theElevators

Again. I’m saying what I think Helix will evolve into. Not what I think makes sense per se, what makes it more / less pro gear-like. If every other processor around starts having WiFi, chances are Helix will do the same. If Pod Go now has built in wireless, chances are Helix will also have the same. Call it an educated guess. All companies’ designs start influencing each other. Things become more and more powerful even if you don’t need it at the moment or think you don’t. Just remember how fast you thought 56 k modems were in 2000, how you thought you’d never need anything faster.

I use the editor for that reason! Hx edit, standing desk for the laptop. Nothing better.

Im imagining what helix 2 will be like, not saying it’s good progress. For example, all cell phones will have 5G capability in the next year or 2, doesn’t mean that that’s something I want or need.

Hilarious.... Quad cortex is amateur hour karaoke equipment then... with the touch screen... wi-fi... small footprint, and buttons/knobs. bwaaaaahaaahhahaaa. Pros only use rack units.. and never ever ever any wireless systems.

All modellers sound good in 2021. Unless you use a unit from 10 years ago, then it'll be inferior. You don't need to have identical bells and whistles. It's like Apple vs. Android -- both allow you to make phone calls, play music, browse the internet. It's just how familiar you are with your specific ... piece of equipment. Axe FX is a rack unit. It needs a midi controller and an expression pedal. Line 6 Helix Floor/LT is an all-in-one contained unit. Helix floor has scribble strips, and a solid heavy duty expression pedal. Do both sound good? Yes! Do both provide instant sound switching.... like there is no gap when switching between your solo and rhythm sound? Yep -- scenes v. snapshots--same thing. Can both get the same sounds? Yes! both have the same capabilities, similar hi-fi amps and effects. To make purple, you take blue + red paint. If your arts supply store does not have purple paint, you go and make your own out of individual ingredients. Same thing, if you don't have some weird specific fuzz + octavia, you go and create your own out of fuzz + octavia + eq. Etc. Quad Cortex is pretty neat...but where the heck is the exp pedal? It's missing (gasp!). You need to buy an external one. It has twice the processing power of the Helix... Wow!!! But, have I ever felt that I am running out of DSP on a Helix? Never! Does a touch screen make sense? It does if you want your piece of equipment to feel like a giant iPad. Do you like integrated buttons/knobs? They'll probably break faster than dedicated buttons, same for the touch screen. Do you like having an editor on your computer (Helix), or do you prefer to edit things on a giant iPad-looking thing that can connect to WiFi? Do you want to model your specific amp, pedals, to create a digital clone of it? I personally don't. What if you want to tweak your parameters on this digital clone.... you can't! But you can digitize anything you want with the Quad Cortex. Bottom line: rack units are .... so 1998. Why get all that if you can just get a Headrush board, Helix, Boss, Kemper board. mkay? And Helix is pretty good with a ton of power and it gets better and better. What makes you feel inspired? What looks like a piece of gear that you will use for 5 years live and in the studio, that will satisfy your musical needs, and be ergonomically ... "good"? that's what you should buy. You can recreate anything with any piece of equipment... nearly... trust me.

It's been discussed here a lot. There is no way to turn the capacitance off. With swapping of snapshots, it's highly unlikely that you can do it during a gig, because you would need to acknowledge that you indeed want to swap snapshots. The only other thing you need to be careful with is touching the tap tempo button -- it brings up global tempo settings, which is very dangerous. The only thing you can do is to be careful or get plastic button toppers by Mooer, for example. Or some off-brand clear plastic buttons. I wound up taking them off, and just using the buttons. The only other thing I use 2 Grolsch washers on up/down and Mode buttons, so that those buttons are extra-hard to press.

Have you tried phantom power on, and different gain settings?

The next Helix IMO will have: 1. quad core or 8 core processor 2. built-in wireless for guitar/in-ear/Variax? 3. touch screen/buttons that double as knobs, like on the Quad Cortex 4. wi-fi 5. be 1/2 the width and weight. Maybe it'll have a kick stand lol to raise it at an angle. That's about it. To me, in terms of sound, flexibility, snapshots, etc, Helix is more than enough. I guess having a slimmer Helix would be an added bonus.

Mission with a spring, is the one I'd personally get.

I have 2 Helixes, Floor and LT. I use them both equally. After 1.5 years, I was able to get every single sound I ever needed or will ever need on the Helix. Until recently, I used a modeling guitar to get acoustic sounds for some of my projects. But the new acoustic sim is so good, that I use my regular electric for all sounds. All sounds that you'd ever need are in the Helix. Some are difficult to tweak, some require you to convert one effect into two -- but everything is there. For example, even before the latest hot springs reverb, I came up with my own drip reverb approximation using an envelope filter with the mix turned to 15 percent + legacy '63 spring verb. That sound that I got is so good and natural sounding, that I still continue to use it, instead of the latest "hot springs" reverb. My recommendation is to ditch everything and use the Helix exlcusively.

One word of caution for envelope filter -- it works very "specifically" with a specific guitar output level. For example, if you dial it in for a Les Paul output level, it may not even get triggered completely with a telecaster. Same thing with an acoustic sim -- it's very specific to your exact instrument. One thing you can do is put some kind of a compressor before it, to level out the signal. Otherwise, the envelope filter on the Helix is my single source of frustration at the moment. It's very very hard to dial it in. It either starts getting too harsh, or not work as expected. For some reason, I was able to tweak an envelope filter on a Boss processor a lot easier.

Use several set lists. Restore your stuff to one of the free set lists. Then copy individual presets from it.

You can restore your global settings based on the backup with HX Edit. The only thing you can change with HX Edit in global settings is Global EQ. And you can make more fine adjustments with it, than what you can do on Helix itself.

Poly Wham is great. I was talking about an effect that if you play notes, Helix connecting them with a glissando effect.

Here's what I have: XLR is set to mic level. Set that up based on a discussion with a very knowledgeable sound guy. Volume knob only controls the 1/4 inch out. 1/4 inch out is set to Instrument level. This is just my personal monitor mix with an FRFR / amp. If this is not loud enough for me, I can change it to Line level. A few times when I ran a Helix into a DI box using 1/4 inch output, I simply set the volume knob at 3 o'clock. In terms of actual dBs, I haven't measured it. Just basically have it so that the sound is clear, not distorted/glitchy. And that's about it.... low........................loudest mic < instrument < line

Hey peeps. I could have sworn I stumbled upon a portamento effect in the past, but can't find it anymore. Is there such a thing on the Helix? Basically, if you play individual notes, it converts them into a glissando effect... Thanks!

You adjust your playing to the latency subconsciously. Ever thought of more latency that your wireless system introduces, then how it has to travel to FOH, then to your monitors, that's some more latency. Then you hearing the sound from the venue, that's more latency still.

I think there should be a way to have Global blocks: every time you use an amp called "Mail Order Twin", the settings are all sync'ed up. That's how i feel most people use the Helix anyway, or should use it: "preset for every song". When you play a set, you just keep pressing "up", and go to your next song, with all of its sections, e.g.: intro, verse, chorus, outro, feedback. I have a bank of 40+ songs. All of them are based on the same core set of blocks: Same distortion, same wah, same amp. So for me, if I decide to tweak my amp, I'd need to do it in each one of the presets, 40+ times. It would definitely be a lot easier if it could be done in one go. Or if you have to play a telecaster instead of your regular Les Paul, to be able to adjust the gain in all your presets. At least we have the editor that helps adjust things like this. I've seen a few pretty old Ideascale entries regarding this. Having a concept of a global block would allow us to bypass blocks globally as well -- really convenient if you decide to take all your presets and use a real amplifier, for example, to bypass all your amp blocks in one go.

The bug or feature is that you select EXP 1 or EXP 2 and when you switch snapshots, the EXP 1 or EXP 2 setting does not change to what it was in the snapshot when you saved it and remains in the state you leave it in: EXP 1 or EXP 2. That is a hidden undocumented feature at best. Either it should reset the EXP to what it was saved in the snapshot as. Or it should never reset it to what was saved in the snapshot as. Not a combination of "sometimes".

There is a feature/bug that if you have an external pedal plugged in while you set up your snapshots, you basically wind up with the expression not saving its state properly. Normal usage: 1. You can save whether Exp 1 or Exp 2 is selected in particular snapshots 2. When you switch your snapshots, the expression pedal switches to Exp 1 or Exp 2 as you saved these snapshots. If you save your snapshots with a dummy cable in, in other words you can take your existing snapshot, plug in a dummy cable, and re-save it: When you do this, your expression pedal is no longer saved per-snapshot. You can manually click the pedal in, and switch it from Exp 1 to Exp 2 or visa versa. Selecting different snapshots will not affect Exp 1 or Exp 2 -- it will remain unchanged. So there you go, it's a weird quirk. But once I figured out what was happening, I had to go in and re-save all my presets/snapshots, so it would not be happening. I had made a mistake of dialing in my presets and snapshots with an external pedal plugged in.

Sometimes HX edit can crash your Helix or make it do weird things.

Or add it in an effects loop. Usually wah goes immediately after the guitar. However, some people put it after fuzz/distortion. Or you can go crazy and add wah to your delays or something, or at the very end of the chain for some crazy sounds. My advice, is use whatever's onboard. I like Throaty wah, personally. I like that it works as volume pedal in the heel position -- it lowers your output volume. I used to play BD for many years, and still have it on my old analog pedalboard.

You can also use the Expression pedal. When engaged more than 10 percent, turn on your EQ, Delay, whatever else. When It's in the bottom position, all of those are off. You can have it turn off after 500 ms in the down position. Or have it immediately turn off. If you have to toggle between rhythm and lead, try that. It may work. To set it up You can use the learn functionality, to give bypass assignment to blocks, as needed.

I recorded a ton of stuff from the Helix in the 1.5 years of owning it. With almost no adjustment, I take my sound exactly as it is, and record it into Logic using the USB connection. I get stereo tracks of all my guitars, and most of the time I just adjust the volume and that's it. If your recorded sound doesn't sound like your live sound, maybe you have some weird global EQ that is responsible for the difference in the sound. Global EQ should only be used to tweak your sound for specific FRFR, amp, or monitor. Your sound without Global EQ should be dialed in in such a way that i can go to the Front of the House pretty much unaltered, or recorded without any tweaks.

sure did