d-flat

Thanks both of you, good info here. @phil_m I just noticed your sig, what a great book huh? Really seems relevant here, and yes, those shortcuts will definitely help. Just need to make sure I'm not accidentally sitting on shift & alt keys when I click a parameter, because I am guessing there is no confirmation dialog for the clear controller assignment shortcut. The editing on the unit definitely beats the software except for 2 cases that I can think of off the top of my head, one being renaming things (because, qwerty keyboard) and the other is when it's on the floor and being operated with feet. That's where I have it now, and that's probably going to be where it stays for a while, on the floor. I'm a software engineer, so I know how these things go with release estimates, but this is encouraging info. Makes sense that they would want native done first to avoid duplicating efforts with additional editor features that would go into both pieces of software.... especially when everything is built with C/C++/assembly, which I am guessing it is. I also really liked how when I crack open a .hlx file, it's nothing but JSON data inside. Opens up a cool possibility of putting presets under version control in git to take advantage of diffs, tags, etc. CustomTone is... I want to say terrible but that may be too harsh, so instead I'll just say it's "not great"... preset version management being one of those things that detracts from it. Then again, they are also using ct for binary presets files (pod) and visual knob settings (amps). Thanks again!

So before purchasing, I read a lot about how easy it is to edit presets, etc from both the unit and from the helix editing software when connected via USB. So far my main setup has been to have the board on the floor, operating it with my feet, and use the PC to edit presets. Having used the editor over the past couple of weeks, I am not impressed. I've been reading through various forums like this one, and have seen a couple of relevant topics come up a couple of times, but wanted to ask again because I couldn't find any canonical sources for some of these things. I recall reading somewhere, but didn't save the link, that a new & improved Helix editor application is in the works. Has L6 said anything about this? I know they are being hush about a lot of the things coming down the pipeline, which I understand from a specific business angle, even if I do find it frustrating (like just about everyone else here). But has anyone announced or hinted at an updated editor, and if so, where was that? Some things in here I find really frustrating, like the fact that there is no UNDO (I have seen several people ask for this). With the size of the level sliders being so big, it's really easy to click a slider by accident and lose its previous value. In addition to undo, some kind of a lock on the parameter to prevent click accidents would also be useful for clumsy mouse operators like me. Other things are less intuitive, like the fact that you can right click a slider to set its value explicitly. I like this feature, it was just not obvious to me that it existed before I stumbled upon it. When it comes to assigning block parameters to snapshots, I often find myself going to the unit on the floor because it's just easier there to push a knob and turn it. I don't know why this feature couldn't be in the editor as well. I know you can assign controllers to snaps from the editor, but it's a lot more work than the push/turn on the unit. Some kind of button or toggle to map the next change in a parameter to the current snapshot would be useful. Or something even better than that idea would work too. Another pain point is the size, positioning, and layout of many things on the screen. For example in the Bypass and Controller assign tabs, a lot of times the thing I want is in a dropdown that I have to scroll through to get at. Perhaps an ellipsis button here along with the dropdown would help, so that I could click it and view all of the options without any of them being overflowed behind a scroll frame. Speaking of scrolling, it would be a nice feature to be able to collapse the signal path view, or at least adjust its height so that I could view more parameter sliders at a time without having to scroll down to see the ones on page 2. ParaGraphic EQ comes to mind on this one. Even a setting to give the sliders less height so you could fit more of them within the scroll boundary at a time would be nice. Please don't point me to ideascale to upvote any of these things if they are already there, I may do that if I end up keeping the unit, but right now I just don't want to spend the effort. Just trying, like everyone else, to get a gauge on what's on the roadmap for this platform. I recall DI saying something about L6 not being transparent because one of their competitors is watching their ideascale closely, and I remember thinking that didn't sound like L6 was very confident about their ability to beat the competition despite a more transparent set of plans for the platform. I'm sure they have their reasons, which probably ultimately boil down to IP ownership and market share directives from top management, but as a customer, it is definitely something that turns me off somewhat to this product line, and the company in general.

Thanks @ColnelForbin, but I'm just going with a good buffered aby switch for this. No need to have to put a send block in front of each preset.

Found a misprint in the manual, pretty minor but wanted to bring it up in case no one else has so that it can be corrected in the next revisions. In Global Settings > Preferences, for the Tap Tempo Pitch parameter description: In fw 2.21 at least, the values for this are Authentic and Transparent, not Accurate and Transparent.

Finally got back to rtfm again along with the device to check this out, and yeah, I got this mostly wrong. I do still think it would be a nice operational feature to be able to mix / match stomps with snapshots in FS8-FS11 without having to hit mode to swap between stomp and "preset mode". There were 2 things throwing me off here. It never really clicked that "preset mode" was that symbolic shortcut to the global setting "Preset Mode Switches". Now it feels really obvious and I feel really dumb. I also totally missed the global setting for Up/Down Switches. Not sure how, and feeling even dumber. I had changed global settings to 8 snapshots with manual return, and I remember being confused about how I could then map the up down to take me back to presets. The fact that this is not configurable, and always maps to snapshots, may be why snaps kind of feel "bolted on" to me. They certainly feel like a second-class mode citizen compared to Preset Mode, Stomp Mode, and Pedal Edit mode, which all revolve around FS6. It might help if I start thinking of the up & down arrows as "snapshots within this preset". So the best compromise at least for me seems to be Preset Mode Switches to Stomp/Snap, and Up/Down Switches set to Banks, mainly because I don't want to have to toggle back & forth between snaps and stomps to get at the looper from within a given preset. Scrolling through banks is slower but that's okay because I can just attach the editor to a laptop via usb to jump between setlists. I prefer using only 4 switches max within any given preset (8-11), so I'll just have to decide whether to do it with stomps or snaps (momentary and toggles probably being the deciding factors). Another thing that I was missing was using stomp switches for controller assignments, this is why I found scenes so useful because of the push knob feature. Digging deeper I see how to accomplish many of the same things by using controller assignments in stomp mode instead (I think). There doesn't seem to be any way to customize the footswitch LED ring or the block color on the screen for controller-assigned switches, they always come up white / gray. Seems you can only control the color of stomps when they are bypass assigned to a fs? I'm sure there is a reason for this it's just not obvious to me, feels like a waste of the color screen. I like how at least the rings are customizable in snap mode. Thanks again for making me take another look at this, I think I'm getting closer to the right mental model of how to operate it.

Probably right.

When I want to brush up on a song that I don't yet have memorized, I'll go into rocksmith because it's more fun than looking up tabs, keeping notes, etc. Noodling with my helix lt trial, I wired it up with my guitar going into the helix and then sending an output from the helix to the rocksmith 1/4"/usb cable. On the preset I put in fx loop 1, turned the mix down to 0 (and set return to zero). I am already using the Helix USB audio with the same PC that is hosting the PC version of the game (from steam). When I play the game, I hear the audio from headphones plugged into the helix. Then in rocksmith's mixer I will just turn down the guitar volume to zero. When I play, I hear my guitar coming through whatever preset I have selected for the song, plus the song coming from the game. The reason for sending the guitar signal also to the PC via the rocksmith cable, is because that makes the note recognition, tuner, etc also work from within the game. It really doesn't matter, I asked this question mainly out of curiosity. I turn the volume all the way down so the only effect it might have is causing interference with rocksmith's note recognition, but I really don't care about that. I'm, not going for the high score, just to sound better. I am going to try the same with AX8 but will need an ABY pedal to pull it off, so I could use that instead for the helix.

On a helix lt I set the FX sends to be "instrument". Then in a preset I put either Send 1 or FX Loop 1 as the first block in the chain. I assumed this would "duplicate" the original signal that was coming from the guitar and route it to whatever I have plugged into the send 1 output jack, but this doesn't seem to be the case. The use case I tested this with was having a rocksmith cable connected to fx send 1. It does route a guitar signal through the rocksmith cable to the PC, but the signal received by the software has a lot of noise. This is not the case when I have the cable plugged directly into the guitar. So it seems that the helix is modifying the signal in some way, but I am not sure how -- by amplifying it, or something else. I also tried with send 2 (and fx loop 2) which has the same result. All levels are at 0.0db, and turning them down does not remove the noise. What about the guitar signal is being changed before it gets routed out of the send jack? Impedance? Also of note in case this matters, I have the guitar in pad turned on. Is there any A/D conversion happening to the signal before it gets routed out to a send?

If you say it's there it must be, I will go back & re-read the pages you suggested, thanks for those @phil_m. The fact that "Preset Mode set up to be different things" is probably what was throwing me off. I can say it would be cool to be able to custom assign footswitches per preset, or even the whole preset/stomp/snap config per preset. It does sound like those are things currently not supported with FW 2.21.

Yes I know this. My question had a subtle difference though, in that I wanted a very specific footswitch to do the momentary -- one that was in the same row as a footswitch that changed to a different scene. Seems like you still can't do that without hitting the mode switch inbetween? Momentary switches seem to only work for stomp assignments, not for snapshot assignments?

Does it? I don't think it does. For example if I have the global setting configured to "8 snapshots" (yes in the OP if I ever said scenes, I meant to say snapshots) and I have the snapshots set to sticky mode (so that selecting one does not go back), then the mode switch (FS6 I believe) will toggle between 8 presets and 8 stomps. I remember this because I used it a lot in order to be able to get to the looper from 8 snapshot mapping. This is true if you have the global config set to "8 Presets". However, when you change it to something like 8 snapshots or stomp/snap, it does something different. I don't remember at the moment what it does, but it does. It makes sense that it wouldn't in 8 snapshots mode because why would you need to press both bank buttons at the same time to view what you currently see already. I also tried 8 snapshots and stomp / snap mode. One of them -- I can't recall which -- the bank up/down switches did not go back to preset mode, but instead went to a different preset. I remember it was not intuitive for me as well, because I was using the editor app at the same time. I would have to use the bank up button to switch to the next preset, and bank down to go to the previous one. It was counter intuitive because in the computer editor, the previous one is above the current and the next one is below it. No, it isn't. Some of it is in the manual, not all of it. It seems like the secondary features (post snapshots firmware) are less documented than the initial features (8 presets with stomp and no snapshots). Maybe this has something to do with why it feels bolted on to me. If there are details about how the functionality of the bank, mode, and tap/tempo switches change based on which global config is set, please point me to the page. I have the manuals for both floor and LT, so either would be fine.

I've owned a Helix LT for just over 2 weeks now, and just today bought an AX8 that I will be comparing it to. Have not officially decided yet, but I have a feeling I will be returning the Helix just before the 45 day mark and keeping the AX8. One of the things that I don't think I like about the LT is how the screen maps to footswitches in what I guess is called "Performance View". With firmware 2.21, I can configure the global setting to show me 8 presets, 8 stomps, 8 snapshots, or many combinations of 4 + 4 (like 4 stomp/4snap, etc). Like I read & heard DI talking about, many of these newer features are "hidden behind shortcuts". I get why Line 6 does this: they don't want customer experiences on previous versions of the firmware to get turned off by having things change when they upgrade firmware. Where I work we call this "moving the customers' cheese". However, things like snapshots now feel like a bolted-on feature rather than integral to the unit. Onto my questions: There doesn't seem to be any way to custom-assign footswitches within a given preset. For example, if I wanted to assign FS8 toggle between scene snapshot 1 & 2, assign FS9 to do a momentary toggle on of chorus effect, this does not seem possible. Am I wrong? When changing the default footswitch mapping layout, it's neither intuitive nor documented in the manual about how to use the bank & mode footswitches to navigate. For example, say I have the global mapping option set to 8 snapshots. What footswitches do I have to use to get back to viewing all the presets in a bank? Or to change banks? Is this even possible? Where is this documented, and if it isn't, why not? Are any of these features available in Helix floor, but not available in the LT model?

Both have threshhold, both have attack, both can be bypassed. Only difference I can see is that the noise gate also has level. If I am going to leave level at zero, are these blocks otherwise identical (assuming the noise gate would be the first block in the path)?

Thank you both. That was my first post and I forgot I did it because I didn't set it up to auto notify me of replies. Right after I had the idea, hey, maybe I should put the looper first in the path. And it worked. Duh. Feel dumb for asking now. Thanks again.

New Helix LT owner, had it for only about a week now. Wondering, can the looper be used to record a dry signal, then feed it back as input to path A or B? I'd like to record a riff, loop it, then play with dialing the knobs on an amp, try out different amps on the riff, etc. I have a feeling I could do this by recording a dry track on a DAW, then outputting it into the Helix, but hoping these is a way to accomplish this on a helix without the need for a daw.