jpspoons

Thanks for that. I'm glad I don't have time to watch all the videos right now, I can't afford the GAS pangs (and being honest I've barely scratched the surface with Helix/Powercab anyway).

I had to read that three times to check you weren't being tongue-in-cheek! Wait, did he really say that, and what was the context @rd2rk?

Hey @rd2rk, I don't think I've seen anyone specifically advise against using the Output Block level to set levels. So forgive my ignorance - what issue does it cause? Thanks in advance.

@MauroDave I'm glad you've got Cubase and Native working from a tech point of view at least. I'm not a super expert colleague on Helix (and I don't have a tent) but I do have a couple of suggestions around tone. If you haven't already, check out Line 6 CustomTone and download a few tones for the genre(s) of music you like... getting other users' presets e.g. for specific songs might help as a jumping off point for your own tone creation. Since Native uses the same engine as Helix, I would post any "how do I" questions in the Helix forum rather than this one; a lot more people hang out there. Similarly, even more people hang out in this Facebook group. For better or for worse, if you post there saying "Why are my Helix tones not as good as my Amplitube tones" you will probably get more opinions than you need! (3) Line 6 Helix Family User Group OFFICIAL and ORIGINAL | Facebook Good luck with the rest of your journey :-)

Thanks @datacommando, appreciated. I've had so much help from forums, this one included, so it's nice to be able to help someone else and pay it forward. And Cubase is great once your setup is optimised and you know your way around it, but the learning curve can be steep. I remember well the days of feeling like a passenger being talked through an emergency landing by someone in the control tower ;-)

I'm pleased the buffer / latency trade-off is working ok. Aerospace engineers, ha! Yes it can feel like that, it's a good idea to take notes of anything you have to change so that you have a reference e.g. for installation onto a new PC. I'm hopeful though that your track is still armed for monitoring (or recording) - make sure the monitoring is off, and record-enable is off as well, if that works then you can switch the VST settings and not have to worry about it again. The sound card issue... I try to keep my main recording PC just for recording as far as possible, so I always have the "Release Driver..." option off. It's annoying sometimes but I prefer to exit Cubase if I want to use another application that uses sound. I can't answer with any confidence as it sounds like it might be to do with the Axe IO, but it might be worth switching that option off if it's on. I'm wondering whether switching back and forward between different sound sources is working the driver hard and making it less stable... that's total speculation though. It might be worth checking for any known issues on the IK / Axe specific sites for that one. I think you're nearly there on the HX Native and Cubase side though, keep going :-)

OK @MauroDave, I think we're nearly there, fingers crossed! I suspect / hope that you still have the track armed for monitoring - Cubase will either allow you to hear back your recorded sound on that track, or the "live" guitar sound. If you turn off the monitor (speaker symbol), hopefully you can hear the recorded sound? If that works then there's an almost secret option called (in English obviously) Tape Machine Style which I think should be the default option. From the online manual, it "Activates input monitoring in stop mode and during recording, but not during playback." (see Auto Monitoring section on this page) VST (steinberg.help) In other words you don't have to remember to switch monitor on and off for each track, it will do it automatically for you. Set it once and forget. If that sounds useful, go to Edit / Preferences and then the VST section near the bottom of the page, and choose Tapemachine style from the Auto Monitoring options:

That's great news @MauroDave! In your picture #4 the latency is 13ms - is that before or after you increased the buffer size? No latency and no buffering is real progress though, your hardware is obviously more than good enough. Can you post an updated version of your picture #3, after you made the recording? Actually I've just read your later post, ignore this for now. This is actually an option. You can choose to let Cubase retain control of the soundcard (which means no other applications can access it), or you can choose for Cubase to release the soundcard when other applications need it. On your picture #4, go to the Sistema Audio option and you'll see an option like this:

After that it would be good to see your equivalent of my picture #5 with signal going through

@MauroDave Picture #4 could you click on the Panello di Controllo to see the buffer settings?

Definitely try this - it took me a long time to realise there even *was* an input level in Native. You can see the slider for it on the Native screenshot above, try lowering it, especially if the meter next to it is maxing out. If you keep native on the track but bypass it, does it still sound bad? The only other suggestion I would make is to increase your buffer size if you've brought it right down to reduce latency.

If the track isn't armed then you wouldn't hear even the dry track through Cubase - but you possibly would in the audio interace if you're direct monitoring? Depends on the hardware. Seeing the meters is a good visual check that Cubase is getting signal to the input, guitar track and output. I'm wondering now whether you're just hearing the guitar directly through the interface without Cubase / Native joining in, but I don't know the hardware to be able to comment. A good test might be to turn the track Monitor button OFF (greyed out) if it's on... the dry guitar should cut out (and the meters will disappear accordingly) so if you can still hear it, you're getting it through the audio interface direct without Cubase processing it.

With Helix in the inserts it should look something like this - the track is armed (it's called Monitor when you hover over it), and you should be seeing the signal coming through on the meters (circled) when you play the guitar. Any other buttons lit or different colours *might* mean you're bypassing Native which would mean you're getting the dry signal. One thing worth trying *just in case* is to use one of the Native presets, as the effects are already loaded. I can't remember exactly what it is but I'm sure there's some inconsistency between the ways that the Helix unit, HX Edit and HX Native differentiate between blocks that are on and off, so there's a tiny possibility that if you build the patch yourself, all of the blocks are off / bypassed. One final check is the Mixer (hit F3) - you should be seeing something like this, with the blue circle on Insert meaning Native is live, and the three meters meaning that you're getting signal through the input, guitar track and output channel respectively. If none of this works post some screenshots. I'm about to sleep but I'll look out for messages tomorrow. Cubase is fiddly but it's worth persevering with - I've had it for a long time, and I still have nights (especially when alcohol is involved) when I screw something up and get no audio at all for the first 15 minutes of any session. Good luck!

I think you're saying you can hear the guitar, but just to check, I would go through the following steps: First up I would hit F4 (Audio Connections) and check that 1. your audio interface guitar input is mapped to an input channel in Cubase - it should look something like this, post yours if you're not sure: 2. Your outputs need to be mapped as well or you'll get no sound output: Next, when you set up the guitar track, make sure it's mapped to that Mono input - I would personally create a stereo track though, it sounds counterintuitive but go with me on this one! See the input and output mappings under the grey "no track preset" box above. Then - you need that speaker icon to be coloured in not greyed out - that's the button to arm the track as mentioned by @silverhead. If you're hearing the dry guitar but Native is doing nothing, that's another matter :D

At the risk of confusing things further, I think it's actually a speaker model called "Natural" in the plus....