PierM

Its 10 years I use Cantabile, and I find it the perfect easy peasy software to play VSTs without installing useless libraries and fat applications. Works flawless and I also did lot of live performances with it, without skipping a beat. Not affiliated in any way with it, just a happy user.. :)

https://www.cantabilesoftware.com

Yeah I tried that above, as one of the first attempts, but did not work.

As for Peter suggestion to go with the Rack+Controller, again, would be even worse because you have two distant units instead just one and that is like dancing between guitar, floor controller and helix rack. That is the exact opposite than what I'm used to.

Seems like the only way is to save the "live" presets with all blocks OFF (apart the core amp/IRs/preamp) and then using the FCB1010 to select the snapshots and/or the single blocks, while using the touch on the Helix board to quickly recall a block and make the edit on the fly.

In the past (with different DSPs) I was using my BCR2000 to assign the various effect parameters, that I wanted to change on the fly, to all the various rotaries, and that was working great....but I can't manage to make it working with the Helix for the exact same reasons.

The Helix is a dream machine, but the MIDI support is really basic, unfortunately. 

Thanks anyway! :)

Sorry for the cable mess.... :lol:

Sorry but looks like you lack a bit of knowledge in avantgard jazz, or ambient music in general, where the live editing is part of the performance. Just watch some video of artists like Frisell with his DL4 to understand what Im talking about. ;)

So one thing that comes to mind is that you would never get this functionality from one cable from the FCB midi out to the helix midi in. You would need an additional cable going from helix midi out to the FCB midi in (assuming it has one). Even with these connections in place, I'm not sure it this would work the way you want it. I know this would be great if it did, as I use an external midi controller with the floor unit for another guitar player in my band. I will have to try this out in the future to see if I can make it work

Sure, of course we are talking about bidirection MIDI IN/OUT. :)

As I said, it works with Kemper and Fractal, and also with many other applications. Line6 does not allow that, for some reason, or at least looks like that.

You can see an example in this video

FCB1010 does what it's programmed in the Eprom.  The Eprom I'm using now (Eurekaprom 3.2) can mimic perfectly the Helix floorboard and it's already working, so I can toggle on/off all the Helix footswitch. I can tap tempo, call the tuner, change bank/preset, turn on/off the blocks etc... but I can't get the starting point block status when rolling between presets, and for what I see in the MIDI signal, seems nothing is sent apart the bank/preset information.

My dreamrig would be to get the actual block status, from Helix back to the FCB1010, so I don't have to start with all blocks OFF to make the two units work in sync and this way what I'd press with hands on the helix would be mirrored on the FCB1010, and viceversa. This is totally working, bidirectional, with Kemper, Fractal, Avid etc... but seems like Line6 does not allow that.

Helix rack, you still have to go down with your body to touch the footswitch and recall a block you want to edit on the fly, and the joystick/rotary is not really good to make these kind of changes because it's slow and erratic (you can easily spin the block). I mean, live changes on the fly, not in studio/house editing. :)

Hi guys.

I'm trying to program a FCB1010 (with Eurekaprom 3.2) to be a mirror of the floorboard, so I basically mapped all 10 pedals to work as the 10 footswitch on the Helix. This is working fine, except I can't find a way to send back a #CC to the FCB1010 to reflect the actual status of the pedals on the Helix.

Do you guys know if Helix is sending any information, through MIDI output, about block bypass status (block ON/OFF)?

Kemper does this, as Fractal and many other units, but I can't find any info about the Helix.

If you are asking why I'm doing that is because I need the Helix on a stand as I need to edit on the fly so the mirror on the floor FCB1010, would work perfect for me.

Thanks in advance. :)

Click the Bluetooth button on the FH1500 until it will flash. Now redo the pairing with the iPad.

Worked for me, same iOS version.

 

I'm still within 1 year, so I'm sure I could send it out for warranty repair, but I have another gig in like 2 weeks and I suspect I don't want to chance it, so if there is something else I should try first, I am all ears.

If you opened the unit I would say you void your warranty.

Good move posting it here. :)

^^Following^^

MIDI is now open and working.

I just programmed one of my FCB1010 (UNO chip) to work with the amp, and it works flawless!

Well done L6 and thanks for the update. :)

Volume knob in this firmware looks working LOG instead LINEAR.

Sorry but, why they would need videos? For what?

Do they need a proof of what we are saying? Or maybe you guys want to start 3 hundreds more sub paragraph about "how you had your volume in the video? how you had your tone? which pickup you were using? which guitar cable are you using? You are picking wrong! You should pick that way, in the decay, no in the attack....etc etc etc...." Because, apart showing the issue (explained with easy words by everyone, dozen of times already), a video isn't giving them any kind of extra information or data about how to solve the problem. Unless we don't send them our guitars and our Helix, so they can repro locally and make a case study for every single guitar. Seriously? 

Again, for me it's not "unusable": It's just spoiled to some guitars and totally a mess with others. But since this seems a never ending story, I'm personally done.

I could even use my 5$ tuner on the iphone, and getting less erratic tuning.

Peace everyone.  :)

I'm just being honest. I don't exactly know how many shows I've played with the Helix since Line 6 changed the tuner, but I imagine several dozen. And I've used the Helix tuner for each and every one of them. All I'm saying is that though some are calling the tuner unusable, that doesn't match my experience, because I'm obviously using it... There are no clip-on tuners up my sleeves! :lol:

If there genuinely are differing opinions on how fast and/or granular it needs to be, for whatever reasons, let users control that with global settings, so we can stop torturing the devs with our conflicting desires.

I'm a dev myself (different market), but our company does really hate denial people. We usually need all kind of constructive feedback, not just people trying to defend their toys and treating other guys like idiots. I'm sure it works the same at L6. Proof is they are keep improving and developing, despite the fact you were seeing fanboys saying it was perfect after day 1. :)

It's not really about like or not. It's just about being more or less "reliable" in various conditions, which for my personal experience, it is not (yet).

As we believe you guys being totally happy with it, you should accept and believe other users who are not getting your same experience.

You may not like my Peterson (whatever this means), but it does never skip a beat and I could not care less to endorse one or the other product. :)

I know there's some debate about it, but I think you're much better off tuning to the initial attack of a string rather than the decay. Actually, when I think of trying to tune to the decay, it seems like it would be very difficult. I mean, with some instruments like mandolins or nylon string guitars there is virtually no sustain anyway. Perhaps this is why some people find the tuner frustrating. I try to hit the strings hard when tuning and in quick succession. If I get a couple of the initial hits to light up both greens for a few hits, I consider that in tune. A string will naturally fall off a few cents while it rings out anyway. But if you figure, most of what you're hearing with guitar, especially when playing chords, is the initial attack of the strings.

 

The other thing I would say that has helped me with nearly ever tuner I've ever used is that I hardly ever tune a string from sharp to in pitch. Even if a string reads sharp at first, I will usually tune it flats and then go back up to pitch. It just always seems to be more stable that way.

I've a stroboplus which is for me my benchmark, so I did check various ways to tune with the Helix and tuning on the attack gave me the worst result. This is what usually happen with a Tele that I have, which has a crazy glassy peak and quick decay, so I'm forced to tune that way (multiple pick, tuning on the attack as the tracking drops pretty quickly). Well if I check this guitar with the stroboblus just after Helix (which I do have in a send from the Helix) it's never in tune, just a mix of sharp and flat. That same guitar does tune perfectly through the Stroboplus. At the opposite, when I tune on a different guitar (which has a crazy sustain and does ring forever), I just pick and wait the tracking to stabilize (while tuning the string) and that works much better for me, and it's usually confirmed on the stroboplus. I'm not talking about 10 seconds here, just 1 or 2 seconds after picking. I'm not really a shredder and I think I do have a pretty gentle picking and also does happen I tune on the fly with no pick at all.

Also, with the stroboplus I always tune on the decay, as wouldn't work very fine on the attack. I know the theory about the attack is where you perceive most of the pitch but for some reason this is not being confirmed by the tools I tried. I don't think there is a correct way to tune. I think it's always a matter of finding the best set between player style, tuner and guitar/pickup.

I do have a good pack of guitars, and the Helix does not really work the same with all of them, at all, while the peterson does look like it doesn't really care of the guitar. It just tune whatever thing you put in. Of course I'm not expecting the Helix to be like a Peterson, so I'm ok with that, since I didn't buy the Helix to tune my guitars. Said that I'm sure it can be improved.   :)

I found that my Helix does not like guitars with a quick decay, because it seems a bit slow on tracking. I've no issues with guitars with plenty of sustain, where I can pick and let the tuner tracking the note, while tuning, but it's working twitchy with guitars with low output and quick decay, where I need to pick multiple times (which is not good as every pick has its own overtones and variables). The best way I've found (for me) to tune with Helix is to NOT pick multiple times, just once, and tuning while decaying.

So yeah, I've no issues with some guitars, but can be twitchy and jumpy with others.

There are possible issues with soldering quality and stability on the back panels. The joystick/rotary it's one of the weak spots. Also the screen, on the floorboard, is easy to be kicked as there are not protections to prevent that.

Since day one I've been complaining on that and in my humble opinion the unit it's more studio oriented than tour grade.

I'm quite stressed when I'm playing live with this thing, since my style needs needs some realtime editing and tweaking straight on the board, and a failure could be pretty much pathetic to manage.

I've sent the unit back for a repair on the joystick, which stopped working because of a soldering issue, now it's back with another issue where I need to push like crazy to make it click on the right selection.

The convenience of using the headphone out from an ipod, Android Smartphone or Tablet, CD player, or similar, to quickly patch to the Helix for practicing with pre-recorded tracks or YouTube vids, is what makes the 1/8" Stereo to Dual Mono 1/4" Left and Right TS cable so useful with Helix. Just put a Stereo FX Return Block in Helix's signal path and you're good to go! A Gain Block makes it easy to adjust the incoming volume level if you do not choose to do so in the FX Return Block Level parameter.

You can do the same, in a better way, using the USB. I do that all the time with my iPhone and iPad.

What's the deal with the missing Aux? Just use a USB compliance device, works great, it's fully digital, you've total control on it and no extra noise in the channel.

It's 2017, let's use proper technology. :)

I guess with "monitoring inputs" he meant how to monitor levels, not how to link his helix to monitors.

If so, you can just connect your Helix USB to a compliance device running a monitoring software. I'm using an iPad with a pro app and it works great.

Bit machine and Helix delay times are starting together, but after few minutes they are totally off, because Helix is accumulating that extra bit/bits on its own. Would be probably helpful to have an option to fine tuning the sync offset.

^I can confirm this above ^

Linked a RC300 to Helix, and mastering that one with the RC300 clock. The Helix it's always a bit quicker.

Do whatever thing works better for you.

When it comes to "hybrids" as you are doing, it will never be the same as before, without the digital part in the middle. If you are aiming to got back that "clarity" it's not going to happen because of that big black thing in the middle and could be basically the same even with a single extra circuit between your guitar and your old amps. The only thing you could do is to create your analog pedalboard, with true bypass pedals, and forget about digital. To me looks like you are sort of fighting with ghosts but soon or later you have to decide which is the compromise working better for you.