phil_m

Sometimes I do, yes.

I don't really understand this comment. How would you capture the sound coming out of FRFR cabs? Micing them? I'm sure this isn't how these clips were created. As Paul noted on the Souncloud page, these were recorded direct - I imagine direct over USB.

I have no idea on the tuner accuracy. Someone from Line 6 will have to answer that. I believe Digital Igloo is on a well-deserved vacation right now, so that may have to wait. It's not a strobe tuner, so that in itself is going to make it less accurate than something like a Peterson. There's no benefit to using balanced cables for the 4CM. All of the 1/4" ins and outs on the Helix are unbalanced.

Yes, an external looper pedal should work fine in the FX loop. As far as the reverb, you can put it before the FX loop block, but doing so means it would be before the amp block as well. So that might be an issue. If you have the reverb after the FX loop and you record a loop on the external looper (lot of loops going on, lol), the recorded loop wouldn't actually have reverb on it. It would only be recorded with whatever effects came before the FX loop block. So if you changed patches and the new patch had reverb in the same location, that reverb would be applied to that loop. So you wouldn't actually be doubling up on reverb. It's just that the reverb effect wouldn't be recorded in your loop. If you're using the same type of reverb across patches, it shouldn't be an issue. The only issue would be if you wanted a different reverb on each patch. If the amp model you're using is relatively clean, putting reverb in front of the amp might be a viable workaround.

There's no real danger of damaging something or anything like that, but if the signal going into the front of your amp is too hot, you could clip the input or cause unintentional clipping down the line. When I use to run a POD in front a tube amp, I would actually run the signal a little hot just because I thought it sounded a little better.

The effects return on the Marshall is probably line level, so I'd set the switch to line.

The 500X does have MIDI clock sync capability. At least it can receive it. It can't send it. I would be surprised if it doesn't make it into the Helix at some point.

Run a cable from the Firehawk's 1/4" out to the Marshall's effects return on the back of the amp. It's as simple as that.

Right now, there is no MIDI clock functionally on the Helix. Given that other Line 6 processors, I would be surprised if that isn't added. Also, the looper is just a standalone phrase looper. It doesn't relate to the BPM at all, and there's no quantizing or anything like that. I don't know if Line 6 will ever go down that road or not.

I'm confident there will be updates, but Fractal is Fractal and Line 6 is Line 6. They have much different philosophies. I think anyone buying a product from a company the size of Line 6 and expecting them to behave like a small boutique company is a bit misguided. I do think they realize of continually supporting the platform, and I expect that. I just think the range of users that Line 6 has to deal with is a lot different than a company like Fractal does. I expect that they will be much more intentional and focused in their updates. With Fractal, it seems that Cliff will release updates just because the mood strikes him.

Like this? http://line6.com/support/forum-70/announcement-70-ios-9-compatibility-statement/ (the first announcement on the top of this page).

This came up before here, and I said the same thing when it did - Line 6 has never made people pay for updates. They have charged for model packs before, though. Even though they have had model packs, they have also had a lot of free updates that added new amps and effects as well. Personally, I'm not too worried about the total quantity of amp models. I just want the models they provide to be the best they can be. As far as the total number goes, it's not really fair to compare what the Kemper does to the Helix. Theoretically, there is no limit to how many Kemper profiles there can be. Any amp can be profiled by any user. It's a different paradigm than modeling.

Just record a dry track in your DAW using USB In 7 and play it back through the Helix's 1/4" out into your amp. If you wanted to use the Helix's mic input to mic your amp, it would just be a matter of setting up a tone in a preset accordingly.

I'm not against them making clips. It's just that I don't recall any product like this where the manufacturer has gone through and released the type of clips being asked for. They're not hiding anything. It's just they have limited resources, and I imagine that they see doing those sorts of clips as having a limited impact. Eventually, when the Helix is released the floodgates for clips will be open, and there will be an overwhelming amount out there.

It's like any product that appeals to a limited demographic. I haven't seen any ads for hunting rifles lately, but I never look at hunting magazines or forums. I'm sure, though, that if you were into that, there would be something that has that community abuzz right now. The thread over on The Gear Page about the Helix is approaching 8,000 comments. That's pretty amazing for one product.

Yes, you actually do that. It might be kind of weird, but it is doable.

Honestly, I don't really know what magical things people are expecting from clips. I've heard awesome clips from every generation of the POD, and I've seen different people do A/B tests where people couldn't tell the difference between the POD and the real thing. I've heard horrible recordings of real amps. So much of this depends on the person playing. Each of the amp models in the Helix can provide a wide range of tones, so even if they would record dry samples of all the amps, that's only a snapshot of that amp for a particular tone stack setting, using a particular guitar. It's still giving a very limited view of the overall capabilities of the unit.

Yep... You can actually have the speed controlled by a footswitch if you want, too.

Well, there's one on-board mic preamp, so if you want more mics than that, you'll have to use outboard preamps. But, yes, you can connect line or instrument level devices to the other inputs. Level control really depends on how you're using it. The gain staging can be changed at all sorts of points in the internal signal paths, but if you're truly just using the Helix as an interface, you'd have to adjust the levels in your DAW or the audio control panel in the computer.

Of course it will work for acoustic. Why wouldn't it? As noted above, you could try loading some acoustic IRs. That's something I've been wanting to try but haven't gotten around to it yet.

8 ins and 8 outs.

USB audio support on Android devices has been rather hit and miss from what I understand. If the Android device supports class compliant USB audio devices, I would imagine it would work.

Unbalanced.

On effects with a mix parameter that could work. But the bypass, or on/state of a block, is different than a parameter in the block.

The min and max can be assigned. If you assign parameters to be controlled by a switch, the switch in essence acts like an expression pedal that simply lets you toggle between the min and max values. And up to 8 controllers can be assigned to a switch, so this becomes a pretty powerful tool in dynamically controlling things in a preset. Also, you can make switches be momentary rather than latching if you want to, so you can do some pretty cool "hold for effect" things.