gkinder

Waiting on the special cable this unit needs....Mission only makes it in a 3' length which is way to short for connecting to a floorboard like the Helix....they gave me the site of the company that makes the cables...called them and they are making me a 15' cable for the same price....really cool folks....hooked up the Gemini with a basic guitar cable and it sounds pretty good....will write a review once I've got the proper stereo cable, dual XLR to stereo 1/4" TRS, and put it through its paces....

FedEx just dropped off a new Mission Engineering Gemini 2 from Sweetwater about 10 minutes ago....talked to both Mission and Sweetwater about this rig a lot before I ordered....they both swear it sounds great at low to loud levels....it was designed for modelers from the ground up....got the blue tooth option so can stream backing tracks from my phone or tablet....can't wait to get it home and try it out...will post a review in the next few days, if not tonight....this thing was pricey but am hoping it is truly the Holy Grail it's claimed to be....

I'm 50 and haven't used a backpack in a long time as well....this case doesn't need to be used like a backpack though, it's an option....you can carry it like any case and pretty not know the backpack straps are even there....they are well concealed when not in use....just got mine 20 minutes ago, very nice case....15" laptop will fit, 17" no way....

Thanks mucho!!!

Wampler Sovereign is the only I'm planning on keeping right now.

That's a good idea....thanks!!!

Same here...guess you are running a high resolution screen like I am.....it's a very poorly written interface in this regard. It's like they wrote the UI for an ancient 1024x768 res screen...Geesh!! Change your screen resolution settings to a very low resolution and you'll be able to actually read the wording....ticks me off every time I open the program, hope the new editor isn't this poorly done. Amazes me that Line6 would create such a beautiful, intuitive interface on the Helix itself then put something out so lacking in the librarian program.

Maybe this is in the Helix and I haven't found it yet, but would LOVE and option to delete ALL factory presets with one selection. Nothing against Line6's presets, but 97% of them are useless to me and having to go through every bank and delete all the presets so I can set up the board I want is a big pain in the arse. Thanks for the samples Line6 but give us a quick way to nuke them all after we are done scrolling through them....

You are being pennywise and a dollar foolish. MS does not support XP therefore there are no more security updates being worked on and in a world with low life hackers that leaves you very vulnerable if you ever connect to anything. I loved XP, great platform, but you have to move forward or your system becomes unsupported and vulnerable. Every other OS is pretty safe, which is fine because every other MS OS is worth moving to, i.e. XP to 7 to 10. With MS OS's spend the extra few bucks and buy the Pro version of the OS, not the scaled back Home version or whatever they are calling it now. I'd move to 10 Pro if I were you and skip 7...buy a new machine designed to run Win 10 Pro... We've virtually had no problems with 10 Pro and moved from 7 to 10, skipping 8, with new hardware purchases at the same time... when we moved off XP to 7, same drill. Upgrade both your hardware and OS at the same time and don't try to run an OS on a machine it wasn't designed for, that's bad mojo..

My Helix hasn't had any issues of note... All the updates have worked on Windows 10 Pro... keep reading that some are having issues and praying mine doesn't do the same, so far so good though...

Using my Surface Pro 3 with Windows 10. Just playing the tracks with the Windows player... nothing fancy. Tommy I'll give your suggestion a try, though I wouldn't think each uses one processor each.... should be a shared architecture... but who knows

Am running backing tracks through the return on loop 1 and 2 (stereo)...Works and sounds great...problem is that the 1/2 loop cuts out for a couple of seconds every so often. No real pattern but it normally is a couple of minutes between drops.....any ideas what may be causing this? FWIW, the effect is at the very end of the chain with an amp/cab, verb, compressor, and distortion in front...wouldn't think this is a processing resources issue as not really running much here.... Any thoughts?

Most likely they are heavy into bug fixes and getting an editor/librarian program up that is stable and usable.... new amps, features, etc. are probably six months to a year away, at least, from their development calendar. They have the company riding on Helix right now, so nothing short of perfecting it based on user feed back is happening, with top priority probably on the black screen issue and patch librarian software.... if they don't get those two fixed pretty damn quick they run the risk of Helix tanking no matter how good the rest is..... have had only one issue with mine, minor in the scheme of things, but am praying I don't have the black screen death happen and lose all the patches I've made..... the a Helix sounds fantastic but it does need to be stable and recoverable as well.... sure they'll get this done shortly.

You are probably right about Pro vs Home versions....we avoid stripped down versions of OS's like the plague. This is one my biggest pet peeves with MS, multiple versions of their OS....really MS?! Just sell ONE OS that is inclusive and be done with it. Stripped down means issues, just like you so aptly point out... Oh, red head here too....though I am a step child as well :)

Without any reservations, the Best processor I've gotten my hands on, and that includes an AxeFx2....haven't tried a Kemper so can't say how it compares however from reviewing Kemper posts it looks like the Helix out shines that unit in most ways, though which amps actually sound better between the two I'm sure is up for debate. Had mine since Wednesday and like the poster above said, it gets better everytime I use it...sure with more updates it will continue to improve but out of the box its pretty darn good...good enough for me to start selling a number of tube amps and pedals in my collection....easy to get pristine tones out of it so you spend a lot more time playing than endlessly tweaking....hope that helps.

Sorry if I got off track...was trying not to but rather to "set the stage", if you will, for others in similar circumstances to mine...sorry about that if I strayed too much. Sounds like you have a lot more experience than I do with sound, etc., so maybe you can answer a question about modeling in general. Is it accurate to say that modeling has a lot more "sweep" in the controls of a given model vs. the original circuit? It appears they do but maybe I'm wrong....for example, I've got a JTM45 RI running into a 2x12 and where I run say the mids at 7 to 8 on the actual amp with the models I'm getting the same response at a couple of clicks less....I've got the Helix and the JTM sounding damn near identical but the Helix's knob positions are all lower, with the exception of the bass control...with the JTM its set on 2 with the Helix it's set on 3.5. Same with the distortion effects, lower settings seem to be a couple of clicks less than real pedal (i.e. the tube screamer). Appreciate any insight you could provide.

You have very valid points. however many that are saying MS is somehow doing a poor job with their Win10 release are not being fair, at least IMHO. We've got a lot of PC's on our network, of differing flavors/configurations, and upgraded all of them to Win10 Pro with little to no difficulty whatsoever. This has been the easiest migration ever for us....you want to talk about driver problems? You probably remember the XP to Vista/Win 7 migration where Nothing was compatible because the entire underlying structure of the new OS was different than XP. Win10 is a cake walk compared to the XP change over where the only resolution was often to buy new hardware. Your "so slow" comment about running Win10 on old equipment is spot on as those machines weren't designed to run the newer OS and the manufactures of the hardware in those boxes probably did not have updated their drivers, etc. to accommodate Win10, so MS is often times forced to deploy generic drivers...that's certainly not the fault of MS yet they seem to get the black eye for it. This is no different for other OS's as well. Try running a new Apple OS on older Apple hardware, IF the new OS will even load at all.....it's called designed obsolescence, however we really can't blame Apple or MS as they are designing towards advancements in technology, not to maintain the past. Rule of thumb should always be to only move to a new OS IF your machine was designed to run it. If it wasn't, stay where you are at. My experience is that people start taking shots at MS/Apple/etc. when they try to upgrade their hardware with OS's they simply were not designed for or don't have the core capacities to handle. All the machines in our network, for example, were purchased in the last year and were designed with a known Win10 deployment being around the corner, that's why we had no issues to speak of. Had our machines been 3-5 years old, they would all still be on Win7, which has been an excellent OS. Certainly agree about waiting for the first service packs to be released, etc. if you are not tech savvy, but MS and Apple both do a very good job with their OS's in general considering the huge complexities involved, that's especially true with MS as they do not control the hardware like Apple does. The Helix has been on the street for less than two weeks....everyone really needs to give Line6 a chance to catch their breath and a bit of time to start making adjustments...looks like they seem to be doing so already, and in all fairness so have MS and Apple with their latest OS releases. I personally love Win10 and the Edge browser and find both to be quite nimble compared to solid old Win7 and IE.

First off, would like to thank all the good players on this and the various other forums for your posts...very informative and insightful, and I enjoy your discussions immensely. This is my first post and the only reason I'm making it is to hopefully help out others that are more at my playing level and/or point in life and are considering the Helix. This review is from a guy who is simply a hobbyist, has no delusions about his playing ability, and has no dreams of being anything more than a guy that enjoys the guitar and music for his own personal satisfaction. A little background about who/what I am and who this review is targeted towards. In my early fifties, own a successful software company, work on average 80 plus hours a week, have a kid in college, a beautiful wife, three dogs, and a nice home in the country where we commercially grow oranges and lemons (my other job). Have picked up the guitar and put it down a half dozen times over the years, simply because I didn't have time to devote to it as I was too busy with family and business. Decided a few years ago that I really wanted to play and found playing was a great stress reliever for me. Play mostly at home in my "man cave" and with a couple of buddies of mine, we aren't very good but we enjoy trying to sound decent at least. Don't "gig" and doubt I ever will. Sure there are any number of folks out there who are in this same boat and looking at the Helix, you pro folks don't have a lock on the GAS thing you know ;) My gear is WAY better than I am but I enjoy and appreciate quality things. Have a number of very nice tube amps, pedals, etc. but have been looking for something that could replace all this stuff, my man cave is getting ridiculously cluttered. Whatever I ended up with had to provide a variety of really good tones, with an emphasis on the plural there, and be portable so I could throw a compact rig in the back seat of my truck with a couple guitars and head out to play with the guys. No shot at Line6 here, but have tried most of the more recent POD units and they just didn't cut it for me, all got returned. Same with the BOSS, VOX, and other floor board style units available. All took way too much time to get anything useful out of and I just don't have time to invest in tweaking. Earlier this year I went completely nuts and bought an AxeFx2 rig thinking it was going to be the answer....again too much tweaking required and having multiple pieces as opposed to single floor unit wasn't really what I wanted, it got returned as well. Then looked into a Kemper but it looked like it was another flavor of the AxeFx, again not in a single floor unit, so passed on going there. The other thing that these units required was a computer hook up to really set them up which is yet another item to mess with. I had pretty much given up on the modeling units when the Helix was announced. It caught my attention in a big way as it certainly looked to be the answer to what I REALLY was looking for, i.e. a number of good tones, single unit, and NO computer hook up to tweak. My ONLY question was if it would require endless tweaking to get anything good out of it. Decided to give modeling one more shot and went ahead and pre-ordered the Helix hoping this was going to be "the one". Well, my Helix arrived this past Wednesday. Unboxed it that evening like a kid at Christmas, plugged in with a set of good headphone and my Knaggs Severn with Zexcoil pickups, selected a JTM45 patch, set all the controls to around their mid way settings, added a little reverb, and strummed a few chords....Holy Crap!! This thing sounded GREAT and I didn't tweak a bloody thing. There were NO annoying artifacts, it wasn't muddy, it wasn't shrill, it wasn't anything but pristine right out of the box. Figured this was too good to be true, so saved the JTM patch, selected a new button and pulled up a Divided by 13 rig, set it to the mid points with a touch of reverb...the SAME result!!! Proceeded to do the same for a Plexi, the Deluxe, the Twin, the Dr. Z, and the AC30...for goodness sake, they ALL produced the same pristine results. To say the Helix was impressive tone wise would be an understatement. Not to say the patches didn't need some minor tweaking to get the best out of them, but it took all of 30 seconds to do...and to do that I didn't have to go through pages of an owner's manual to figure how to do this or that, just took a quick glance at the colorful cheat sheet that was in the box...still haven't read the manual. The user interface is VERY intuitive, the screen is nice and large so you don't have to get six inches away to read it, and the thoughtful interaction with the UI is extremely well implemented. Being a developer I know what it takes to write good software interfaces, it's a LOT of trial and error and a lot of work, so my hat is off to the folks at Line6 for doing a fantastic job with the UI. Have had the Helix now a total of four days and spent a couple of hours with it each evening. Went and deleted ALL the factory presets and have setup a clean and dirty patch for all the amps with the exception of the high gain ones, I'm not a metal head. Added a few effects to each as well. I now have a number of VERY good sounding rigs to choose from, every bit as good sounding as the AxeFX2, and am PLAYING instead of tweaking. The Helix is EXACTLY what I was looking for. Have the Helix running into a pair of EV power PA speakers and it sounds good in this setup as well. Going to buy a Mission Engineering Gemini 2 with the blue tooth option to run the Helix through. ALL of my other gear is going up on Reverb.com this week. I'm that impressed with this unit, and I'm pretty damn picky. I know all you serious musicians have much different needs than folks such as myself, and you all truly amaze me with your talents (wish I could be half as good as many of you all), but for those of you that are more in the vein of the passionate hobbyist like myself, do yourself a favor and take a hard look at the Helix. It's a bit of an outlay fiscally BUT it truly does deliver stunning performance for the buck. To the folks at LIne6, thank you for developing and producing such a quality piece of gear and one that meets my needs to the Nth degree. You have hit the ball out of the park with the Helix, IMO. Cheers!!