channelk

"As far as cleaning and service, I've had my Helix almost from the day they came out and gig with mine 1 or 2 times every week, plus practice and prepare for gigs, so I get a lot of use. Cleaning it is pretty easy, the footswitches are self-cleaning with a few twists, and although I've never had a pedal squeak, that should just be a dash of lubricant, so I'd do it myself". And you have never had a switch not respond? So just turning the top of the footswitches cleans them? I'll try. Thanks a lot for the post.

My Helix is getting up there in age and use. Sometimes the volume pedal squeeks. Sometimes the footswitches just don't respond. I believe it just needs a major clean. So how do you do this? Should I have it serviced by pro's? Your advice appreciated. Because of Covid, my band has not been doing anything, but I'm getting ready to record an album, and to record on a few other albums. Just updated to 3.0 - but I think I may use about 20 to 30 % of the capabilities on this unit. Have time to delve deeper and so over the next few weeks will be doing so. How useful are IRs? I have none, never used any. There seems to be so many parameters already adjustable that adding IRs seems over the top - but I have no idea, and am happy to change my mind. Any feedback most appreciated.

All

I run my Helix directly into a mixer, and no matter what outputs I use, either 1/4' or XLR - one side is louder. I cannot find where this may set be in the Helix, and any help would be most appreciated.

Thanks for all the replies. I have never used a talk box before....I bought the unit used and there were no mics with it. I do have the tube. My Helix is set up as follows: I use the 1/4" outputs into a DI then send this directly to the mixer - we use IEMs and I use no amp. This leaves me the XLR outputs for the mic. I have a channel on the mixer reserved for talk box. So, according to the information provided, I need to send a guitar signal into the TB (talk box) then simply hook up my mic to the Helix with the tube and it should work..... My band is planning on doing 2 songs using talk box - Sweet Emotion, and of course Peter Frampton Do you feel..... I have to figure out how to have the guitar output mute while the talk box is on. Hmmm.

I am a little lost as how to hook up a Danelectro Free speech talk box using the helix. At the moment I have the boxes ins and outs run through an FX loop - this may not be right - And most important - I want to use the mic input on the Helix to run to our mixer..... Any help with this would be most appreciated. I have searched this forum for answers before but none made sense to me. Thanks.

PC, Windows10, Firmware 2.710...Thanks for the response. I will go try the rebuild right now. This is not my Helix with the problem, it is the other guitar player in the band and I have access to his unit. Hmmm, other places say that factory reset is 7 and 8. I am assuming the numbers start at the top left, go right, then the bottom.

Full user bank gets this error when trying to access or back up anything. Do you think there is a way to recover data?

Thanks for the response - volume may be a big part of the problem. To comment about tone - the other guitarist himself states his tones suck. We are not talking about close, they are WAY off, harsh, and not appropriate for the material. The biggest issue is this - this guy has the unenviable job of having to use 4 very different guitars - these all have very different outputs, and he seems not able to get them balanced. It means sometimes the acoustic is non-existent in the mix. and his inconsistent levels for all his patches is a real issue. Not sure why this is, as I am having no problems, but I have it way easier and only play electrics that are pretty similar in output.

My band uses 3 Helix units - 2 guitars, 1 bass. Its great. No amps on stage, all IEM. I am the main lead player. The lead singer is also a very good guitar player, but his sounds and levels are all over the place, and compared to my programming - his sounds suck. So what's going on and why? I program my Helix sounds using a pair of Yamaha HS5 studio monitors and a cheap board. This has worked excellent for me - my gain staging is pretty good, all sounds level - and my tones are fantastic, after tweaks when playing thru the PA system. The singer has been using an acoustic guitar amp - and I have been telling him that what he hears at home does not translate to the board well because an amp and a direct feed into a mixer are very different things. He took my speakers home and says they suck. Anybody out there in Helix land use this unit mainly thru IEMs, and if so, how do you go about gain staging things so they translate well into a mixer. PS - the mixer we use is a Yamaha TF1. Thanks.

FX loop 3 fixed. I had a major job rewiring this old wha pedal and had no way to tell if I got the new power connector wired correctly - I didn't. Reversed polarity and pedal now works. Only thing left now is to see if the talkbox works when I get to practice. Fantastic! Will post pics of the new system. Thanks for the post.

Expression pedal fixed - bad solder joint.

Greetings. I am in the middle of a major rework of my Helix system. I have added 3 outboard FX units and an expression pedal. FX loop 1 works perfectly - FX 2 I cannot test at the moment, it is a talkbox, and the third FX loop is a really old vox wha pedal that works, kinda. When this pedal gets activated it drops overall output by 80 % - the wha sound right, just real quiet. The last thing I have added is an expression pedal - I am using the Ernie Ball VP Jr, and have a regular TS cable going from Exp 3 to the output jack on the unit - this is not working at all. According to other posts, this should work as wired. I have just finished wiring all this, mounting everything into a flight case, and am starting the troubleshooting. IF you have any advice - this would be most helpful. I have band practice in about 6 hours, and it sure would be nice if these issues were resolved. Thanks.

Greetings. I did search this forum and on line to see if I could find a definitive answer to this, but I am still not sure if what I want to do will work, and how to set it up. I have a Danelectro Free Speech. I am planning on running this into an FX loop, the send into input, the output into the return. Then I can place the loop where I want in my FX chain. Next, a second mic just for the talkbox, plugged into the mic input of the Helix, with the outputs routed appropriately to the mixer. Does this make sense?

The only external pedal I have is the above mentioned Boss Feedbacker/Booster FB-2 pedal. This thing gives me the ability to get and control feedback - I don't use an amp - straight from Helix, into board into IEM - and even more importantly the ability to add just about infinite sustain to any sound, plus it works fantastic as a lead booster. Controls include Boost Level, Feedback, Tone, Character. Simple to use, sounds great. I WISH this was included in the FX of the Helix. FOr us who use no amp - we need it!