theElevators

My lazy method of cleaning the footswitches is as follows: 1. put the Helix so that the buttons are perpendicular to the floor (prop it up with something) 2. add a generous amount of Liquid DeoxIt to every button (about 4 applications) 3. Press each button slowly, then add more contact cleaner for about 4 rounds in total 4. Contact cleaner will drip down and eventually reach the actuators, but only if the Helix is propped up so that the buttons are perpendicular to the floor 5. Wait for a few hours 6. Take a vacuum cleaner and vacuum all the excess contact cleaner from each button, wipe the button with a paper towel, until the buttons are completely dry. You need to do this a few times, until you see no more contact cleaner coming out. 7. Flip the Helix upside-down, so the buttons are facing the floor, and are again perpendicular to the floor, wait a few hours 8. Any remaining excess DeoxIt wil ooze out 9. Vacuum the excess some more as in step 6. I personally can confirm that this method works. I started having a footswitch issue again, it was not as bad as before, but it had to be pressed slightly harder than when it was new. This method fixed it for me. This method may leave a mess inside the unit, but I personally don't care. Out of sight, out of mind.

On Helix Floor, you can use the "10-stomp" mode. If you enable 10-stomp mode on your Helix Floor, you can now reposition all your buttons (except mode and tap/tuner). You can use the left-most buttons for other things and put your up/down buttons somewhere else, so it's more convenient for you. Perhaps you'd want to put your up/down buttons on the top left side, so it's out of the way. To set up what all your buttons do, use the Command Center. CC allows you to map up what all the buttons do, you can mix and match presets/snapshots/stomps. It's extremely versatile. This view is custom for every preset, meaning that if you want to reposition your buttons and have that layout be consistent, you would need to do it in every preset. And also, this view is your "stomp" view. So if you press the mode button and go back into your preset view, you will see the up/down buttons in their usual place. I use the 10-button stomp view myself on my Helix Floor. I simply replicate the familiar layout, but I remove the up/down buttons, they are blank. I do this so that if I'm playing a song that uses all snapshots, I can hit the mode button and the up/down buttons disappear. As a bonus, the same exact hack works for Helix LT, although it was not intended for it. Watch my video to see how I remove the up/down buttons. https://youtu.be/UTQ8wJaXZnc?si=fHRWVLse4_Lq6yQ5

You can do a number of things: 1. you can swell up your distortion with an expression pedal. The distortion amount/volume can be controlled by it. 2. you can have an intermediate "swelling" snapshot, which I show in the video (below)

I can confirm that 2.82 had a ton of bugs. I was relieved that they were addressed in the subsequent releases. Please update your firmware, otherwise this is reporting bugs from 5 years ago. @PeterHammsorry accidentally down-voted your response earlier.

Here's another video of mine where I go through some more of my gimmicks.

Forget about factory presets. Create your own. Put blocks in a crazy counter-intuitive order. So many options!

To make signals louder/softer, simply add a gain block, and boost the sound as much as you want...

Honestly, to avoid confusion, have 2 wah blocks: one for 2 cocked wah sounds, and another one for conventional wah usage. So in the first block: remove the expression pedal assignment completely, and instead take the wah % and assign it to snapshots. You can enable this first wah block in snapshots 1 and 2, have it be engaged with a specific value. Then have the 2nd wah block and use it as auto-engaged wah. What I like to do is use the mix parameter of the wah--it's very simple. Just assign the mix parameter of wah 2 block to snapshots. Save it as 0% and the wah 2 is inaudible, even if it turns on for snapshots 1 and 2. Then for the snapshot 3, set the mix at 100%. That way, if you start rocking your expression pedal, you won't have 2 wah blocks on at the same time. Helix allows you to repurpose one block for many things, but I find it is much easier to use multiple blocks, if you can. The easier, the better. Cheers!

try factory presets first.

How does it behave on a new blank preset in snapshot view? For your "new preset" preset, the buttons should all glow in red when you activate a snapshot. You can also test the LEDs are working:

You must really push that knob/button in a lot, or your case is damaging it. Maybe the gig bag, or the case is applying constant pressure to the encoder/knob when the Helix is inside. I almost never press those buttons: save, presets, amp, etc, or the joystick. They are extremely flimsy. Before I go to my gig, I leave my Helix in the correct set list. I also order my presets at home (unless the singer decides to change the order at the last second). I do all of that on the computer, using HX Edit. Same applies to building my presets--HX Edit is the way to go.

FRFRs are all terrible IMO. It will sound like a wedge monitor. It will not chug or move air. Want a guitar cabinet feel? Get a guitar cabinet and power it by a power amp. The post below goes over what works for me.

Is it a stereo delay? Just curious.

Play around with the different volume settings for the effects loop (instrument, line)

In my 5+ years of Helix ownership, presets never sound worse after an update. Everything sounds exactly the same, maybe even better when oversampling was introduced. The only explanation is that your global settings got reset from what you used to use prior to the update. These can be the input pad, output levels. That's why it's good to always back up your Helix religiously. Also for the latest firmware update, there was an initial bug with HX Edit, where it messed up the global settings. So if you are now experiencing weird behavior, please update HX Edit to the latest version with the fix. Line 6 released a fix for this issue shortly after releasing 3.8. Also there was a pesky Left/Mono not being mono, but instead only the left side.... bug (until you plugged something into the right side, then unplugged it). This bug got seemingly fixed for good. So it could be that you are now getting left/mono mixdown and it sounds unusual to you.

On the Helix, unity is the volume knob on max. You also have different level settings for your effects loops, 1/4" out, XLR out (mic, instrument, line). For 4-cable method, line makes the most sense. To overdrive your tubes better, you can even use a compressor, or a gain block.

There are many ways to connect your Helix. Helix offers "balanced" (noise-free) XLR outputs and "non-balanced" (potentially noisy) 1/4" outs. When you record or play live, you want the balanced outputs to go to the mixing console to avoid any degradation of your sound. Then you can use what's left -- 1/4" for your personal monitor mix. Helix and other guitar modellers have an ability to create a sound of an amp/cab being mic'ed up with a virtual microphone. That is very convenient, as there is no reason to blast a physical amp/cab on stage for that great sound. So simply run that signal to the sound guy, and use a speaker cab onstage to hear yourself and get feedback, etc. To clarify, balanced output is basically like the humbucker for sound signal cables, two signals cancel out the hum. Instead of one signal, you have 2. XLR jacks already have that extra pin that takes care of the noise. There are also 1/4" cables that have balanced outputs called TRS--they are basically stereo 1/4" cables. Pod Go for example has balanced 1/4" instead of XLR, and you can get the same noise canceling effect by plugging cables into yoru TRS jacks (you can even use TRS-XLR adapters). But Helix only has balanced XLR outputs, 1/4" are non-balanced. I recorded a bunch of stuff simply using 1/4" outs, because the place where I recorded didn't have XLR cables, and it worked out just fine. Balanced outs usually solve the occasional potential noise problem when the cables are traveling a long distance and there are outside factors (lighting, other signals). So in summary, how I set up my sound, and most people do: 1. XLR L/R straight to the mixer (set at mic level). Volume knob doesn't affect it 2. 1/4" L/Mono to my power amp for a personal mix. I can turn myself up/down with the volume knob. This is the same exact signal (including amp/cab sim).

The easiest and most bulletproof way is to have the same exact signal chain throughout your presets (minus different delays, chorus, reverb). In the practical sense, you absolutely should not change your sound drastically between songs, otherwise it will be a nightmare for the sound guy. Even if you level your presets in terms of loudness, due to the nature of how sound works in a band context, there will be volume discrepancies because of how each distortion pedal/amp are EQ'ed. You can have 2 presets be the same loudness, but one uses a Vox AC30, while the other uses a Marshall, and they will behave completely differently. Oftentimes, these differences will be apparent only when you play through a powerful PA. Depending on how the sound person sets your sound, these differences will be different each time. Imagine instead of having one sound check, having 20 different sound checks--one for each one of your potential sounds. Each preset is essentially its own independent rig, and in order for guitar to be sitting in the mix correctly, each rig has to be sound-checked and adjusted independently. So bottom line: pick a setup and stick with it. Just because you can have different amps in every song, doesn't mean you should. Even going from one pickup on your guitar to another will give you a different sound, so minimize these differences by sticking with the same basic preset, and only add certain colors/variations. Take it from me, I've toured with my Helix extensively and know what to avoid. The last thing you need is scrambling at sound check.

It is possible to do it. Any parameter, or on/off state of the block can be assigned to the position of the expression pedal. Use the bypass assign functionality in HX Edit, or you can even use the learn function. So you can have your wah turn on if it's past 5%, and less than 5% it turns off either immediately, or between 0--1000 milliseconds. Plenty of tutorials how to do that.

Input pad is fixed to be exactly -12 db. Quite useless IMO to have something so drastic. What if you want something less severe? Line 6 decided to not give users the option of how much of a pad it's providing--stupid! Do what others have suggested--add a simple volume block and match the two instruments' levels. Each instrument is different. Simply leveling up a Jazz Bass on the bridge pickup against a fat hollow body EB0 is apples to oranges. In other words, you need to play with the levels, use your ears, and simply identify where to set the volume so they are matched. Analyzing the db level is not enough, since the EQ is going to be different. I have 3 guitars, and I manually matched them all. For example, I know that if I want to use a different guitar at the gig as opposed to my usual one I'd need to add a 3db boost at the beginning of the chain. To identify how much to add or cut, I have a certain preset that has a very specific envelope filter. I know that sound very well. So I basically play the same passage and find the ideal setting where every one of my 3 guitars trigger that one envelope filter the same way. Even still, each guitar has a different EQ, and cleans up better/worse... Each guitar model has its own character and color. This is to be expected unless you have 3 identically-spec'ed guitars. also FYI..

I just needed to kill the hum that the record player always produces and EQ the sound so that it has a nice satisfying bottom. I will experiment some more I guess.

POD Go has an identical processing engine as the Helix. You have all the same blocks as on the big Helix, except some DSP-heavy effects are not supported yet. Also in terms of firmware versions, it's a few versions behind. But I was able to recreate my sound very easily on the Pod Go. The only thing is the tactile switches and the footswitch design is absolute garbage. My review of Pod Go is here:

I have this cheap turntable, and it has no EQ whatsoever. So I decided to macgyver it--RCA Left/Right are going into my Return 1/2 on the Helix. Then in the Helix I process each channel separately, apply noise gate, 3-band compressor, EQ, and I output it out to my mixing monitors. I know some think it's blasphemous to do that, but it works for for me. BTW, vinyl records have been pretty much digital since 1979, when a digital delay started being used in the record cutting process: direct signal is used to pre-measure how wide the groove needs to be, while the signal from the digital delay is what is cut on the record itself. And then recording was digital since the 1980s, especially all the classical music... Anyway, I have a bunch of old vinyl I'm listening to and it sounds fantastic through the Helix...

Maybe you were sold the wrong one, regarding noise. I used it live with no issue.

Then downgrade to the previous version. There is not anything that is worth upgrading to 3.8 IMO. One bass wah, and one amp... No reason to always upgrade to the latest. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.