phil_m

Did you ever try to update the firmware? That's really the first thing you need to upon powering it up. Try holding down the left two footswitches (the tap and the one to the left of it) while powering it up. That will initiate a factory reset. After you do that, try installing the new firmware with Line 6 Updater.

Well if you were playing the Helix in front of a combo amp and had the amp modeling in the Helix at the same time, yes, that's almost a guaranteed recipe for it sound bad... The playback system is just as important, if not more, than the presets you're playing through. I am not a metal player in any sense of the word, and have been using the Helix for going on three years now. It allow me to do stuff as far as recording and playing live that I couldn't do easily otherwise. It does take a little patience getting it where you want it, but going into a decent FRFR system, it really isn't that hard, imo, to get great tones fast. It sounds to me that perhaps you're not giving the Helix a fair shake.

Hmm... Could the effects loop on your amp be turned off?

Go to Global Settings>MIDI/Tempo and set "MIDI PC Tx" to off, and that will disable the default PC messages from being sent with preset changes.

I'd still do the factory reset if you haven't. And I'd also try a different cable if you have one, even if you are using the one that came with the unit.

So you tried powering up while holding the right arrow button down and no luck? That should force the unit to go into update mode. The other thing you can try is powering up while holding the two footswitches in the lower right hand corner down (Tap and the one directly to the left of it). That will do a factory reset. Beyond that, I'd try using a different USB cable and try some different USB ports on your computer. Usually these sorts of communication issues come down to something simple like that.

Well, that's what I was getting at. That post is the issue I was talking about. It is certainly worth opening up a ticket, imo. The Helix should be useable in 4CM, and indeed it was designed with it in mind.

If the inputs of certain preamps are noisy, wouldn't that be an issue with those preamps moreso than than the Helix? As far as the Helix's (and HX Effects) converters, they're are the same converters that Fractal uses on the AX8 and I believe the Axe FX II (don't know about the Axe FX III). The Helix has a noise floor, as any sort of processor does, but the noise floor is really low, generally (not saying something might not be going on in some context that's raising it). I'm not sure what's causing the noise you guys are having issue with, but I'm a little skeptical about blaming it all on the Helix when it could be because of some sort of interaction. In your setups, did you have the Helix's Send set to instrument level? Does it make a difference if you use the 1/4" output versus the Send? The other thing I'd add is if you haven't open a ticket up with Line 6 about this yet, it might be worth doing. Over on TGP, there were several people who had some noise issues with the HX Effects, and Line 6 looked into and came to the conclusion that their units had some components that were out of spec. So if you are having what you believe is excessive noise, you shouldn't necessarily assume that it should be working that way.

My Bogner Atma is dead quiet when connected via the 4CM... I honestly don't get any sort of extra noise, even on the highest gain channel. A lot of this comes down to how the loop in the amp is designed. As far as changing from signal to line level, really, it's the effects returns that are changed, and they are definitely using a relay or some sort of switching. If you hook up a meter to the returns and change them from instrument to line level you see the input impedance changes from 10MOhm to 10kOhm.

Basically, anything with a delay time or rate parameter can be tied to the tap tempo. Push the knob down under the delay time parameter to change it from a millisecond value to a note subdivision.

The Variax works great with the Line 6 G10, which has a similar TRS-type plug as the Xvive. The Xvive has twice the latency as the G10, fwiw.

The bar has been fixed, and you people are still whining... Honestly, the little circle isn't a big deal. I like it. It's cute.

Open up a support ticket: https://line6.com/support/tickets/add.html

It should be very quiet.

It's not a waste of time... They want and constantly ask for our feedback. You're ascribing all sorts of motives to the responsible people that simply aren't there.

The powers that be... Lol. No one at Line 6 is anything like that, I can assure you that. I just think the stuff with forums is one of many responsibilities for the people doing it. I know they have been frustrated with the change and have spent many hours on the phone with the forum software customer service people.

Interesting, the bar on my iPhone isn’t nearly as big as the screenshot above. Here’s what it looks like on my phone:

I have no real say in the matter, other than I can tell Line 6 what I think about it. I have no ability to remove it... I don’t work for Line 6.

It sounds like the Switch Doctor is using a MIDI scale that starts at 1 rather than 0 (which the HX Effects does), so you need to offset the commands by one. When you program CC69 in the Switch Doctor, it would be interpreted as CC68 by the HX Effects, and that's the command to bring up the tuner. So you'd actually need to program CC70, val. 0 - 3 on the Switch Doctor to recall snapshots within a certain preset.

I can understand why it's irritating on a phone screen. It's a little in the way on my iPhone X screen, but even on my iPad Pro screen, the 10" version, it's not really a big deal. On the 28" monitor I have my laptop connected to, it's not really noticeable at all. I mean, it's way over on the right hand side of the screen...

What type of computer and what OS?

There is an effect called "Bass Octaver" in the Legacy folder under the Pitch/Synth menu.

The dim and lit values for the CC Toggle command apply to the whole preset, and can't be set different on a snapshot per snapshot basis. After playing around with this a little, I do see that it gets mixed up after the first few changes. I'm not sure I understand why it's happening, but it's something to with the value being sent after the snapshot change happens, I gather. The states remain fine without the MIDI cable connected.

I think the issue is what happens with these MIDI CC Toggle and MIDI CC commands when changing snapshots. When you change snapshots, the toggle state that is saved in the snaphot you're switching to is sent out with the snapshot change, and for MIDI CC commands, the value that's saved with that CC in the snapshot is sent out. This is actually helpful for controlling external gear, because it means that stuff behaves almost like it's part of the Helix. The sorts of parameters you would typically control with CCs automatically follow your snapshots. It's trickier when doing what you're trying to do. With the CC Toggle, I think you have to be careful you're causing something of a feedback loop. The value of the toggle switch is saved with the snapshot, and if that's misaligned, it can cause a situation where as soon as it loads the new snapshot, it fires a command that sends you back to the one you were coming from. It's doable, I think, but you just have to be mindful of the toggle states in each snapshot. With the straight CC command, the biggest thing is you can save a different value for that footswitch in every snapshot. Again, though, the problem with that is that the value is shot out when the snapshot is loaded. So in your case if in Snapshot 1, you have CC69, val 3 programmed, and in Snapshot 4, you have CC69, val 0, as soon as you load the new snapshot the command is shot out that shoots you back to the original snapshot. I don't really know of a good workaround for this one other than setting up a separate footswitch for each snapshot, but that is probably a dealbreaker.

The only way to connect an external tap pedal to the Helix is with MIDI, and there aren't really a ton of options available. There's this, but it's $129. I don't think the switch would be all that much quieter, if at all. I mean, is the tap switch really loud enough to be noticed? I've used my Helix at my church, which, like yours, is smaller, and has all sorts of reflective surfaces. It has never been an issue. Maybe you just need to tell people to loosen up... :-)