theElevators

Or just max out the feedback with an expression pedal.... same thing.

Tubes are overrated and are a placebo effect... Just get Mooer Baby Bomb + a single 12" speaker cab and call it done. I get all sorts of "tube-ey" sounds live.

You can set your tap tempo values per snapshot, so you can simply switch to a snapshot and change the tap tempo as needed. Re-enter the snapshot and the tap tempo is as you saved it. Additionally you can have 2 delay blocks -- one with BPMs, the other with millisecond values. One snapshot will use the delay block with BPMs, the other with ms: bypass/unbypass the 2 blocks as needed in your snapshots.

Make sure you don't have weird headphones with a microphone built-in. That could cause issues.

I'm not familiar with that amp... if it does have a master volume knob, then that's great. I set my Helix volume knob in such as way that at 12:00 -- 1:00 it's plenty loud, and if needed, I turn myself up/down throughout the show form the Helix. My Mooer also has a volume knob, but I taped it down and don't touch it.

Note: I do not bother having any split path where I remove the amp simulation or speaker simulation for the personal monitor mix. I take the same exact signal that I send to FOH and run it through the amp for stage volume. I have a global EQ that I sometimes use to take out the boominess that sometimes happens with some cabinets. During this tour, I did not engage the global EQ at all. The Fender Deluxe amp has no effects loop, so you can't use just the power amp of it without the preamp. So if the Baby Bomb died, I would just connect myself to the Fender Deluxe as is. If you have a Marshall combo amp, for example, it has an effects loop, and you can bypass the preamp and go to the power amp without much "coloration". Amps with an effects loop have: 1) send jack and 2) return jack. If you want to go to the power amp section of the amp, simply connect the signal from the processor to the "return" jack. Note, that most times there is no way to adjust the loudness when you do this, except on the Helix itself, so make sure you have plenty of headroom to make adjustments as needed. Some amps like the Fender-type amps are very clean, and they amplify the processed signal very nicely, even though you can't separate the preamp from the power amp. My 2nd choice of an amp for stage is Fender Twin Reverb. But honestly, for the stage size I play on, a single 12" speaker is PLENTY of volume, I would not ever need anything more than that, unless I start playing stadiums. A dual-speaker cabinet does not have the same focused sound for me as a single 12". I happened to dial things in right, so that I do not even need to compensate with any global EQ -- it sounds good, and more importantly feels familiar, like I'm playing through a guitar amp, not some kind of a monitor.

Now if they could improve the hardware, it'd be a great machine. Those footswitches are so cheap, an the EXP pedal always squeaks. Weirdly after I addressed the issues on 2 of my Helixes with the microswitches and the pedal, both units sort-of stabilized hahaha. Anyway, I just want a machine that I would not have to worry about for years and years. Sound-wise I'm happy with 3.11, and have no need to redo my 70 presets with 3.50 features.

I'm pretty sure that the sn is printed on the PCBs inside the Helix? Am I wrong?

Use the "coarse" tuner -- it's great. I can't stand the default fine tuner. It's too fidgety. I actively use the coarse tuner throughout my 2.5 hour show :) good enough for me.

@josehdx This is my setup. No microphones were used to reproduce my guitar sound. No 4-cable method was used. All the sounds are created by the Helix. Helix: Left XLR + Right XLR -> front of the house in stereo Helix: Left/Mono 1/4" -> power amp -> speaker .... to hear myself on stage and get feedback, and to feel the air move when I play guitar. I use the power amp + speaker as a personal monitor. I did not plug in the Fender Deluxe, I simply used it as a glorified speaker cabinet. Ironically, the "amp" portion of the combo amp was a backup, in case my (very portable) power amp should die.

Played my Helix direct to FOH, using Mooer Baby Bomb into the speaker of a Fender Deluxe amp for stage volume. Can't say enough great things about the Baby Bomb!! The Helix didn't let me down, but I took my LT as a backup. And it went a little bit something like this :)

you can instead save your tempo delays using milliseconds, that way the tap tempo does not affect what's already saved. Easy enough to find a conversion chart for the bpm to ms.

For me: Helix Floor has scribble strips, as mentioned already. They make it a lot easier to see in the dark, if you have an involved show. They are also a separate source of light on a dark stage as a bonus. Like I played one show where the stage light was completely out for about 10 seconds. I was able to navigate the stage thanks to having the Helix as my beacon of light :) Also, the Floor has a 10-stomp mode, that the LT does not have, plus more effects loops. Helix LT has a flimsier expression pedal. If you don't click the pedal in to switch between EXP 1/2, then the onboard pedal will last you just fine for years and years. LT has no scribble strips, but the performance view where the snapshot names are displayed on the screen is superior to the Helix Floor if you are playing outdoors. Scribble strips are more difficult to see if you are playing outdoors, compared to the "virtual" scribble strips that LT offers. If you don't plan on switching your sounds too much throughout your show, and you don't do all these dramatic dark stage moments where you emerge out of the fog and all that theatrics -- just get the LT. If you are worried about the expression pedal not being too robust, you can always get an external pedal and use that. Save yourself like 700 USD.

Installing a killswitch is not that difficult. I remember around 12 years ago, everybody was doing that--removing a tone knob on their guitar and putting in a kill switch. It's something that somebody can easily do if they're not afraid of opening up their guitar.

Well, that killswitch sound is basically tremolo. Go check a bunch of those effects and see what suits you the best. Set your tremolo mix to be 100%, so you have actual sound interruptions. You can also assign the rate parameter to the expression pedal and speed up the tremolo effect, or slow it down. Or you also can try the “bleat chop trem” block which alters the tremolo tempo for you. So maybe that will be more natural sounding for you. That’s about it.

I have an LT from 3 years ago, and it's held up better than a Floor that I also own! In terms of the expression pedal, it developed a loud squeak after about a year of me owning it. After using graphite spray, it's been quiet ever since. One more thing is I don't use the toe switch at all, as all of my presets are using EXP 2. I think switching from EXP 1 to EXP 2 with the toe switch may put an unnecessary strain on the entire construction of the pedal, it can be quite tough and for me the entire Helix tilts when I tied to press that toe switch in. So maybe all the early reported breakages were also partly due to people stepping onto the toe switch with the weight of their entire body. I made all of my presets work where certain effects are auto-engaged when I start rocking the pedal, or they are simply enabled/disabled in specific snapshots. Another advantage for using EXP 2 exclusively is that you can connect an external expression pedal and it will seamlessly work with all of the presets as external expression pedals are always and only EXP 2.

Or..... you can just go into the tuner, and press every single knob--that way they will reset to the factory settings.

Do you have a volume pedal in the presets?

It’s a neat feature to turn on your preset and have it default to whatever snapshot you saved. I use it all the time, personally. For example I put my harsh sounds in a specific spot in all presets. Some songs start with that harsh sound, some not. So it saves me a click to default to whatever the first sound is in that particular song. To default to something else just takes 2 mouse clicks in HX Edit.

The simplest thing to do is to use the same basic chain in all your presets. Sure, you can have all different types of overdrives/distortions/octavio's between songs theoretically. In practice, when you do a sound check, the sound guy sets you up for one preset. Deviating from the basic signal chain is a recipe for unexpected volume jumps, EQ inconsistencies and so on. I use the same basic distortion/amp setup in all my presets and that definitely simplifies things a great deal. When I first tried using an acoustic sim, it was such a nightmare! At home it sounded nice and round, but on stage during the sound check, all of a sudden there was way too much bass, and it appeared too loud all of a sudden. Good thing I had an EQ block that I had added at the end of the chain, and I was able to dial in my acoustic/electric balance very well. So there you go: even though you can, don't have drastically different signal chains between your presets, that's speaking from experience.

I've taken apart my Helix LT and put DeoxIT on the microwsitches. That made them less clicky. The buttons themselves are still as noisy as before, just the click is less loud. What you can instead do is use the expression pedal to control some things whenever it has to be absolutely dead-quiet.

Hey gang! I made a short video recently about how I set my presets to make them as dummy-proofed as possible. I've taken my Helix on the road many times so far, and here are some of the recommendations that I have.

Only on a Variax guitar/bass you can change the tuning. Otherwise, as others have mentioned, there is no way to downtune only one string on a conventional guitar. Try the poly capo feature, however. You may be able to rework your songs/parts to be able to play in low B-tuning. Here's a video where I show how to create low tuning of the entire guitar digitally.

If you don't want to use snapshots for some reason, you can assign the block to a stomp button as well. Press the button and you have reduced gain.

On guitar, I use a volume pedal fixed at 10% position. It cleans up my sound. Rather than turning my distortion off, I always clean up the sound with a physical or virtual volume knob/pedal instead. You can use the same approach: 1) add a volume pedal 2) make it fixed: select the "position" parameter. It's pre-selected with Expression Pedal 2. Set it to "none". 3) set the percentage to 10% 4) create a snapshot where this is enabled. This will be your "HOT BASS" snapshot. Alternatively, you can also use another input, like Return 1, 2, 3, 4... and set it to be of lower volume than your main input. I created a little video you can follow: