themetallikid

"Keep in mind that if you use a switch to temporarily move to another snapshot and want to return to the original snapshot (or do ANYTHING) ON RELEASE, the ON RELEASE action needs to be assigned in the TEMPORARY snapshot because that's where you'll be when you release the switch." That part right there is a big causal part. I know for me, I dont' logically think about this step, but thats because I use the same 'layout' across all my snapshots. So FS 7 on the preset I provided, has the same press/release settings on SS1 as it does on SS8. So whichever SS I tell it to go to for my lead fill, the release action will be programmed. If you are changing your layouts for each snapshot 'layer' in the preset, then you MUST do as rd2rk says and make sure that you go to the Press SS layer and make sure that you set the release there or it wont matter.

So I pulled up my setlist for my show tomorrow, started playing away along with Spotify to the songs, and I got to a song where there is a wah. On this song I have a few other blocks bypass settings attached to the auto engage settings as well. I always use the same settings (toe down = off, engage at 98%). I believe I got through 4 presets that use this feature, before giving up. Preset 1 - Wah did not engage, OD did engage, EQ did engage, Delay did not engage sub 98%. When returning to 100% toe down (should be off) the OD/EQ shut off, however the Wah and Delay no engaged...killing my rhythm tone, unless I reloaded the preset (not ideal of course) Preset 2 - Same result as preset 1 Preset 3 - Same result as preset 1, however the blocks varied. OD did not engage but the delay did and then vice versa when the pedal was toe down. Preset 4 - Worked exactly as it should When I check the settings for those blocks on that presets that aren't working, it has defaulted back to the 'heel down' setting as being off. I can save the preset, exit and return to the preset and it works fine. Till maybe the next time. I just used these presets the day before Thanksgiving, 11/23, and I have not made any changes to them since then. With that said.... 1) I thought this bug was squashed with the 3.5 update? no? 2) If I change all those bypass settings to be attached to the EXP Switch instead of auto engage will that solve my problems? Instead of auto engage I just need to step on switch? 3) Has anyone else had this issue and contacted L6 about it and gotten a response? I know there is one member that refuses to update until this bug is there as it wrecks his performances, and It would greatly dampen mine as well if I stuck with this.

Yes I was happy with the stock cabs previously, but I liked York Audio IR's, they seemed to have a bit more punch to them. I'm sure it was just the files I was choosing vs the stock cabs I was using, but I bounced between those two often. The new cabs are great and so far, have been happy with them. I will try and take a look at your preset tonight and look at what you have created and see if I can help pinpoint where an error is happening if rd2rk doesnt beat me to it while I'm at work.

Here is a typical layout for what you had originally mentioned with a 'momentary' lead fill. This is for Slither by Velvet Revolver. Warning, apparently I create my presets loud, lol.... However, you will see my template I typically use for this as I described above. Preset details: SS1 - Intro SS2 - Rhythm SS3 - Lead Fill The actual lead is all wah, so I have everything "Solo" wise attached to the bypass of the wah pedal at 98%. Toe down is off, under 98% is on what I have assigned to EXP 1. Exp 2 is if I feel like adding a Wah to the intro at all. Its a 2nd expression pedal I have here. However, I noticed in tonights prep for saturdays gig, the ugly toe down auto engage bug reared its head on most of my wah presets, so I would just delete the wah as they are not relevant really to your initial inquiry. If you go in command center, FS 7 is where you will see how I have a momentary set up when using SS's. Also FYI, this is a 3.50/3.51 preset if that matters at all. Using stock cabs. Slither.hlx

For sure, i'm curious if your Helix issues with the FS's follow into his preset. That would indicate more of a hardware issue than programming I'd think. Let us know how it goes.

I typically use the same layout 'template'. I create a preset per song approach with my live performances. Here is how I generally setup my layouts. If I dont use the switch, I'll put 'unused' but then add in parenthesis what I WOULD use it for if the need arises: FS1 - Preset - Previous FS2 - Preset - Next FS3 - Unused (stomp bypass of an effect) FS4 - Unused (stomp bypass of an effect) FS5 - Unused (stomp bypass of an effect) FS6 - Mode - not changeable FS7 - Snapshot/Lead Fill (momentary)/Special Effect Bypass FS8 - Snapshot/Blank FS9 - Snapshot/Blank FS10 - Snapshot/Blank FS11 - Snapshot FS12 - Tap Tempo - not changeable With this layout my upper left 2 buttons allow me to navigate through the setlist live from song to song. If I need to jump to another song that isnt 'next' I push FS6 to exit STOMP MODE and then choose the song preset I need, then push FS6 again to enter my STOMP MODE for my performance layout. My bottom row is my 'Action' Row. I assign pretty much anything I need for the song. Most times this is only Snapshots, however sometimes if a song only has 1 or 2 snapshots but I need that extra lead fill button I'll throw that on FS 7 as its furthest away from an accidental SS push. I always Structure my SS/FS layout for the bottom row, from left to right, but they are put in right to left....confusing I know. I always like my actual Lead Snapshot to be next to the Tap Tempo, so if I have a 2 snapshot preset, snapshot 1 - Rhythm is on FS10 and snapshot 2 - Lead is on FS11. If I have a 4 snapshot preset, I used FS8-11. FS 8 is my rhythm tone and FS 11 is my Lead tone, and the ones in the middle are usually in an order that makes sense for the song progression. To add to that arrangement psychology, I also color code my snapshots consistently. My core 'rhythm' sound is always RED, my core 'lead' tone is always GREEN. In a 5 snapshot/preset I travel the rainbow from RED/Dark Orange/Light Orange/Yellow/Green. I always use Blue for my special effects in the song. If I have a 2nd lead tone I'll typically use Aqua/Teal (I forget what Helix calls it). If I use a talkbox in a song, I'll use Purple (top row FS usually). Just to complete the rainbow assigns, if I have any special effects that I use as actual Stomps (not SS changes) I'll use Pink. I use this template for every preset, and make changes if I have to. For your original question of how to do a momentary Lead Fill type FS. I've done it two ways (I'll use my template as an example) Snapshot 1 - Rhythm Snapshot 2 - Lead Snapshot 3 - Lead Fill (a 2nd Lead snapshot of the exact tone as SS2 isnt necessary, but for layout purposes 'to me' it helps to separate the assignments) FS 7 - SS 3 Lead Fill - Turqoise/Aqua Color - CC options - Type 'Snapshot', Press 'Snapshot 3', Release 'Snapshot 1' (assuming back to rhythm tone is needed) - This tells Helix upon press go to snapshot 3 until button is released which then should resort to Snapshot 1 FS 10 - SS1 Rhythm - Red - CC Options - Type 'Snapshot, Press 'Snapshot 1', Release 'none' - this tells Helix to choose SS 1 upon press, and do nothing upon release FS 11 - SS2 Lead - Green - CC Options - Type 'Snapshot, Press 'Snapshot 2', Release 'none' - this tells Helix to choose SS 2 upon press, and do nothing upon release My other approach....would be exactly as above, except for the FS 7 assigments. The other approach would be to assign FS 7 as a momentary switch on each effect you want to activate. For me, this would usually be an OD/EQ/Delay blocks OD/EQ/Delay blocks in the right tab when selecting the block change it from Latching to Momentary. Choose FS 7 as your button, change the label of the Switch to 'Lead Fill' and change the color to Green. Sometimes when adding multiple blocks to that FS, you may have to retype the name and reassign the color at times. Hope this helps, having that consistent template has really helped me streamline my preset creation for performing. Also...because I use the same layout for ALL snapshots, the copy/clear/paste approach works for me. I create my 'layout as noted above on Snapshot 1, Copy All, Clear All, Paste All and that addresses the different snapshot layers you would potentially have. If I didnt do the copy/clear/paste, I would need to literally do snapshot 1, change the drop down at the top of the window to snapshot 2, and reassign everything...which is where you would get funky behavior if you missing assigning something consistently. The flexibility is super powerful and awesome to different layers for sure though and I've thought about trying some things using the single path preset spillover setting as well for sure. As always, if you have questions or anything please ask. I dont have my helix near my laptop currently but if you want to see a preset, I can certainly try and get one uploaded for you read and 'see' what this all means. Cheers!

rd2rk's description is spot on, but because its so accurate it is messy to understand. This is sorta like trying to understand MIDI for the first time. But once you get it....you get it and the door is opened to lots of other possibilities. The big thing for me that made this easy to understand was I had an LAMF foot controller years ago. That thing was a monster for options at your feet. Every page/layout could be different. So if I ran a preset per song approach, every song could essentially have a different layout in front of my at my feet. That helped set the groundwork to understand the 'new' Stomp/Command center behavior. If you think of it this way. The command center used to be 1 dimensional. Every footswitch you assigned was (for lack of a better word) global within that preset. Assign FS 1 to your Clean SS and it stayed that way. However, with the new behavior....every snapshot is a new layer/layout/screen where you can keep things simple or complicate the hell out of it. Unfortunately, I think, the stock behavior is on the more complicated side and what confuses people. Think of it this way, you start on SS1's layout, you program you switches....when you step on any of those SS footswitches, it is taking you THAT snapshots layout. So what rd2rk is explaining is that if you are on SS1 and you have FS1 Press to go to SS2, when you are on SS2, that layout/buttons 'release' feature needs to match you back to SS1 if your intending a momentary thing. The alternate approach to this might be to setup your 'lead boost' blocks changes and program them to an actual FS, and make that FS momentary vs. latching. I have done this on my kitchen sink-ish presets where I use the same blocks to boost my solos. I assign an OD/Delay bypass states to FS 7 (usually) and set it to momentary. Flexibility is great, but can be a hindrance to get your mind wrapped around. Dont give up, lots of great minds to help here for sure!!

The globals and snapshot recall setting doesnt affect how command center saves the assignments, unless I read your 2nd paragraph wrong. your 3rd paragraph - you can assign this, you need to individually assign the press and release options. I do this as a temp lead fill. say SS 1 is my rhythm tone, and SS 2 is my lead tone. On your SS 2 assignment, you need to set the Press>SS 2, Release>SS1. Your 4th paragraph, I wonder if you are running into the same issue I did with a different global setting. There is a setting that allows you to choose what a 2nd press does of a button/SS. You can either have it just recall the current snapshot or have it revert to the previous SS used. Great for scenarios where you have the Rhythm/Lead tone and only want to stomp button 2 to turn on lead and then revert back to rhythm, but I'd rather 'hold' like mentioned above. However, if you have it set to the revert to previous SS setting, when you step on a SS, its possible, that you arent doing so quick enough and Helix is reading it as a 2nd press and reverting to the previous/original SS. Once I changed that global setting, this behavior mostly disappeared for me. I think your on the right path to getting it sorted out, but yes, due to features added....troubleshooting the results can be confusing if you dont understand how features work that you arent intending to use.

They 'layout' of your stomp mode can be specific to whatever snapshot your on. So you could have snapshot 1 layout and when you go to snapshot 2 could potentially have all different buttons as your layout. Thus, if you program buttons 8/9 in snapshot 1, they havent been assigned in snapshot 2. The dropdown at the top of the command center window will show you what snapshot your on. If you are going to do different layouts for each snapshot, then that is where you can plan those differences. If you want the same layout in every snapshot, you can simply program your layout in snapshot 1 then follow these steps: Right click any footswitch, choose 'Copy All' Right click any footswitch again and choose 'Clear All' (this will exit the command center screen) Go back into Command Center, right click any footswitch and choose 'Paste All'. it will then apply your layout to all snapshots. Depending on how many changes you have, it might be quicker to just change the dropdown at the top, or to copy/clear/paste.

There is a global setting introduced a few versions ago where you can change the behavior of that knob. I did that as well for awhile. I think you can change it to 'relocate' a block instead of 'choose' next block or something.

Yeah I didnt word that first part well. lol.... I took the presets that were not 'artist' inspired presets and deleted the FX out of those, leaving just the Amps/Cabs. I then went through the amps showcased in those presets and got every type of tone that I'd use and saved it as a new preset. For example, using the Placatar Dirty I got 4 tones out of it. Gritty/Pushed/Crunch/Rock. Labeled as Placatar Gritty/Pushed etc. But because this amp is so versatile, I also did a 'Saturated' version with a 2 at the end of the name. So I got 8 presets out of the Placatar Dirty Model. The cabs I have 5 that seemed to work well with each tone I was looking for. I got that idea from Steve Sterlacci (sp?). He did a review of the 3.5 update and the cabs where he just chose a solid cab/mic option and no matter what type of amp you threw at it, it sounded good with minimal tweaking. So I started there. All my cleans use the same cab combination, same with other tone styles. Is it perfect, no...but i'm basically creating 'better' starting blocks for me to be consistent with preset building. Time consuming you bet, lol, but I'm not done yet. Few amps to go, then going to try and best level them by ear (not perfectly but at least ballpark. As once you drop them in a song preset there could be other things to throw the volume off a bit anyway. Also gonna drop in the Dynamic Ambience on each preset from a favorite block I have. THEN...after that, resave the setlist as my Core Setlist. I'll probably go back through my saved presets list and narrow down what I've saved a bit and remove ones that seem to duplicate to another or really didnt dial in well. That will give me a nice libary to create some favorites from. I'm not really in a full project right now, so I have time...lol.

Yeah, so.... over the weekend I went through Factory List 1 and removed the effects from the Amp presets and came up with a Clean/Gritty/Pushed/Crunch/Rock/Heavy Cab selections that I liked. Using those cab selections, I then went through and saved the amps in their sound versions (Twin Clean, Rockerverb - Crunch, etc) and have them grouped in my favorites by the sound type (clean, gritty, etc). I'm up to about 70 presets. There are a few amps that I did not find in those stock presets I need to go through yet that I'd really like to add in there. My next step I think is to go through each of the sound type selections and this is where I'm stuck. Either sort each category from a tone perspective...or resort the presets by amp name, so I'd have all of the Twins together, all of the Placatars together. Because I do a preset/song approach, I think having them sorted by sound type makes more sense. Rather than thinking, "oh I need a Twin for this song", I tend to think "oh, I need a gritty type picking tone' and then choose from those amps I've already saved. I think I'll keep the Defaults as the Factory Defaults. Though if I get around to it, I may save more of my fave tone of each amp type. IDK though on this one.

It does and it doesn't...lol, I'll explain... Your method matches how I envisioned using it and have tried using it in the past. My 'issue' (if you can even call it that) is that I can't get over the hurdle of having 2 locations to look for an amp sound. I'd rather just see them all together. I know, picky....but it's how my mind likes to organize and look for things. I keep my selists/presets/favorites well kept and organized. Side question....is there a limit to the number of favorites we can have saved? 128?

I myself have struggled with this a bit. I get the difference between them of course. I use favorites for settings that I use within my presets t0 help with preset setup and building. This also makes leveling presets much easier. I've never really played with the user defaults on the amps. I would prefer not to 'clutter' my favorites with amp block favorites....however, what do you do with the amps that have multiple 'best' settings for you? Amps like JC120, likely have a good central setting for a tone, but others for sure are not the 'one trick ponies' they can be written off as. So how do you approach saving settings in this situation? Just looking for ideas as I'd like to use this feature but do it 'smartly'.

Oh yes, I apologize, I figured out it was the cable tone, but I was curious why it affected my acoustic snapshot/sound so dramatically compared to electric type sounds. And has anyone ever graphed how the different settings attenuate the high end?

I posted the below in the Relay Wireless section, however there are Helix questions here too that I thought others may benefit from. Hey All....question, last night I was making some final tweaks on my Helix and I got to a preset where I use the acoustic sim, and my tone was 180 degrees different than how I dialed it in, and what I heard at practice 2 days prior. This really stumped me for a bit. I then started A/B'ing with the cable that I use when I set up my presets (I was practicing my set, so I was using my wireless this time) and as soon as I plugged my cable in, BAM, there was my acoustic tone that I dialed in. Now the weird thing was that this was 13 songs into my set, and I hadn't noticed any difference really in tone. SOOOO.....questions. 1) Is the acoustic sim in the helix that high frequency driven that the cable tone would have such a dramatic affect on this sound but not any of my other tones? I even tried the A/B comparison on a preset that uses a clean tone and hardly noticed a difference. The difference was pretty staggering on the acoustic sound. As a rough estimate, the cable'd version gave me a nice clear acoustic top end, where as the Relay'd (cable tone) version sounded like it was coming through a wall or a blanket, almost like the highs were rolled off down to 400hz. 2) I noticed I did have the Cable Tone set to the max setting...not sure why I would have done that, unless it got bumped/moved at some point on my board and I never noticed. However, once I dialed it to '0' my actual cable tone was back. I then settled on about 11:00 on the dial, just short of halfway. Seemed to sorta taper the highs in a pleasant way, but not put a wet blanket on the high end at all. Is there any sort of chart that shows what the different settings on the cable tone do? Anyone have a fancy gadget that could graph that? I'd be curious to see.

Hey All....question, last night I was making some final tweaks on my Helix and I got to a preset where I use the acoustic sim, and my tone was 180 degrees different than how I dialed it in, and what I heard at practice 2 days prior. This really stumped me for a bit. I then started A/B'ing with the cable that I use when I set up my presets (I was practicing my set, so I was using my wireless this time) and as soon as I plugged my cable in, BAM, there was my acoustic tone that I dialed in. Now the weird thing was that this was 13 songs into my set, and I hadn't noticed any difference really in tone. SOOOO.....questions. 1) Is the acoustic sim in the helix that high frequency driven that the cable tone would have such a dramatic affect on this sound but not any of my other tones? I even tried the A/B comparison on a preset that uses a clean tone and hardly noticed a difference. The difference was pretty staggering on the acoustic sound. As a rough estimate, the cable'd version gave me a nice clear acoustic top end, where as the Relay'd (cable tone) version sounded like it was coming through a wall or a blanket, almost like the highs were rolled off down to 400hz. 2) I noticed I did have the Cable Tone set to the max setting...not sure why I would have done that, unless it got bumped/moved at some point on my board and I never noticed. However, once I dialed it to '0' my actual cable tone was back. I then settled on about 11:00 on the dial, just short of halfway. Seemed to sorta taper the highs in a pleasant way, but not put a wet blanket on the high end at all. Is there any sort of chart that shows what the different settings on the cable tone do? Anyone have a fancy gadget that could graph that? I'd be curious to see.

I have attached 3 presets that I updated with the 3.5 update. Using the dual cab block. These three presets use 3 different cab favorites I set up. When I set them up I didnt notice it, but had practice and noticed a few things to tweak, so here I sit tweaking and now I am hearing something that I dont know where its coming from, but I dont like it. I'm hearing a phasing, left on subtle chorus, roomy type sound. On Dead and Bloated there is a chorus, however its disabled. I tried disabling the dynamic ambience block but I still hear it. On Big Bang Baby, same thing with what I'm hearing. Meatplow is the same. I dont have any delay on the cabs setup. All blocks are stored as favorites. The amp combinations vary between all 3. Ventoux/Placatar, Ventoux/Ventoux, Placatar/Placatar. Does anyone else hear it? What is causing it, how do I fix it? ***Edit: Listening on headphones direct from Helix..... ****Edit #2 - Nevermind...I was using Reaper to help gauge levels, and had Monitor Input on. Makes sense what I was hearing now.

I use a combination. Sometimes if I have only a single effect to change, I dont feel like making a separate snapshot for it. Case in point, in my Stone Temple PIlots tribute we do the song Lady Picture Show. In the chorus there is an overdubbed guitar with a rotary/leslie type sound in the chorus. Rather than create a new snapshot, I just set button 7 to be a momentary stomp switch, I hold it down for the time I need the effect (2 seconds) and then let off. Could it be done in a snapshots, sure, but then my snapshot OCD would kick in and Im not sure where I would place in my song/preset template for the button layout. Where as the Stomp button stands out amongst the snapshots and is usually placed away from the snapshot buttons. To each their own.

Oh for sure, and will, initially i just programmed a change attached to a button for my leads, but easy enough to undo or change as well

You may not be the only one, lol, I recreated my presets and found a dual cab pairing I liked with a dual amp setup. Ventoux/Placatar Dirty. Really liked it, but wanted some more depth/3D-ness out of it. I played with the delay parameter on the Placatar cab as that was providing my low end oomph in the sound. I found that beyond 30ms it was too weird, but under 20 seemed to not quite give me a 'room-ish' sorta resonance. So I settled on 25ms. What threw me for a loop is that when I hit a preset that had a lead and I added my lead stuff to the rhythm sound (OD - Pillars, and a delay between the amp/cab) it was pushed somewhere I didn't like. Are the new cab blocks linear? I have listened to Jason Sadites talk about linear vs non-linear and I get it context to a compressor or a delay and how its input affects its output, where as some blocks are no different if you increase the input going into it. Or is it just because I have the delay prior to the cab block that i'm getting a bigger than 25ms sound because the delays are now being time shifted as well? Would shifting the delay post cab clean this up then?

The IR/Cab categorization that Sasha was referring to would make sense. I have a few song specific presets where I use an acoustic simulator path and also a dual amp/cab path. I could fit this before in my preset. Path 1 would be all pre-amp type stuff (acoustic blocks, amp blocks, eq/comp type stuff). Path 2 was my "post' section that had Eq's, IR blocks, cabs, delays/verbs. In my old preset, running a stereo path, I had acoustic stuff prior to my signal split on path 1. Paths 1a/1b went to 2a/2b respectively, where they stayed separate with an EQ/IR/Cab block before joining together for a final delay/reverb/retro reel finish. Currently while reworking my presets with the dual stock cabs, I cannot add an IR to the same 2A path. My current path 2 blocks on this preset are a dual stock cab, dynamic ambience. When I try to add an IR block I get a memory error. It would be awesome if they could resolve this, but also makes sense that the old cabs werent 'thought of' by the processor/coding that way. I could be wrong, but it matches my experience so far.

Welcome, I will note that the boost is not global...however, you can make it global in a way by programming it that way in each preset, but then tailor the boost accordingly setting wise to that presets sound. Obviously boosting a high gain sound would be different than a slight breakup.

Its a greatly flexible feature and really allows you to be insanely creative. For example If you create presets utilizing both paths fully... (and can deal with the slight audio gap in preset switching), however you can't fit enough stuff into a preset to really take advantage of snapshot changes. You could potentially create an amazing network of presets. For example, if I had 5 core tones and then had 5 lead tones for 10 total. You could setup the bottom row to be presets 1-5 and the top row to be presets 6-10 (6 is the lead version of 1, 7 lead version of 2 and so on). So essentially you have the rhythm sounds on the bottom and lead sounds on the top. As long as you save each preset on the same snapshot... you could link to the other presets for a pedalboard sort of layout. So on preset 1, you would have presets 2-10 available to choose from. On preset 2, you would then have to make sure you setup preset 1 as well as 3-10. Follow that process to all 10 presets. To simplify that setup, you could assign a certain button to be a 'lead boost' for all of your presets. So on your 5 Core preset tones, you would have your lead boost (for me, this means turning on OD/Delay/Gain Block Boost (or Output Block adjustment)) attached to a specific button, I like button 7, its on the corner and easy to reach. So every preset would use Button 7 as a lead boost. When I'm mapping out my button layout, I leave Button 7 as a 'Stomp' setup labeled "Lead Boost" and Then link the presets on the other buttons. So much flexibility. You can really do anything you want.

If you push your 'mode' button (above tap tempo) you can change into Stomp Mode or you scan stay in whatever mode you like. HOWEVER, When your in command center, you can assign those buttons to be anything you would like. Snaps, stomps, presets...whatever. In your case you are using snapshots in a single preset. So every snapshot (8 total) can have its own button layout. So if you look at the drop down above the image of the helix it says snapshot 1. So all the changes you make are only visible when snapshot 1 is being used. If you change that to snapshot 2, you need to assign everything you would want to see in snapshot 2. Super power, but also super confusing. If you are like me and only use the same layout for the whole song, then follow my steps above. You assign the buttons all on snapshot 1, but then copy/paste to apply to all snapshots. Otherwise if your on snapshot 1, and choose snapshot 2, you lose all your assignments, until you return to snapshot 1 again.