theElevators

I'm curious, what exactly you are missing in the firmware? At this point, except very few esoteric specific delays, amps, the Helix has everything. I would rather they spend time fixing bugs, and audio glitches, like the popping noises when you switch your amp on/off for example.

I opened a ticket for this, as I need to have two sounds, 2 snapshots: 1. -> distortion -> amp -> delay 2. -> volume boost (gain block) + 8 db -> reverb -> amp So I alternate between having a distortion on, gain block off to... distortion off, gain block on. + some reverb/delay. The 2nd sound needs to be a lot louder than 1, hence the need for the gain block. If I bypass my distortion pedal, the way I have my signal chain, the sound level gets cut in half, so I need to boost the signal back up. The awful popping noise happens when I switch between "2" and "1". Also curiously the trails of the reverb are not heard when I switch between 2 and 1, despite them being "on". I've isolated this issue down to the gain block. With the block in the chain, the popping is extremely loud, but ONLY if I play something on the guitar in the middle of switching.

This transmitter/receiver has 0 latency. You can connect it to the outdoor speaker if you want. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B097PCY5X4/

thanks! Yeah, I've seen this video. Just want to understand if the switches tend to all slowly fail one-by-one, or if they can somehow "break in" and become more dependable? My older LT (that I bought used) has all the buttons working just fine. I use it a lot more than the Floor, which I got specifically for the gigs, in order to not have it abused unnecessarily. Other than the cracked plastic ring that I glued, absolutely no issues with the LT. It also feels more smooth when I press the buttons, whereas on the Floor there's more scratchy/squeaky sounds when you press the buttons. As of right now, If I wear my Vans sneakers, and press buttons normally, everything is fine on the Floor. If I wear flip-flops that I wear at home, sometimes the switch does not occur. Like it clicks, but the engagement does not happen. I'm aware that the clicking does not mean the actuator was actually triggered. So, now what?... I can't send it to Line 6, because it all works 99% of the time NOW... Unless I use my hand and slowly press it, then there are times when the button fails to engage completely. They will look at it and say there is no issue, or better yet say they fixed it without doing anything to it. This is such a weird thing, as I spent a significant sum of money on 2 Helixes, hoping to have them be.. dependable, and not have a fear of equipment failure in the middle of the show. Why can't we have things just work for god's sake.... arrrrr

Just a word of caution: do not loosen it all the way, you may need to take the back plate off to fix the bolt if you do. Just loosen it by a hair.

Phew! Hey gang: So I started noticing the dreaded FS flakiness on my Helix. I don't know if this is considered "normal", but if I press a foot switch very SLOWLY, the switch does not occur. This is happening on the Helix Floor. I think I seem to remember that on my Helix LT, there were some times where the switch did not occur right away, but that problem seemingly went away. I took liquid DeoxIT and applied it to all the foot switches, and rotated the buttons as if to clean the contacts. I don't think it helped the problem. So any suggestions, besides opening a ticket with Line 6, etc? PS: and of course as with all these problems, now all my foot switches are again working fine. Maybe DeoxIT helped after pressing them multiple times... FML thanks, d.

Well, you will see brackets around all your parameters that can change in snapshots. Also you will see a list of things that can be changed in snapshots by going to "Bypass/control assign" section of your HX Edit. There you will se a list of all the parameters that are controlled by snapshots. So if a block has a parameter in that list, then that block is what you are looking for.

In my case, my Helix is connected to the monitors via 1/4" outs. The USB cable is connected to the laptop. Music can be played on the computer, and you will hear it through the Helix, coming out of the monitors. On your Mac, once you connect the Helix with the USB, you can select audio input/output and Helix will be available. So basically Helix becomes an external sound card for the Mac. I also have my monitors connected to the computer. Then I have a switch where I can select the input source for the monitors. I have a very simple a/b box with variable volume control for that. Basically I can combine the Helix sound with what's coming out of the commuter with this little a/b box/mixer. But this way, I don't even need to bother with the USB cable, and can mix the 2 signals however I want.

Instead, try this legacy effect. I place it after the amp/cab. The best thing about this block is that it doesn't need to be "reset" between notes. This setting works for me for distorted sound, for long-ish notes.

I added it as the 2nd last thing in the chain. The last block is a delay. But again, please check how it sounds in mono for you -- meaning you have a stereo preset where you add this effect to, but check how your entire rig sounds in mono. I always check all my presets in mono and instereo, to make sure, that should I ever need to play a gig where there is no option for stereo, the balance would not be screwed up. I ran the stereo block with default settings, except I turned down the "SLOP' to 0 or 1. I did an A/B test: added the stereo block, and enabled/disabled it, when I had: a) 2 monitors connected to the Helix, enabling/disabling the block had no noticeable volume jumps. Pretty much just made the sound "wider" and in stereo. b) Left only the left/mono monitor connected. When the same stereo block was engaged, the perceived volume dropped by around 5 db. So somehow this block is behaving differently when the rig is in mono vs. stereo. I suspect that the 2 stereo channels when mixed down cancel each other out in mono, due to phasing.

If you have 1/2 the power of a Helix, you will need to learn to make certain compromises. You can consolidate things, and get rid of blocks you can replace with something else. Rather than using a distortion pedal, and an EQ pedal, you can change the settings on the amplifier block--that way you just saved some DSP. Every parameter of a block is assignable to snapshots. That means that when you change your snapshot, you can conjure different sounds out of the same amp block. The best thing is that one amp block can produce many different sounds, e.g. clean, clean lead, dirty, dirty lead. You can change the parameters of any bock in the snapshots, in our example, you can change the gain, volume, and lows/mids/highs of the amp within the same preset, for different snapshots.

Modulation / Double Take. This is supposed to sound like 2 guitar tracks for the same track, or 3 or 4, etc. I like the way it sounds, but there's a caveat: with stereo doubler, when you mix down to mono, there are phasing issues! To the point of the sound losing decibels.

I just added "double take" in stereo to my chain, and that made the acoustic sound more 3d and sustain-y. I think I'm happy now.

Unrelated to your question, but I struggled with the auto-swell block. It's quite awful in my experience. I needed to have loud volume swells on long notes without using a volume pedal, or volume knob. Auto-swell just was too finicky and unreliable. The main issue is that no matter what I did it just would not release the note properly, and it would get sort-of stuck, unless I made sure to really mute the first note with my hand before playing the second one. I tried every single combination of the settings, and nothing worked as I needed it to. What I found works extremely well instead is delay/Legacy/Auto-volume Echo. Somebody from this forum suggested that actually. Here are the settings that I use. I place this block after the the amp/cab.

I never use noise gate... but the one that is "built in" into the input block with default settings works flawlessly. Give it a try. I use single coils, but never ever had a reason to use the noise gate to date.... I use Burns TriSonic, maybe they are not as noisy as what you have.

I practice at home and at home I have 2 studio monitors plugged into left and right. Every once in a while I check whether the bug comes back by leaving only left/mono plugged in and rebooting my Helix. After a few days/weeks the issue resurfaces. If I do a system restore, it goes away. The problem is clearly with my Global Settings that I have, and those are pretty standard and nothing out of the ordinary. If this were a hardware problem, then this problem would always be there. However, the problem only comes back after a week when I recreate my specific Global Settings and simply use my Helix like people normally do. So let's please stop referring to it as a mechanical problem -- it clearly is not. Unless well.... a mechanical problem somehow corrupts my Global Settings ... it still would be a software bug. 2 Helixes I own, one was brand-new, Line 6 support recreated it a few years back. So bug bug bug. I bet you a lot of people have the same exact issue, they just don't know they have it. Heck, I only realized it 17!! songs into my set that I was only hearing my left side on stage at a gig. And only because of the prominent ping-pong delay that was simply not there.

What I keep saying is that unless I have a 12" speaker cab, everything else feels wimpy, doesn't move enough air and sounds like a wedge monitor IMHO. 12" speaker is the way to go. I got a Headrush 108 FRFR -- It's great for rehearsals, everything is right there, but still doesn't feel "traditional". It's so powerful that I've used it for bass, and it's always in the the trunk of my car. However.... It's boomy, which can be compensated by putting it on a stand, also very directional, just like your wedge monitor. You can be in a situation where one second it's loud, and then you walk away and don't hear anything. Recently I started using a 12" speaker from whatever backline amp I get, and I power it with Mooer Baby Bomb. I previously sold my guitar amp, and wound up buying an Orange 112. Mooer Baby Bomb + 112 sounds awesome, plenty loud for a bar gig, and feels traditional. Here's a sample of what my cover band sounds like with it. Helix => Baby Bomb => 112 that's it. https://youtu.be/PznAmj7q3Mk (hear it live) https://youtu.be/l51UjdT02js (me reviewing Baby Bomb)

Hey guys. Does anybody have any pointers regarding getting a nice and balanced acoustic sound out of a Helix? I'm attaching my preset. This preset is intended for the Bridge Humbucker sound, medium output (on the Les Paul, the volume knob would be on around 4). I am still struggling with the wild inconsistencies when I switch between 2 almost identical guitars. Any compressors, or something that could help me? Zaebali!.hlx Basically the acoustic sound should be suitable for rhythm strumming. I can never find a happy medium: it's either too boomy/bassy or piercing without any sustain and hollow sounding. Thanks in advance, d.

I bought an LT lightly used. Everything works. I have had 2 issues: 1. The expression pedal was squeaky. I greased it and that addressed that issue. There were many complaints in the past where the expression pedal broke. That was limited to a particular year/production run. 2. One of the plastic color rings around one of the buttons cracked for me. I used eye glass repair glue and that seems to be holding fine. The plastic ring/washer is held in place from underneath, so even if it cracks and breaks in two, the button will still work. Otherwise, Helix (Floor or LT) is more than capable of doing everything other processors do. Some weak points IMO are: 1. defaults for modulations and filters are very bad. For some reason, adding an envelope filter on a Boss processor was very easy and everything just worked out of the box. On the Helix, there are a lot of "useless" parameters that make it very difficult to dial in the sound that you want. 2. some effects in particular filters are very very finicky, but if you are patient, you can dial them in right. Same for "auto fade-in" effect. I wound up using "Auto-Volume Echo" with feedback turned off and that accomplished what I needed. 3. acoustic simulator is amazing, but also very finicky and unforgiving if you use dial in your sound with one guitar, and try to run acoustic sim with another guitar. The EQ can be completely different, and the volume discrepancies can be huge. So there you have it. A TON of different options, all the sounds are there, but getting to them can be time-consuming.

There are different output levels: Microphone, instrument, line. If Microphone is not enough, try "Instrument", etc in Global Settings. It could be that your preset is too low in volume. Try out some factory presets. I personally have my 1/4" set at Instrument level. My normal audio level is where I have the volume knob at 3 o'clock.

You need to recreate your preset from scratch. But good news, nearly all things are exactly the same between the two units: same blocks, same parameters. The only thing is that you don't have parallel loops, so if you for example had a preset with the delay in parallel, you would need to add it in series and as a result your mix parameter will need to be set totally differently.

Why people don't thousands of users have this problem? - Because these people do not use the same exact global settings as me, e.g. output level of XLR is microphone, etc. Most people do not take advantage of stereo signal chain. Some people are unaware that they are outputting only one side -- it's not always obvious that that is the case unless you have an exaggerated ping-pong delay. What's their latest explanation? - Line 6 can no longer replicate this issue. Translation: they do not have time to try to replicate a bug for over a week. I wound up getting a simple adapter: 2 1/4" male to 1 1/4" female and after this latest failed experiment I've accepted that this is how it will be. --- P.S.: this reminds me of the Catch-22 b.s. I had to deal with when my iPhone's Apple Pay stopped working one day. Apple said it's T-mobile to blame, T-mobile said it's Apple. Tried restoring from my backup on 2 phones and it never worked. After wasting several hours of my life, going to the Apple Store, calling T-mobile, I said "f.... this!" and just used a physical credit card, as I do to this day.

Back to square one. I explained that Line 6 replicated it. I replicated it on 2 Helixes I own consistently after a week. One of the Helixes was brand new when I restored the backup and developed the same problem after a week. Reset solves it for a week and then it comes back. It's a software bug. If you restore my backup and use the Helix you will also have it. I work with clinical trials, with big shot companies like bayer, jnj, moderna, etc, I investigate and fix various bugs constantly. If I say "sorry, can't see any issue locally, ticket closed", I'll be fired.

NO.

You can get a nice sustain-y sound with a compressor, so yes, that's a good idea if you want your notes to be long. Like think "All Along The Watchtower" Hendrix lead sound--that to me sounds like an guitar + compressor + amp.