erabjohns

I went through the same dilemma. I ended up buying used through a retailer that gave me a 6 month warranty. I figured if the thing was going to die, it would be because it bricked during an update and wanted to make sure I was covered for that. So far, it's been perfectly reliable. Even if you bought new and had a warranty, the thing could crap out the day after your warranty expires and you'd be in the same situation as if you bought it used. Warranty does buy piece of mind for a couple years anyway. If I buy used, the price absolutely has to be worth it. If I'm only saving $200, it's not worth it. Also, I need to have at least a 30 day warranty so that if the thing bricks will doing the initial update, I'm not on the hook. The Helix has been out for a while now and I don't see that many threads of completely failed units compared to say the POD HD which had consistent bricking problems during firmware updates. The Helix is Line 6's baby, so if something is going to get the best QC, it's going to be the Helix. Use this link to find authorized Line 6 repair centers and give them a call. I'm sure they can tell you what the common repairs are and the ballpark cost. https://line6.com/find/service_center/

You're going to need the original sales receipt. Ask your friend for it and then register your unit. Assuming he got the free 2nd year, it should be covered. Obviously L6 has the final say.

I came from the POD HD. I do think most of the amps sound better, but the difference to me is how the Helix amps react to volume changes at the edge of break up. The HD still sounds very good, but the dynamics were lacking when I play with the guitar volume. The Helix us very convincing and that was a huge for me. The other night I was comparing some of the legacy distortions with the HX models. There's a clear difference, but I feel you can still use the old ones depending on the sound your chasing. The newer ones have more range so you probably have more headroom to get something to sit right in the mix, but I haven't really started recording with it other than laying down some basic tracks.

If your password is stored in your PCs browser, you can easily get it. Go to Settings and Manage Passwords.

Piracy is a greater risk when something isn't readily available on the commercial market. Line 6 has done a great job to make Helix modeling available pretty much everywhere. I don't think I've ever seen a Fractal product right in front of my face. It's always been something I can buy online or listen to someone play, but it's not nearly accessible and therefore ripe for piracy IMO. I also wonder what risk there is to intellectual property when a software based version to modeling software is released.

I used a 1/8" to 1/4" adapter and 1/8" male/male cord I found from a set of headphones to connect my Android phone to one of the Returns on the Helix. Then I just added that fx loop block to the patch I was using. It actually worked great aside from having to sit through some Youtube commercials while looking up backing tracks.

Has anyone successfully used a promo code on a brand new Helix? I spent a year trying to get the lowest price and called both Sweet Water & MF during their 15% sales and each time they said that Line 6 wouldn't let them apply their discount to any Helix product. I know almost every manufacturer is listed in the exclusions for those sales and usually if you call, the sales person will give it to you, but I never had any luck with the Helix.

It's stuff like this that scares the crap out of me. I can't figure out the reason why a different cable or USB slot would be the cause of a software update failure. I had to do this song and dance every time I updated a POD HD Desktop until one day it finally wouldn't come out of "Update Flash" mode. So far no issues with the Helix, but it's always in the back of my mind. Still, I do appreciate how well Line 6 is supporting their product.

I did this at lunch, by plugging a patch cable into the send/return and adding that fx loop to a new preset. Almost no drop in tone at all when I engage the fx loop. Assume that means the Helix is in the clear or is there another test?. I didn't have any problems running the pedals with the same cords into the font of an amp, but if the fx loop is working properly, it must be either the pedal, or the cords causing the tone loss, right?

Not so much noise, but imagine adding a noticeable high cut as soon as you engage an fx loop box within one of your patches. I'll do more investigating tonight.

Yup, you're right. I can control the output on the looper and on the smart phone, so that covers the loss I get when I set the mix to 50%, but on the echorec, it doesn't come through very well when the mix is set to 50%. Still not sure what's going on. I'll keep at it and hopefully find what ever it is I'm doing wrong here.

Ditto Looper and Catalinbread Echorec. Strange, because I just played for a bit during my lunch hour and dropping the mix, at least on the Return that my phone is using completely resolved the problem. Tone is back to normal and I can still hear the input from the effect loop fine. As I go up to 100%, I can hear the tone from the Helix start to get muddy. I'll take another look. Is it possible I just have these plugged in backwards? Considering I've never used an effects loop prior to the Helix, I wouldn't put it past me.

I figured it out. The mix was set at 100%. By reducing it to 50%, everything is so much clearer. So far, the Helix's biggest fault is me, but I'm learning. Cheers to the Line 6 people and thanks guys for helping me troubleshoot.

I'll check that tonight. Good to know that what I'm hearing is not normal. I'll easily chalk this up to user error rather than a defective unit at this point, but here's hoping I find the solution.

Thanks, I'll try that. It's strange that I'd get the same drop off in tone with three different sets of cords & fx loops. I suppose the cables could all be bad, but I never had a problem running them directly in front of my amp before. In general, I shouldn't be getting a significant degradation in signal when adding one of the Helix's fx loops to a patch, right?

I have a looper in the Send/Return 1, an Echo pedal in Send/Return 3 and a 1/8 inch cable with 1/4 inch adapter in the Return 2 jacks. When ever I add one of these into a patch, I immediately lose quite a bit of high end on my patch. If I bypass the fx loop box, the tone goes back to normal. In this case, the looper is using brand new 10 ft cords, the echo uses 6 inch patch cables and the phone is connected to a male/male headphone cable. The sound quality coming back from the looper/echo or even the smart phone w/ 1/4 inch adapter is fine. I can adjust the send/return signals and I hear it just fine, but the problem seems to be with the overall tone of the patch once the fx loop is engaged. I should note that I'm using headphones, I'm not running to an amp or using 4cm. Is this typically with the Helix's fx loops, or is there something I'm doing wrong in the placement of the fx loop in my patch? I've put the fx loop in various places and using different patches and regardless of what's going out/coming back, the impact is always the same. I go from a full dynamic sound, to a rather dull and muffled tone as soon as I engaged an fx loop.

At this point, everything is going through headphones(Beyerdynamic 880's). To me, everything sounds incredible even without adding an EQ or adjusting the low/high cut. I'm sure there's room for improvement and getting a guitar to sit right in the mix is another story, but I was just surprised how well the stock Helix amps sound right off the bat. Based on some people's opinions, you'd think they were completely unusable without a lot of cuts & eq's. Granted, I'm not playing a lot of high gain amps yet and I would expect those to need a little more work. I appreciate everyone's help. This place is a great resource.

So a high cut & parametric EQ are attempting to do the same thing, only one is an axe, the other a scalpel. Is that what it essentially boils down to? Edit: I know you can do other things w/ a parametric EQ, but for this purpose, it's to remove frequencies.

I'm a relatively new Helix owner and was playing around with an amp the other day. I decided to add a low & high cut based on threads I've read and opinions on Youtube. The end result was a muffled tone. It got me thinking - why wouldn't I just use a parametric EQ to remove certain harsh frequencies instead of a high cut which takes out everything above a certain level? Is there another use for high cuts that I"m missing, or a practical use for it vs. an EQ? I know there's no one size fits all answer, but just curious what other people's thoughts are on this since I see a lot of talk about using HC and not so much on parametric EQ.