lou-kash

Um… is there anything wrong with sending MIDI messages from DAW to Helix hardware?

If by "dual path" you mean two independent channels, you can:

Alright, I can't test that, lacking a Big Sur compatible computer. Perhaps it's an all new feature of the now-Big-Sur-only Garageband 10.4.2?

Well, that's amazing, indeed! Which GarageBand version? Which MacOS? Could have been an accidental oversight by the developers in one of the updates that was subsequently removed again. That happens: For example, the current version of iZotope RX8 Elements also "features" such an oversight that shouldn't be there by design, being actually an exclusive feature to the much more pricey RX8 Standard and Advanced. I, for one, can't complain about it either. :) But I won't be shocked if they eventually find out and "fix" it in a subsequent update…

What's "confusing" you here? It's the way it is.

Nothing. You'd need to rewire it to have an input and output. Then it might work as a passive volume pedal.

Um… yes: That's what you'll see if you click on the "MacOS 11 Compatibility with Line 6 Software" box at the top of every forum page. It's there for a reason. Definitely do not use Bug Sur for "mission critical" tasks roughly until at least the upcoming WWDC later this year. Provided your ProTools is fully compatible with Catalina, you should be good to go with Line 6 on Catalina as well.

Then the driver is possibly not installed properly yet? Here's what it looks like on El Capitan:

No one forces anyone to upgrade on Day One. ;) I bought a MacBook Pro "Early 2008" – the last model with the silver keyboard (how I still love it!) – a few weeks before the first "unibody" MacBooks were known to be released in October 2008, to replace a mere 3-years old PowerBook G4 that was already hopelessly obsolete by then but which I'm still keeping to run some PPC only software every now and then. The MBP ran Snow Leopard until 2019 (!) when I upgraded it to El Capitan – highest possible – after making sure all my important "obsolete" stuff will still run or is possible to convert or replace. Also: a 2TB SSD makes it fly. Partitioned to boot anything from Leopard to El Capitan. I bought a MacBook Pro Mid-2012 – the last model with a CD/DVD-R drive (how I still need it!) and matte display (how I still can't be without it!) – in 2013, also a few weeks before the first "retina" MacBooks were known to be released. It ran Mountain Lion until 2019 when I bought a 2 TB SSD drive and partitioned it from Mountain Lion (skipping Mavericks & Yosemite) to Catalina, making El Capitan the primary partition to keep it easily in full sync with the 2008 MacBook. Then I bought Helix Native last December while it was on sale combined with my HX Stomp discount, only to realize that it won't run in Logic 9. At the same time I also realized that I have the last chance to buy Logic X via Catalina before it will be Bug Sur only, so I finally upgraded to Logic X as well. That was a good move anyway because Logic 9 already has some stability issues on El Capitan, albeit manageable. I'm also slowly but steadily migrating my Adobe CS5 graphic work to the Serif Affinity suite because I won't join the Adobe CC rip-off, and while CS5 still works more or less stable on El Capitan, it won't run on Catalina. Neither will my trusty but also "obsolete" Firewire audio interfaces. Heck, M-Audio Firewire 410 works on El Capitan only thanks to user-hacked drivers, although the device is otherwise fully functional. Eventually I'll likely buy the Roland UA 1010 Octa Capture to replace the Alesis iO26 under Catalina. And most importantly, I have no plans to replace this MacBook Pro Mid-2012 anytime soon. I'd rather spend a few hundred CHF to repair it in case anything will fail. And it will, sooner or later: I already had to have the keyboard replaced a few years ago. But it's still worth it, more than having to buy any of the new MacBooks, not to speak of Hackintoshs with their own tail of problems. Or even moving to Windows; no way. Got a bunch of PCs last year from my late father who was a Windows "enthusiast", spending most of his time to keep them running in the first place, instead of doing any creative work while he still considered himself an "artist". They're waiting in storage to be thorughly inspected sometime later this year. I already shudder only thinking of having to deal with it. Love his LG display as an extension when plugging in the MacBook in my studio though. Eyesight vanishes with age, display size matters, 15" is not much… Waiting for new MacBook Pros 15/16" with Sillicon chips, wondering how those will turn out. And for how much. The current 16" "Pro" [scare quotes] is of no interest for me. The major dealbreaker with all recent MacBooks: the non-replaceable SSD drive. Need 2TB or more. Won't pay Apple's "premium" for that. But that's just me. Your mileage may vary. :) Depending on which exact 2009 model, it can run either up to El Capitan or High Sierra. If the latter, you can still do practically anything with it. In some instances you'd only need to stick with an "older" version of software. But e.g. with Logic X, for me it's not a big deal having to use v10.3.3 on El Capitan. It does all I need already. Tl;dr: No one forces anyone to upgrade on Day One. Options exist! ;)

I would wait patiently while focusing on all those other things that can already be done on M1 Macs. That would likely keep me busy enough for months to come. :D (Disclosure: Using Macs to make a living for about 90% of my income, I always painstakingly keep my previous Mac up to date and in sync as a backup, just in case my main Mac would die a sudden death. Because been there done that.)

This. My best musical investment in decades. I remember back in 1992 paying almost twice as much for a used Boss SE-50 , and it made me happy for many years to come. I was still using it until buying the Stomp last summer.

Hm, last year my El Capitan MacBook may have had a kernel panic about twice, after seven years of Mountain Lion stability. Frankly though, I often do nasty things to my Macs that kids definitely should not try at home on their dads' computers. Like running "obsolete" and "unsupported" "legacy" audio interfaces with hacked drivers. :D

Here you go: https://line6.com/support/tickets/add.html

Not by far. Usually you'd simply force quit the hanging "beachballing" app by one of quite a few methods. The "Mac screen of death" is called Kernel Panic. That won't go unnoticed when it happens. That aside… You may want to post here: https://line6.com/support/forum/90-helix-native

And that's the logical (pun not intended :) way: It's an amp simulation. In the real world, unless you have a special guitar amp with a stereo input, any other standard guitar (pre)amp will process the input signal in mono, no matter how many hard panned guitars you plug in. So the plugin just does what you would expect from a real guitar amp here. Aux bus in mono? Native in Dual Mono mode? Mono reverb loaded? Hard to tell without letting us know the details…

Update HX Edit to v3, then Stomp firmware to v3.01, and you'll have two more blocks for free.

You can't have three FX loops. FX-R has to go either on path A or on path B. It can't go after the mixer because it's mono and it would mix both paths back to mono signal. Or you'd use only one FX Loop before the Y split. Or you put your drives before the Stomp.

HX Stomp 3.0 Owner's Manual - Rev C - English.pdf, page 52

Install the Helix Driver, v.1.0.9, or if you're on El Capitan or earlier v 1.0.7. The Stomp is class compliant, i.e. it is usable without a driver, but only @ 48kHz.

I'm not at the Stomp at the moment, but I've set up a preset template in Helix Native that should basically do what you need: 2-ch mono.hlx Using EQ and Gain blocks as placeholders, replace them with whatever blocks you need. Firmware/HX Edit v3 required. Note that if you go one jack in and one jack out per channel, each channel signal will remain mono. While the outputs accept TRS jacks, that's for having a balanced signal, not a stereo signal on each jack. So there's no use for using stereo blocks whatsoever, unless you need a block that's avalable as stereo only. If you want mono in & stereo out, you need to move the final mixer block to the stereo aux outputs in Stomp/HX Edit. Not sure how to simulate this in Helix Native.

No. According to my conversation with Line 6 support concerning a somewhat related hardware issue (fixed in the meantime), this is even supposed to be the expected behavior, as the setting is apparently only meant to affect the Edit view. I, for one, still consider it a bug though.

Yeah, I had to borrow a similar model to digitize a few 9.5 cm/s tapes we've recorded on a then-bandmate's Porta Two

Oh, nice! I still have Tascam Porta One that I bought used in 1990. It still works! I've digitized all my 4-track cassettes a few years ago. They're waiting to be remixed. Well, hopefully I'll have the time to do it when I'll retire in 11 years. :)

Alright, installed RX8 on Catalina, reinstalled Helix Native, same issue: Native AU doesn't load in RX8, Native VST does. The same with the TDR universal AU plugins. No problems loading Native AU – or TDR AU, for that matter – in Logic 10.6.1 and other hosts. That seems to confirm that it's a RX8 bug, so I'm off to Izotope support.

That's very likely, haha! No, he's in a town 40 km away, so we don't see each other that often, let alone in these times. In fact, I have now installed TeamViewer on his MacBook in case he'd need remote Mac support. While that means I could remotely install HX Edit, sadly I don't have a 40 km USB cable handy to plug it in. :P