theElevators

With any radio system, you need to scan for a channel before you use it. Especially live. Always. I personally use the Shure GLXD16+, and it's pretty solid on 5.8GHz. Previously I've used the older generation of the Shure system, and on 2.4Ghz it was pretty solid as well... but every once in a while it started to lose signal, while still functional: the signal light would sometimes keep blinking.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/8vsyuiehgd6ofjryw6g9q/Line6-Helix-Model-and-DSP-Summary-3-70.pdf?rlkey=k3yyscizqbi1z80ozmo6gsihi&e=1&dl=0 You can see all amp info in the link. I'm afraid a Line 6 original is a one of a kind :)

In my extensive experience with the Helix, there are no outside pedals that provide any sonic benefit. Having an external compressor allows you to adjust your input volume and level, something that the Helix does not have in the global sense. So I guess you would be able to use your presets with guitars that have different output level, e.g.: telecaster, EMG-equipped superstrat. Helix has absolutely everything, minus certain specific glitchy distortion/fuzz pedals. I love the legacy tube compressor in the Helix, it's very simple. Contrary to how most people would do this int the real world, I place my compressor between the amp and the cab block. Depending on the need, I also sometimes place a 10-band EQ to really clean up my sound for those nice sustain-y cleans. I set it so that the loudness of the compressor is the same with it on or off; the other "compressing" parameter I leave to the default setting. Another thing I had to do is turn down the "ripple" of the amp, because the compressor was really amplifying it. I actually assigned it to snapshots: set it to the regular value when the compressor is bypassed, and set it to 0 when the compressor is turned on. This gives me the best clean sounds. But, again, there is no reason (with minor exceptions) to use external pedals if you have a machine as complete and powerful as the Helix. Simpler is better.

On the Helix, there was a bug for a long time, where you need to temporarily plug something into the right, then unplug, and only then left/mono is actually mono. Give that a try. (I'm not a HX One owner).

That's exactly the point I tried to make :) If you are just practicing at home, balanced or regular cables will give you the same results. But if you are playing on stage with lights, other cables nearby and the cables need to go from the stage all the way to the mixer for 200 ft, then balanced cables / XLRs help minimize the interference.

Pod Go is a simplified processor, so it doesn't have all the different output level settings that the Helix Floor / LT has. So what you see is what you get, only 2 volume settings. You can set what the volume knob affects -- check Global Settings. If I am playing a gig, I leave the main levels up to the sound guy -- that's why the main out L/R do NOT change with the volume knob. However, for my own personal monitor mix, I like to sometimes turn myself up/down. That's why the volume knob affects ONLY "amp out" for me. When I start playing a show, it takes me a couple of songs to get my on stage loudness right. During this adjustment, the front of the house should not get louder or softer, as you understand. Regarding XLR... again... TRS is the same thing as XLR, just different form factor. But sound guys are more likely to be able to accommodate XLR jacks, because they already do that with microphones. Sometimes there are like 15 microphones on stage, so the sound guys have necessary cables, snakes, etc for them. TRS was phased out in favor of XLR because XLRs do not have any pops/crackles when you plug/unplug your gear. As you pull out the TRS cable, the loud pop is inevitable... not the same with XLR where all the pins come out at once. So the lack of the noise when plugging/unplugging is the real advantage of XLR, plus the fact that it's more commonly used ... again due to the same reason. But the advantage of TRS is that the same jack works with regular mono 1/4" cables as well as these noise-cancelling stereo cables, and it takes up less space on your cheaper guitar processor.

It's a cheap device, not for serious musical performances. It sounds great, but everything in it is second rate: cheap scratchy buttons, garbage actuators, expression pedal... I think maybe the "expression pedal" jack has a mind of its own, not the pedal itself. As you know, you can add an external expression pedal to your Pod Go. Maybe try plugging a short patch cable into "external pedal" and short-circuit it... I plug in a 1/4" inch cable into the Send jack... that way Pod Go always thinks I have an external pedal plugged in and never switches the onboard pedal to "exp 2". Maybe give that a try? I use this hack so that the expression pedal never switches between exp 1 and exp 2.

There are 3 different output ranges: Mic < Instrument < Line. Mic has the lowest output. But you can take the output that is "Instrument" and turn it down so it would be the same as Mic. Sound engineers recommend sending mic-level output to the FOH, so there is minimized distortion/clipping. But you can just as easily send Instrument level or Line level. It's just that there is a higher likelihood of the signal being too hot and clipping/distorting. But if you build your presets where your presets are not louder than your blank "New Preset" presets, there will not be any difference. Unless you record in the studio it won't matter if your signal is hotter than mic. Now... regarding "balanced" jacks. It's very simple. XLR is the same thing as Balanced Outs, just different plug. You have regular 1/4" cables; they can get all sorts of interference if you run them a long distance. Then you have XLR cables: In an XLR cable, the opposite wave is the inverted signal that is added to the original signal to cancel out noise. So you are sending over two signals over a long distance without any hum or buzz: the normal and the inverted.... and it works like the humbucker that cancels the 60-cycle hum basically when the two signals are combined. Pod Go does NOT have XLR outputs, but instead supports balanced 1/4" cables, also known as "TRS", also known as a "stereo 1/4" cable". Both XLR and TRS offer the same thing, it's just that their jacks and plugs look different. Both XLR and TRS transmit 2 signals instead of one. So, you can purchase an XLR-TRS adapter and you will be able to plug in XLR cables into your Pod Go. I've played several shows with my Pod Go, and I did the following: 1. Send Left/Right TRS to FOH, using TRS-XLR adapters. 2. Set the 1/4" out to the lowest volume setting; the volume for Left/Right is fixed, the volume knob only controls the Amp Out 3. Connected Amp out to a clean amp. I did not disable the cab sim. That's how I recommend running Pod Go.

Here's pretty much the same thing explained here (vid from a few years ago). Except always remove the snapshot bypass if you have want to control the bypass state of the block(s) with the expression pedal. Otherwise I've had issues where the blocks' bypass state can get flipped... very very rarely.

If you only use snapshots and do not want to use the stomp mode or the command center, then momentary switching does not exist in snapshots. But in stomp mode you can definitely assign anything and have it turn on in momentary mode. Some people have the top row of their buttons control stomps, or mix and match with the command center... I personally never use the stomp mode. I use the snapshots exclusively. If I need a quick solo boost, I would simply assign it to the expression pedal. The exp. pedal can control things like the wah contour, volume, or simply act as an on/off switch if you use the percentage-based bypass assignment. It's easier for me personally to engage/disengage and I use it all over the place in all different snapshots. For example, in one snapshot the expression pedal will control the "Freeze" effect. In the other, it will be wah. In a third it will be a solo boost. So I frequently assign things that I tend to constantly turn on/off to the expression pedal. If I did the same thing with the footswitches, they would have been worn out within a week. The exp. pedal is big and robust and it's right there. So it's easier for me to "find it" when I'm playing a show. If it makes sense.... So in your example, I would take a gain block and place it after the amp/cab. I would assign the "gain" value to snapshots. In one particular snapshot where I need the boost to happen, I would go in and change the gain to be +5 db, everywhere else it would be +0 db. Then I would remove the snapshot bypass assignment of the block. And finally I would assign the bypass assignment to EXP pedal 1: over 5% it would get turned on, and under 5% it would get turned off, without any wait time. So in the end, I will have the gain block that always gets turn on/off with my expression pedal. But if the gain block does not have any db boost, then you will not hear the difference, it will sound identical: bypassed or not. In one specific snapshot, where we change the gain to be +5db, you will hear it. As part of the solo boost, you can also add a delay. It doesn't have to be only one thing. you can assign many things to the same exp pedal: something gets turned on, something gets turned off. I do it all the time.

Check all cables. All of them. If they are older than 3 years, definitely throw them out, or leave it for home rehearsals. That's what I do, I throw all the stuff out after some time because I cannot afford to have a fun diagnostic session on stage during my show. All I'm saying, is sometimes you can attribute a cable going bad to hardware failure. Let me give you 2 examples of what I have seen myself: 1. I was playing a show on a very very hot stage. My setup was guitar->wah->distortion->amp. All of a sudden I started experiencing fade-outs in my sound. I'm playing, and it's getting softer, then louder. I thought the amp was dying... Long story short: it was the 1/4" cable that got un-soldered due to the heat on stage, and the amp being very very hot. 2. Another time I was practicing for my shows at home. All of a sudden on my Helix, all my acoustic emulator sounds began to sound extremely brittle, fizzy, and noisy. Very strange that all other sounds were seemingly fine. Long story short--it was the 1/4" input cable again!

I just opened a support ticket.

Is this while running HX Edit? For me, it often crashes my Helix and it becomes unresponsive.

Something is wrong with the power amp. It probably sends the current back to the Helix somehow, and that causes the XLR output to malfunction?? Or maybe it's taking up so much juice that there is not enough power left for the Helix. You know how when you turn on your AC at home, your lights get dimmer? lol As a software developer would, test out all the following: 1. change the 1/4" cable 2. try using a regular guitar combo amp instead of a power amp, see if the same thing happens. 3. Try ground lift. 4. Try having power amp and Helix be on different power sources, or different rehearsal space.

I'm curious if you are using HX Edit when this happens. For me HX Edit frequently crashes and I sometimes cannot even change my presets on my Helix after it's crashed. I'm pretty sure a few times my Helix became completely unusable when I was building presets. Simply re-opening HX Edit on my Mac makes everything go back to normal. I do have pretty complicated presets, so maybe that's what trips up HX Edit. I have been using my Helixes for almost 5 years, and both of them started doing this after I updated the firmware to 3.71. Until recently I was on 3.11 and it was extremely stable. Also, if you bought your unit used, there could have been some presets with various issues. So as was suggested, try the factory reset.

On the Helix Floor, you have a microphone input jack which is XLR, that has phantom power for it (you can enable it in the global settings). You need phantom power if you have a condenser microphone, otherwise it simply doesn't produce any sound. For the regular passive microphone (SM-58, etc), you can just run the mic into one of your inputs such as Return 1, 2, etc. So if you have a Helix LT and a mic that doesn't need juice, you are all set to go. You can buy an XLR-to-1/4" cable, which will connect your microphone to the Helix's Return jack. Or you can even buy an adapter from XLR to 1/4". On the Helix you have 2 paths by default: one for each DSP chip. So if you need 2 sources, you can configure one path for guitar, the other for microphone. If you have a smaller device like Stomp XL, you can also have 2 paths, but you will be sharing one DSP between both paths, so the number of blocks will be limited, and will be 1/2 of what's possible on the Helix LT (roughly). To create a preset with multiple inputs, you can easily do that by following tutorials available online, including a little video I made 4 years ago. For each path, you can choose whether the resulting signal comes out of all outputs, or only specific ones, such as Send 1. https://youtu.be/Dqq930qz6ks?si=TKEPqZZnjCPzRF7S Although the Helix allows you to process multiple things at the same time, I wound up not doing it for live performances. It's best to leave this sort of stuff to the sound guy. But it's nice to know that this is perfectly possible, and maybe for small coffee shop gigs, this can be useful. Just not for professional stages, because it's a good idea to let the sound guy control the mic, so it doesn't feed back, so it's EQ'ed properly. Guitar sound is less finicky as the microphone, which potentially does weird things on each stage you play. So a preset that you dialed in at home may need to be tweaked for the live environment, including during the show. Also, I do use the various inputs on the Helix when I record things in my home studio, for example recording vocals, trumpet, violin with my condenser microphone. I don't even own a sound interface, so the Helix takes care of all my recording needs!

If I were to guess, the encoder went bad. Try taking off the preset-changing knob and spray it with some contact cleaner. Shouldn't make this situation worse, only better.

Heya. I use the 3-tone generator in a few presets. If you are interested, here's my "Hammond organ" pad trick. You can add all sorts of modulation to it and make it sound like anything you want, really.

I think you're overthinking it. Helix can fail at some point for sure, but that should be extremely rare. If you want to run 2 Helixes, do you also plan on connecting all the cables as well (XLR, 1/4")? IMO that's overkill, unless you're playing the equivalent of the Superbowl where you cannot afford a single second of downtime. I personally have 2 Helixes with me: Floor and LT as a backup. I set up a spare guitar for myself that I keep close by on a guitar stand, tuned up and ready to go just in case, including its own wireless transmitter. I keep my backup LT in the backpack. And in case something happens to my main Helix, I'd just take it out and connect it. There's no end to what can fail. Gotta just prioritize and be covered. But... What if the main PA's amplifiers get fried? What if the digital mixing console for the venue gets fried... What if the venue loses power? I think: just have a backup ready, but setting up 2 Helixes at the same time is just too much and unneeded. You should simply cover yourself for things that tend to happen more frequently, like broken strings. :)

I have a bunch of tone tutorials on my channel as well.

Or you can add an additional distortion block to have it so that it doesn't change the tone, but adds an obscene amount of gain. I prefer that, because it behaves like normal gear does: sometimes unpredictable, but always feeding back.

I personally let the sound guys scoop out all the frequencies as they need. It's better to have it there than not, that's my philosophy. Sometimes the EQ will need to change to better suit a specific venue. If you remove frequencies you cannot then really bring them back when you need to, right? I got my guitar sound to a point where in mixing monitors it sounds good at home. I also invited a sound guy, who checked with the frequency spectrum analyzer (some kind of an EQ app) to say that the sound is good, and can be worked with. Other than that, I just use my own ears. Even still, the only time you can be sure that all the sounds are good is when you do a sound-check at the venue. Sometimes certain snapshots can have problematic frequencies due to the effects that you use. That's why all the big bands rehearse in big spaces. They rent out theaters/warehouses for days to really test out the equipment. Mixing monitors are great. For example, I recently discovered that some of my sounds have really noticeable low-end hum (caused by an amp being run through a compressor and amplifying the "ripple"). There is absolutely no way I would have been able to hear it if I didn't have the mixing monitors. I would have only discovered it during a sound check and would have been faced with having to fix that noise that could potentially have been really problematic live. I rarely use the EQ to shape my sound with 3 exceptions: 1. fake acoustic guitar (not the sim), where I take the guitar sound, boost it and remove several parasitic frequencies including the bottom ones. 2. solo boost, where I boost 2K to taste. and then 3. very rarely Global EQ, when that is needed for the stage volume. Other than that, I use the tone controls of the virtual amps to make sure my sound doesn't have that "Metallica" low-end, and no extreme highs that are just fizz/hissing. In terms of applying EQ to my signal, I do have a Global EQ that I sometimes need to use for my stage volume (un-mic'ed). Some venues are not big enough, and the amp on stage can negatively affect the overall mix. In those situations, I use the Global EQ, and the sound guy can guide me through it. I don't like it! but sometimes it needs to be done. I'm no mixing expert, but a quick search gave me guidance how to EQ guitar when mixing records. The same principle should be applied when running guitar live as well. You don't need boomy lows that just conflict with the bass drum / bass. https://ekmixmaster.com/how-to-equalize-distorted-electric-guitar.html

For all these auto-engaged sounds, it's a good idea to have a "panic" snapshot where the effect is mixed at 0%.

Also set the mains out to the lowest volume setting. And have your volume knob control the amp out only.

BTW, you can just press both buttons on the right together: Mode and Tap Tempo. That will toggle whether you see the virtual scribble strips or the signal path view. Regarding what is displayed by default, this behavior can be changed by fiddling with the global settings: Go to the touch sensitivity settings, and change one of the settings... it's pretty random. Then change it back. It should change the behavior you describe and start showing the signal path view by default. I had the opposite problem and that's how I solved it, by playing around with those settings. For me I didn't want it to show the signal path view, but instead the stomp box / snapshot view. Once I got it to work how I wanted, I don't mess with the touch sensitivity settings. And several updates later, no issue for me. To me there is absolutely no point looking at my signal path... unless I'm tweaking my presets, which I tend to do on the computer.