phil_m

I have never really said I doubt that people are having issues with the tuner. I have always said that it works for me, and that's that. I've tried to throw in a few suggestions, and I'm sorry if those sound like I'm questioning someone's experience. The fact is I don't know anyone's level of experience here. There are commenters who post here who are pretty much beginners, so I don't want to take for granted that everyone simply knows the basics. So I apologize if some comments come off as patronizing or whatever - certainly not my intent. I would also not say I'm contradicting you. You are sharing your personal experience, and I'm sharing mine. Is yours more valid than mine or others? I mean, I'm not a professional guitarist in the sense that it's what I do for a living, but I certainly have done many paid gigs over the years, including paid studio work. As far as other digital tuners, far too many to list... I mean, I've been using Line 6 stuff since the POD 2.0 days, but I've also use Boss stuff, and I've used a number of different apps. I do think the way the Helix displays the fine tuning bars is a bit unique among tuners... I noticed on app I sometimes use that the "green zone" for being in tune starts at -10 cents and goes to +10 cents... Quite a big difference! Anyway, I think perhaps the best thing people having problems could do is perhaps create videos of the tuner not working like they'd like, open a support ticket, and share those with Line 6. That is probably the fastest way to get your issue seen by the right people. DI always Line 6 operates from a place of "leave your egos at the door", so they certainly are always looking to improve things.

Not sure why you would think I'm trolling... I'm just being honest. I don't exactly know how many shows I've played with the Helix since Line 6 changed the tuner, but I imagine several dozen. And I've used the Helix tuner for each and every one of them. All I'm saying is that though some are calling the tuner unusable, that doesn't match my experience, because I'm obviously using it... There are no clip-on tuners up my sleeves! :lol:

Well, I beta test for them, so I definitely have no problem telling them when something isn't working... All I've been saying in this thread is I don't have anything to tell them, because it works fine for me... It's hard to identify or track down a problem when you have people giving vastly different descriptions of what's happening, I think.

They stay at whatever value is saved in the preset and/or snapshot (if you have a specific value saved for a snapshot). The only exception would be if you had the EXP2 Position setting in the Global Settings menu for EXP2 set to Global. In that case, if you toggled the on-board pedal to control EXP2, any parameters tied to EXP2 would go to whatever position the pedal was at when you last used it.

For you, though... Not for everyone... Don't you find it odd that there's such a broad variation of experience? What do you think accounts for that? How is it I can use it with no problem for all of my guitars? Or do believe I'm not telling the truth?

All I can say is I don't have this issue, so it's hard for me to understand how others' experiences are so different. I have used the Helix with probably a dozen different electric, several acoustics, and the other stuff I mentioned, and the note is registered right away... It certainly doesn't take me 2-3 minutes to tune. I have the same time limitations as other players. I'm tuning between songs or during other breaks as I get a chance. I think the reason people are reacting is because one group of people is saying, "this is unusable!", and the other is saying, "I use it all the time - it works fine!"... So, I don't know... Really hard for me to understand why it causes such different reactions, and why the experiences seem so different. I do like the idea of getting two users together in the same room - one that likes and one that hates it - and observing the differences...

It's fine that not everyone likes it... Not everyone like the Polytune pedal... Not everyone likes a Peterson Strobe. Not everyone likes a Boss TU-2 or TU-3... Do you see what I'm getting at? Trying to design something that pleases all users is an impossible task. I mean, what should they do? Put every feature up for a popular vote?

I'm not meaning to minimize the issue - obviously Line 6 thinks it's an issue and is fixing it. I guess I'm just surprised it seems so noticeable to some. It's definitely one of those things I would have never noticed without someone mentioning it. And even when I did try it after it was brought up, I still found it a little hard to discern. Back when 2.20 was released, I remember someone putting a video up on Facebook showing it, and nearly every comment was like, "I don't hear anything...". I wonder if the gap is more pronounced with certain blocks or if there are multiple blocks are assigned to a footswitch...

The idea is that you use snapshot changes instead of preset changes. There is enough flexibility in the Helix signal path that you can get some serious flexibility out of one preset. You mentioned using a Digitech unit earlier, so I assume you're referring to the GSP1101... I would think that you could easily create a preset in the Helix that does as much and probably a lot more than one preset on the GSP1101 can do. Have you actually tried the Helix yet?

Well, a 20-year Boss TU-2 certainly doesn't have the same accuracy as the Helix tuner. By its own specs, it's accurate to +/- 3 cents. The internal Helix tuning engine is capable of an accuracy of +/- 0.1 cents, and with the display, we have resolution or granularity of 1 cent. I simply will never agree to a statement saying that it's inaccurate. I mean, I've been using the Helix for over two years now (I got my beta unit in April 2015), and have used it live a ton of times with all sort of musicians including classically-trained, professional string players. If there were an issue with my instruments being out of tune, it certainly would have come up at some point. But they've always been fine. Btw, I don't agree that all previous Line 6 processors had tuners that were universally loved. I remember reading complaints about the tuners from people on nearly every Line 6 product over the years. Normally, it was something to the effect of, "it's nowhere near as accurate as my Peterson Strobe" or something like that... Which was probably not unfair. I think previous Line 6 tuners were more in line with the old Boss tuners - probably around +/-3 cent range.

I know there's some debate about it, but I think you're much better off tuning to the initial attack of a string rather than the decay. Actually, when I think of trying to tune to the decay, it seems like it would be very difficult. I mean, with some instruments like mandolins or nylon string guitars there is virtually no sustain anyway. Perhaps this is why some people find the tuner frustrating. I try to hit the strings hard when tuning and in quick succession. If I get a couple of the initial hits to light up both greens for a few hits, I consider that in tune. A string will naturally fall off a few cents while it rings out anyway. But if you figure, most of what you're hearing with guitar, especially when playing chords, is the initial attack of the strings. The other thing I would say that has helped me with nearly ever tuner I've ever used is that I hardly ever tune a string from sharp to in pitch. Even if a string reads sharp at first, I will usually tune it flats and then go back up to pitch. It just always seems to be more stable that way.

It is not as simple as just adding more processors to copy what the other two doing... When you add more DSP chips it increases overall throughput latency of the entire system. So there's no free lunch when it comes to this sort of thing. There's a reason why none of the companies using the current SHARC chips are pursuing patch spillover.

Have you tried using different USB ports? That would be my first suggestion... I would also try doing a reset - power off and hold down footswitches 9&10 while powering up.

You're actually better off leaving the first field blank and selecting Helix from the second field. That will give you the link to the editor app (just called "Helix"), and the download package includes the latest version of the editor, Line 6 Updater and the drivers (if you're on a PC). If you select Helix in the first field, that will bring up a list of all downloads of everything associated with the Helix - the editor, Line 6 Updater, driver, the flash memory file. I think this why people get messed up. The installation package for the editor has everything needed for the update.

I honestly never really worry about doing all that, and it still works fine for me. I've played plenty of gigs with it... I've used it on everything - electric, acoustic, mandolin, nylon string, and bass. I'm genuinely puzzled as to why it's so polarizing... I do wonder if comes down to the way people pluck their strings while tuning or something.

What if people like the tuner the way it is? I mean, I have no problem with it, and there are plenty of others who don't seem to have issues with it? Is it really worth investing a lot of resources into chasing a moving target?

You really think it's a huge latency? I have verified the behavior, but what I noticed was certainly not a "huge latency". It was actually very subtle, and I had to test it out like half a dozen times to make sure... Anyway, rest easy... It's being fixed in 2.21, which will be out shortly.

This has come up before, and the answer is no. It's not an issue of bandwidth in the Cat5e cable, but it's just that the Helix Control doesn't have the sort of hardware and firmware inside of it to make processing audio a possibility.

Don't think it's been brought up yet, but do you have the input pad on the Helix on and/or have the inpedance setting set to something other than Auto? You'd want the pad off, and you'd probably want to set input impedance at 1M Ohm (although auto should be fine). Also what do you have the 1/4" outs set to? Those should be set to instrument level, and you should have the Helix's big volume knob turned all the way up. With the input pad off and that knob all the way up with the 1/4" outs set to instrument level, you should have unity gain through the Helix. I would not necessarily expect a pedal to sound *exactly* the same in the Helix's loop as it does in front of the amp, as there's other things at play with the loop (more cable length, going through a few rounds of conversion, etc.), but it shouldn't be a drastic difference. I've never had any issues using pedals in the loops.

There is a known bug in 2.20 where turning on blocks with a footswitch introduces a slight lag... I suspect that may be what you're hearing. If you turn on a block with a snapshot change instead, it should be immediate. But, anyway, Line 6 is aware of the bug and is working on a fix.

You mean a delay as in a latency of some sort, or a delay in the loop being turned on when you hit the switch?

It's not even close to Festivus... The airing of grievances is much more powerful when done at the proper time... :)

Well, it's been available for sale for over a year now... All I'm saying is anyone can have whatever opinion about a product they want. But only a relatively few people know the actual sales numbers and failure rates. I still believe that more people have had positive experiences than negative ones. If you look at the large online retailers' reviews, they're all solidly in the 4 to 4.5 star range.

No company will keep selling a product if a majority of the units are sold are defective, regardless of the hyperbole you read online. It's just not financially viable for companies to deal with continuous warranty claims.

Are you using the actual FX loop blocks in the Helix or separate send and return blocks?