theElevators

I'm not touching this upgrade with a 10' pole I have a 4 week tour coming up... nope, no thanks. Line 6 is great at gaslighting users: "nobody is reporting this", when multiple forum users complained about knob #4.

3.50 update ate my homework...

Honestly, this is not a difficult DIY job -- you can take your Helix apart and clean out the switches. Some tips from me: watch a video on how it's done. Helix is built like your typical Chinese gadget: looks solid from the outside, but inside is all microscopic pcb stuff with cheap components. In particular, the little button plungers are not held by anything, if you flip the unit upside-down they will all fall and you will not find them. you need a big table with a towel for this job -- can't do it on your lap. I use Tupperware / bowls / shot glasses to store all the parts, like screws/bolts/nuts. Sort all your screws by height, etc. Take a picture of what's inside before you start taking things apart -- that way will know how it used to be. A tablet is very useful for these.

I cleaned my Helix LT: used liquid deoxIT on microswitches. It became as smooth as butter after that. I don't recommend WD 40 -- it's too messy. Anything in a can can spray all over the place, and you may wind up having trapped droplets/other stuff in your scribble strip screens. Plus I'm pretty sure that's how the repair shop killed one of the 1/2 LED lights -- by spraying stuff. That's why liquid deoxIT is easy -- one drop in, press the microswitch a bunch of times -- done. Don't need to use a towel to block the stuff from getting anywhere, and your LEDs won't get damaged.

And, I'm guessing you tried experimenting with the various parameters, like the X-fast is what I use. What exactly is the issue with the Helix's poly capo in your opinion? Just for fun, try other transposition blocks. Before 3.00, I used Pitch Wham and it was decent enough to transpose my guitar into D standard. Try out every single transposition thing that the Helix has and play around with parameters -- they can make a huge difference. Also, where in the chain do you keep it? Try in the beginning, and maybe even at the end of your chain (after the amp block). In my experience, Helix transposition is very accurate, so much so that I use a 3-voice harmonizer that I place after distortion/amp/cab. Try adding a compressor beforehand, etc... let us know!

Check that after you install 3.50, all your hardware still works! Check all knobs, buttons expression pedals. There have been some posts alleging that knob 4 stopped working after 3.50...

I had never used the pedals in the past for pitch adjustment. On the Helix, the Poly Capo is great. It tracks very well, there are settings to prioritize sound quality vs. low latency. I chose lowest latency -- for a live situation it is more than adequate. Even with low latency, you can still feel that it's there. Your body adjusts to it, but just worth pointing out that digital gadgets will always have latency... even digital keyboards, digital drums! My advice, if I may... if you are playing in Eb standard -- just tune to Eb standard. It will never feel as natural with any pedal or Helix. Helix poly poly pitch shifting is great if you all of a sudden need to play a Drop-B song or something like that. But not to play the entire set with that thing on. You will be sacrificing the feel. Helix already has (slight) latency due to digital signal processing, etc. The more pitch processing you add, the more latency you get on top of that. https://youtu.be/w73gKQzN0to take a look at my video using poly pitch on guitar...

Use 3.11. Problem solved. Line 6 has a lot of weird bugs some people experience, and yet others can never replicate. Like sole people say knob 4 stopped working after 3.5. How? Makes no sense. Why I’m staying with 3.11: *a ll my presets (60) work great with it; don’t have any need to update all 60 of them with dual cabs and then have to tweak everything all over again. * it's the most stable firmware version * ain’t broke, don’t fix

acoustic simulator is extremely sensitive... It's just how it is. I wish it weren't as sensitive. I spent a LOONG time dialing in my tone, and if I switch to an almost-identical guitar, it will sound horrible.

I have a Shure Wireless, but I have a list of things that can go wrong. 1) check the wireless transmitter cable. I have had that go bad where it works fine for most sounds, but on acoustic it sounds like garbage. The cable failed but was still working-ish, exactly like you described. So try changing every single cable in your chain: guitar->wireless; receiver->Helix. 2) check the gain of the the wireless -- if it's too gainy/not gainy enough, it can change your sound. Line 6 wireless have cable simulations "Cable Tone", where it muffles the sound as if you are running a 100-ft lead cable. Play with different cable simulation settings to see if the sound changes.

Use the volume knob on your guitar to clean up the sound. Add main effects to the remaining buttons that you can run in pedal board mode. To me, I can "limp" through my very complicated set with the following, just as an example 1) EQ for the solo sound 2) wah-wah 3) vibrato (the least crucial) The sound guy who lollipopped up your gear can add all the delays! If I absolutely have no way to control the sound on my processor, I will get some sounds if I ride the volume knob.... I used to play with distortion always on for a long time. I think with the functioning buttons that do work, you can compromise... what is the most important sound/sounds that you cannot live without.... and do that.

Well, for example, my lead sound consists of an EQ, delay and wah. I hit one button and all of those are on with snapshots. I hit another button, all of them are off. With stomp mode, I'd need to turn on all of them individually (unless all are again assigned to the same button....). I have 60 presets at this point with this approach.

Stomp mode has more permutations of all the effects potentially. I also don't see the point in it, snapshots are the way to go, if you use a preset-per-song approach. There should not be any case of not having enough snapshots to cover the sounds your song needs...

Command Center. Have a preset that allows you to select the #1 preset in each setlist.

You can order the exact replacement on Fullcompass.com Replacement LED on FullCompass: footswitch LED. 18-26-0011. You need to call them to place an order.

I didn't know about the whole impedance when I was building my presets. So I left it set to "auto" and never changed it. In my case, the first blocks in all presets happen to have impedance value of 1M. It sounds pretty good, and I tried experimenting with different values and did not like the results. In some cases certain notes started popping out. You can experiment with different values. Also, there's a glitch on the Helix that if you switch between 2 presets with different explicit impedance setting, it'll make an annoying loud sound -- something I definitely do not want or need. Here's a chart of the virtual impedance of various blocks: https://line6.com/support/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=10395

the polyphonic pitch shifter is good, but the lag is there.... For one song here-and-there it's more than adequate. I would not play an entire show in Standard Eb using the pitch block..

I just discovered this effect, and it's great! I was struggling trying to synchronize my tremolo effect to the tempo/rhythm of the song because it needed to be a particular speed.... now it slows down/speeds up and is never exactly on the grid, while preserving my needed tempo. Amazing.

I thought 3.5 allows you to switch the phase of IRs...

Also try loosening the pedal a little with the supplied hex wrench. If you are saying it's so tight that you can only move it to the bottom without applying a lot of force

Sounds like a hardware problem. Expression pedals like are optical: a light shines through an opening and interprets that as the percentage of the EXP pedal. If the opening is too wide, or if off-center, then it will appear as if it's not returning to 0. Best send it over to Line 6 for warranty repair / replacement.

hehe! But Line 6 folks added the Sunn amp and a few more useless effects nobody asked for. I knew they would not fix it. That'd been too easy. So I will stay on 3.11 @line_6_user good luck trying to convince others that it's a software bug.

I mean for your existing presets, do they sound the same or better? I doubt they do.

Check your global settings -- do you have your delay trails set to "transparent"? or "accurate"? Try "transparent" if that is not what you have. Between 2 snapshots you can have different delay tempos as well, which some people use to their advantage. So check if this is the case, as well. You may be disabling the delay, but the tap tempo is slower so it sounds very exaggerated. See my video explaining the delay tempo trick. https://youtu.be/5m-1tfnfreo

That's great to hear! However I will wait to update the firmware for another month or two. I have a gig, then a tour coming up, so I want to be 100% sure there are no issues. After every major update, there is always an immediate hotfix.... My philosophy is, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. TBH, I don't need anything that 3.50 has. But if the sound quality is indeed better, then it's worth checking out for sure. The left/mono bug getting fixed would be a nice bonus.