phil_m

The footswitches on the Helix are a total redesign. The only other Line 6 product that has similar ones is the Firehawk. This is what Dale Wagler, Line 6's Senior Industrial Designer, posted over on the TGP about them: Any mass-produced mechanical part will have some failures. It doesn't matter what it is. It's just a fact. I believe Line 6 will stand behind the product regardless of the warranty. Even with the X3 Live that had a higher failure rate than normal, they warranted those footswitches for the lifetime of the unit. Line 6 has actually been very good about dealing with issues should the arise.

I don't find any of the sounds in that video all that special, to be honest. I mean they're fine, but they're mainly a product of the guitar and pickups he's using. It sounds like he's mainly sticking to one of the "quack" positions on his guitar (the neck and middle combined), and in that position, it's pretty easy to get a nice clean tone. My style tends to stick in the clean to edge-of-breakup territory. Here's a sample I made using the AC15 model: https://soundcloud.com/phil-miller-20/ac15-tele-tape-delay Here's a really nice clip that Ben Adrian (the lead sound designer for Helix at Line 6) made: https://soundcloud.com/ben-adrian-100161112/relief-helix-demo

The editor will look pretty much exactly like the Helix's screen. It will use the same icons as the screen uses now. Line 6 is trying to make the whole workflow as seamless as possible and stick to a WYSIWYG implementation. The editor isn't going to reveal anything that can't be done on the Helix itself.

It's hard for me to follow what exactly you have going in the preset from the photo, but I believe I know what's causing your issue. You have to remember that when you split a path, the path breaks off into two stereo paths, not two mono ones. So if you put a pan block before a split, you are controlling the left and right spread of both paths. So if you had the block panned left, you would be sending the left side of the signal to both paths after the split. If you had it panned right, you'd have two right side signals. Really, in your case, I think you can do what you want to do by controlling the Split block itself. It sounds like you just want to have the split toggle between "Even Split" and "Path A". You can do this by setting up a controller for the "Route to" parameter. You don't need the pan block before the split.

Yep, no hum with the ground lift engaged even with phantom power coming from the board.

I just tested this with my Helix, and yes, with the phantom power on my mixer on, there was a lot of hiss. However, the hiss cleared up completely if I hit the ground lift button on the back of the Helix (while the phantom power on my mixer was still on). So I believe there is a simple solution even if phantom power is on at the board.

I think the whole point of the Global EQ is for making venue-specific adjustments. You plug into a PA in one room and you find all your presets sound a little bassy, so you just dial in the Global EQ accordingly. If you're recording via USB into a DAW, just make EQ adjustments in the DAW. That's a much better way to go anyway, because you really don't want your EQ baked into the recording.

It's really easy to program the rotary effect and the regular cabinet to the same footswitch. Just set them up so they toggle opposite of one another. The thing about the Leslie effect is, well, it's a model of a cabinet. So it makes sense that you'd turn the cabinet modeling off when using it.

Few things: The Arbitrator Fuzz is a Fuzz Face model. I'm surprised you say that all the ODs and drives are mid-rangy. I don't think the Klon (Minotaur) model is all that mid-rangy. It can be on some settings. I definitely would call the OCD model mid-rangy. For the Leslie models, try turning off the cab model when you use them. They are ideally used in place of the cab model.

The reason I asked about the whether the phantom power was on on the Helix was that there was another post here where someone mentioned they had hiss on the XLR outputs when it was on.

Do you have the phantom power turned on in the Helix? Also, did you have the XLR outs on the Helix set to line or mic?

Some of those XT Metal Pack amp models were and are still really popular with certain players, especially some of the Line 6 original models. I think they compress in a way that people like. They are models of amps that don't exist in reality, though. Right now, the Helix doesn't have any of these "idealized" models. I'm not sure if Line 6 has plans to go down the route again or not.

Well, it's the same thing I mentioned above. If you actually turn the volume block off, the volume will go to max anyway. What you would need is to have the volume pedal effect lock to whatever it was set to when you hit the switch to toggle between EXP1 and EXP2. That would seemingly be easy enough to do. The complexity comes into effect when you start thinking about what happens when you hit this toggle switch again and the pedal starts controlling volume again. Does the volume stay where it was at until you move the pedal, or does it reflect the position of the pedal? In both cases, you could have uncontrollable volume drops or jumps still. I mean, none of it seem like it would be impossible to implement. It just seems like a lot of energy spent on a problem that already has a relatively simple solution - getting an external pedal. The problem I see with trying to come up with an alternative is that it doesn't really completely solve the issue. It kind of just moves it elsewhere. At least with the current implementation, the behavior is 100% predictable.

What's the idea? What behavior would you like to see? It's hard for me to imagine another behavior that wouldn't make the implementation overly complex.

Yes, but when you export tones using the Helix software, it uses the name of the preset for the name of the file. And the "/" character isn't allowed in filenames in Windows or OS X.

That's not really any different than using the expression toe switch to toggle between the wah and volume. The volume would still go to maximum because when you bypass the volume pedal block, any attenuation it was applying is lost.

Nope... They're pretty much making them as fast as they can, as far as I know. The thing with production schedules for a company like Line 6 is that they probably don't actually own the facility making these for them. They have to pay to get the line up and running, and have all the tooling they need, and then they schedule the runs based on projections. It's not the same type of thing as "lean manufacturing" concepts that are able to do things on a more made-to-order basis.

You can assign a volume pedal block to a footswitch just like you do with any other effect. It's not really correct to say "the" volume pedal, because the volume pedal effect is just another effect block, and you can use multiple instances of it in a preset. That's what the comment above is referring to. You could put another volume pedal block in your preset, and have it turn on when you turn the wah on to give you a volume cut if you don't want your volume to be at max when using the wah.

You can't...

If you're only using the on-board pedal, that is the compromise you have to make. How else could it work? You have nothing else to control the volume pedal with at that point.

I mis-typed when I first replied and changed my response. None of them have a USB port. On the newer POD 2.0's, the pedal jack in back is labeled "FBV Pedal".

Version 1.3 is the most recent EPROM for the POD Pro. If I remember correctly, I believe the POD Pro wasn't released until after the POD 2.0, so that's why its firmware was stilled labeled 1.xx. The newer POD 2.0 (the ones with the different FBV port on the back) do have recoded cab models, I believe, that could sound slightly different than the original 2.0's, but I wouldn't expect it to be a drastic difference.

Are you using the S/PDIF now? One other thing is that there is a gain compensation added to the digital out on the POD Pro that could be causing clipping. It's probably worth checking. From the manual:

Well, if you have the 2.0 set to "Direct", you'd want the Pro set to "Studio". Those would be the equivalent output modes. If you have one set differently, it would be a very drastic difference.

It's modeling the presence knob on a guitar amp. The presence knob on a guitar amp is basically a boost of the upper mid-range frequencies, but there's no universally accepted definition of how it's implemented. It varies on a model-per-model basis. This is a quick overview: https://wgs4.com/what-exactly-does-presence-control-do-tube-amp Basically, turning it up tends to give you more "bite" or clarity. Turn it up too much, and it can get fizzy, at least on some models.