theElevators

Or... If you want to mute one of the paths, you can put a volume pedal that is set at 0%. Remove the control assignment from it, so that moving the expression pedal does not change the percentage. And then engaging the volume pedal will mute the signal.

The secret to sustain is compression and a delay with high level of feedback. Compression can be a compressor block, or simply a low-gain distortion. I figured out the delay trick a long time ago--a ping-pong stereo delay at the very end of the chain (running in parallel) set at 135.5 BMPs, sync'ed to 1/8th notes, feedback at 60%, mixed to taste (35% for me). I always run delay in parallel, because when you are in stereo, I want the initial note to be heard in both speakers: left and right. Otherwise with a delay mixed at 100% the initial note is heard in the left channel only. Everywhere in the middle, the panning is all screwy when in stereo. Anyway.... That's my personal formula. I don't think there's an exact definitive recipe of what amp and cab to use to get any given tone. I use the Mail Order Twin for every electric guitar sound and can always get my sound (gain-y, clean, feedback, creamy). For whatever reason, I tried a bunch of different amps in the Helix, and none of them worked as I wanted them to in real life. I wanted to have an amp that doesn't have a boomy low-end, is not noisy, and could clean up with a lighter pick attack. In analog world, my amp of choice was alwyas a Fender Deluxe. For some reason, none of the amps in the Helix would give me the same exact response. I found Mail Order Twin, and thought it was "Fender Twin" initially from the name, which it is clearly not--it's based on the Silvertone amp.

OK, ground loop for sure! FYI, I get the same exact sound when I have the USB cable plugged into the Helix (powered on or powered off), while the computer is connected to monitors. The USB cable just does some weird sh to everything else but the Helix, which is not even powered on. Since the Helix is not even running, where's the hum coming from? IDK. The buzzing develops after about 30 seconds of me connecting the USB cable to the Helix. Something weird with the wiring, inductance, resistance, who the f knows. In my apartment, I have no desire to investigate what exactly is causing the noise, but I know what to do to circumvent the noise--unplug the USB cable when not in use--I have a USB hub and I just pull out the cable and I can clearly hear the noise stopping when I do that. Please try the things I outlined in the previous post and let us know! Eliminate as many factors as possible--your computer can be also affecting things! I am confident the issue is with wiring/ground loop.

Since 2 Helixes are exhibiting the same problem, then something else besides the Helix hardware is most likely the issue. 1/4" are unbalanced and are susceptible to noise. XLRs are balanced--noise cancellation. Maybe your space is just noisy... are the 1/4" cables too long? Are they old? In reality, if 1/4" and XLR are set at the same output level, the sound coming out should be pretty much the same, and the hiss shouldn't exist. Do you have Global EQ that you are applying to 1/4" but not XLR or vice versa? Out of curiosity, is the hissing always there, or only on high gain amps? Could it be that you built your presets so that it's outputting different stuff to XLR vs. 1/4"? Or is your output set to "Multi"? Try having your Helix plugged into a completely different electrical outlet, like from another room, while keeping everything the same. Try taking your helix, monitor to another house. Sometimes there can be incurable ground loop/hiss/buzzing that can only be solved this way (been there several times). I posted about this before: several times I had the worst single coil 60 cycle (in the US) and 50 cycle (in Germany) hum even when running my guitar in humbucking mode, that was 10 times louder than usual. If I turned down my guitar, the hum went away. The only thing that completely eliminated the noise was running the extension cord from the opposite side of the stage where there was another electrical outlet, and running my Helix through that power source -- dead silent. Good luck!

oh I see! You can actually export/import an entire setlist, but not a full Helix backup. Just tried it and it works.

Hi all. Wanted to give the Helix Native thing a try. Simple question: how do I restore all the presets from my Helix Floor backup? Is it possible? If so, how do I bring up the "Files / Restore From File" menu? Many thanks!

Sometimes the noise could be due to a ground loop as well. Every once in a while, when I have to play a gig at sound check my guitar buzzes more than usual. Ground lift doesn't help at all. To solve this issue, I typically resort to connecting my gear to 2 independent power sources for my power amp and Helix. 2 completely different power outlets, like one from the left of the stage, and another from the right! Being on the same power strip sometimes creates excessive noise. Last time this happened to me, we were headlining an outdoor festival. And several bands before us had no such issues, but Helix for some reason really buzzed, until we did what I described.

Could you download the preset from the device without the hum and upload it to the one that's noisy, to makes sure they are in fact identical? If you still have noise, check that the following are the same between 2 units: 1. global EQ 2. Input pad. 3. Output level (e.g. line) If they are both the same, then last thing I can recommend is the following experiment: 1) back up both units 2) reset them to factory default 3) upload the same preset and see if the noise is solved.

I got a new car, and they replaced everything with a touch screen. IMO it sucks. When I'm driving and want to turn on the AC I don't even have physical buttons. This is the current trend to replace everything with a touch screen. I gotta say, on the old car, it was so easy to just turn on the AC without even looking. Not anymore! I wouldn't be surprised if the knobs are completely eliminated on future Helixes. Honestly, from the videos I've seen regarding Quad Cortex, the touch screen doesn't really make dialing in sounds any easier. Instead of the joystick, you have an ability to swipe and tap. Helix's layout and UI is still very good and allows users to quickly create/edit presets; and probably do so quicker on other processors with a touch screen. So touch screen is not really worth it IMO.

Direct with USB will be the best quality. Otherwise, you are doing digital->analog conversion inside the Helix when you output the signal in 1/4" / XLRs. Then the audio interface takes the analog signal and again converts it to digital to work inside your DAW. So if you just want to record something with the best sound, then USB would be the best option! Of course, if you are tracking an entire band that may be more difficult to achieve. I have recorded things both ways, and both were excellent. When I go to a studio, it's just more convenient to plug into the 1/4". At home I don't even own an audio interface, so USB.

Not to open another can of worms... but some people like to have a stereo dual amp setup (left speaker Vox, right speaker Marshall). Or mix the 2 cabs, or 2 different mic placements on the same cab differently in left/right ear. While for studio work it seems like a good idea, for live use, it's absolutely useless IMO. Live you want to have left/right be absolutely identical in their sound with the exception of the ping-pong delay and sometimes special effects like panning. Otherwise, there will be balance issues for sure. Trust me, I played a lot of gigs and know what to do and not to do... learned things the hard way.

When I build my presets, I pretty much only run the following effects in stereo: ping-pong delay, panner, panner tremolo. Everything else is mono. I use stereo for special effects mostly, and to add some 3D to my sound, to mimic studio production. In the studio, those effects I mentioned are at the end of the chain. That's the easiest way to take your mono sound and make it sound like a CD. So assuming that's what you want to do: HX effects will have the following blocks: (all mono) wah, distortion, phaser, tremolo, vibrato, spring reverb, send 1, return 1... then stereo ping-pong delay, panner, etc. You will connect the QC in the effects loop. QC will only have an amp and cab block, or maybe you can run a mixture of 2 amps/cabs, but still it will be running in mono. So: guitar output cable -> input of HX -> patch cable from send 1 of HX to input of QC -> patch cable from left/mono of QC to return 1 of HX -> Left/Right out from HX to FOH Honestly, QC is such a powerful machine, that it would be a shame to not just use QC for everything. Plus QC can even profile your effects if you REALLY want to do that... SO if HX has some amazing distortion, you can literally just profile it and use it... plus if you have 2 digital devices you add up the digital lag, and you also lose quality because of the double amount of analog/digital conversion.

There a bunch of things that create a loud pop/boinkkk/crackle between snapshots. For me the worst one was going from an acoustic sim (no amp) to distortion: distortion, eq, amp/cab. Also there's a horrible noise when you turn off one amp and turn on another one. Try to isolate what block is creating the noise and we can help you find a workaround/solution. For example for 2 amps (one on, one off), the only thing that works without the noise is an A/B loop. Some effects should be placed in the beginning of the chain if they run by themselves (acoustic sim).

Yeah, there is a noticeable lag with poly capo. You can try to play around with parameters to make it less hi-fi, but faster -- this is what I did. Try these parameters values: Interval: -2 Tracking: X Fast Auto EQ: 7 Mix: 100% Level 0.0 db I place this in the very beginning of the signal chain. And for regular rock n roll, it's good enough for me to play one song. I wouldn't play the whole set on this preset, though. Also depending on the guitar you have, you may want to boost the initial signal, or the opposite--cut the initial signal before it gets to the transposition block. To boost/cut the signal, you can try a boost pedal (from distortion section), or a fixed volume pedal that sets the volume at for example 40%. You can also try a compressor before/after it. You can also try legacy blocks as well to transpose your guitar. I have used "Pitch Wham" in the past. I simply removed the expression pedal assignment from it and left it fixed. It was pretty decent for playing single lines and chords. Give that one a try. No parameters there to alter your sound, so just set it to have the correct interval and off you go. For octave down, I just use "Smart Harmony" and set the interval to be an octave lower. I place it right before the amp block. Shift -8th, Mix at 50%, Level at 0.0 db

Well there is polyphonic pitch shifting. The “along came poly” update. We now have “poly capo” which works pretty darn well if you run it first thing in the chain. This update was 3 years ago. Helix is now up to version 3.7.

I vacuum my Helix periodically. Like one time I played a gig and the stage was not just dusty, it had like pieces of threads and foam. This stuff is definitely no good inside the electronics. I dusted off my Helix after the show and vacuumed it first thing when I got home. I put a hose to every button and jack. Also it’s a good idea to cover the Helix when not in use. I put a microfiber cloth on it and cover it with the plastic it came with. The microfiber absorbs all the dust particles pretty well.

For me it’s the same as Pod HD 500 x. The step design and the little rail were good.

That is not possible. But you can use the Command Center to set up your buttons in Stomp mode to show different presets on the bottom row for example, and the top row can be for stomps. Therefore, you can use the upper row do different things depending on which preset you are in. So basically instead of snapshots, we can use presets. If you don't want an audio gap when changing presets, you can enable "preset spillover" which will make your signal path to half what it used to be. That's the only thing I can think of....

I just had this happen on my Helix LT for the first time in 4 years. For me, all of a sudden I had several "New Preset" presets showing with that sign. Also I had issues saving a preset--after the power cycle the preset would not load and appear as corrupted. The only thing I did differently than before is I had restored several presets from CustomTone...some of them were for a newer Helix version than what I have right now: 3.11. When I tried out those presets, it said "could not load IR". That caused the issue to appear it seems. To solve this: I took a full backup of my Helix, then did factory reset and then restore from the full backup. This issue went away. I have a feeling that just doing a restore would have fixed it as well, but a reset was done prophylactically. So try this out, and it should be resolved. Otherwise, it could be a hardware issue. Helix's firmware is very complex, and nobody at Line 6 can guarantee that all the different versions are completely compatible. Some new setting can get introduced, some new parameters are now different and then.... ERROR.

Create a full backup of your Helix. Save it on your computer. The full backup will contain your presets, which you can then upload after you upgrade.

You can connect one amp to "left" and another one to "right". Then you can save the stereo panning parameter, and assign it to snapshots. You can switch snapshots and have the stereo sound be panned hard-left or hard-right depending on which amp you want to use...

That's bizarre!! I can confirm that I do not have this ghost volume pedal syndrome. Just to confirm again. You start rocking the pedal and the volume fades in/out... If you don't want to accidentally switch your pedal between EXP 1/2, then you can just plug in a short patch cable to the external pedal, and plug it into an unused jack, such as your Send 1 or Send 2. This way your expression pedal will always be on EXP 1, the switch won't work. So you can do that until you figure out what the heck is going on.

Can you try a factory reset, but don't restore from your backup. And try the same experiment with a blank preset? Press the pedal in, and see if there is any volume drop, etc? Maybe this is some kind of a weird bug with HX Edit that is messing up the presets (not the first time). There have been multiple bugs in the past where when you restore presets, they affect unrelated presets. So let's try to rule out that first, by resetting the Helix to the factory settings, with all the factory presets.

Can you connect your Helix to the computer, run HX Edit, and take a screenshot what you have in the BYPASS/CONTROLLER ASSIGN section? If you have a New Preset, there should not be anything there. What you are describing is that you have some kind of a block (volume pedal) that is getting bypassed/un-bypassed when you use the toe switch. Try another blank preset, for example from USER 5 folder.

What to look out for? Bad foot switches that are barely working, that's for sure, loose/crooked expression pedal, things rattling inside.... I bought a mint "open box" Helix LT back in December of 2019 for $950 from eBay. I think you can find a better deal with the LT, where it's not going to be with green lines on the screen, etc. Maybe I got lucky, but I'm sure you can find something of higher quality and with less mileage for around the same amount. Helix typically sells for $1200, so something at $800 would be a red flag to me personally.