theElevators

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....

You need one of these: https://voodoolab.com/product/hx-current-doubler-cable/

Can you attach your preset? 

Make sure your HX Edit matches your firmware version.  Otherwise, who knows what it can do...

Send the same signal to your clean amp, or FRFR in mono.  Problem solved.  Otherwise your whole balance will be weird especially if you run delays after the amp.  Read my post about how to run your signal.  The simpler the better.  Trust me, I toured all over Europe, US and Canada, so I know what works with the Helix. 

Cheers!

I'm curious about your use case. 

If you are thinking about doubling the number of footswitches or snapshots... that's not possible. 

If you are thinking about having a backup (redundant) Helix Control... I have never heard of anybody doing that.  Unless you are playing a huge arena, if you are worried about things failing, just pack a backup Helix Control with you.  When I toured Europe, I had a backup Helix with me everywhere. 

I spent about 20 minutes per preset, manually recreating it in HX Edit from Pod Go Edit.  It's not too bad.

Do you have a volume block in your chain?  Maybe you stepped on the pedal switch, and turned yourself down? 

He always left his distortion on.  All you need is a DS-1 equivalent. Classic Distortion is a good one in the Helix, a Marshall, and a chorus.  Deez-one or whatever it's called in the Helix does not work like DS-1. 

Gary used the DS-1 with the following settings: tone on 9, distortion on 3. 

Did you try a different adapter?  Adapters can get fried all the time.

On 4/24/2025 at 3:06 AM, spiattalo said:

 

I'm a bit confused about your suggestion re: incorporating an expression pedal, but I think having a preset per song might actually be the way to make it work.

 

Take a look at what I typed up earlier.  The expression pedal can basically add a bunch of additional sounds to your existing snapshots. For example:  Toe: 5 things get turned off, 7 things get turned on, and heel: the opposite.  Depending on the snapshot, you can mix certain effects out. 

I have some videos that you may find useful (not HX Effects though), that go over this.  The first video specifically goes over my approach of mixing things out.  As you can see, one expression pedal can do completely different things in each snapshot: turn on/off wah, vibrato, synth, as well as controlling parameters like the curve, feedback, output level, whatever you want. 

Also, the "current number" feature in MS-3 is doable with the Command Center and it's great.  Please familiarize yourself with it.  You can have one button to switch to a specific snapshot, while also toggle on/off multiple effects after you are in that snapshot.  You can have one button cycle through all snapshots if you want to!  A combination of all the tricks: 4 snapshots * expression pedal (toe/heel) = 8 distinct sound combinations.  Add to that 4 stomps that can be accessible from the same view using Command Center, 8 * 2 = 16 distinct sound combinations. 

I actually used MS-3 for about 2 years.  For the band I was playing in, I used one bank, 4 buttons and 2 external buttons to cover every sound I'd ever need, which was a lot!  When I got the Helix 5 years ago, I realized that one preset would not be enough.  But this was a long time ago, before the revolutionary Command Center was introduced.  So I settled on the song-per-preset approach and could not have been happier.  That is the way to go.

I have a Pod Go, which also has 4 snapshots.  I wanted to downsize from the Helix and found it more than enough actually in terms of power/snapshots, etc.. 

It's only 4 snapshots, but if you have a preset per song, then 4 snapshots is plenty. 

For additional sounds, on the Pod Go, I use the expression pedal.  With the pedal, you can assign multiple things to it, so you can double the number of sounds you can produce to 8.  Expression pedal is not just for wah/volume!  You can assign anything to it: parameter changes, bypassing/un-bypassing things. 

If you assign mix parameters of various blocks to snapshots, and bypass/un-bypass things with the expression pedal, then you can really expand your possibilities.  The mix parameter set at 0%, means the block is not heard.  That means that the same expression pedal can turn on/off different things depending on the snapshot you are in (something is turned on but not heard).  To accomplish that, assign multiple effects to the pedal, but mix the ones you don't need out (mix = 0%).

For example, you can have 4 rhythm snapshots.  From these two, you can have 2 double as lead snapshots.  In those two snapshots, if you put the expression pedal in the toe position, it activates a delay and EQ to make your solos cut through.  In one of these rhythm/lead snapshots, you can have the expression pedal control the wah as well.  You can have delayed bypassing of blocks via the expression pedal -- up to 1 second.  So in one of these snapshots, if I start rocking the pedal, the lead sound persists, while I rock the pedal.  Then when I put it in toe position, delay/EQ turn off after 1 second...

And we are just getting started!  MS-3 had the ability to use each button for 2 things, aka "current number".  On the Helix, you can also do things like that with the Command Center.  So you can mix and match snapshots/stomps.  So, for example, you enter one snapshot, then press the same button again (or hold it) to turn something else on/off.  

I have no idea how to do this on the unit itself, given there's no screen.  But I'm sure in HX Edit, that's easily doable. 

So with Command Center + expression pedal, you have WAY more than 8 sounds possible.  Probably like 16. 

On 4/22/2025 at 1:53 PM, vstrattomusic said:

I'm not mad, just joking around. You know I guess while I'm at it I could drill a few holes in the chassis and attach a fan for better ventilation. Connect it to whatever powers the pedal since that no longer works.

Or if we get really DIY here, I could cut a square around the pedal area, fill it with little tiles, repurpose one of the inputs and build a little fountain so my cat can drink water from it while I play the guitar.

I'd just add a urinal to it.  Sometimes you really gotta go.  And a smoke machine. 

On 4/22/2025 at 6:56 AM, vstrattomusic said:

Velcro?? Why not weld it to the Helix LT, then glue the Exp 1 input with silicone?

 

Maybe I could saw off the whole pedal area with an angle grinder, then weld it together with the end part, making a one-off, ultra unique, pedal-less Helix LT. Minds will be blown when people see that lollipop

yeah!  Gorilla Glue is so strong.  My previous rig consisted of MS-3 little processor, and I glued 2 side buttons to it.  Toured with that extensively :).  But with Velcro, you can take it off, in case then new pedal breaks...

And lighten up.  Why are you so mad.  LT is a flimsier version of the Helix.  Just giving you some options.  If my LT pedal broke, I'd do the same as I suggested. 

I would just take off the pedal, and get a small external one and velcro it to the body. 

Try creating a preset from scratch, or try factory presets.  Maybe it's a preset that is the problem, not the pedal itself. 

Having said that, 3 years is a long time for this very cheaply-made processor.  Go and buy a new one, or two I guess...