craiganderton

I've been playing around with presets for my next preset pack, and found an interesting way to use the Multitap6 processor to create room ambiences that are a little more "raw" than the usual room effects that are variations on reverb. This kind of effect requires a multitap delay, and the Multitap6 is up to the task. I posted the article on how to do this, including a shot of the module with some suggested parameter settings, in my blog at craiganderton.com for anyone who's interested.

I assume that new Helix units will be sold with 2.80 already installed. Apparently part of the complexity of the update is getting a whole family of products in sync, and now that they're in sync, Line 6 says the updating process should be easier. So it sounds like for new users, Line 6 has already addressed the issues you raised. For existing users, the complex update is the price of greatly increased functionality being added on to a unit that was designed several years ago. I've done updates that were a lot easier and updates that were a lot harder, it seems to relate to the complexity of the update itself. I'm no software engineer, so I can't comment on whether the update process could have been easier. I assume there were tradeoffs involved, like weighing whether it was worth spending more time on streamlining the update vs. the existing user base's impatience with when the update was going to drop. But that's just speculation.

Actually I didn't read any kind of hostility in your reply, I figured you just read it quickly and missed "if you were running Windows," and the smiley at the end. Trust me...if that post is representative of you in a bad mood, you have a LONG way to go to approach even the lowest levels of forum hostility. But back to the topic at hand...a 1.81 that fixes the blank screen/crashing issues will be most welcome. Helix 1.8 works most of the time for me, but I haven't figured out why it works sometimes and sometimes doesn't so I can have it work all the time. Love the new amps, though!

Yup! I think Line 6 throws a lot of CPU at those algorithms, that's why they sound good (and why the floor Helix isn't $999). However, I have noticed that newer versions do tend to be optimized a little better. The difference between 1.5 and 1.71 was pretty major in terms of cutting down on CPU consumption.

I knew you were on a Mac, I was trying to inject some humor in there for Windows people. Whenever there's a problem, the usual response is "it must be you or your system." I'm running Mojave on my Mac as well...installing it bricked my computer, but the Apple Support people walked me through installing the OS from scratch, and now all is well.

There were a few people who had that problem when trying to the setlist in my multiband preset pack. In every case, it turned out that the Helix firmware and HX Edit updates were out of sync. Once both were updated to the same version number equal to or greater than 1.71, the setlist loaded without problems. Hope this helps!

If you were running Windows, yes :)

I also get this with Studio One, and I also assume it's graphics related. However, it doesn't happen all the time. Lately I've been trying to figure out what conditions cause the problem not to happen. It seems that if I drag Helix Native on to a track that already contains audio, then it works. At least that's what has happened the last several times I tried it. I'll report back if either this isn't the answer, or if I go several more time and it continues to work. Fingers crossed...

Patience helps. I didn't update to Windows 10 1903 when it became available. Microsoft just issued another patch that cleaned up some bugs, so it's probably time. I didn't update my Mac to Mojave until several months after it was introduced, yet the update bricked my MacBook Pro to where Apple Support had me re-install the OS from scratch. I think Apple has a few more resources at their disposal than Line 6, and they have total control over the operating system and host computer. When I first updated to Native 1.8, I kept getting a "code -8210 can't connect to DSP" error. I uninstalled it, turned off Windows Defender, tried to install again, and all was well. This concept of "everyone is a beta tester" is, in fact, true for Windows. There are over 7,000,000 different permutations and combinations of typical Windows-based systems. If Line 6 fails to test even 1% of the use cases where problems can occur (obviously an impossible task to even do that), then 70,000 systems are candidates for experiencing problems. It's only after enough people with "corner cases" experience issues that it's possible to quantify and fix them. Meanwhile, although the people who experience problems are most visible, whether you're talking Windows, Mac, or Line 6, most system fall within the tested guidelines, and most people don't have problems.

I also use Studio One, but it's version 4, which has been optimized quite a bit compared to V3. Plug-ins like Helix require a lot of CPU; with all due respect to PreSonus, who include some very fine plug-ins with Studio One, their amp plug-in is not on the same level as Helix. Fortunately, Studio One has a couple different ways to do what's called "track freeze" in other programs, so after recording a track, you can bounce it to processed audio, and save CPU. You can also preserve the pre-bounced state in case you need to revert, and edit the plug-in later. Unfortunately for guitar players, a fact of life is that lower latencies - which give the most comfortable playing "feel" - stress out the CPU the most. Amp sims like AmpliTube, Waves G|T|R, and Guitar Rig can select "lower resolution" modes while tracking, and then when mixing, you can increase the resolution because you can also increase the latency while mixing - you won't notice the change in feel compared to playing. Consider using some of the lower-latency amps in Helix when tracking, then going for the heavy-duty ones when mixing. As to the spiking, that could be something else, and you just hadn't noticed it because it didn't matter until there was something else draining the CPU. Not sure which platform you're using, but for Windows, Latencymon (which is free) will show what's drawing CPU power. For many people, just turning off the wi-fi made a significant improvement in performance. I also found some "HD Audio" drivers that graphics cards install can give a really big performance hit, because they prioritize video over audio. Some will even basically stop your hard drive if needed, so they include a big audio buffer. Disable any unused audio drivers (but note that when there are updates to Windows, you may need to dig in and disable again - they're often turned back on as a "favor" to you). Finally, I've had some mysterious "all of a sudden the program starts crackling" issues when using multiple Helices. Saving the project, closing Studio One, and reopening solved the problem for at least the next several hours, providing I wasn't trying to do a zillion other things on the computer. Good luck! You'll find the same issue with other CPU-intensive plug-ins. You might want to become friends with Studio One's internal performance monitor, which shows CPU drain for plug-ins and what they contribute to increased latency. It can be quite revealing about what's dragging down a project.

I was not surprised that sometimes, companies don't meet intended schedules. But now that it's dropped, what HAS surprised me is the depth of the update!!! I believe Line 6 has fulfilled their design goal that Helix would be a platform, and they've done it with style. They got it right.

You could also make a breakout box with a stereo cable that goes into the guitar, if you change the output jack's ring connection to the battery's positive voltage terminal.

Check your graphics card drivers.

I'd seen several posts about how inserting Helix Native in a DAW could cause a crash. I was just about to post what seemed to be the problem before 1.80 came out - if you dragged it into a mono track, you'd get the crash; but not if you dragged it into a stereo track. However, I've been able to drag 1.80 into mono tracks without issue, so if that was indeed the problem, it has been fixed. I also verified that my multiband preset pack works perfectly in 1.80.

Can you tell what is playing the backing tracks? With some programs, almost anything (included transport controls) can be assigned to MIDI learn, and be triggered by pretty much any MIDI command. I'll look into this a little further when I'm back in the studio.

The blurb on the Helix Native landing page used to say "Helix Native is compatible with a broad range of digital audio workstations, providing powerful 64-bit performance on AAX, AU, VST2, and VST3 platforms." However, I went there and now it says "Helix Native is compatible with a broad range of digital audio workstations, providing powerful 64-bit performance on AAX, AU, and VST3 platforms." I dug a little deeper, and found that it doesn't do VST2 on Mac, only on Windows.

I believe Helix Native is VST3/AU/AAX only. Is the version of S-Gear you're using VST2 or VST3? If the VST3 version responds to program changes, then that means other sim plug-ins can as well. Why they don't would be the next question :)

Agreed, bias makes a major difference.

I wrote an article for Guitar Player magazine on using program changes with amp sims. I found that most stand-alone sims could respond to program changes, but oddly, with Windows I have yet to find a VST3 plug-in that recognizes program changes - although VST2 versions of the same plug-in often do. I don't know if there's some underlying change in the VST spec that broke using program changes in VST3 and would require a significant rewrite, whether there's some particular issue with program changes and VST3 plug-ins, or whether any of this relates to Helix Native.

So far with my preset pack, two people had problems loading the setlist because of a mismatch between HX Edit and the Helix firmware. However, recently someone simply could not get the setlist loaded unless it had already been uncompressed. He was using WinRAR. I have installed other software where the documentation specified using ONLY Windows' built in Zip extractor, and specifically recommended against using 3rd-party unzippers like WinRAR and WinZip. I'm no IT guy, but given that there are a bunch of smart people here...I was wondering if this issue might be a one-off, or other people have encountered it. I do know about the downloads warning on the Line 6 site that says you need to turn off Windows SmartScreen, but I'm curious if there might be more to it that just that.

Multiband compressors can make very flexible EQs. The only limitation (which I don't know if it applies to Helix or not) is that compared to equalizers in DAWs, the multiband compressors tend to hog a lot more CPU. But in any event, I'm glad you got it sorted out, and have multiple solutions that work for you!

Of course gear matters, my original point was that the music matters more. A good song can sound good on just about anything, but a bad song can't be saved by gear.

Give the following a try. By boosting the graphic EQ's low sliders all the way up and cutting the high sliders all the way down, the isolation is pretty good (30 dB). You'll need to bring the level down a bit at the Graphic EQ output because of the low end boost. Follow that with the High Cut, and I think you'll have what you need. (FWIW if you look at the screenshots in my multiband preset pack demo video, I used the graphic equalizers to do multiband splitting - using a graphic EQ also has the advantage of being able to tweak the amount of leakage between bands. You may want to try this with bass as well, depending on your application.)

The only tidbit I can contribute is that I know it was intended to be a platform, not just a "produce it and move on to the next thing" type of product. What with the updates, creating a marketplace for presets, the ability to load IRs, etc., I'd say they stayed true to that direction.

This is GREAT advice for more than Helix. When mixing, I mix at low levels. Then if it also sounds good loud, I'm done. Also, I used to mix on speakers and use headphones as a reality check. However, with headphones becoming the dominant music delivery system, I'm doing the opposite - mix on headphones, use speakers as a reality check. My experience totally confirms what you say - after tweaking for speakers, it sounds even better on headphones.