rzumwalt

Ha ha. I feel like that describes roughly 75% of anything I ever say. I'm glad to be in good company.

I'm curious whether you've been able to implement that, or whether I'm just off on crackpot island?

I'm with you in concept, but my understanding is that the powercab isn't amplifying "just guitar." Doesn't it have to reproduce higher and lower frequencies than a typical guitar amp in order to capture the pitch shifting and other effects Helix puts out?

This is excellent. I'm thinking it would be impossible to get the actual IR names, since Helix presets only store the IR number and pull from whatever IR is currently loaded in that slot. I wonder if there would be a way to upload the backup file and get the IR information from there and cross reference it to the IR numbers in each preset. I realize I probably just asked the computing equivalent of, "Why don't you just make a car that gets 900 mpg and seats 15?" Have you thought of doing something similar with other effects blocks?

I don't necessarily disagree, but I'm curious if you think it's just running stereo with two powercabs that would be the nightmare, or running stereo altogether. If one were trying to use two powercabs in stereo, without a house PA system, by putting them on opposite sides of the stage, that's definitely a recipe for disaster. You'd get one guy standing in front of the left cab wondering why he's only hearing every third delay beat. But doesn't the powercab have its own XLR out so that you could send each one to FOH as right and left channels, respectively? In that case, I would expect a stereo setup would be to place the cabs just to the right and left of the player, and send each to FOH via the XLR outs (or two mics... but that would be a headache all its own). Maybe I'm just coming from a misconception about how loud the powercabs are. I didn't expect they would be loud enough to use as part of a band without a PA system, and so I didn't think of them being used stand-alone like in the first scenario, above.

I think "full range" usually refers to the lowest and highest frequencies the speaker can reproduce, while "flat response" usually refers to how evenly each frequency within that range is amplified by the speaker relative to all other frequencies in the range. So something would be "full range" if it is capable of reproducing all frequencies within normal human ability to hear, say from 20Hz to 20kHz; and it would be "flat response" if there were no frequencies within that range which were significantly boosted or cut, for example, by inputting a sine wave sweep of the entire frequency range and having the output be the same volume for the entire sweep.

The answer should be just to put a simple gain block (volume > gain on the block menu, not an overdrive or boost) as the first block in the signal chain. No matter how loud your HB pickups are, they will quiet. You can turn that gain block down to 0.1 if you have to, but the loudest active pickup humbucker played with the claw end of a roofing hammer will get quieter than the weakest single coil played with a sleeping butterfly's wing. And the reverse is true; even if one gain block doesn't have enough boost by itself, you can stack 2, or even 3 as long as there isn't a lot of input noise. There isn't anything that turning off the input pad and inserting a gain block reducing the volume of the HB guitar shouldn't fix. But, if I'm understanding correctly what you are reporting , I actually wonder whether there isn't something wrong with your particular Helix unit. I alternate between 4 different electric guitars (2 single coil, 2 humbucker), and I've never experienced this to the degree you are reporting. Yes, the presets made for one guitar don't sound as good with another guitar, but nothing like the dramatic difference in breakup it sounds like you are getting. What stands out most to me is that your HB guitar overdrives the amps even if you turn the amp gain all the way down until you have zero volume. That shouldn't be the case in most of the amp models for any passive pickups, no matter how loud they are. Please clarify a couple things. (1) Does the HB guitar overdrive every amp model the way you describe? (I think your answer is "yes," but have you tried the Highwatt and JC120?) (2) Do the other guitars fail to overdrive every other amp model the way you describe. (Again, I think your answer is "yes," but try the Placater, I don't think it has a setting that isn't saturated with gain.) (3) Have you tried bypassing every block in the signal chain other than the amp/cab (or for blocks that have a "headroom" parameter, have you tried turning all of those to the highest setting)? (4) This might be silly, but are you running a preamp block into an amp block? I could actually see that being a good explanation for what you're reporting. Also check whether you are using an amp block with no cab or IR block, an amp/cab block into another cab or an IR block, a cab block into an IR block, or any other combination that isn't 1 amp going into 1 cab per parallel path. (5) Related, are you using an amp that has two drive channels (Divided by 13, Lonestar, Mark IV Lead, etc.)? (6) Do you have the noise gate in the input block turned on? Is it set to something extreme? (7) Does the same thing happen with all the factory presets as well (both clean and dirty presets)? If those all check out, does the HB guitar stop overdriving amps as you roll off the guitar's volume knob? If it cleans up, does it clean up gradually, or all of a sudden past a certain threshold?If you plug one of the quieter guitars into an external compressor like the Keeley you mentioned, and then into the Helix, and push the level on the compressor up to max, can you get it to overdrive the amps? If you can't isolate what is causing the problem running it through all of that, I'd guess there is something wrong with your Helix unit. I'm assuming the guitars and the instrument cable you're using all work as expected in other setups. I'm interested to see what it turns out to be.

Hopefully this helps, or at least gets the conversation started. First, if the outgoing signal from your rack is line level (by that, I mean you can send your rack's output into one of Helix's inputs without blowing something up--I'm using "line level" here, but I'm sure I'm being imprecise and someone can correct me), I would plug my guitar into Helix and send the right and left channels to FX Loops 1 and 2, respectively, from Helix to the rack and back to Helix. My out to FOH would always be Helix's XLR L and R outputs. On the Helix signal chain, the FX Loops 1 and two would actually be a stereo FX Loop block, and I would put it first in the signal chain. For songs you use a Helix preset, the FX Loop is bypassed, and you use only Helix amps and effects and output to FOH from Helix's main outputs. For songs that use your rack, turn on the FX Loop and bypass all other blocks. (That actually describes how I would do it using Snapshots. In reality, you would probably have at least two presets; one for Helix songs, which wouldn't have an FX Loop block, and one for rack which would just have an FX Loop block and nothing else). If your rack has greater than line level final output, you would continue to use that output to FOH, but your signal would still start out Guitar > Helix. For Helix songs, the output block on Helix would go to the XLR L and R outputs directly to FOH. For rack songs, the Helix preset would be empty and the output block would go to 1/4" L and R outputs to your rack, then to FOH however you currently have it. Either way, your MIDI signal would only change the preset. So, if you had two presets and 1A is your Helix preset and 1B is your rack preset, the MIDI signal would just be a program change to 1A or 1B accordingly. (Or it would be a snapshot change if you choose to go that route. There is literature somewhere on what CC numbers each snapshot is.)

The best way I've found to distinguish between such minute changes in settings is to place the looper at the front of the signal chain and play a short loop while adjusting the setting you are after. I'm sure there's a way to tell using a DAW, but what you hear is what matters. You can also always use the pedal edit function to tweak the setting while playing. Since compression is a lot about feel, this might work best.

I'm seriously dumbfounded to hear people say they struggle to get "usable tone" after spending hours with the Helix. I'm trying to be kind and not sound belittling, but what JuggHaid said is exactly right, I can start with an empty preset and get a pleasing tone in just about any style I want in under 2 minutes. Maybe 4 minutes max for high-gain sounds because you might have to fiddle just a bit to get rid of some low-end woofiness or angry-wasp-in-a-tin-can edge--its just the nature of that type of sound. And I can do better than that. I guarantee I can get a tone I would be comfortable playing in front of a medium-sized crowd in a pinch in maybe 30 seconds. Suppose I stupidly let a drummer touch my Helix just before a set and he accidentally wipes all my presets. After five seconds of hyperventilating, I'd spend 2 seconds picking a position in the signal chain, 5 seconds opening an Amp+Cab block, 5 seconds scrolling to an amp I think fits the bill, 3 seconds playing a couple notes to see if the gain needs to go up or down, 3 more seconds making that adjustment, and I'd have 7 seconds to spare to adjust the master volume knob to the appropriate level. That wouldn't be a "perfect" tone, but it fits my definition of "usable." (And this did sort of happen to me once. I showed up an hour before a set to find that I had accidentally erased the preset I had been building for that specific occasion, which was Christmas music in a large ensemble with a choir, including a solo at one point and a mix of clean, crunch, high-gain, and modulated tones throughout the set. After the hyperventilation, I rebuilt a whole new preset from scratch, including snapshots and MIDI instructions to external pedals, in five or ten minutes. It wasn't perfect, and I had to do some tweaking on the fly and ride the volume pedal quite a bit, but i played the set without incident and even got some compliments afterward.) Now, if one says it takes a long time to get perfect tone, then I'll agree to an extent. But, taking it to a car analogy I believe OP used in this or another recent post, while I could attain a usable proficiency driving my brother's 2007 Ford Festiva by spending 30 seconds adjusting the seats and finding the a/c switch, I couldn't learn to drive a Porsche 911 perfectly even if I had weeks of instruction from a professional stunt driver. With Helix, the biggest problem with perfecting a preset is the overwhelming number of options, parameters, and effects you have to choose from. You end up going from good tone to different good tone most of the time. You know there's that one magical parameter adjustment somewhere in there that will transform your clumsy Lil' Wayne one-finger soloing into an identical reproduction of Jimi Hendrix's Little Wing solo, but you can't quite find it. But it is hardly a criticism of Line 6 that they made the Helix with so many good options, I can't stop myself from trying new ideas and playing with settings. Because, by the way, I was doing that back when all I had was a tube screamer and a 15 watt practice amp. So, I would suggest this as the most straightforward troubleshooting method for the usable tone issue. Open a blank preset and load up an amp+cab block, play a few notes, try the next amp model, and repeat until you find a promising tone, and then make slight adjustments to the drive, bass, mid, or treble knobs as your ear tells you. If you can't get an even usable tone after 10 minutes of that, then either your Helix, guitar, cable, or amp are broken, or you have a global setting wrong.

There are several options without buying an external MIDI pedal. You could theoretically get 20 or 30 different stomps per preset, with a few limitations, using snapshots. It would take a bit of planning, but you would assign at least two effects to a footswitch, and in snapshot 1 the mix control for one effect would be 0% and the other would be 100%, and in snapshot 2 they would be reversed. So each footswitch could have two or more effects attached to it. The downside would of course be that the effects assigned to a multiple switch couldn't necessarily be used at the same time if they are at 100% on different snapshots. Although, you could make a third snapshot where those two effects are 100%, and I imagine you would still keep several footswitches dedicated to a single effect and not changing per snapshot. I actually do this with expression pedal effects like wah, so one is always at 0% mix and the other is at 100%. It would also involve some tap dancing to get to the "second level" effects. You could also assign all footswitches to a single effect, and you could have five effects not assigned to a footswitch, but that come on with one of the snapshots. You again have the tap dancing issue, but a reasonable workaround is, when you know the song uses one of the five other effects, you would go to that snapshot before the song started, setting up the 10 footswitch effects to whatever state you need them in when the other effect was needed. And finally, really, why limit yourself like this and try to re-create the analog world in the digital world but throw out the benefits of the digital. Granted, I don't have the same need to pick out presets on the fly, but I am happy having 4 or 5 presets that cover 90% of songs I'll play and only a few song-specific presets.

One other suggestion, make sure it isn't on a parallel signal path.

I can add on to this topic to say that a similar problem occurs when the Strymon Big Sky is in an FX loop on a parallel path. Big Sky is a digital reverb pedal like the Polara. It sounds to me like comb filtering or phasing due to some very slight delay in the parallel path introduced by the loop and effect pedal, as Verne-Bunson also theorized above. I think this is going to be a problem for any quality digital reverb. I'll explain: I've heard from good authority on this forum that the small delays caused by the D/A and A/D converters on the FX loops is compensated for by Helix's programming. My theory is that two of the qualities of a pedal like Strymon Big Sky combine to make this happen: (1) it is digital, and therefore unavoidably introduces a delay to the signal, and (2) includes a dry-through signal which is an exact replica of the waveform on the parallel path, except very slightly delayed. I think one of the things that makes the Strymon so good is that dry-through component, and I'm willing to bet Polara does the same based on dbdbdb's experience.

Well, I guess I have you to thank then for raising the issue to them. I'm hesitant to call something "unacceptable" when it has to do with something way over my head. I still don't even understand how a programming error could even cause a glitch that seems to perfectly replicate a broken mechanical contact in the first place. I actually searched for this thread looking for a physical maintenance solution. But I get the frustration; it does seem like a pretty core function. I've now played with it for a couple hours and the tap tempo button still seems basically fixed. The last go around I could only get it to mess up once, and I was intentionally trying to replicate the behavior. So I'm not sure it was a glitch at all. I guess I'll try to remember to post back here in the future if anything changes.

I have been having the same problem as well, and found this thread. Very helpful to all who answered. For those who had the problem, were you using firmware v 2.30 when it happened? I just got frustrated enough with mine to really pay it any attention, but it had been going on for a while, so I can't remember whether it started at the time of the last upgrade. I just upgraded to 2.50 (didn't have my Helix with me for the last two weeks, or i would have done it sooner). I notice that it seems quite a bit better after the upgrade. (This is based on turning the tuner on and off several times and tapping in several different tempos for a total of about a minute and a half of testing, so not exactly a scientific experiment at this point.) However, my gut feeling is that a software glitch would either be corrected or not, it wouldn't be "mostly" better, and therefore it must just be coincidence that it is working better right now, and obviously will start working poorly again in the middle of my next performance. But that's a gut feeling because I don't have any knowledge or expertise with this sort of thing on which to base an actual opinion. Has anyone noticed a similar "mostly" fixed tap tempo button when upgrading to 2.50, or is my gut feeling probably correct? I will offer this advice to anyone who needs it, if it is mechanical: It seems to be more likely to occur when I press the switch all the way down, as opposed to stopping before it hits bottom. I can rest my foot on my pedal board and rock it forward onto the switch so that it goes down just past the point where it clicks, but doesn't go all the way to the bottom, and it seems to be most consistent when I do that.

Same here. Get married...Helix is released. Have kid...massive firmware 2.5 update is released. Right now I'm waiting for the next development: get fired from job for ditching out on work to play with newly updated Helix...Line 6 decides it's catalog is pretty good now, no need to come up with any new releases for a while.

Great, another stereo only reverb. Just kidding, very cool. I experimented by turning the high cut even lower. Changes it from more spring-like to more plate-like.

I felt the need to weigh in since I very recently used the multi-band compressor to help me out in an acoustic set. Not that my issue was exactly on point with yours, but maybe you can take something from it. My acoustic-electric actually uses magnetic pickups between the neck and the 22nd fret. It ends up sounding very similar to an electric guitar's neck pickup through a clean amp. To get more resonance, the signal chain used an acoustic guitar impulse response Canton and beginning, and a very slight reverb using a Strymon Big Sky pedal (under the "Natural" setting). After the IR, I used a mic preamp, but I almost felt it was better without the preamp. But, it still didn't sound as much like an acoustic guitar as I'd wanted, and one of the things that helped was the multi-band compressor. The main thing was to help bring out the treble strings because the lower strings were overpowering, even after lowering the magnetic poles and some fairly drastic EQ and high-pass filtering. And it seemed to help with the acoustic guitar similitude. I'm still not exactly sure why. There seemed to be just enough more brightness or vibrance in the treble strings for my purposes. My best guess is it prevented the lower strings' initial attack from overpowering the initial attack of the treble strings. However, if your fretboard is choking your strings, I think your instincts and hideout's comments are correct. You may just end up causing the rest of the strings more sustain while there is no longer any signal coming from the treble strings to sustain at all, exacerbating the perception of them falling out early.

I had the same question, and I think the answer was to use the CC# for the actual footswitch on the Strymon. But, if you are changing programs between snapshots, then you wouldn't necessarily know which footswtich to turn off in the snapshot you want it bypassed in. So I gave up and just bypassed the effect loop. Now that I think if it, I guess you could have three instant MIDI commands to turn all three footswitches off.

I'm not joking right now...can I get this on a sticker for my guitar case? it's already the new lock screen for my phone.

I don't disagree, even if I wish I could. I hate trying to gently nudge my pickup selector, being careful to move it on the fly exactly two notches, no more, no less. So the caveat here is, yes, I need to practice more. But, I'm pragmatic and I've been known to try this. The short answer is, it's not all that effective, at least I haven't found a way that sounds very convincing. It's a bit like trying to make your guitar sound like a different guitar using just amp knobs and EQs. The best I've come up with to make a bridge pickup sound more like a neck pickup is to use an EQ and compressor at the front of the signal to increase bass, mids, and compression amount and decrease gain to compensate. All are very slight adjustments. It doesn't really work, and if you're like me and you aren't going to practice the technique, it's better to just select a pickup at the beginning of each song and change your frame of reference from which pickups you want to change to mid-song, to what gain, bass, treble, compression, etc. settings do I want to change to. But you should probably stick to practice.

Some additional template ideas that have helped me: 1. I like snapshots, but keep a few parameters you can change that don't depend on snapshots. For example, the built-in expression pedal is usually tied to an EQ so that it works like a volume boost and adds treble/reduces bass, and an external expression pedal is usually set to trigger a wah when the heel comes up. I also like to keep at least one footswitch tied to a drive pedal that isn't affected by snapshots. I also keep an Ernie Ball VPJr. in loop 1, which is always on regardless of snapshot. 2. As PeterHamm mentioned about keeping your footswitches in a consistent layout between presets, do the same for Snapshots. For example, you might arrange them as follows: (1) Clean-Dry; (2) Crunch-Dry; (3) Drive; (4) Tremolo-Dry; (5) Clean-Delay; (6) Crunch-Delay; (7) Lead; (8) Teremolo-Delay. 3. I renamed one of my setlists "PERFORMANCE" and I use it just for that. I renamed the other setlists to correspond with the five guitars I most frequently use, and I save presets for each guitar in the respectively named setlist. I use the presets in the "Guitar" setlists as templates and, when I want to perform with one, I save a copy of it into the "Performance" setlist in the order I will use it. If I need to make changes to an active preset during a performance, I know I won't be changing the template. If I know I'll be playing a venue again in the future, and I've made changes to suit the venue, I'll save the "Performance" preset back to the "Guitar" setlist and label it to indicate that it was modified for that specific venue. Same thing if a modified template works for a particular song. 4. Although I don't have a problem with the Cab models, as some have voiced, I usually use an IR block instead for templates. The reason is that it's a lot easier to switch between different cab models using an IR block. Same goes for snapshots, you can completely change the type of cabinet in an IR block, whereas you can only tweak the parameters of one cabinet in a cab block. (I suppose you could use a dual cabinet block and set the levels to 0% and 100% and swap them between snapshots.) 5. For a pure template--as opposed to a template that has been more customized over time--it's probably better to save it with just 2 or three unique snapshots filled in, and copy those to the remaining snapshot spaces. When it comes time to customize the template, if you have 8 unique snapshots, you have to figure out the different parameters in each one and can spend all day adjusting. Instead, once you have one snapshot the way you want it, copy it to the next snapshot space and make changes from there. Yes, that conflicts with my item 2, below, but my "pure" templates would really only have the Dry and the Delay snapshots, and I would add the clean, crunch, etc. sounds when I customize them. 6. If you have external effects in the loops, it goes without saying that your templates should have those fx blocks all set up and MIDI controls set up to some default setting in your MIDI controlled devices. 7. Make use of the volume control on the final output block. When you customize a template, especially with different amp models, you could end up with wildly different volumes between presets. If I were smart, I would have created all of my template presets to be at a good volume with the final output block at -6db. The max is +6db, and sometimes there hasn't been enough room to bring a quiet preset up if the default was 0db. And resist the urge to tie this parameter to snapshots, or you will lose the ability to use it as an overall volume adjustment. Use a gain block at the end of the signal chain if you need something to level volumes between snapshots.

He meant those as separate thoughts. For the first, he means to change the input impedance from multi-input to whatever fixed impedance you prefer. For the second, he means to use the LA Studio Comp effect block, which is under the "dynamics" group. I agree with this. But, where do you usually place it? I always run Helix to FRFR. I've been putting the LASC right after the Cab/IR block. Often, I also have a compressor at the front of the chain, and I usually use it subtly as well. I also reduce the mix on both to about 80%. It seems to work for just about any style I tend to play, so I'd make it part of my template.

True, it is a relatively clean amp, all things considered, so there could be some use for the full amp models if leveled appropriately. So the better advise would be to either (1) use the preamp models, (2) lower the Helix output to the HR Delux input or return, or (3) lower the HR Delux gain, or any combination thereof, until it sounds best to the user.

What if a Helix Controller (or the Helix-II equivalent) could be plugged into a Helix Floor and instead of acting like the sole controller for a Helix Rack? It could act like an extended set of controls for the Helix Floor. The volume knob could be assigned to a specific set of outputs, the footpedals could be stomps 13-24 (with scribble strips), and if it has its own USB, it could be utilized as a second USB port. (I don't own the Helix Controller, so I'm not sure what it's equipped with, but assume that the Helix-II equivalent could do everything I mentioned, and that it can replace a broken guitar string during a performance.)