PierM

Any contact cleaner is fine, as CRC or WD40 Contact Cleaner. Dont overflood the switch. If it keeps misfiring then it's starting failing and needs to be replaced.

Modifiers aren't for lazy lollipop, but they bring your stuff next level. Also through modifiers you can basically build your own effect logic, changing its behaviour. I do for example love big reverbs, but I hate the boomy mess they do when you are phrasing, so just throwing a slew limiter and I get portamento applied to reverb params, leaving you alone when you are doing busy playing, and smoothly raising/falling when there is the right room to do so. You could even use logic through comparators, to trigger whatever change you want in your sound, or pedal status, when something specific happens to the signal; like a note, or a target level, etc... It's niche (who cares), but it's lot of fun.

Great News! Enjoy!

The fact you have a list of legacy L6 drivers stacked in system (even if not used), it's already an answer. :)

Don't be. Most of the time it's just the PSU, or just the very first protection in the AC section. Just be patient. It'll be fine.

A healthy PSU other than provide the proper voltage and current, acts as a "firewall" in front of DC circuits. When a PSU fails, and protections collapses (fuses, diodes, secondary capacitors etc..) you risk to damage the entire board, and at that point everything would be pretty much fried. Leave it alone and bring it to assitance.

What?

Depends on the swicther. The very definition of it is "a device that houses pairs of send and receive ports (the loops) that send signal to and receive signal from each one of your pedals, allowing remote control of whether that pedal is in or out of your signal flow" Also I was simplifying, as a snaphot can also recall params variation within blocks not only stomp bypass. Dont "nah" me please lol! ;)

For stomp bypass and params, you can use non reserved CCs to command everything you want, via CC assignation or auto learn.

In all honestly, even if I had 24 physical pedals, I'd never - ever - use them in a tap dance. That's totally messed up and inefficient. You'd use a loop switcher, which is basically what snapshots are for. Also, in a hypothetical multipage stomp mode, you'd have to remember what's on and where... along 3 pages of stomps, sharing same led colors. I call it mess.

Yep. Price is totally nonsense. I'm in contact with a guy that does great controllers for the right money. Probably gonna grab one of these to swap my FCB1010 which has a ridicolous footprint. (these also accept "polyphonic" FS pressing) https://reverb.com/item/62206369-actition-12-button-universal-usb-din-programmable-midi-foot-controller-footswitch

I wouldn't hold my breath for L6 adding extra pages of FS (assuming that's even possible), since similar requests are pretty rare. The FCB1010 is an option for sure and it's cheap (I've two of them, selling both), or more fancy stuff;

EV1 is fine, but you'd need a BLE adaper for the HX Stomp, like a Widi Master, or a Widi Jack. pedal also offer a TRS MIDI OUT, but at that price that pedal make sense only if tou really want wireless midi, imho. For a similar price (wired MIDI), but much better construction than EV1, there is the EX3 from BeatBars; https://beatbars.com/it/home.html

Couple of basic concepts Use the Helix as audio interface, setting the ASIO HELIX drivers in the DAW audio settings. Again, record through the helix, and listen through the helix Ignore, or better, deactivate the realtek chip in the Device Manager. This is just throwing random DPC calls. Plug a pair of decent studio monitors to the helix L/R output Be sure to set the right line/instrument/mic level for each of your instruments, in the helix globals. Record each track separately, with a decent headroom (meters of each track around -16dB/0dB. Avoid the orange/red area on all tracks and main output meter In the DAW, Instead of adding different reverbs to each track, experiment with subtle reverbs in the main output send/return. Usually works better for this type of performance. Experiment with reamping so you dont have to record the same stuff over and over again...:) Audacity isnt a pure DAW... but as soon as you know how to use it, it's fine for little projects. I would try other platforms if you really want proper control and driver support. I do love Ableton Live as it's great for both Live and DAW, but there are plenty.

Nothing to do with Helix alone, you should just improve your mixing skills. Plenty of free resources on the web. Also, you'd need a pair of decent studio monitors instead of just headphones.

Also would help to know what that "sounds horrible" means. A little audio sample would help.

I sold my Rack, but I remember that for the time I had both Stomp and Rack, the Stomp FS were just translated 1:1, so on the Rack, from FS1 to FS5. Of course to see them all I had to set the floorboard controller in 10 Switches Mode in the Globals, as FS1 is BANK/PRESET UP (they are not hardcoded/reserved, they do change functionality based on the Global Settings) Reserved CCs are also the same 1:1, with the difference that Stomp stops at FS5. I could be wrong, but I don't remember having problems of any sort when loading Stomp preset on the Rack...neither that I had to move or mess around with FS assignation.

If they are out of warranty L6 isn't gonna repair them for free. Any electronic repair shop could take care of the problem for a reasonable cost. For the future I'd strongly suggest to use an extension cable always in place (taped, velcroed, whatever), so you plug your computer to such extension instead the onboard USB. I do that with my Stomp, works flawless.

Try turning Secure Boot off in the bios. After that, if you manage to turn MI off, then you can turn Secure Boot on again and reboot. At that point you should be able to turn on/off from the UI. At least this is what I've got on a machine and solved that way. At the same time, please, open a support ticket and describe your problem. Even I'm totally fine with MI off (that I'm forced to keep off, despite L6 driver), it's also good that L6 knows about HX users facing annoying problems because of their drivers, and maybe they will take action. (the more people report with a ticket, the more the chance to see a new driver).

Line 6 uninstaller aren't the most clean in the world. If you really want a proper cleanup of all leftovers and registry, take a look to Revo uninstaller. That app does really discover any single leftover and remove it (doing a backup just in case you need to roll back).

I was obviously referring to drivers that are being used by the specific hardware I do need to do my job. Not the 70% of ALL drivers, that would be impossible to tell, lol. :)

L6 isn't reading your post, so even if you blame them, nobody will ever know of your issue. If you really want L6 to be officially aware of your problem, open a support ticket and describe the issue. This is the only valid way to be listened and to let them know. ;)

It's so cheap that I'm tempted to buy my third license lol!

There was no judgment in that statement. At all. :)