baron55

My Stomp XL randomly also does this. It's pretty inconsistent. But sometimes touch doesn't work n some of the footswitches at times.

Guys guess what. The HX effects guys have the same exact issue and Line 6 found that those units had "parts" that were out of spec. 

Here is the official statement.

Hi,

Thanks for your patience while we sorted this out.  In extremely rare cases (roughly 0.5%, or 1 out of every 200 HX Effects units sold), certain specific combinations of HX Effects units populated with out-of-spec parts and amplifiers and/or hookup configurations can manifest notable noise and/or other unsavory audio artifacts. Since your particular setup happens to exhibit this behavior, we will have the unit shipped here and have the fix implemented repair it.  We have also updated our manufacturing and testing process to ensure no future units exhibit this behavior, regardless of configuration.  Please update or confirm your accountâÂÂs shipping address and we can start the repair process.

According to the manual, you can save MIDI CC commands, Instant Commands from the Control center per snap shot. Does this mean I could assign a different instant command per snapshot? Because I have found that I cannot do that. Only effect status and parameters seem to be able to be saved per snapshot.  If I change a CC valve and or instant MIDI CC, that same valve is applied to all snapshots.

From the manual

On the "Command Center" page, adjust the values of any Instant messages or press a footswitch assigned to CC Toggle or Ext Amp. Snapshots remember the values of any instant MIDI CC, Bank/Prog and MMC messages, plus the state (dim or lit) of any CC Toggle and Ext Amp messages.

We need a separate section for Helix FX!

Agreed, it is easier to find posts about the HX if it had it's own sub forum 

I really needed to learn about this - thanks for posting!

If I got the Ebtech - where is the best place to put this in the signal?

Might have to get 2 of these - 1 for home and 1 for rehearsal space!

I would just put the Ebtech on the effects send and return cables that go to the amp.

For those new to 4 cable method, in most instances you will develop a ground loop (nasty hum). This is not a Line 6 issue but a normal issue in the audio world when ground from multiple audio signals meet up.

There are several ways to fix this:

1. But a Ebtech Hum Eliminator, they use isolation transformers to cancel out the hum.

2. The easy way! On the cables used for the effects send and return that plug into the amp, disconnect the ground (shield) from one side only. Plug the grounded side into the amp and the non grounded side into the HX Effects unit. Remember only 2 cables! 

This is perfectly safe, because you still have one of the cables connecting to the amp that is fully grounded both ways and that allows the guitar to be also grounded. The cables with ground disconnected from one side are still grounded for shielding purposes.

I think the answer is you can't access the additional 3 effects in Stompbox mode, yes you can in Pedal Edit mode and Signal flow mode, but those are editing modes and not necessarily performance modes.

 Of course you could do it via a MIDI controller but..................

Basically you only have access to 6 effects during live playing without having to go to an Edit mode/Signal Flow. One way to make this work is if you are using a FX Loop noise gate or an effect that you never really need to see or edit live. Load all 6 effects you wish to use and turn On/Off live first. Then use signal flow to add the other effects, if all 6 blocks are full these will not show up in stompbox mode but are there and can be edited in signal flow mode.

The manual was written as if the user had previous Helix Experience, which is a mistake. Many will buy the HX Effects as their first Line 6 product or product in the Helix series.

In Stombox mode you can see 6 effects although you can have 9 per preset. Is their anyway to access the other three effects not shown? I can go into signal flow and add and edit these but is there any other way.

Thanks!

So here we are now the date is 1-12-2016 but I guess that is ok it is still a ramp up issue.......BS. Line 6 is now under Yamaha so they should have plants ready to handle the ramp up with little or no problems. This is just another line6 let down but that is ok. Because of the wait I have gotten back into my DT25 hd500 rig and have been using it to my delight along with the positive grid bias fx which sounds amazing. I have cancelled my Helix order and want nothing more to do with it. I really wish Line6 could have done a better job planning for this product.

Being owned by another company doesn't nessesarily mean that things will change that much. Many companies like Yamaha want to diversify their offerings (Like Yamaha doesn't have enough Diversity) and buy companies, but are pretty much hands off unless the financials are suffering or there are issues with management.

But Line 6 really blew it IMO with the lack of availible units over the holiday season which in retail is the biggest shopping quarter of the year. Ther are definitley sales they will loose since many on the fence buyers will look elsewhere for Christmas presents. They probbaly were hoping to get these units out before the Holiday season and were rushing to do so. The fact they had to go to wherehouses and update the firmware tells me they were still  not ready and still were working on many bugs.

But every day I see Helix units up for sale on eBay (rediculous prices) and Sweetwater always seems to have a few every day of open box ones that people have returned, although they go pretty fast.

I just found out what is going on.

 

There was a QC problem, so they switched suppliers.  They ran into a problem with said supplier.  They don't know when they will be shipping.  I spoke to somebody in management at MF and they chased down the procurement people.  My ship date is optimistic. GC and AMS is either BS or they will be shipping buggy units.

 

How f'd up is that?  Why the f wouldn't Line 6 tell this to the vendors?  Why the f wouldn't they tell it to us?  This is absolute BS.  

 

I'm going back to Flamenco.  Wake me when somebody pulls their head out long enough to authorize some information on this.

 

 

Like others have said, hearsay at best. Where did you get this info from?  Also this is the 4th quarter where retail makes the majority of their money. Retailers want you to buy , buy, buy, buy. Of course the dates won't be accurate. All companies have QC issues with vendors, just a product of the business. The quality rate of vendors is directly reflected in the per unit cost. So companies look for vendors that have the cheapest unit cost, vs reliability and reject rate.  As for Line 6, the demand is so high, that any hiccup if there is one is magnified.

 

As for me, I will wait unit this summer after the initial honeymoon phase is over to see if the Helix is really all that.

Just as an FYI, Guitar Center and Musicians friend ship form the same Wherehouse! Which is located in Kansas City, MO. I have ordered things from both, and it all comes from the same wherehouse. So dont be fooled by one saying they have stock and the other not. Either they both have it or they don't.

I will wait until the youtube videos and real user reviews come in. That will be the real test. The price doesn't scare me, and I seriously doubt it will drop like a lot of people are hoping for.

The Helix unit is in a different product market. Thus the quality and price. People are shelling out up to 3 grand for Axe FX units Lne 6 may be counting on getting a great product out for slightly less but with good enough sound quality.

For many years Line 6 has soild low cost packed FX units that relly catred to entry level musicians, like the Spyder and POD series. They have done well, but that also has given them a "low cost for kiddies" reputation deserved or not.

The Helix hopefully will put them a new market and get the more respect with the higher end tone snob crowd.

Thanks for the replies! The levels I was interested in are needed because I want to customize my old Marshall with no effects loop to introduce a input directly to power amp (bypassing the preamp/tone controls) so I was wondering if the HD500x output signal is going to be strong enough for the Marshall amplification stage.

Push/Pull tube amps use a phase inverter that splits the signal wave in half so that each side of the poweramp is amplifying each phase. That being said, the Phase inverter circuit in the Marshall is your standard Long Tail Phase inverter, which will also amplify your input signal quaite a bit. So this should work fine.

As a side note. Line Level signal is +4 dB and instrument Level is -10 dB

Ther Helix sounds more real. The thing that I always hated about modeling is the model always lacked air, meaning a wide dynamic range. The Helix sounds more like an amp, where the POD sounds like a model of the amp.

Alright.

True Bypass comes from then pedal world due to the fact that some of the older vintage pedals did not have good op amp buffers causing them to suck tone. The cry baby way comes to mind.

A quality buffered in/out which in many high quality pedals have today, does not suck tone but actually improves it by keeping the signal from degrading as the signal path gets longer. If you had a bunch of pedals that were true bypass in series, they would suck tone causing highs to be lost.

Even so many pedal builders offer true bypass because it is harder to convince the masses than to give in and give it.

With all multi effects processors, the thing I look for is Analog pass through. This means the input signal is not altered and digitized but simply buffered and sent through. Most of the rack gear in the late 80's and mid 90's all had this. With high gain tube amps the AD/DA conversion that many multi effects have today, even the high end stuff, screws with the signal and slightly effects the phase. It is most noticeable on high gain settings due to all the harmonic overtones that have to be digitized and then undigitized.

Now with the POD Helix, etc, these units were designed to be used as standalone solutions, amp plus effects etc. so it makes sense everything is digital.

They can be used as the 4 channel method, but that is more of yes you can than a design idea.

I rarely have ever seen amp modelers/FX processors that had Analog Pass through. Now many effects only processors do have analog pass through which makes sense since there is no amp modeling involved. The exception is the G Major, which is a disappointment.

The Rack Helix I am very interested in.

Digital effects are fine because they are effects not the base tone.

Helix Rack does; Helix floor does not.

Good to know! The buffered Analog Bypass is a must when running the unit as an effect only unit.

Huimbuster! LOL   You mean cables with the shield (ground) disconnected at one end. That will stop all ground loops.

I don't think a product like this can or should be true bypass.  What is important is whether or not there is ANY tone suck when it is on with no effects or amp blocks activated.  If the tone is perfectly passed to your amp, true bypass is irrelevant.  I would hope at this price they have top notch A/D converters and true high fidelity components throughout the entire audio path.  This is not the unit to pinch pennies on at the component level...

Tone sucking comes from several situations.

1. When using most typical tube amplifiers, the Effects loop send is about +4 dB wich is line level signal, most guitar pedals are designed  for -10 dB. The amps "hot" signal overloads the pedal input casing tone sucking. Some pedals are designed to take the hotter signal but most are not.

2. Poorly designed FX loops in tube amps. Many tube amps go the cheap route and the amp builder/designer is an idiot (many high end botiques fall into this category). The effercts send is not buffered (attenuated down to -10 db and the impedance is low to drive the effects) This is the majority of the  cause of the Tone sucking experience people have. An FX loop is an Audio 101 device, very simple. The job is to attenuated the signal going out and drive it at a low impedance, and then amplify the signal back up on the return. This is very easy to do, but it blows my mind on how many amp makes don't do this correctly. Why? Well most amp makes simply copy designs and vary things a tad and through their name and paint on it,

3. And the last reason, running the dry signal through AD/DA converters. If you think about it, it is not the dry signal anymore.

ok, no true bypass, but is it analog thru, so when no fx are on, the signal doesn't go thru the a/d converters?

Analog through is a must! As others said analog buffering is no prob. One of the big reasons people don't like the 4 cable method is because of the AD/DA convertion of the dry signal, which is not even close to being transparent especially with highr gain settings.

What is interesting the TC Electronics G Major rack unit also doesn't have analog through, everything is sent to the AD/DA converters and many people don't like running it in serial lopps because of this. The high gain channels don't sound good. But all of the TC Electronics pedals are Analog dry through and sound great, and TC Electronics realy pushes the analog dry through.

What is interesting back in the late 80's and early to mid 90's most high end rack gear were all analog dry through because they didn't have enough processing power to run everthing through. Those units sound better frpm the dry signal point of view than most of the mid range gear today.

If this sounds as good as it is supposed to and with the features, the price is a non issue. If you want something in the range of the Axe FX, and Kemper, it is not going to be 400.00.

Actually for todays tech, FX processors are pretty cheap. Back in the early 90's stuff like this was the same price and wasn't even close in sound or flexibility

Except this blows the AX8 out of the water from a feature standpoint.

Keep in mind the AX8 is only effects only no amp modeling. A lot of people overlook this.The AX8 is a FX only processor to be run in the loop of a amp.

This Helix price point is what you would expect from something like this. So I don't think it is expensive based on what it is.

Yes changed my tones. And yes the global EQ was switched off. Added more gain and fizzle and scooped the mids. May go back to the earlier firmware.

The installer actually says the tones will have to be re tweaked as in that the new update will change some.

That may be true of modern high gain amps with a lot of preamp stages. But distortion in the old Fender Twin, Showman, Deluxe, Baseman was definitely caused by the power tubes. Those amps didn't have enough gain to clip the phase inverter.

 

I recall my friend Doug and I attempting to duplicate what those power tubes were doing with biased diode clipping circuits back in the late 60's, early 70's. I still have the old Showman with an external Fender reverb unit in which I added an extra tube, low voltage DC power supply (off the tube heater supply) and high-speed switching diodes biased at 1.5 volts. It was remarkably close, missing the class B notch. We spent many hours in the Physics Lab at UMO with a scope and signal generator exploring and building. Doug's gone now, died young at 54. I still have some of the old notes we kept. He's missed.

The PI distorts in the Fenders as well. I have build a showman, and seen it first hand. It only takes about 4 volts AC input to a PI to clip it if it is a 12AX7. Long Tail phase inverters will always clip before the power stages do. Just not as heavily as a high gain amp

On typical guitar amps that are AB1 types with a typical long tail Phase inverter. The phase inverter always clips or distorts before the power amp does. The type of tube (12AX7, 12AT7, 12AU7, etc) plate resistors, tail resistor and supply voltage will aso determine how much headroom and when and how the PI will distort. Aso a huge factor is the negative feedback supply fed back to the phase inverter. Negative feedback ( low speaker signal fed back) delays on comming clipping in the by atenuating bandwidth. This is a pass filter effect that limits lows and highs. Most amps have this feature. BTW Mesa Rectifiers do not use negative feed back when the amp is switched on the high gain channels. This is what leads to the flubby booming bottom end and fuzzy highs people seem to complain about. The Rectos are the only high gain amps I know of that don't utilize negative feed back. 

Amps with master volumes fall in to mostly two types. Pre-phase inverter master volumes and post-phase inverter master volumes. Most modern high gain amps use a pre- phase inverter master volume. This controls how much signal is fed to the phase inverter. Thi is typical when low phase inbverter distortion is desired since the preamp is doing all the clipping. The way the taper is on most of these potentiometers (audio) usually the amp is at full wattage at the 10:00 position, turning up the master just clips the PI harder and then drives the power tubes into overdrive.

Post phase inverter moster volumes, a popular mod for vinatge low gain amps does two things. One it allows the preamp to slam the PI with full volatge casuing it to clip heavily, second when the master is turned down, it loads down the phase inverter making the headroom even less and causes it to clip heavily.

So unfortuneatley it is not that simple. Most so called power amp distortion is actually phase inverter distortion.

As far as Vinyl goes, anything that has been produced on vinyl since the early 90's is a scam. Why? Because the music industry digitized all the music cataloques from the Analogue tape masters. And furthermore, the bitrate and conversion rates were not as good then. So they are just putting digial copies on records, no sound improvement even worse. More marketing hype.

Now if you are talking about records produced off analog masters(baically mid 80's and before), then yes there is a difference. The reason there is a difference, is music recorded on analog tape or even direct to vinyl has the least amount of compression, this makes the music sound more live like (more peaks and valleys). Music recorded today is heavily compressed because that is the nature of digital conversion. Also we play this digital music on low fi equipement.

In fact many record producers are dismayed and discoraged because the music they record is on low fi equipement, iPods MP3, etc.

Also Analog does not mean just tube amps, anything that does not use digital converters is Analog. Sollid State amps are analog.