bruce, I fought with the decision for a while prior to taking the plunge, and I’m glad I went for it. So some background, I’m a hobbyist that’s played off and on again since the early 90’s, more off then on though since kids came along and the career was taking up all of my time (and sanity). I’d made some attempts to get back into it, but it never panned out until last year after some life changes, and once I stuck with it a bit I started doing the pedalboard and amp thing. I’d seen the Helix early on and thought it was amazing, but I wrote it off due to the price tag. I agree 110% with the quote above. I found I was buying and selling all sorts of gear trying to get a rig with the sounds I wanted. I’d done a similar thing with gear when I got into photography, and started to realize what I was doing to myself. When I evaluated what all of that trading was costing me in the long run and still not getting me where I wanted to be, I started looking really hard at the Helix again. The moment one of my local shops got one in stock, I decided to take the plunge, and paired it with a powered PA cab. I ended up selling every pedal I owned, save for a Micro POG (tracks octaves better than the Helix when fed chords IMO) and my M5 which I use when I need extra sounds or run out of DSP on a single path. This setup pretty much serves everything I need for instrument processing. Some of the pros, at least for me are: - Ditched amps altogether along with the dependency on application specific cabs. With the PA cab, I can use the same rig for electric, acoustic electric, and bass just with a patch change. - Helix’s EXTREMELY flexible routing lets me do things far easier than ever before. Want to A/B an effect at different places in the chain? Just move the block. Need to add an external effect? Put it in a loop and stick it wherever in the signal chain. Parallel paths? No problem. - Friend wants to come over and jam? All he/she needs is their guitar and a cable, no amps or pedalboards to bring along and set up, we just set up a quick second path. They want to do it after my wife goes to bed? We can plug the output into my little headphone amp and wail away. - The platform is evolving. Our suggestions are heard, improvements and enhancements have already been made since release. - Community support. The forum here has been an EXCELLENT resource for me, and other outlets for information and conversation are popping up here and there. Some of the cons, on the other hand: - Complexity. Not from the interface, mind you - that’s as simple as it gets with this much power. The complexity lies in getting the sounds you want. It can take a LOT of tweaking at first, and when you run wide range or FRFR cabs you have to explore EQs and HPF/LPF in ways you may have never experienced with straight up guitar amps and pedals. Once you get the hang of it though, you have a LOT of power at your feet. - Bugs, they happen but from what I’ve seen so far Line 6 has been very reasonable in addressing them. - Option paralysis. It’s entirely possible to spend more time tweaking than playing, but both can be fun. :) - Haters. Sometimes, especially online you get some shade thrown at you from the purists that will never give up their tubes and refuse to believe that modelers have evolved at all from their early days. Back in 2001 I had bought of the old AX2 2x12 combos, and while that was a pretty good piece of gear for its day, we’ve come a long way since then. My advice would be to jump on it, and ditch the amp and go with a powered full range cab too. You only live once. ;) My wife was easy to sell, but I'm also a professional photographer and have lenses that cost nearly twice as much as the Helix. Perhaps she figured this was an easy out. :D

Thanks for the update DI! I'm glad my money went to a platform that continues to evolve. 🙂

I'm with DirtFarmer. I got a used Alto TS215 powered cab for less than what those go for. The Freeplay's battery option looks nice if you're out busking with an acoustic electric and maybe a mic, but for something like the Helix that already requires mains power, it doesn't make much sense over a powered wedge with a little more range and muscle.

Are you doing that with a momentary toggle, or in some other fashion?

Semi-unrelated, but for what it's worth I know my Helix will change presets over MIDI on my Line 6 M5, and it's pretty cool that it can be set to happen when changing presets on the Helix, or when I hit the assigned bypass foot switch for the FX loop block.

I tried this combination yesterday on bass and oh man did it sound great, especially with some delay and filter effects added. Thanks for the tip!

Have you tried looking for a decent priced used MacBook? I had picked up an old first generation unibody aluminum 13" a while ago for sorting photos on the road (I'm also a photographer). I maxed out the RAM from Amazon and threw an SSD in it for speed, and now I run Helix Edit, Logic, and some Artuia synths on it.