theElevators

But turning blocks on/off is kind-of changing of the snapshots, isn't it?

Yes, check how it's saved in your snapshots. And also I believe you want to set your snapshot setting to "recall" rather than "discard". As far as I understand, "recall" means all the values in the snapshot will return to what they should be, as you saved them. You are in a snapshot 1. You bypass a bunch of blocks somehow, manually or with stomp buttons. Re-enter the same snapshots and everything is just as it was. Maybe try toggling that setting. I don't fully understand what it does, but I tried with the "discard" and for me it was doing weird things and messing up my presets during editing... and I edit things a lot. I personally avoid assigning a block to both snapshots and an expression pedal / button. Because for me sometimes the on/off state of the block used to flip backwards. Like with the wah, it would remain on when it should be off. It was a fluke, and would happen every once in a blue moon on 3.11. Now I either assign a block to snapshots, or expression pedal, but never both at the same time.

I've come across a weird issue yesterday. I was building presets, and would up with 2 identical presets, but one sounding harsher/louder than the other one. I removed absolutely everything except distortion, amp, and cab. I checked all the levels, all parameters and everything was identical in HX Edit and the Helix itself. I re-did the preset from scratch and the issue was resolved. It sounded like there was a "hidden" EQ block in the chain that you could not see. The only other thing is that my HX Edit crashed, and maybe that caused a corrupt preset... that worked, but well was a lot louder than the others. So, it's a good idea to cross-reference things constantly. As some of you already know, I always maintain my basic signal chain, and change a few bells and whistles from song to song. Oftentimes, I just copy the preset I just made and make a new one from the copy. For this upcoming gig I am building 15 presets.

Correct way is to have your output be fixed at MIC level. Or whatever has the lowest signal level. Leave it at that, and have the volume knob only control your personal monitor mix, which is "amp out".

Look at the Edge as an example of a variety of sounds that he used to recreate before he started using Fractal.... He used to have something like 6 vintage amps with him for different songs. He also used a different guitar for every song. With a well-paid sound guy, this works. For bar band gigs, that is not very possible, with a random sound guy who doesn't even know your set or when your solos are. I remember in the old days, using a minimal amount of gear: distortion/wah + amp took at least 15 minutes of sound check, to make sure that things are EQ'ed correctly. To play a gig properly if you absolutely must have 10 different amps/chains, you need 10 different sound checks. That's just an axiom. Want to sound good? Sound check every sound. Otherwise the sound guy will constantly be chasing after your sounds, adjusting throughout the gig, turning you down, bringing you up. I suggest minimizing the amount of amp variety at the very least. I myself play a bunch of stuff from covers, to pop, to rock, blues and originals. I use one amp for everything: Mail Order Twin, which I use on a very clean. Just being reasonable in how you approach your sound is key. You can have every song use a completely different amp/cab, but should you? Just because you can, doesn't mean that you should. That's my argument. Back in the day before modellers most people would just play with one amp, and be able to successfully make a living playing in wedding bands. Just sayin' :) My sources: I've played a lot of clubs all over Europe, USA and Canada and have seen what works and what doesn't.

BTW also if you are recording with studio monitors, the sound from the monitors gets picked up by the guitar/bass pickups as well! I was listening to isolated tracks from one of my concerts and could faintly hear the rest of the band in the isolated track! I was running my guitar direct btw... But it's a live concert, so that was more pronounced, with all the distortion, all pickups are more-ore-less microphonic.

Because historically that's how presets were organized on older Line 6 models. You would be able to choose 4 presets on the bottom row "A, B C D", and on top you would be able to select which effects to turn on/off. Before snapshots, before command center.

Speaking from experience. Every amp is EQ'ed differently. Depending on how the sound guy is running the guitar, certain frequencies appear louder than others. It's just how it is. You can measure things all you want, run things at home, or during the rehearsal, but one day one of your presets thing is just going to cut through everything like an icepick. Or completely disappear. And everybody will look at you like you're insane (been there). I've done a lot of sound checks, where the sound works at home, but then when you turn it on, on a large PA, it is just too loud, or not loud enough. Been there many many times, and was forced to make adjustments. Then also have been in a situation where something worked perfectly from the previous night, and in a different venue that same sound needs to be adjusted the opposite way. Frustrating! So with completely different amps, this stuff can and does happen. Most of the time if you think it is not happening, the sound guy does not want to tell you everything that is wrong with your sounds. I have had a sound guy who loved to tell me those things, to my annoyance.

Cool thanks. It's interesting, I almost never download people's presets. But on my Texas Special-equipped 'Strat, it sounds very different from what you sound like. Sounds like me :) I made a few tweaks. 1. The amp block was making a lot of humming/droning noise for single notes. I completely removed the "Ripple" from it. 2. In the compressor, I set the threshold to 0.0 db. It feels better that way to me. Maybe your pickups are hotter than mine.

Pick a signal chain and stick with it. It's impossible to make 2 completely different presets with different amps/cabs to sound consistent. So do what I do: create one preset, and then create copies of it with slight variations. Otherwise, with different PAs, if you have different virtual rigs, the volume jumps are inevitable. Plus you know how in the olden days during a sound check, you'd check your sound? Well imagine having to do this for 20 times, since you have 20 different presets that all sound different? Volume leveling is just one piece of the puzzle, every amp is EQ'ed differently. So even if it sounds like the volume is the same, the sound guy will have to make sound adjustments when you switch from a Marshall to a Vox.

If it has an SD drive, if it can play backing tracks, dial out guitar from .mp3 files (which it does), it has the capability of storing the loop. That's my only source...

I'm sure there'll be a sophisticated looper with an ability to store/recall loops onto a flash drive.

I don't know... the rack version will be probably released after the main flagship product. The original Helix rack was released in 2016, a year or so after the Floor. BTW, the rack counterparts to processors may be on the decline overall. Is there a Quad Cortex rack? Or Headrush rack? Nope!

Do you have any stereo modulation or delay effects? Maybe you are getting the "wet" side of your signal and not the "dry"? 1. I would suggest taking your signal chain and bypassing everything where you first have your dry guitar signal. Then go and turn on (un-bypass) one block on at a time. You should hear at what point your sound becomes washy and in the background. 2. Also sometimes stereo effects that are summed into one channel (Left/Mono) can sound weird. For example, the ADT for me always sounds completely different in stereo vs. the same exact signal chain summed into mono: it happens due to phasing. Also I have been plagued by the "Left/Mono" bug for many Helix versions, until the latest one. Make sure this is not what is happening to you.

People seem to have forgotten that Line 6 Survey from a year or so ago!

In terms of size, the button spacing is going to be exactly the same. Helix Floor has extra metal "bumpers" on both sides, plus more "padding" after the scribble strips end. Trim that extra metal and you have successfully made it smaller. Same for the expression pedal--it's now more narrow, so that saves even more space. Honestly, if the buttons of the same quality as before, I am not bothering with getting Helix Stadium. I'm constantly nagging how they are not reliable, which for me they are not. Then, all this new technology is way beyond what I would ever need for recording/touring. I've reached a point that if something sounds great and works for me, I don't need to attempt to improve things even more. Furthermore, the thought of redoing everything for me just sounds like a very big headache. Like I've found my ideal signal chain, and I don't need to try to reinvent what works for me. For all new presets, I just take something I've made already, and slightly tweak it. I'm using the same amp/distortion that I discovered back in 2019. The only thing I've changed was last year I started adding a compressor between the amp and a cab, which does wonders. Helix Floor / LT for me are a complete guitar sound solution, which I know inside-out. The same could not be said about the Pod HD series, for example: no snapshots, no acoustic simulator, very limited signal chain, clunky and unintuitive UI. When I go on tour, I have to have an exact compatible backup processor with me at all times... If I switch over to the Helix Stadium, I'd need to buy 2 of them... that's a lot of money lol. I foresee an even further price drop on the Helixes soon. I remember Pod HD 500X were going for as low as 400USD towards the end, several years after the Helix was introduced. So maybe I'll just get another backup Helix for myself and continue to beat up my current 2 Helixes.

Helix Stadium!!! woooohoo!!! I love that they brought back the step design. Not sure if the foot switches are same as before. Looks pretty slick. Not a fan of the thinner EXP pedal... This thing will be so complicated....

Will they announce new hardware? firmware? nobody knows! lol

Well, on a Mac you can select your Sound Input and Output under System Settings. You can select Helix as your input, while the output can be your Headphone jack. If this is what you are asking... you can do the same in Windows (just don't know how exactly, because I don't own a PC right now).

Yes, I can confirm. We played with a click track. An easy way to do so is to simply have a stereo signal played from any device, even an iPod. Left is the click that everybody hears, the right is the backing track. Later on we got an external sound card for the Macbook, and ran our backing tracks in stereo, while sending an additional click track separately. The drummer could also have his own mix he could adjust on the fly. When we played, the click track was only heard by the drummer, but anybody else could also dial it in in their monitors if they wanted to. Our drummer wore headphones. I've also played with bands without a click track, and that's what I prefer. It's much better to simply have the drummer check the tempo right before the start of the song, and then play it by feel. I have used some delays that were sync'ed to the BPMs, and I found it pretty forgiving if it were a little bit faster/slower. Plus, I always have my presets so that I could tap in the tempo, if the tempo starts to drift. One of the songs we played had an arpeggiator sound on the guitar as the main hook. I would start that song by scratching on the guitar so that everybody would feel the pulse, and then we would start the song. BTW U2, with Edge heavily relying on the delays played without any any click track early on in their career and they did just fine! But later the drummer started using a click track as a metronome around 1982-1983... Unless you have BPM-specific tremolo that subdivides your notes into 16ths, there shouldn't be a problem without a click track live (given the drummer's internal clock is consistent). But I also found a workaround for these situations when the tempo may not be necessarily exact with the tremolo effect--it's Bleat Chop Trem, and there is another equivalent in the Legacy folder. Basically, the tempo of the tremolo can change between 4 different values. I figured out that if I have it slightly faster, then slightly slower than the actual BPM, it syncs up very naturally without conflicting with the song. A very neat trick, if you ask me! Anyways, when the tempo changes slightly throughout the performance, that's what makes it sound natural and old-school. If you quantized Led Zeppelin and made them play to a metronome, they would not sound the same. Same for AC/DC.

Or if you must... attach the preset here, somebody can click the exp pedal in, re-save it, and send it back to you.

You can add an A/B path and put your distortion pedal in it. So that the path itself will be assigned to the snapshots. In one snapshot it's path A, in another path B.

Well, you can assign multiple things to the same expression pedal 1. And simply mix things out in the snapshot where they shouldn't be heard. Simple as that. Take your blocks in question, assign the mix parameter to snapshots. Make all the blocks you need active at all times, just mix things you don't need out. I use this trick all the time. I never use the toe switch. That would be the easiest workaround.

If you are choosing, get more DSP--Helix LT, so later you don't have FOMO. Some effects take up a lot of DSP, some not. If you have the Helix LT, then you can really go to town with different effects, transposition, freeze. If you have the Stomp, then you may find yourself being frustrated because you have 1/2 the horsepower, and will need to think of what you can sacrifice. I own Helix LT, Floor and Pod Go. I would be able to play nearly all my gigs with the Pod Go with some clever workarounds. I love the form factor of the Pod Go. I love that it has the expression pedal built in, and a decent screen. The only downside to the Pod Go is the very very bad footswitches, that are even worse than those on the Helix, Stomp, etc. The quality is severely compromised, so much so that after just a few months one of the buttons stopped working reliably. It's a shame... Pod Go, if it only were built better is a much better option than HX Stomp. So in summary, get the LT IMHO. They are pretty inexpensive now. It'll be a complete package allowing you to accomplish a lot of different sounds. Mine still works great after 6 years (with some minor maintenance). The Pod Go on the other hand... I have it as a backup. It would be nice if I didn't have to worry about the footswitches crapping out, because it sounds great, and I played several gigs with it, and just used it to jam at home... BTW, if you want check out my Pod Go videos (there are more on my channel for the Helix as well):

Or you can simply save your preset with the cursor put on an empty block, or in the beginning of the path. That way the parameter knobs won't do anything, if that's the intention. I also use a trick I cam up with--putting a cursor on a non-functioning dummy block to see if wah is engaged or not, with all parameters assigned to snapshots. I realize that this is not necessarily what you're asking for, but there you go....