lou-kash

So… I just found time to test it on my ancient MacBook Pro 2008 running El Capitan, and this amazing trick works! Brilliant! Thank you again!

Speaking of my over 12 years old MacBook, it can run up to MacOS Catalina which means it is still compatible with all Helix devices and the latest HX Edit. That's not bad in my book. If you need backward compatibility on an "antique" computer, make sure to partition the drive and install any OS you may need for any particular task. For example, my 2012 MacBook can boot Mountain Lion, El Capitan, Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave and Catalina. Most of the time I'm on El Capitan, but occasionally an excursion to Catalina is needed.

That's nothing new though. I've been through the 68k to PPC transition, upgrading from System 7.5.3 directly to OS 9. Then I've been through the OS 9 to OS X transition. Then the "Classic MacOS" layer was phased out. Then came the PPC to Intel transition. And so on, and so on. Every now and then there came a time when I just had to "let go" and find some new ways of doing things. Yeah, that sucks. Even Firewire hard drives are barely usable with the Thunderbolt adapter. Luckily, every FW drive also had a USB 2 connector to the rescue… But on the other hand, old Macs still do work: I'm using a MacBook Pro 2008 (!) as my mobile recording studio. It runs El Capitan and Logic 10.3.3, and with a little help of a bunch of intrepid tinkerers who have hacked old M-Audio Firewire drivers, I can still use an M-Audio FW410 interface from 2003 (!) alongside an Alesis iO26 Firewire from 2008, the HX Stomp, and a Roland Octa-Capture that I only bought in 2023 to have a multi-channel interface compatible with Apple Silicon while it's still backward compatible as far as MacOS Tiger (!). In total, that makes 18 XLR inputs plus the 4 inputs on the Stomp, bundled in an Aggregate Device. It works, and it will continue to work until the MacBook breaks down. And even if it would break down, I also have a mid-2012 MBP that can run exactly the same setup. The only serious upgrade to both "oldies" was to replace the spinning hard drive bottleneck with a fast high quality SSD. But of course, then I'd do the editing and mixing on a MacBook Air M2 in Logic 11. So in fact, I'm actually surprised that I can still use a computer that is now a whopping 16 years old as a super compact mobile recording studio. For comparison, scroll back 16 years from 2008 and try to do anything with a computer from the early 1990s… (I used to work on a PowerBook 140 for a couple of years, and I still have an LC475 that might even still work if I'd replace the buffer battery again, so… been there done that, hehe…) ~~~ Now, back on topic and back to Helix, it's actually amazing that the Helix platform is still going that strong, even though it's now 10 years old, and no helix device is being left behind. Kudos to Line 6!

What sometimes also used to work to make apps run on older unsupported MacOS, was to edit the LSMinimumSystemVersion key in *.app/Contents/Info.plist But this rarely works these days, even with all possible Apple Paranoid Security Shields™ down. It definitely didn't work for HX Edit v3.82.

I like this intrepid approach! :)

You may want to monitor everything through the Stomp, not through the Mac. Then you will have nearly zero latency on the guitar. In general, the Helix driver adds quite some latency on the Mac. I think you might get the best result when recording at 48 kHz sample rate – which is "native" for the Stomp – while keeping the Logic buffer as low as possible. But the lower the buffer, the sooner you run into problems with plugins. For the record, I'm doing multi-track recording – but not mixing – on a 2008 MacBook Pro running El Capitan because it enables me to use my two "antique" and "obsolete" FireWire interfaces together with the Stomp and a Roland Octa-Capture as an Aggregate Device, thus having 18 mic inputs plus the Stomp in total. It works, as long as you know the limits. In my experience, the worst bottleneck always was the spinning hard drive. Switching to a fast high quality SSD was a game changer, even on this old-timer Mac. What drive type does your iMac have? Spinning, fusion or flash memory?

HX Stomp Owner's Manual PDF → page 18

@Teerexness, you're literally barking up the wrong tree. ;) This is a user-to-user forum. Hence:

Which MacOS version are you using?

In Global Settings > Preferences make sure to set EXP/FS Tip to FS4 and EXP/FS Ring to FS5. If it's set to EXP1/2, the switches won't work because the Stomp logically expects an expression pedal. Other than that, the Ampero Switch is a rock solid device that just works.

Das tönt zimlech schwyzerisch… :)

Meanwhile I have updated the Stomp to 3.80 using my MacBook Air running Ventura. All good, no issues. Back on the MacBook Pro running El Capitan, the Stomp v3.80 is still fully usable and even editable via HX Edit 3.70, just without the new amps/cabs/fx, as expected. Presets with new blocks will appear blank, so just make sure you don't overwrite those blocks when editing something else. Line 6 Updater v1.28 will recognize the device as well and offer the previously available firmware versions up to 3.71. So a downgrade should be still possible on unsupported MacOS (I haven't tested it!)

Probably by the same method as on unsupported MacOS: download the actual firmware file for offline use use the Line 6 Updater app to upload it to your device

Definitely! Neither have I. At the moment I'm only playing an acoustic upright bass, and all I need on my Stomp for that is a parametric EQ and a gentle noise gate. If I need the Stomp at all, that is… (In fact, all I need for band rehearsals at the moment is an "antique" Boss GE-10 EQ and an old powered Yamaha 12" PA box ;)

HX Edit 3.80 now requires MacOS Catalina, so if you have to update a device using an older Mac, you'd need Line 6 Updater. See: