phil_m

The Helix is already a Class Compliant OS X Core Audio USB device...

Well, that's not a regular latching footswitch... It's a footswitch that sweeps between two positions on an internal potentiometer.

If you were using an expression pedal instead of the footswitch to control you delay mix like you mentioned above, it would work like the way you wanted as long as you had the EXP Position parameter in the Global Settings set to "per preset" or "global". If you didn't want to use an actual expression pedal, you could get an expression switch, similar to this (the "Switchable Latching TS" version in the pulldown) and set it up as the virtual on/off control for your delay.

The instructions for the update are in this thread: http://line6.com/support/topic/18284-latest-helix-firmware-230—nov-21-2017

It came with 2.30 installed on it?

Did you install the latest firmware yourself, or did it come with it installed from the retailer?

There are no model/expansion packs that are compatible with the Firehawk.

By "re-flash" I mean send the firmware update to the Helix again. I see if you can get Line 6 Updater to recognize the Helix again and then re-send the update.

On Facebook, there was someone who had a similar issue, and he narrowed it down to the power conditioner he was using. It seemed that having his phone charger plugged into it at the same time was causing some weird power quality issue. So perhaps, try another outlet as a start. Beyond that, I guess I'd try re-flashing it. Otherwise, you may need to open up a support ticket or contact the retailer about getting a replacement.

Disappointed with Line 6? Have you tried contacting them? So were actually able to get the firmware update to go through the first time, or did you just do the factory reset with the firmware that came with the unit?

Snapshot support for Native is coming in the next update. Should be out sometime around NAMM.

Test, test, test...

There will some new amps in 2.5... :)

When you say none of the snapshots worked properly, what do you mean exactly? You weren't getting signal at the respective outputs or things weren't muted the way you were expecting? Well, that's a pretty complex setup with a lot of things to troubleshoot, but if I had to suggest a place to start, I would look at the way you have your EXP Position settings in the Global Settings menu.

The US-made JTVs don't have that sort of detail... That is a pretty extreme rolled edge. I've seen Fender necks with rolled edges, but they're not nearly that noticeable. Anyway, it's never been an advertised feature of the US JTVs.

I don't think this sounds horrible... It sounds maybe a little harsh to me, but I wouldn't call it awful.

This isn't an official Line 6 document, but someone on the Facebook group made this (it's an Excel file): I believe they came up with it through an iterative process of seeing how many instances of each effect they could load on a processor path. The numbers are using 16 as the base. So if you want a percentage estimate, divide the number by 16 and multiply by 100.

I don't mean this as an insult, but I think you're wasting your time if you're recording only with headphones. You need to invest in a decent pair of reference monitors. They don't have to be top of the line, by any means, but using headphones as your reference point can lead very far down the wrong sonic path... It would be a bit like doing photo editing on a cheap monitor. You may think you're seeing and adjusting the colors in a certain way, but then when you print your photos, everything looks wrong. Reference monitors are the same thing. They are way to ensure that you're hearing the true sound of whatever you're recording and not just adjusting things based on the inherent sonic properties of your skewed playback system.

I can't say I've seen a lot issues with the 2.30 firmware... There are few known bugs, as with any firmware, but nothing major from what I've seen. Often times people have issues that are just coincidental to a new firmware installation that don't really have anything to do with the update itself.

What type of headphones? The sound quality from the headphone output will vary greatly depending on the type of cans you're using... As far as connecting it to the ENGL, if you're using amp modeling in the Helix, you wouldn't want to go into the front input on the amp. I'd suggest going into effects return (make sure to turn the balance knob for the ENGL's loop to 100% effect). That way you'd be bypassing the ENGL's preamp completely and just using it as a power amp. You might want to disable the cab modeling/IR when you do this as you're using a real guitar cab. Other than that, I'd say the Helix works best with a FRFR speaker setup. There are all sorts of people using Helix for metal tones and many Youtube videos out there. One guy you might want to check out is Luke Harwood (although, his style is probably more modern metal than what you're talking about). https://www.youtube.com/user/h4rw00d Jason Sadites is another guy who's posted a lot of demos, and he has things more in the classic metal genre. He has some nice tutorial videos here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEshByA_Gqn7O0biVoepS0m9HLznPTPM5

With an empty preset as described in the first post here, I wouldn't expect the signal coming from the Helix to be all that hot. It should basically be instrument level, which might be as low as -35dB for some guitars. It should basically be like plugging your electric guitar into the mixer channel. Once you start building a preset, you start adding gain to the signal. With 24bit recording, there is no need to record things overly hot. If you're peaking at -12dB, that's plenty of signal. You want to leave headroom in your recording for when you start mixing. As far as samples, a lot of people probably normalize their final tracks after recording. That's what I usually do. All normalizing is doing is finding the highest peak in your recording and finding what the difference is between that and 0.0dB and increasing the level of the track by that much. It just makes it so things on Youtube, Soundcloud or whatever play back at a more consistent volume. I don't really consider normalizing post-processing because all it's doing is increasing the overall level. It's not affecting EQ or adding compression.

What are you playing the LT though?

You would want the EXP Position setting that you mentioned to be set to "per snapshot". That will allow to do exactly what you're talking about. You just have to set the parameter value where you want it for each snapshot and re-save the snapshot/preset after doing that.

The dry signal will be very low, and will look like a flat line most of the time. It's an instrument level signal. That's what you want.

Well, they aren't pots... They're rotary encoders, and I believe they're PCB mounted, so I'm not sure if they can be tightened easily or not. There might be a nut around the shaft that tightens them down, but I don't know. Probably best to open a ticket.