phil_m

Sure, you can use stereo effects. It's just that if you're only sending one channel to the board, they'll be summed to mono. The nice thing is that you don't need to change anything in your presets themselves if you're using stereo effects when connecting in mono. If you actually want stereo effects to come through to the board, you'd need to use two channels on the board and hard pan on left and the other right.

It's in this document: http://line6.com/data/6/0a06434df0f650914b2056015/application/pdf/DT%20Amplifier%20MIDI%20Implementation%20Guide%20-%20English%20%28%20Rev%20A%20%29.pdf
 
Found in the "Manuals" section of the site now.

It's a regular Cat5e cable (Cat6 would work as well). The cable comes with the controller, so you don't need to worry about buying one, unless you just want a backup - which wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea.

There's no way to do that as it currently stands. One possible workaround, I suppose, would be to take a MIDI cable from the Helix's MIDI in into its MIDI out, and then assign the applicable CCs for the looper controls to footswitches in the Command Center. You could also give though footswitches custom labels with the relative commands.

If you want to completely bypass the Peavey's preamp, you don't need to use the 4CM. Just go straight from the HD500X's output into the Peavey's effects return. This way, the HD500X is completely taking the place of the Peavey's preamp.
 
If you're saying you want to use the Peavey's preamp sometimes and not others, you can still do that with the 4CM. In the patches where you want to use the amp's preamp, leave the FX loop block on, and in ones where you want to use the amp model on the HD500X, turn the FX loop block off.

So the issue is that all paths running through the Helix are stereo. You're not really losing stereo separation, it's that it's not acting like you're expecting with the path split there in path 2. I'm sure you're assuming that left would go to path 2A and right would go to path 2B. What's happening is that after the split, both 2A and 2B are receiving left and right output from those effects. To get a stereo split, you need to add a pan block from the volume/pan category before each of those preamp blocks. Pan the one hard left and the other hard right - you'll hear the split you want then.

Yeah, I think that's the expected behavior. Basically, when you're moving the effect, not the footswitch, and the custom label is tied to the footswitch. It would be nice, I suppose, if there were a way to lock the label of the footswitch so it didn't change if you changed the effects you have assigned to it.

Do you have the 25K active version of Ernie Ball pedal? The passive version with the 250K pot won't work at all.

Monkey doesn't support Helix. You need to download the application called Line 6 Updater.

Those particular parameters are actually described on page 26 of the manual.

All of these effects can be used with tap tempo already. Just push down on the knob controlling the rate parameter, and the parameter will switch to a note value. It works just like the delays.

You need to set the delay time in your delays to be note value instead of a millisecond value. Press the knob under the delay time parameter, and you'll see it switch to a note value. 1/4 is the default, but if you turn the knob, you can select whatever value you need. That way you can get note subdivisions and still only tap in quarter notes.

Yep, just assign the appropriate MIDI CC to the Helix's tap tempo switch in the Command Center. I believe it's #64 from memory, but it's in the M5's manual.

1. Actually, the Axe FX II only has two processors as well. It's using two of the more expensive TigerSHARC chips as opposed to the Helix's two SHARC chips. The TigerSHARC is 600 Mhz, and the SHARC in the Helix is 450 Mhz. That doesn't really mean anything except that, yes, the TigerSHARC does have more DSP available than than the regular SHARC. I suspect that for the amp/cab modeling, a lot of the DSP in the Axe FX is used up by Fractals "Ultra Hi-Res" IR loading. Interestingly enough, the Fractal AX-8 will be using the same exact chip that's in the Helix.
 
2. The amp modeling on the Helix is completely new, and not simply an update of the HD modeling. The one kind of exception to that is new HD models that were released in the model packs. Those models were actually Helix models that were ported down to the HD.
 
3. Charlie is correct. The dynamic range isn't really about what the ear can perceive. It's about the fidelity available when recording and processing the signal.

The Helix has an internal power supply, so you should be OK using that convenience outlet on the PP2+. I forget what the max current draw on that is offhand. That's the only thing you'd have to check.

Yes, it will work.

Yep, you could do that. You could use the Line 6 cabs or load a third party IR file into the Helix.

At one point during the firmware development, there was a calibration procedure for external pedals, but then they decided to just make it automatic. The Helix just calibrates them when you plug them in. So when you say you're using insert cables, do you mean you're hooking them up like shown here?
 
http://www.strymon.net/tag/expression-pedal/
 
The Helix doesn't work the same way. It just is looking for a TS connection, not a TRS. With the Ernie Ball pedals, I think you would just take a TS cable from the output to the Helix's expression pedal input.

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.

If you unplug the pedal while in a scene, it will delete all assignments (it makes the heel and toe the same for whatever FX modules you have the pedal assigned to in that scene). If you have multiple parameters, and only want to delete one, you have to just do it manually. Push the pedal forward to toe position, and set the delay time to match the delay time for the heel position. Assuming you're in manual scene save mode, you'll have to re-save your scene.

The idea that playing bass through a guitar amp can damage the is somewhat of a myth, although not completely. It's not so much that you'll damage the amp - nothing is going to "get fried" or anything like that. If you are really cranking the amp and pounding on the bass, it is possible to damage a speaker. It depends on the speaker load rating, though. But as long as you play at moderate volumes, there's nothing wrong with using a guitar amp for like practice. It's just that speakers in guitar amps weren't designed to reproduce very low frequencies all that well. So it might not sound the best. But I wouldn't be worried about damaging anything. Just don't dime the amp.

The numbers represent half steps above or below the reference pitch (the pitch coming from your guitar). If you want an octave above, you'd set it to +12. -12 would be an octave below.

What are you trying to do with it, exactly, and where do you have it in your signal chain. First of all, it's a monophonic shifter, for the most party. Depending on the interval, you could some polyphonic stuff. It also wants to be early in the chain. You might want to put a compressor or noise gate before it, but other than that, it should be in front of everything else. Also, it's a model of the Whammy pedal, so it was really made to do the pitch bending effects the Whammy is known for while being controlled by an expression pedal.

Prior to the 2.0 update, the Topology switch was just a "dumb" switch. After the update, though, it behaves as you're describing.

No, there's no way to import your XTL patches to the 500X. They are two completely different modeling platforms.