theElevators

Check your global settings. If you have the expression pedal 1 and/or 2 persist by snapshot, then if you change snapshots it will reset to what the expression pedal value was when you saved that snapshot. That's a feature on the OG Helix. I used to hate that feature, but now I actively use it. I used to have the expression pedal persist by preset. Meaning that if I switch to a different snapshot, the expression value doesn't reset and remains where I left the physical pedal. So worth double-checking that.

I did a quick search and there doesn't seem to be a canned reese bass sound for the Helix. I'm assuming you're doing it on bass guitar. It's all subjective, but part of the sound is the vibrato, sometimes detuning, sub-octave (harmonizer to lower the pitch), some kind of a chorus, and distortion. All of these ingredients are available in the Helix. For detuning, you can use any harmonizer and harmonize it in unison with a few cents flat. I have personally used this trick on guitar to sound like bagpipes. With bass, if you do the detuning trick, then it will naturally start to pulsate, so you won't even need the vibrato effect; and you can dial in the rate by fine-tuning the out of tune note. Here's the detuned trick on guitar linked below, if interested.

Try a different guitar, try factory presets. I have never had such issue.

No such thing. The Helix replicates the studio sound, more than anything. When mixing, reverb is added post the amp/cab. The exception is the '63 reverb unit, when it was placed before the entire amp/cabinet. You can, however add the reverb before the cabinet, if you use separate amp and cab blocks. Honestly, it's all cork sniffing, and with some tweaking you can always get your desired sound. For example, you can experiment with adding a compressor + reverb between the amp and the cab.

Just for fun: turn on the Helix, plug something into the "right 1/4" out jack, then unplug.. Same result?

Why not just bypass one, un-bypass the other? I don't see any need for a loop to toggle between 2 different effects. The loop functionality is really not needed at all in most situations, unless you want to process the loop differently and join with the main signal path. Toggling between a bunch of effects can be done with them serially in line.

The "Thon" case is excellent, with 3 drawbacks. 1. The whole thing should have been upside down (handle on the opposite side). Instead, it's the way it is. That means that the Helix's weight rests on just a few centimeters of the foam you see here. As you can imagine, the foam starts getting compressed and the Helix is no longer snug, as it starts sliding down. The solution: glue an additional block of foam, or multiple pieces, so that it supports the weight of the Helix better. If they had put the handle on the opposite side, then that would not have been a problem. Once you add a block of foam (packing foam from your electronics), you wind up sacrificing the little storage space. I am still able to keep my power cable and 1/4" cable in there, if I fold it nicely. 2. The feet can pop off as you are unloading your gear. Pop them off, and re-glue them each with Gorilla glue. 3. The handle is solid, but very thin and painful if you want to carry your stuff on a train or bus. Solution: wrap the handle in something. They sell gel covers for these handles on Amazon, and they attach with Velcro. After addressing those, it's an excellent case. I've had it for 4 years, and that's where my Helix lives.

Assign the wah to be on in a specific snapshot only, as was previously recommended. I use the wah in sevearal ways: 1. automatic percentage-based engagement: when below 5%, turn off after 500 ms. 2. just always on in a specific snapshot, called "wah solo", that way I can rock the pedal in any position, even all the way in the heel position. 3. and I never using the toe switch. I disable that in all my presets. In some snapshots, I lower the bypass percentage of the expression pedal, so that the effect disengages when at 0%, as opposed to 5%. You can set that in your bypass assignment. Also there's a wait time of either immediately turn off or up to 1 second. I time these engagements/disengagements to a song, depending on how fast/slow that song is.

Check the midi channel on the stomp is selected correctly?

On the OG Helix, to make this work you need to: 1. make the expression pedal 1 and 2 not be "global" but saved per preset. 2. remove the "snapshot" assignment on the wah. Otherwise, it can act all wonky and flip backwards. Also there is a setting on the OG Helix to specify exact bypass behavior with the expression pedal, not just "flip" the on/off state of the block. I personally never had to use it, but I know it's there. I don't own the Stadium.

Time to clean the microswitches. A quick search of the forum, and you would have found this info. Enjoy!

If you want to prevent the parameter knobs from changing your sound, the easiest way is to put the cursor in a corner (x) (no blocks), and save your preset. That's what I've been doing, as I never need to adjust anything on the fly. If I do need to fix something, I'll use the joystick and scroll to the proper block, adjust it, save it, and put the cursor back to the corner. If you need to adjust the amp, there's a rather redundant "amp" button: press that and your screen will bring up the amp settings, as before. I've also used a dummy send block trick to see if the expression pedal is engaged or not, explained in the video below. In my experience, covers trap dirt and dust, and are not worth it. I use this "dummy send block" trick in every preset where the expression pedal is doing something. That is an extra cue for me to know that 1) expression pedal is going to be doing something and 2) to monitor if I forgot to disengage the expression pedal. When you are playing a loud show, it's easy to forget to turn off your wah, or some other sound, and you won't realize it because it can be that loud on stage. Been there, done that.

I have a lot of experience with the live sound mix and my OG Helix. If you want to "cut" through the mix, there are several ingredients and lack thereof to achieve that. So number one: reverb sounds good at home, sounds good when you record your guitar directly, but live it buries you and make your playing unintelligible. If you have any type of hall reverb, it should be lowered to a minimum, or removed. Concert spaces have natural reverb, so you really do not need any, except for special effects, or for that drippy reverb sound that surf music requires. Instead of reverb, I use subtle ping-pong delay that bounces a few times left/right, but does not cover up the initial attach of the note/chord. There are also "ducking" reverbs that let the note ring out, before applying. Also for regular reverb, the "pre-delay" parameter is very useful to be able to hear the initial attack of the note, without which it becomes a mess. For live concerts, there's a separate independent mix done on purpose--to represent what it sounds like in the venue, by adding all the reverb, etc back to the sound. And I stress, it's an independent mix from the actual FOH sound mix. If a concert is broadcast on TV, there are 2 sound mixers working independently of each other. So while reverb sounds good and can make your playing sound smoother and better, for live use it's not to be overused. I've listened to board mixes of my live concerts where I played and the guitar doesn't necessarily sound great direct. But that's the whole point--your guitar's sound needs to work for the venue's acoustics, not to sound great as a concert recording. I've also reviewed concert footage that people have posted from their phones, and confirm that that it sounded great with plenty of ambiance. Number two: for solos my approach that has worked for me is always boosting the 2K frequency with an equalizer in my chain. Turning up the volume does not work due to limiters, and whatever else the sound system has. When I needed to really cut through the horns and all that stuff, I boosted it by 10 db for the solo snapshot. Nowadays I go from 2 to about 6 db. Some songs need a deafeningly-loud solo, some don't. So I play by ear. Also depends on the pickups that I use. Single coils already sound pretty glassy, so further EQ-ing is going to sound extremely piercing if overdone. You should not have too much of that 2K frequency, as it is known to be headache-inducing. And when boosting this frequency you will definitely be heard. In my old band I didn't constantly noodle all over the place, I had a few concise solos and that's when it was used. Also I've used it for clean lead lines as well, think "Day Tripper" by the Beatles. That's all 2K, but it's not constantly hitting you over the head, I'd never strum chords with that sound....

Aside from a few bugs that were known (for example the glitch delay behaving differently), all your presets should be exactly the same before/after each update. I have 100's of presets and none of them sounded any different. The only big change was the "oversampling" update introduced in firmware version 3.10. I guess it technically is a sound difference, since it is an improvement to the overall sound--but not that you need to go and re-adjust anything. It just sounded marginally better :) The only thing that could have changed is global settings. But if you follow the firmware update procedure, you should always back up your Helix, upgrade, then reset to factory settings, and then restore from the backup.

If you cannot get the basic stomp assignment figured out without frustrating yourself, sell the Helix and use pedals and a real amp--problem solved! Or pay somebody to do it for you. Plenty of rock stars that have techs setting their sounds for them. The training manual is well-written. The YouTube videos that were given to you are very well-made and lots of people are able to follow them. If you think otherwise and require special re-explanation of what is stated in the resources, the Helix is not for you. I personally am not overly technical, but have a computer science background. I was able to figure out the Helix in about 2 weeks. Not all of it at once, but the basics. I've asked several questions on this forum that were very unique to my use case, and got my answers each time. I was never a user of an all-in-one processor prior to the Helix, but figured out the approach that worked for me and continue to use it regularly.

I use both. Same identical sound if you use the same settings. amp and cab = amp block + cab block. I figured out that I can run a compressor between the amp and cab, and I do that sometimes. So that's the only time I will use 2 separate blocks, when I need to put something in the middle. The compressor to me is not suitable for every situation. But sometimes it really makes fast playing a lot easier, for all the shreddy solos, or really fast aggressive palm muting. It also makes clean solos sound like they are supposed to--compressed, bold, not whimpy. When placing the compressor there, I always turn down the ripple of my amp, otherwise there's a low frequency hum that appears. However at the same time the compressor adds a certain amount of "harshness" and depending on the signal chain can even make my preset develop certain artifacts, such as pops. So I use this trick sparingly.

I created a crazy preset, and wanted to share how it works. I'm able to add auto-harmonized synths to my playing. I seem to remember there was a forum specifically for these things, but cannot find it. Here you go.

Even on the Helix Floor, the scribble strips are hard to see in direct sunlight. That's why I have always preferred the virtual scribble strips of the Helix LT when playing outdoors. On a dark stage the Helix Floor is king. It could be a very simple software update to also include virtual scribble strips on the Stadium XL. (I don't own the Stadium)

I have sent Helix for a repair of an LED light. It was returned to me within 2 weeks. But I did have to escalate it due to other reasons. If the Helix is 2 weeks old, then it's a problem, and you should return in for a refund. Otherwise, if everything is structurally sound, then all is needed is lithium grease and tightening a few screws. I've greased my pedal 5 years ago and not a peep to this day. All it takes is taking the back off, and adding a generous amount of grease. I didn't have to disassemble anything, but I did have to tighten the screws of the "claw" that attaches to the actual pedal mechanism. On my Helix, those screws were loose, so the pedal started getting crooked, and was scraping against the side and also was getting loosened from that. Some people say lithium grease is bad for plastic.. in my case no issues.

I tried a few IRs early on, and never used them again. One time I played around with an acoustic guitar IR... Ultimately never used this, and continued to use cabs that are in the Helix. Didn't stop me from recording guitar on "hit" records... by hit records, I mean 8 million views on YouTube. IRs are overrated... They might have been relevant 10 years ago, when the stock cabs were limited. But even stock cabs are a collection of various IRs... just with a virtual representation of how you place your microphone on a specific cab. Each time you move your virtual microphone, you get a different IR... so it's just 100's of different IRs under the hood behind these stock cabs. And an IR typically is used in the context of how a guitar cab sounds when mic'ed. But there can be IRs for other things, like how specific rooms, how an archtop guitar sound, etc. All that is unnecessary IMHO. And especially, don't waste your money purchasing snake oil IRs... good luck!

try using balanced cables, same result? You can buy adapters to convert balanced 1/4" jacks to xlr, then connect with cables to the mixer.

Check and play around with the effects loops volume settings. It can be driving the rest of your chain too much, hence change of sound, especially with drive pedals. So experiment with different signal levels. Otherwise, yes, I can confirm that the effects loops are not "true bypass", and they can introduce all sorts of noise. Tone Master Pro has 2 analog "fuzz friendly" effects loop, but Helix doesn't have such a thing. For example, I tried rolling off the volume knob on the guitar, and it sounded noisy and hissy when my distortion pedal was in the loop, but fine when it was before the processor. Helix has a ton of stuff, so there really is no reason to use external pedals, IMO. Helix has everything, and you can tweak things and A/B them so you can sell your physical pedals. There are a few exceptions, such as some of those really esoteric glitchy time-based pedals, but the whole point of using the Helix is to ditch your existing physical pedals/wah/amp, etc. It's most likely already there. Anyway, to check the volume level of effects loops: Press MENU Go to Global Settings Navigate to Ins/Outs Find: Send/Return Type

Try factory presets to make sure it's not user error. Helix is not stopping you from diming everything and creating unusable presets.

Then sell it and try something that is easier. I know some people who are computer programmers cannot wrap their heads around this tech. Or go back to pedal boards.

In the real pedal world, "Fuzz "tone sucking" (volume/treble loss) often results from impedance mismatches, particularly when vintage-style Fuzzes (like Fuzz Faces) are placed after buffered pedals or active pickups." Also in the real world, the Fuzz pedal sucks tone whether it's on or off, they are not true-bypass. In your case, you have a digital emulation of any pedal you want. HX One has capacity to run exactly one block. Digital pedals in an analog signal chain do not have any "impedance" and tone-sucking behavior, because they are digital devices. They can suck tone on their own though to an extent, but they will do it consistently regardless of what effect you are running. Just because you are running Fuzz on your HX One, doesn't mean that it will magically recreate the physical properties of an analog Fuzz Face and affect other pedals. In the Helix world, they replicate the "tone sucking" behavior, if you have a virtual signal chain. Helix recreates those nuances when you have more than one block in your preset. But it does it weirdly: only the first block in the virtual chain affects how the rest of the chain sounds in terms of its virtual impedance, if you set the impedance setting on your preset to "auto". So if you have a wah, followed by 10 Fuzz pedals -- no tone sucking. But one bypassed Fuzz pedal followed by 10 wahs -- it will suck the tone. However, you can override this behavior by dialing in an explicit impedance value of your entire preset, then it stops behaving like it would in the real world. Regarding how to set the impedance on your HX device: My advice is to just set it to auto. Auto take the first block's impedance and uses that. For most effects it's 1M ohm. Changing the impedance to a specific value between HX presets is a very bad idea, since it results in loud pops when changing presets. (For the record, I don't have HX One, and cannot confirm what it does when you bypass your Fuzz block, you would need to test it out. ) I also recommend just using your ears. Digital doesn't always behave like analog, and sometimes not at all. Add a Fuzz in your HX One. Bypass it in one preset, compare it with a blank preset. If you start messing around with impedance, it may introduce weird harshness and resonant frequencies. The difference in sound is there, but not that significant, mostly just becoming unpleasant. One more piece of info: as a Helix user, I want all my presets to sound consistent. All my presets are based around the same 'core' sound. So if I wanted to add a Fuzz solo in one of my presets, I need the core sound to remain unchanged. If I added the Fuzz in the beginning of the chain, I know that it would affect my tone for the whole preset very slightly (not something I want). Therefore, I can either change the impedance of the preset to be the same value as other presets (1M ohm), or make sure that the Fuzz is placed second in line after the wah pedal, which I know has the correct impedance of (1M ohm). But I would never change the impedance setting between the presets, because of the horrible noise glitch that will happen when switching presets! See my old video of me messing around with the impedance. There are also lots of threads on this topic. In summary, set it to "auto", and forget about it IMO :)