phil_m

If your Apple laptop isn't under warranty, and you don't have an AppleCare policy, Apple will charge you an arm and a leg to repair a laptop. My wife had an issue where her MacBook Air's screen stopped working, and it would have cost over $600 to have Apple repair it... We just bought a new laptop instead. This is, sadly, I guess kind of par for the course when it comes to electronics repairs. Unless it's a very minor repair, it's often cheaper to just replace the item outright rather than fix it. Labor is always the thing that is most expensive.

It is true that the Helix and the AX8 are running the same processors. The architecture of the units is different, though. In the Helix, you have 2 main signal paths (each of which can be split into two paths, for a total of 4 paths), and each of those paths is using one of the processors. You can feed path 1 into path 2, so they aren't completely segregated in that sense. You are allowed to put any block wherever you want on these paths, and the only limitation as far as quantity is concerned is that you can have a max a 2 amp blocks, 2 cab blocks (or 2 IR blocks) on each processor. Beyond that, you're only limited by the DSP ceiling (which, if you use multiple amp and cab blocks on one processor, can get eaten up quickly). The AX8 doesn't necessarily have the same type of configuration Helix does. In a sense, it has four paths running through it, too, but it's a grid system, so you make block interact with each other in a different way than on the Helix. The AX8 has one of its processors dedicated solely to amp modeling and cab IRs. The other processor is handling all the effects. So in practice, the main difference, beside the ability to run multiple amps on the Helix, is that when you're looking at using the Helix for effects only, you have the full DSP capacity available to you. On the AX8, you are limited to only using half of the available processing power.

No danger of that... Over short distances, you would most likely be OK with a mic cable, but even then there's more of a chance that you could have issues with signal degradation. Using an AES/EBU cable is best practice.

Yeah, it can be either... To the OP, have you selected AES/EBU as the digital output you want to use in the Global Settings menu? This setting is under Global Settings > Ins/Outs, page 3, knob 5. You can select either S/PDIF or AES/EBU. I believe SPDIF is the default setting.

Well, I'm sure Apple has plenty of hardware failures - their 3-year failure rate for laptops is 17.4% according to this paper. https://www.squaretrade.com/htm/pdf/SquareTrade_laptop_reliability_1109.pdf Apple, historically, doesn't really sell replacement parts for anything, other than maybe they'll sell you a new power supply. As far as Gibson and Fender, it's hard to say. I can't say Gibson has a stellar reputation on guitar forums. They're kind of the company everyone loves to hate. Fender, I think, has a reputation for being pretty robust, but if we're talking about their guitars, there's not really a ton that go wrong from an electronics perspective. They're using very simple circuits. A Variax probably has 20 times as many solder joints as a standard Strat.

Do you have the effects loop block after the amp block? The output from the amp block can actually be quite high, so I suppose it's possible that the output from the effect send might be hot in that case. The remedy for that would be reducing the channel volume parameter in the amp block.

Just switch to another preset without saving the one you're working in, and when you go back to the original preset, it will be in its default state. Presets are only saved if you go through the save process.

I believe the default setting is line level.

Do you have the Helix's loop set to instrument level?

That is indeed why they're there: http://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?posts/20883287/

It's the volume pedal block. It really only comes into play if you're using one of the FBV pedals with the AMPLIFi, which in that case, you could use the pedal as a volume pedal.

The Internet is what it is... I actually think this forum is rather tame compared to most others. People are generally respectful, I think. Personally, I can't really think of a piece of guitar gear that I've bought based on a YouTube video or because a guitarist I liked was using it. I understand why people give those things weight, but I guess I am old enough that I didn't have those sorts of resources available to me when I was getting my into effects. I just had to learn what I liked and what I thought I needed based on trial and error more than anything.

I actually don't think the thing with the CC Toggle is a bug. I think it's related to how CC Toggle commands are treated with Snapshots. Per page 36 of the manual: Snapshots also store and recall the following MIDI, CV, and Ext Amp messages sent to external devices from the Command Center: The value of any Instant MIDI CC, Bank/Prog, MMC, and CV Out messages The state (dim value or lit value) of any CC Toggle or CV Toggle messages assigned to footswitches The state (dim or lit ) of any Ext Amp messages assigned to footswitches So I think that when you load a preset, the active snapshot is being loaded, and the value of the CC Toggle is being sent out. If you want the pedal to be off, you should just make sure you have the CC Toggle value set appropriately in the snapshot that's active when you load your preset. There is actually a bug associated with the MIDI CC Values assigned to footswitches, though, that I discovered (already been reported and logged by Line 6). That bug is somewhat similar to what you're talking about here in that if you have a MIDI CC value assigned to a footswitch, the Command Center lets you assign a different value in each shapshot, and sends that value out upon loading each snapshot. So it can cause some unexpected behavior. If you have assigned the CC Value to the footswitch prior to setting up your snapshots, it's not an issue because all snapshots will have the same value for that CC.

Hey, I'm an artist... :) Personally, I've used my Helix live and at rehearsals a lot more than I have at home. I don't really need a guitar hero to tell me it's good. I imagine that for many touring players, there is quite a lot of inertia when it comes to their rigs. If they have something that's working, why mess with it?

If you're hearing a noise when you aren't playing, that sounds like something else than what's being talked about in this post, as far as I can tell. Would you describe what you're hearing as a hiss, a buzz, or something else?

I don't know that Line 6 ever said it was ever potentially harmful. The official statement about it is here: http://line6.com/support/page/kb/_/effects-controllers/helix/helix-xlr-outputs-and-48v-phantom-power-r771

I would check to see if phantom power is being sent to the right XLR output. That can cause a significant signal attenuation.

I believe this is an iOS limitation, not necessarily a Line 6 one. The SonicPort is acting as your device's audio I/O device, so the system audio is being sent through it. Besides that, I imagine you would find the latency of the BT headphones unbearable for monitoring even if they did work.

I was messing around with Garageband on my iPhone 6S Plus the other night (something I've hardly ever done) and recorded this little piece. I plugged the Helix's 1/4" out into the guitar in of my SonicPort VX and just used it as an interface in GB. All amp modeling is the Helix, it's just that I don't a camera kit, so the SP VX worked great, I thought. The drums are just using one the GB virtual drummers. This is a Park 75 preset I modified. The core of the tone is the amp and the OCD pedal. I'm just impressed with the range of tones I can get from this combo, and how touch sensitive it is. All parts were done with the same preset, and I didn't even change anything in the preset for the different parts - just picking attack and different pickups (guitar is my American Deluxe Fat Strat). No post-processing on anything here. https://soundcloud.com/phil-miller-20/park-75-jam-093016

The floor version has a built-in expression pedal toe switch, and that's really what the Exp Toe Switch jack on the Helix Rack and this switch on the Mission Engineering pedal is replicating. So you're still limited to one pedal with a toe switch on both the floor and the rack unit.

Well, it will work with the floor unit in the sense that the expression pedal part will still work. The tie switch won't do anything, though.

Which reverb model are you wanting to use? I just tried this, and while I agree that it probably doesn't work well with all models, it seems to work pretty well with the Plate, Particle Verb and Octo Verb (the Octo probably not quite as much as the first two I mentioned). With the Particle Verb, I can't say I heard any dry signal with the mix at 100. With the Plate, it's not so much the dry signal, but there is kind of a sharp attack. One thing that helps a lot is putting a volume pedal block in front and doing swells into this pad effect. That takes the attack away. I didn't try all of the models, but I think the springs and reverbs modeled after spaces won't give you want you want because even at 100% wet, those first few passes of reverberation are going to sound somewhat dry.

You kind of answered you own question... Yes, the Line 6 expression pedal jacks is expecting a TS connection, not a TRS one, and because of that, pedals that are designed with TRS connections typically won't work for Line 6 products. This Strymon post kind of describes it: http://www.strymon.net/strymon-tech-corner-1-anatomy-of-an-expression-pedal/ This page has a simple schematic of what is needed for a Line 6 expression pedal: http://circuits-from-my-shed.blogspot.com/2012/02/first-build-line-6-ex-1-expression.html

If you have your expression pedal(s) position set to global instead of per preset or per snapshot, I believe the E may shop up as soon as you enter the preset if the pedal is at a different location than where it was when you saved the preset.