steve_marsden1

Hi I’m sure I managed this by simply saving each preset when it is in this view.

Begs the question why they changed it? Once you get past the neat tie into the products you have, I’m struggling to see any further point in what has been done but I do think it’s taken a step backwards from what it was overall. Difference is I’ve raised a support ticket but not on any product as the problem is to do with the website functionality that hosts the Customtone data Remains to be seen whether it makes any difference, but if don’t try… What I said, given we now seem to have all tones there now is as follows:

Yeah good point, that makes a lot of sense given it’s not really that long go they clarified the Helix / HX product architecture was designed in a way to enable it to evolve around a core. I kind of hope you’re right in some ways, as long as this architecture has the capability to expand to deliver beyond what is emerging from its competitors.

It makes perfect sense, I was merely picking up on the irony / timing of getting an email covering the Helix platinum edition launch when all of us are to varying degrees hyped up with expectations for the next Helix version 3.7 / 4.0 or whatever it will be whilst also searching in vain for some kind of sign or veiled clarification of what might come in a successor to the Helix. It made me laugh and wonder if they’re having fun teasing us all!

It’s kind of ironic when we’re all discussing touchscreens, mobile apps, flux control, more DSP, AI, amp modelling, better screen graphics etc. etc. and none of us thought about a simple colour change! This kind of feels like a last throw of the dice before something big but then I can’t imagine they’re ready to jump to Helix 2 for at least another year yet, but who knows! Perhaps if they release a glass or crystal encrusted version, that will be the sign - The Helix’s swan song.

Yeah we’re on the same wavelength here I think in terms of the potential, as I said it is a matter of ambition and unfortunately budgets! I have no doubt on the former with respect to the engineers at Line6 but they’ll have to toe some money related line too. But if they stick with their excellent ‘build on what you got’ approach as done over several years with Helix, it’s definitely an approach they could take. Another potential feature idea I thought some of us could benefit from with all this emerging AI capability is to find a way of ‘helping’ us overcome our good old friend Fletcher Munson, again recognising it’s not an exact science with multiple variables etc. by just getting something in the right ball park of migrating a patch created at low volume at home / in the studio to one that works in a band mix at a venue of a certain size in either band practice or live use. Again should be doable to a degree, to get in the right ball park based on a set of entered parameters. When you’re hiring a practice room by the hour you want to spend as much time practicing, not faffing around for ages getting the sound right. There’s so many opinions already on line about how best to do this with EQ adjustments etc and yes so many variables that will affect it but some of that knowledge is gold to an intelligent machine learned AI solution if tapped into in the right way I’m sure.

I know enough about AI and machine learning to know that it is perfectly possible to use what is readily available in the public domain now to return a pretty good suggestion of the right rig and settings that will get you in the ball park of what you are looking for, and that’s the point, to give a good starting point. I’m not expecting it to be exact in any way shape or form and I’m not expecting it can achieve something for every song or version of a song that’s out there. I do however expect it to be able to give a good enough base suggestion, especially with some seeding in the machine learning by Line6. If you use Chat GPT now on MS Edge, you get fairly impressive results that draw on data that is already there as public knowledge, ie. What guitar, amp and pedals a particular player used for a particular part of a song. I’ve even got suggestions back on settings for particular effects blocks in Helix. The trick is asking the right question with the right word hooks in the search engine. I’m merely suggesting that this could be taken a bit further with the input of suitable experts and Line6 engineers who are experts in their own right, that is all. How far they could get with this, I don’t know but I’d be very disappointed if they couldn’t come up with something better than my simple web searches and presumably over time, this is only going to get better as more data gets added into the reference source. Yes catering for a users rig might be a bit far fetched but the data about a given rigs components and how they each affect tone will be all there, so it is not beyond the wit of an expert to work out how to compensate to some degree for, say, a les Paul when a Strat was actually used in an original recording. It won’t be right of course but for that user it might be as close as they’re ever going to get without the Strat and might well need to use some wacky settings on EQ and/or other effects blocks to achieve this. I wouldn’t underestimate the potential for all this AI stuff, the limiting factor is the ambition of those that could leverage its opportunities. If we’re talking game-changing USP’s over competitors, then Line6 needs ambition.

We have to remember that despite all the technical wizardry packed into Helix, the actual hardware unit is first and foremost generally a foot controller, it is designed to be robust and to sit on the floor, where it is stepped on and tripped over with varying degrees of intended or unintended force by varying styles of dirty footwear. Yes there is a need to have a clear and visible real-time indication of what settings are selected / in use and what they are set at on the hardware unit itself and to some degree to be able to adjust these directly on the unit, but in my experience this is purely used as a backup should I have the need to adjust on the fly and have no other device connected to run the HX Edit software. In general, when I am creating & testing or editing my patches I have no interest in grovelling around on my knees down at floor level in the dark or relative dark when I could be stood up or sat down, guitar still strapped on, alongside a separate better and bigger screen with HX Edit software on a device that is specially designed to operate software. It’s just easier, quicker and has more visible options. So I see no real value in adding a touchscreen to the hardware unit itself, I’d rather Line6 concentrated its efforts on providing up to date and robust mobile software, I.e. a long overdue mobile app version of HX Edit that I can use on my iPad or iPhone which already has a touchscreen, same will apply for Android users I guess. Why spend time and money creating something that most users already have. The world has moved on, it is now very much the norm to have hardware devices supported by mobile software apps. Though not as convenient or flexible, full PC applications are still necessary for studio setups where a PC with a larger screen is preferable but I don’t think Line6 can continue to avoid the mobile app for Helix. I have tried the HX Edit software on a Windows tablet and gave up on it, it just didn’t work that well, perhaps because it wasn’t a top of the range Microsoft tablet but let’s face it Microsoft are way behind the curve in the mobile tablet world and Line6 should really be embracing iOS & Android devices if they want to continue to lead the pack. Helix is a package predominantly made up of a great piece of physical hardware and some very clever software engineering and I feel that perhaps a clearer separation between these is what is needed, where each is built with its primary purpose in mind. Trying to cover all aspects of the software control manually via buttons in the hardware unit is in my opinion now pretty counterproductive and I feel holding Helix back. Such an approach, might then enable developer headspace to work on the stuff that sets Helix apart such as keeping ahead on sound quality and innovation to bring us real game-changer functionality; such as… AI driven tone creation workflow for song part / artist rig matching - to help get you in the ball-park with your own rig. e.g. enter for instance the song and artist and guitar part you want to get the sound of, then enter the details of your own rig (available guitar/s, amp/cab/frfr, external pedals etc), then enter some generic details of the space where you’ll be playing this and if that is with a band or not… Then Helix does its magic - and either builds and presents you with a suggested preset, provides you with a specification for a preset, ie what blocks and what settings for each it recommends you setup or Helix guides you through the building of that preset. Note that if smart, there could be room for this being an educational experience to some degree? Ok I know this is for lazy users like me and likely abhorrent to some diehard musos, but let’s face it, we aren’t all sound engineers or tech geeks and we don’t all have hours of spare time to try and figure out the myriad of options to getting a certain sound that we think we have in our heads. Nevertheless I also want to benefit from the quality of sound and range of options available via Helix and whilst I like the process of building presets, I often find I spend way too long not quite getting the sound I’d hoped for and not knowing why, trying others presets (paid for and via Custom tone) that also don’t quite get there either for varying plausible reasons, when I probably ought to be spending my time actually practicing those songs.

I guess it’s a reasonable indication that they are not only thinking about what’s next regards Helix but are probably advanced enough on that journey to start involving us lot! I say that because they’d probably not want to be having to fend off all the clamour that’ll come from this for too long! Also you’d assume they know the possible sales risk of folk getting wind of that and holding off buying thinking v2 is just around the corner. My guess, given some of the questions regards weight, size, internal power supply, off line storage, remote editor and number of foot-switches, is that they’ll likely be considering a consolidation of the Helix range with likely fewer smaller devices to have to support. My simple take - regardless of whether you’ll use the voucher - take this opportunity to help them shape the future of the product, some of us suckers are likely to be some of the first victims of the GAS epidemic it eventually unleashes, whether we can afford it or not!

I tend to use Customtone to find presets of songs that I want to have a go at when I’m feeling lazy, which is quite often! Rightly or wrongly, I focus on the ones that have more stars and a reasonable number of downloads as an indicator of how useful it might be. I also tend to seek out those from known contributors, which typically get the stars and download volumes. The theory being that in either case I’m likely to get a good starting point and if lucky the author of the preset has done the research regards amps, settings and effects that were or at least thought to have been used on the original song. As others have said, rarely do you get a gem that’s just right for you straight off for all the reasons given. Sometimes though I start from scratch myself, do a bit of research on the song the guitarist etc. and build from there. I don’t profess to know how the heck I then refine this, in many cases that just seems trial & error or putting up with as far as I get before getting bored, in most cases there’s too many variables to know which or which combination does what but I get so far and get by! The beauty of the Helix is that I can do this and in doing so some stuff registers in my head and some of that is retrievable next time! One thing I have recently found and tried and have got pretty impressive results is this ChatGBT stuff but not via the techie route, no that’s way too scary and pointy headed for me - just use the new Bing Chat feature in Microsoft Edge and hone your question to be specific to something like ‘what amp and amp and effects module settings are used in the Line 6 Helix to get the guitar tone from the song x by y’. I have gotten some good starter results from this with useful explanations and references. I even asked it how I could transpose the Billy Preston keyboard solo on Get Back to guitar and whilst I didn’t get the magic tab sheet, I got some pretty useful and thoughtful ideas back! I just thought this might be helpful to those who had not discovered this yet. It is surprising however that nobody has created a comprehensive library of guitarist rig and settings for given songs, I know there’s some general nice rig diagrams out there but I’m talking the next level, cos the thing is many of us really want to be playing the songs not spending ages figuring out how to get the sound - the one downside to the Helix is that it can distract you from actually playing! Maybe that’s something I could ask Bing Chat to create!

Schmalle & rd2rk - many thanks for the quick and quality help in your responses; there’s some seriously good knowledge out there on this stuff thanks to you guys. rd2rk - you just go that extra mile - mucho respect! I’m slowly learning, one day I might be able to answer someone’s questions, if I’m quick enough!

I’m using a Helix LT connected via 4c method, I know it doesn’t have to be 4 cables, it just gives more control options if I want to switch between catalyst amps and Helix amps. i think I’ve figured out that in most cases I seem to get better or let’s say clearer tone when not using cab blocks which is a real shame given all the work and good stuff that’s gone into cabs in v3.5. It would be interesting to hear other folks views in this though, I kind of feel like I’m missing out somehow by using the Catalyst!? But I do like the air pushing feel off it. Anyway, my main question is whether or not I should be using pre-amp blocks in presets going to an amp rather than amp blocks, the manual suggests pre-amps but doesn’t really say why other than they use less DSP and when I’ve tried they just seem comparatively weak to the amp blocks needing further volume or boost settings of some kind so I’ve stuck with amp blocks. So I’d be interested to hear what others have found on this. Thanks

My thanks also, followed recommended process then felt a tad let down that I was left without the easy option of trying out some of new factory presets, especially the 4 new ones

@silverhead afraid I’m no Canuck, I guess you might be sensing the Celt in me, I just like to use chatty and more expressive language now n again! You’re dead right regards the learning trip we’re all on, although I figure you are way further down that road than me from posts I’ve seen, we’re all in this together though… eh! @rd2rk many thanks for the preset, I never thought to do via snapshot mode but was just getting to grips with midi; snaps though is effectively the way most of my presets are setup, with 4 presets on top row each with 4 snaps on bottom row, occasionally I drop into mode to st to individual pedal blocks or hit the up/down footswitches to briefly reveal the top set of snaps wen there’s more than 4 in a patch to select but thats sometimes too brief for me and ends up confusing me! Anyway I managed to have a quick dabble the other night and got it working when switching from return 2 to 1, works a treat and with the Helix amp snap you added coming on pretty strong, in a good way, it gives me a very good template to build on. Looking forward to dabbling a bit more at the weekend. If I get somewhere that might be useful for others I’ll share too. Cheers

Wow, many thanks for that, I’ll check out later today. That is the problem and power of Helix, it can do so much in so many ways that if like me you’re not a savvy guitar tech and also like me don’t always have the required patience, you can easily end up not fully understanding what you’re doing and then end up wondering if you’ve gone the right way! But the real power lies within this community, without which many of us may well have given up on this superb piece of kit. Much respect to those who help us lesser users out. One day I’ll get this thing and might even be able to share some knowledge myself eh!