Doug6String

I use 1/4 and spdif with no stereo issues (as I'm sure everyone will say). I'm using spdif now - I took a blank preset and did nothing except put a ping pong delay in it and it's stereo. I use the Helix Editor and the input and output are multi. Have you started from scratch like this to find the issue? I also use an audio interface and once my 1/4 inputs magically went from L and R to the middle and it took me a while to think of checking that.

I'm not replying because I disagree, but rather because it's an interesting topic! What you did is interesting, but as a scientist, you introduced some extra variables in this test that might affect the comparison. It seems your experience is that your Audient iD14 and DAW don't color the sound at all. Over the years I read posts, reviews, etc., stating that audio interfaces do affect the sound. I don't know. I use a studio 192 audio interface and Studio One 3 DAW (both Presonus) and if they color the sound, I like the color! By "playing live" I guess you mean speakers vs. headphones? Again, I'm not disagreeing with you or doubting you! I'm just interested.

This is an excellent point, which I learned the hard way. Did someone say "save as"...

I have Helix rack, which has a Guitar Thru output. From the manual – “Passes the signal received at the front panel Guitar In with no A/D/A conversion.†I feed that output to my Presonus audio interface. Anytime I record guitar, I am playing with the Helix preset I want but record only the output from the Guitar Thru, which is just dry guitar. The way my setup is, I don’t have to do anything except hit record. I used to do reamping, and while it’s not odious, the fact that you have to change settings to do it made it less convenient for me. A recent post with reamping issues made me think it might be worth posting this. I searched Guitar Thru and got no hits for that phrase so maybe this is an option others, like me, missed until recently?

I'll add one caveat to what Duncann said that helps me. I sometimes make an edit(s) to a preset that is one I don't want to permanently edit, and I find the edited preset is worth keeping as a new preset. If you're like me and didn't make a copy of the preset before editing it it, here's a simple way to do this. Don't save the preset you have edited, but copy it to a new slot. That copies the unedited original preset to the new slot. Then if you save the preset you are working on, which should be the one you edited, and you have both versions of the presets.

You have some L6 modeling experience so that'll help! But your questions have so many variables to consider. Patience might be needed as you figure out how to get your sound. Here are a couple thoughts. Helix cabs vs others' IRs - many people on this Forum that know a lot recommend starting with the Helix cabs before buying IRs. Others (incl me) only use IRs. I have heard plenty of examples of presets using Helix cabs that sound great, so maybe you want to start with cabs. If you know nothing about mics and cabs, RedWirez has a nice (free) couple pages on this on using their IRs that is also relevant to using Helix mics as a starting point. The other thing that I think most on the Forum would agree with is, create your own presets. Buying some is one way to learn how others do this, but I think most of us do not use many of the factory presets, and while some love the presets they buy, many of us don't use those either. This Forum took me from wondering why the heck I wasted $1400 on a Helix to it being my single most important piece of gear so you're in great hands here!

I had a couple message exchanges with L6 on this topic this week. Here's the last one: "Our product team is already aware of this situation, so just hold tight and hopefully there will be a fix in the near future." I think I will put a reminder on my phone and open a ticket on this monthly. And I am serious about that. I don't want any potential (I hope) urgency to fade away (again).

Funny - I guess I miss sarcasm sometimes even thought my wife and kids say I'm the king of it!

I tried this quite a while back and it doesn't affect the drop out problem. I even spent a week talking with L6 about how to do this and we tried pretty much every variation.

I just opened a support ticket on this and encourage everyone else to do the same.

I also just voted for both. I put a message to Digital_Igloo on this Forum on this topic a couple days ago but didn't get a reply from him. It quickly moved off the first page with all the other posts. If anyone things that's a worthwhile approach, if you reply you that post it'll show up on the first page and maybe DI will see it and have sympathy for our plight! I am a huge Helix fan and am probably less angry about this than many of you, but, it is unacceptable to have to put a fix to a known issue on ideascale! Any one think it's worth it for us all to open support tickets on this topic again?

Great idea, and I just did it. I really hope we don't get posts saying "Just use the other connectors." That's, obviously, not the right solution unless it is the only solution!

DI - there are a number of us that want to use S/PDIF but we have regular sound drops when using it. There's a post on this going back some time. There were posts indicating it would be fixed in updates, but it hasn't been. Speaking only for myself, if L6 says they had the right intentions with this but simply can't fix it, I'm OK with that. Otherwise if it is still on the table to be addressed it would be good to know that too. I think there were support tickets on this way back when, but if we need to open a new one, I can do that. The Helix is the single most important music making tool I have (even more than any one of my many guitars) and L6 does an amazing job with updates like the most recent one, and if I had to choose, I'd choose updates over S/PDIF! I'd just like to know if this is the case. Thanks for any input you have on this. Doug

Well (insert extreme swearing here)! I literally thought this problem might have been fixed and hooked up my spdif in the early hours of the am and this showed up right afterwards. I am one of the Helix's biggest fans and think L6 does a fantastic job with updates, etc., but I'm disappointed they don't seem to take this issue seriously. Unless I have missed it, I don't see anything on them addressing it, except a year or more ago when someone said it would be fixed in an upcoming update.

This is a great idea I hadn't thought of - thanks! Helix/Native have so many options I sometimes forget to get outside that box even when using them.

You're saying what many of us guitarists said when we first got the Helix and had trouble getting the tone we wanted. There are so many parameters it takes time to really understand it, and it seems that's true for you. When I create a preset I really like now, after being a Helixer for a year, I love it and keep it. I have presets I made 6 - 12 months ago and some are still good, but for others, I wonder how the heck I thought they were usable! I have no idea what bass tones you want that you can't get, but I have 4 and 5 string Fender J basses and I can get any tone I want, noting that the tones I use are pretty standard. For guitar, many, maybe most, of us recommend Helix users create their own presets to really get the tone they want. I've tried custom tone but haven't found any presets for guitar I liked enough to keep in my Helix. I create 100% of the guitar presets I use. I'm not a bass player (I play bass to support my songs) but I've had good luck starting with some of the Helix bass presets, which isn't true for the guitar presets. I'm going to follow this post and see if any bass players have suggestions that might be useful, for me. Helix is super simple to use, but again, your last statement sums up what many of use felt when we first got it. Time and experience fixed that for me with this Forum playing the main role to help me, so hopefully that will be your experience.

Hey Soundog - thanks! Yeah, everything seems sorted out for me now, well, until the next crisis!

I'm attaching some pics below of some of my favorite clean amp settings. Some of these amps have a lot of snapshots in the preset that are crunchy and dist too, like Cartographer. I also realized when looking at this that I have EQ-ed every preset I have. It's such a natural thing to do, I really don't think about it. However, I tried a few without the EQ (I use the 10 band graphic eq) and most of my presets sound muffled. Back to Soundog - he mentioned in EQ in his post. I couldn't attach two other pics - Cartographer and Archetype Clean, but both of these have excellent clean sounds (for my taste) with some EQ.

Your mystery is a mystery to me! Later tonight when I play, I'll pick out some of my favorite clean tones and send you the amp settings. Maybe that'll help. I had trouble with clean tones at first too and definitely had to tweak amp settings. A lot of Helix users like their cabs, but I'm an IR user and find they help me get the tone I want, from dist to clean. There's a lot of "discussion" on the Helix forum between the cab people and the IR people about which is "better." The one thing I'm confident saying is that they are different and really color the sound in different ways.

I've had a Helix rack for about a year and Native just about since it came out. I get great tones, and a huge variety of them from both. As far as I can hear, they sound identical using the same presets and guitars. If you are new to Helix, there is typically a learning curve. Many of us struggled at first and the Helix forum really was the key to getting great tone, but it didn't happen over night. Not everyone would agree, but a lot of us rarely use the factory presets and we create our own from scratch. That's a good place to start to get the tone you want. I do very little tweaking (LA Studio Comp is my favorite) and I don't have issues. But maybe you're being more creative than I am with compression. Soundog is really right on "lots" of variables! It can be too many unless you have a good idea on what you are trying to do and how to get there. I use Native for recording (just for fun) all the time and it's amazing.

I agree with your main point! I have a lot of presets (all created from scratch) and as I go through them jamming, I find more than a couple that sound pretty similar and I have thought I should do what you suggest, but haven't much. With the new update, I've spent more time than I used to with a few of the new amps and really like what I'm getting. Great post!

I have the "benefit" of NOT owning the pedals or amps the Helix is emulating so I don't get hung up on whether is accurate or not (that is a legitimate question, of course). I can get the sound I'm looking for, from crunch to heavy dist, and I've found that the combination of amps, pedals, etc., enable me to get pretty much anything I want and more. I use every pedal mentioned above for at least one preset.

I posted to this in Aug (above). I Use Win 10 (i7, 4.2 GHz processor, 16 Gb RAM, 64 bit) and Presonus Studio One with a Studio 192. The Presonus forum indicates my issue is more Studio One than Native. Some where there did some comparisions and while that's one datapoint, he found that Native uses virtually zero resources with some DAWs and a boatload with others so is Native the issue? It's probably at least part. Each instance of Native uses about 25% of my resources, so after 3-4 tracks I render. It's a minor inconvenience to be able to go back to a track with the full power of my Helix to work on a tone in a mix. Of course you can do that with re-amping but this just seems like more fun to me! Even with this issue I love Native and since I mostly record (no gigging), it's a fantastic tool! And since you haven't tried it yet, I'll add that I did some comparisons of my Helix rack and Native in recordings using the identical presets, etc., and I cannot hear a difference. Maybe some will disagree with that, but it's my experience using both Sennheiser and Beyerdynamic headphones.

Thanks! I tweaked it just a little but your preset with my IR sounds great. I can see why you do things the way you do - live playing. The JP and Helix are really versatile. Now I have exactly one preset that uses a cab! But I get why you said what you did about IRs.

I see you use an IR for the piezos, like me. I have a couple that are made for acoustics. The best one (most realistic) I have is Taylor 314ce - Sc. If you have a suggestion on good IRs for piezos, please me know.