Doug6String

I must have missed that in the thread. Thanks for letting me know.

Quoting this is a blast from your past! I changed from 1/4 cables between my Helix rack and Presonus Studio 192 to SPDIF a few weeks back and my problem is the 2-3 second sound dropout during a two hour period, consistently. The Rack's firmware is 2.21 and the Presonus is the most recent too. Before I take up time writing down all the details, I thought I'd see if any updates solved your problem like L6 suggested it would. Thanks!

Hey Alex - thanks! I do a lot of crunch/heavy stuff so it's been fun checking these out and tweaking to my taste! Thanks for putting them out there! Doug

Funny! I posted similar comments early this am. I have approaching 100 views of a topic on another forum with zero replies and here I got 6 helpful replies in a few hours! Something about this group!

Ha ha - I have to quote myself because that was a stupid comment! Of course if I take the sound in the MP3 and put it on a disk I'll hear it in a dvd player using a spdif connection! Wanted to correct myself before you all respectfully correct me!

Amazing! I debated whether I should waste space writing this, but I am. We all know this is a great forum as others have said it, and it has helped people like me (bought the Helix just this year) get tremendous pleasure out of it. When you post a question, comment, anything here, you get instant feedback, and it's helpful and respectful and even fun. I'm new to the forum thing (yeah, I'm oldish) but I'm a member of a few now and none, really none, are in the league of this one. I won't name names but I posed a question to another forum and here because I wasn't certain where the problem was (which device), and over there, I have 58 views after many days with ZERO responses. Here I have a half dozen thoughtful, helpful replies in less than 12 hours! So to the regulars (we know who you are) and all the others that help, I think we all say thanks and great job! OK - it's midnight on the east coast which means it's time to play guitar! Doug

Wow - it does sound like a ring modulator! Yes, plugged into the 192. The only other device I have that'll take spdif is an oldish dvd player. I can't hear this sound in that with a movie on, but as I write this, I'm thinking I should take that MP3 I attached and put it on a dvd and play it. I did open a ticket. I like the idea of a reset. I hate to screw with the Helix when every other thing works fantastically well so I'll see what L6 says and save that as a last resort.

Yup - thanks for the help. I've stooped so low as to read the manual and I did this today! I noticed with my Helix rack, the only clock options are Internal and WordClock. I have the same problem with the 192 as the spdif clock and the Helix using Internal (both are on 44.1 kHz). With the Helix on WordClock there's no sound. I'll see what Line 6 says since I opened a ticket, but, based on your experience, is it worth getting a WordClock cable and trying that? The Helix and 192 both have that connection, although Helix only has "in" so I guess it'd be the slave to the 192.

spdif noise.mp3 I guess it's good it works for some/most. I'm attaching an MP3. It's a preset with the Essex A30 and one IR. It's pretty obvious. You can hear it in an empty preset but it's much more subtle. With any FXs, it's far worse!

I’ve tried many presets with the same result. I have no effects on and just the amp on, or everything incl the amp off and just a delay. In all cases it’s there, only on the right. I even tried two guitars – it’s more noticeable with a single coil vs. Humbucker due to the higher tone, I think. Dist and stereo effects make it more obvious, but it’s there. And I tried an empty preset (great idea) – same issue, still only on the right. You’re right – very odd that I hear this only on the right side even with everything being mono! I don’t have any other deices – just the two cables to try. Any chance you use spdif? If you do, can you pluck an A note on the B string at the 10th fret? That’s where it’s loudest. Seems like a bug. I’ll try a ticket. As always, thanks for your help!

I use two 1/4" cables from my Helix rack to my Presonus Studio 192 audio interface. I decided to use the spdif connection to free up those to inputs and cables. I can hear extra tones (not distortion) on some guitar notes only in the right channel when using spdif on all the presets I tried. I tried two different cables (2 feet and 6 feet) and they do the same thing. I note that the sound is "real" and is recorded to my DAW (Presonus Studio One 3.5). It's definitely not there when using the 1/4" cables. I set the Helix preset output to spdif, and in the Helix settings I selected digital out and spdif. This is not clipping. It's literally extra tones - not super loud but loud enough that when I'm playing alone I hear it. It's there if I use a mono preset (still only on the right) or stereo preset. A friend suggested opening a support ticket, but I thought maybe someone encountered this and knows something I'm missing. Thanks (Win 10, i7-7700, 64 bit, 16 Gb ram, SSD)

Hey - thanks! I didn't see that 1.01 was out. I'll check it out.

Ha ha! That makes two of us!

I'd suggest you start with the Helix cabs and explore them fully before buying IRs. A lot of forum users love the cabs and I can say that I learned a ton about mics and their placement and the effect on sound using the Helix cabs before switching to IRs. You obviously know very little, if anything (and this should sound condescending) about the Helix or IRs, so why complicate things further by buying IRs you don't actually have a reason to buy yet. Get the Helix and get some understanding of it first and use the cabs. Helix is the greatest musical device I've ever bought (I've been a guitar player for 50 years so I've bought a lot!) and I love it and it's easy to use. BUT - there are so many "knobs" you can turn that it's easy to spend too much time doing that instead of making music. Adding a pack of IRs into that mix raises the number of parameters to an even higher level for a newbie. Of course this is just one more opinion! Congrats on having a Helix on the way!

I run Mixcraft 8 Pro on a PC (Win 10) and have the known issue that when switching presets a few times, Mixcraft crashes. I found that if I have the first setlist that opens in Native be the one I want to work in, AND if I have Native "off" when changing to a diff preset in that setlist, I can't crash it - I tried! Once I change to a diff setlist, it crashes after a very small number of times switching presets even with Native not active. I was skeptical of this, so I've tried it a couple days in a row, and it's consistent for me.

Wow - as always, thanks for some great ideas. Seems like just using the Presonus mic/inst/line inputs (there are 8) might be limiting me. I'll give all this a try. Thanks again for taking the time to help!

I got a rely for my "ticket" on this. Unfortunately all I got was "At this time we don't support Mixcraft." The Mixcrat Forum had some replies saying they believe L6 will address this soon. I hope that's not just wishful thinking.

I did a little testing and when plugging into the Helix with an empty preset, then into the Presonus and then the DAW (via PC), there is a tiny audible latency even at 256 buffer size compared to directly plugging my guitar into the Presonus. So that's a reason to stop doing what I am doing (having Helix in the loop).. But I'm still interested in other ideas that could be better. Thanks!

I've had the Helix Rack since earlier this year. Just got Native this week. I like plugging my guitar into the Helix using an empty preset, then working in my DAW (Mixcraft 8 Pro) with Native. I use Presonus Studio 192 for my audio interface, not the Helix. I've tried using the Helix as the interface, and I know many of you do that, but there are limitations on that that I don't like. My approach, plugging into my Helix, running that into my audio interface and then to my DAW seems to work OK. But I'm thinking many (most?) of you are much more clever than I and have a better idea. I can also plug directly into the Presonus and that works fine. But I (shock of all shocks!) like the Helix tuner and use that all the time and I also like having the Helix presets there to test ideas out with while also using Native in the DAW. Anybody have a better idea on this? Based on my experience with the Helix and the Forum, I'm figuring I'm missing something worth knowing! Thanks!

Yup - bought mine at sweetwater earlier today. I selected Helix Rack owner when buying and paid $99.99. Somewhere in the process it was verified (I assume) that I am a Helix rack owner. No issues downloading it or verifying it on my PC.

Thanks - just opened my first ticket!

I've had Helix rack since early this year and it has worked great. Saw a need for Native while recording tonight so got it just an hour or two ago. I use Mixcraft 8 Pro (have used Mixcraft since 5 without issues), Windows 10 (new PC with plenty of power). It crashes so often I don't think I can use it. And it does seem to happen when changing presets, although I can't see a pattern. I was searching for an answer and saw this post! I'm a member of the Mixcraft Forum and will check there later today in case they have an idea. Doug

Hi Ralph – There’s another thread where someone went into some detail on how he does this you might want to find. Here’s my experience, which is of course, subjective. I mimic the Mimiq using two different methods. First is the dual amp and path method with a pitch shifter (see the pic). Per a friend of mine from this forum, I pan it R and L at 75 and that works well. The downside to this approach is you run out of DSP fairly quickly. This works best for me if both paths are identical, except one has the pitch effect. Second, I use a dual delay (see the pic). This sounds really similar to the dual path approach, but it is different. The up side is it doesn’t require dual paths so you have a lot more DSP. When it comes to jamming and laying down early tracks (that I prob won’t keep), these sound great for a big sound. Because of the return policy, I recently decided to buy the Mimiq and see if it was worth having. I wanted to love it – but I sent it back after some experimenting. I’m sure others will disagree since this is really a matter of taste, but I compared the Mimiq using it’s options to the two methods above by recording the same guitar part in my DAW and comparing the effect. I had a friend weigh in this too without knowing which technique he was hearing. While I would concede the Mimiq is slightly different than the Helix approaches above, it’s not better for my purposes, which is all studio (my house) playing and recording. In my experience (50 years) when recording, nothing beats playing the part or variations of the part on different guitars with different settings and panning them to get that big guitar sound. The Mimiq doesn’t mimc that better than the two approaches I mentioned here. And the best part about using the Helix to mimic the Mimiq is that you don’t need one more pedal and more cables! Let me know what you think! I can also send you these presets if that would help. Doug

Thanks - this is good! It actually has a tone that I use a lot (I write and record - no live band playing), so with a couple minor mods, I'm keeping this. Very nice! I like the "clean" sound and with the Minotaur. I made a minor adjustment in the delay to hear it just a little on the L and R. What intrigues me about trying other's presets, including those I've purchased, which I rarely like or keep, is why they do why they do. Others here are more sophisticated than me and use dual amps like this but I'm still just creating presets using one amp. I got my Helix in March this year, I think, so I'm still figuring out single amp tones with all the other parameters. What's not obvious to me here is what you are trying to do with the 2 EQs, both how you put them in the path and the settings. Would you enlighten me, please? I'm not certain I hear a benefit to them in the tone. The other thing I did was to add 2 more snapshots with two IRs I like (a RW and OH). This preset has a really nice range of tones between the cab and 2 IRs. Not wildly diff, but a nice variety depending on what I'm doing. Again, great preset, and thanks.