phil_m

The HX Effects was released in 2018 as well. From Line 6's perspective, all these products are part of the Helix platform, and they were all planned almost since the Helix was first released, or even before. I have mock-up 3D models of the Stomp that Eric sent me going back to 2015, for instance. They weren't just afterthoughts. There part of a long term plan. The 3.0 update for the Helix is going to be a big deal...

They actually haven't shifted their focus that much... It's just that there's a lot of stuff happening behind the scenes at the moment. But, also, the more stuff in the HX sells, the more likely Line 6 is to keep on investing in updating it.

I mean, I do get the obsession part, really. I've done that while mixing. I got some new drum plug-ins recently, and I started thinking, "man, I bet some of my old mixes with this stuff", so I spent a few hours fiddling and changing stuff. I did a new mixdown and master, and then after a few days, I compared the new mix to the original. The original still sounded better by almost every measure... So I think forcing yourself to just stop trying to obtain perfection is one of the hardest lessons to learn. At least for me it has been. Although, I've generally never been that way in regards to guitar tone. It's always been with the mixing and editing aspect, for me.

It just shows what you can do with a limited pallet of basic ingredients... :- ) People like variety, that's for sure, and I'm not even arguing they're wrong for it. All I'm saying, I guess, is that sometimes there's more of an illusion of variety than actual variety. If you have 50 amp models that sound relatively similar to each other, that's not really variety - it's marketing.

Amp modeling is at the core of Line 6's proficiencies, I'd agree, but I don't think it's what they spend most of their time and resources on. Just judging by their personnel, they only have a few people doing the actual sound design and modeling work. Part of it is that there's simply a limited talent pool to draw from. You can't just put an ad up on Indeed and find a new sound designer in a few weeks. I think Line 6 is always going to juggle the customers' expectations and desires with their own vision and limitations for a product. Deciding which amp models and effects to add is probably quite difficult because it's always going to please some people and not others. Personally, I don't really care that much if they add more amp models, although there are a few I'd like to see. I'd like a Fender Princeton and a Two Rock, for example. But I can actually get pretty darn close to the sounds I'd create with those right now. Creativity is what you do with limited options, time, and resources, not necessarily what you do when you have virtually unlimited choices. A huge part of the creative process if forcing yourself to make a decision and stick with it, actually.

Um, Dairy Queen and any number of soft-serve joints have done very good business only offering two flavors - chocolate and vanilla... :-)

There's a concept called the "paradox of choice" (and a book of that same title that came out about a decade ago). The basic concept is that the more options someone has to choose from, the greater the chance that they'll regret the choice they actually make. It's human nature. Think of like this. If you go to an ice cream shop that has only vanilla, chocolate and strawberry, you'd probably quickly be able to pick what you want, and you'd be happy with that choice. If you go to one that has 50 flavors, you'd pick one, but then you'd see someone eating some other exotic flavor and you'd think, "man, I should have tried that...". So in some ways, providing people with endless options isn't really helping them. It's actually contributing to more regret further down the road. :-)

The LED thing is likely a hardware issue, not a bug. Open a support ticket.

Well, there's the opportunity cost... Every hour of R&D a company invests in modeling a new amp is an hour not spent on something else. I do think that there's a law of diminishing returns when it comes to modeling amps. Once you get the major circuits covered, everything else is pretty much a variation of those. I'd personally rather see Line 6 invest resources into things that differentiate it from its competitors, not try to match feature sets of an existing product.

If there’s a recorded amp tone you want that you can’t finesse out 200 amp models, the 201st model probably isn’t going to get you there either... I think that having too many options makes people overlook the capabilities of any given single model. Really, there’s hardly any way to actually sit down and really understand the differences between that many models. It’s confounded when you consider all the possible IR choices out there. It’s really ironic that guitarists have more choices available to them now then ever, but do many of them end up sounding so similar regardless.

Just export the User 1 setlist and import in the slot you want it in.

Check this comparison chart out (this is from the guitar wireless page on the Line 6 site).

Do you have a 1/4" cable connected to the Variax? The VDI doesn't provide power, and the guitar won't power up without a 1/4" cable connected.

What I was trying get at is whether you're using the little VDI to USB dongle or if you're using something like the HD500 or Helix.

Sounds like there's a relay stuck or something like that. Have you tried reinserting the headphone plug and pulling it out a few times? If it still doesn't work, it's most likely a hardware issue, and the best course of action would be to open a support ticket: https://line6.com/support/tickets/add.html

What are you using as your VDI interface?

As long as there is a way to bypass them in the same way, I'd be OK with that probably. I also, like, though with the way they currently are that I can quickly look at a chain and see what's going on. I can understand the general concern, although, I've got to say that using the extra block in the HX Effects doesn't seem like a big deal to me. I mean, having 7 or 8 blocks to work with still gives you a ton of flexibility for an effects-only patch.

Are you sure you're using the correct version of Workbench? If you're running firmware 2.0 or higher on your JTV, only Workbench HD will work.

The MIDI Mouse is a pretty rudimentary MIDI controller. It only gives you the ability to select presets by sending PC messages. For a little less money, I'd recommend the Disaster Area Designs DMC.micro. It can be used to scroll through presets if you want, but it also has a utility mode that lets you program whatever messages (including CC toggles with specific values) you want to the footswitch (the left footswitch can be assigned a secondary function accessed through a long press). Here's my little Stomp board. I have it set up so the right footswitch toggles between Preset and Snapshot mode. The left footswitch goes to Stomp Mode with a single press and Bypass All with a long press.

What would the FX loops be if they weren't blocks? I think the ability to bypass them via footswitches or snapshots is important. Maybe there's some other way they can be represented graphically without changing their behavior, but I guess I wouldn't want to sacrifice functionality necessarily.

I don't understand what you mean by this statement... Yes, simply press the knob under the delay time parameter to switch to note values. The note values are tied to the BPM saved with the preset, snapshot or globally.

Yet if you're part of the huge Facebook group, you'll see all sorts of guys using the Helix for this genre (modern high gain)... I don't think the goal of the Helix was ever have as many amp models as the Axe FX. There will be more coming for sure, but the Helix isn't going to have over amp models.

It's worth trying if you have one, I suppose.

Something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Audio-iDefender3-0-Ground-Loop-Eliminator/dp/B01N3XKOLG/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1546453273&sr=8-3&keywords=usb+isolator

That seems to suggest it's something with the amp's loop then, because it seems you're getting output from both the left and right outs from the Helix. One more idea - have you tried putting a dummy plug in the amp's input while plugging into the loop?