theElevators

Changing snapshots = making a change to your preset. That's the correct behavior. Because you may want to change your starting snapshot. On the Helix Floor it works the same way.

Check if you have the volume pedal in your signal chain. Also sometimes presets become corrupted. I had one preset that just became louder than the rest for no reason. I wound up re-doing it from scratch and it was behaving correctly. I could not figure out what was wrong, even when I removed one block at a time it was still louder than the rest.

(I know Kemper does not have such a gap at all.), But... Helix always has had a gap when switching presets. So does the Boss processor and most other old-school digital processors. On the Helix, you have snapshots to circumvent that gap, that (annoyingly) is there. Each snapshot is your different sound within a preset, which is your virtual guitar rig. Preset spillover does not yet exist in the Stadium, as I understand. On the Helix, you sacrifice one DSP chip, to be used as a buffer for switching your presets. So you sacrifice half of your signal chain, and have pretty seamless switching between your presets. I never found myself in a situation to have needed this "feature". On the Helix Floor, I actively use snapshots and do not ever have a need or reason to switch presets during a song. Each preset is each own song. There's a gap when switching, but that that's when you stop and start the next song. That's how modellers should be used -- each preset corresponds to each song. Otherwise, you have several presets that can cover all your repertoire, have a preset for each type of song you'll ever need. In my set, when I was touring, I had 26 presets, which I went through on a nightly basis. I organized them in the order of the set, and just pressed "up" to go to the next song. We had 2 songs that were connected, and I just found a "gap", where I could switch to the next preset. But trust me, once you start creating individual presets (which is what I do), there's no going back IMO.....

That's why it's wise to keep your presets nearly identical, minus a few tweaks, extra blocks that you turn on/off. On the Helix, it doesn't matter if you have unused blocks btw, the sound does not suffer, and there's no extra lag with unused blocks. If you redo your signal chain from scratch, then there will be volume / tone discrepancies. Sometimes you won't realize that they are different. Create a "template" preset, which is your virtual "rig", and modify it for individual presets: copy/paste/tweak. That's the best way to use a modeller if you're a touring musician. Otherwise, just use one preset, if you can manage. Once I learned this workflow, I go through all my presets one after another to make sure they are all sounding correct and matched in volume. I've also once had this weird bug on the Helix, where one preset wound up getting louder, even though the blocks were all identical. I wound up redoing it from scratch, and it started sounding like my other presets. Just something to watch out for. In summary, there are so many factors that can create a difference in your sound, that it's best to just keep everything the same as much as possible. My tried-and-true approach that I've used for 6 years on the Helix.

Try using a different amp. Some amps have all these extra controls like "hum", ripple, as mentioned already. These can really get amplified if you have a weird signal chain. In my case I started running a compressor between the amp and the cab, which really improved the feel. But it introduced constant low-frequency hum, which I noticed one day. Well, in my snapshot for the dirty sound, I just dialed down that "hum" parameter to 0, and the issue was fixed. Some amps do weird stuff. Crackle and pop could be from static electricity. I've noticed the original Helix even having its capacitance triggered from static electricity, when it was on a rug. All sorts of menus would pop up constantly.

That's expected and normal, as it mirrors the physical behavior. Combine 2 signals and you get louder signal. I discovered this on the Helix when I added a delay in parallel by accident. Then when I removed it, the preset's level changed. I wound up keeping a delay in parallel as it's easier to manage in the end, and all of my presets have that delay, even if it's not used, for consistency in terms of the level.

In my experience nothing beats the sound and feel of a real guitar cab. So I have been happily using Mooer Baby Bomb with a 12" closed back cab by Orange. People scoff at it until they hear how it sounds. Toured with this great power amp all over Europe, Canada, Israel and the US. We ordered Fender Deluxe for our backline, and I used it as a glorified cabinet with the power amp for 2 weeks in Europe. Worked great.

because: 1. silent stage 2. recording straight into computer 3. snapshots. Go from dry clean sound to lead sound with delay, etc. 4. delay spillover 5. transposition 6. set it and forget it. get the same exact sound each time for my 100's of presets. 7. stereo sound, stereo delay after amp, which in real life would be a giant pain to recreate. But I don't need to reinvent my sound in every preset, because I already know what works for me.

I knew instinctively that this sort of an abundance of choices leads to audio level discrepancies when I began using the Helix. Just recently watched the Blink-182 rig rundown, and their tech basically reiterated the same exact thing. He explained how previously, he built a bunch of presets with different amps, and the sound guy was complaining because the levels were constantly jumping. Now all their presets are the same exact basic "rig" just with extra bells and whistles. I do the same exact thing. Main preset duplicated and tweaked slightly. Each amp is EQ'ed differently and every venue has its own resonance frequencies and whatnot. So by changing amps, you are completely changing your sound. When you do a sound check, the sound guy sets up your sound for that one amp... in the good old days. They'll ask you to play clean, play distorted, play a solo. Done. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Not when playing live.

Use the same amp for all your sounds. Overcomplicating your presets is why you have uneven sound levels.

There will be. Because unlike Helix Stadium which replace the Helix, there is still the Stomp, Stomp XL, HX Effects. There is no Stadium equivalent of those products yet, so there will be updates, albeit at a slower pace than before. Most likely just bug fixes, and to alight with new MacOS, etc. The Helix platform is already mature and does not need any esoteric things as far as I think. The same could not be said about it 5 years ago or so.

I've been curious about people's feedback on it, and several YouTubers reported really serious bugs. One mentioning an unusable "helicopter" sound that just comes out of nowhere and makes the unit unusable. There have been reports on slow snapshot changes, slower than on the OG. Also a bunch of problems with the expression pedal and block parameters when using snapshots. As with any modeller, it's a computer, it can have bugs. Bugs will be fixed, new ones will be introduced. I'm a computer programmer, and I know all about testing, beta testing, pre-release, release, etc. I will never be foolish to upgrade the firmware the night before the show and expect everything to work. Plus in certain scenarios the upgrade can brick your Helix, and you can only bring it back to life with a Windows computer... anyway... Over the air upgrades are great, until they don't work. This thing so far to ME (if I were to buy a new modeller today) would be a risky purchase. But it all depends on what you play and what approach you use. 1. Bedroom noodlers -- I say go and buy it. I am a bedroom noodler myself at the moment as I'm not touring anymore. 2. You have 100s of Helix presets that you've built on the OG -- wait a bit. There have been weird issues importing existing presets, and they do not sound the same anymore. Arguably... better! But that may require going back to the drawing board and wasting countless hours. 3. You are in a touring band with people who drive for 5 hours to see your show / you're in a wedding band -- wait until all the bugs are worked out. Or else risk looking like a fool onstage while your processor stops behaving. That's a nightmare scenario that I don't ever want to experience... I've come close to it a few times in my life. I remember every time I updated the firmware on the Helix Floor, having to do extensive testing to make sure nothing got broken. And a few times things got broken, and at one time I had to downgrade. I also remember first getting the Helix, and right off the bat finding several bugs (on 2.8) The OG is a complete solution in a box, with all the sounds that I would possibly ever need (personally). But some people like new toys, which is understandable. Really expensive toys with an absurd amount of processing power to...noodle in their bedrooms.

One more time. We are comparing the loudness of your custom preset against a blank preset, which in Helix is called "New Preset". You can find them in User 2, User 3, etc. They have no blocks in them and are completely empty. So you save your preset, call it "Awesome Sauce". You take your preset, switch to it, play your guitar with it. Run it out of your FRFR, or monitors, or whatever you have. with me so far? Notice how loud it is. Using your ears. Just take a mental snapshot of how loud your sound is. Then switch to a blank "New Preset" preset (that's the preset that has ABSOLUTELY NO EFFECTS, JUST GUITAR STRAIGHT THROUGH), do the same. Is your preset louder than the blank one? If your preset is louder, dial your preset down, use an amp master volume parameter and set it lower. Etc. Go back and forth, until you dial it in right. Your preset should not be louder than a "New Preset", or else you will have garbage sound. Use the "New Preset"* as a benchmark for loudness.

There are no set rules how you can connect things. But in most cases XLR should go to FOH, and 1/4 for everything else. XLR are balanced, meaning they are noise canceling, which only makes a difference when long cables are involved.

You cannot. But the presets that you build need to be the same loudness as blank presets. If you make them too loud, it leads to bad sound, clipping, nasty parasitic frequencies, etc. So when working on your presets, do A/B tests to check for loudness.