scotterp

I have since moved on to another product and no longer use the M20D. I have gone through 4 of them with only one of them still working 100%, but just could no longer take the chance of it eventually breaking down. If I were proficient at soldering, I'd tinker and try to get them back up to speed, but I'm not. So... I have a couple "for parts" M20D's if anyone is interested. :)

I am curious to know if there is a way to reset the pin as well. I have a similar situation, but had a second mixer as a backup. Just haven't gotten back to fixing this one yet. If there is a way to reset, that would be great. Don't feel like trying 9999 possible pins before I hit the right one. On my second mixer, I wrote the PIN on the mixer itself to avoid this in the future! :)

Must be a 30 day limit or something - although not mentioned in that email. My original procrastination on buying the book in the first place actually paid off in this situation.

That's exactly how I feel. I don't know how to identify what the sound is. For a few years now, I have used external synths live and the reaction from people is always that they are impressed that I can do it, and that we don't use tracks to do it. I have used the EXH S9, Boss SY-300, and now a SY-200, and even Midi Guitar 2. Mostly because the built in synth is monophonic and I didn't want to take the time to create sounds from scratch. All of these have their own pros and cons. Being able to do it all within the Helix would be preferred for sure. The video above is going to get me to spend a bit more time to perhaps use some internal synths for the parts that monophonic is fine.

Looks like they fixed it. I went to my original email (dated Jan 23rd) and clicked the link. Took me to Sweetwater where I could click the Download and it downloaded Version 1.1. Thank you @craiganderton!

I have done the dual path as well and toggling output volumes for different snapshots. I have a gig this Friday and don't want to mess around too much until that is done with. Then I will reinstall 3.11 and see exactly what it did before. I know that it is working differently now than it did before. I just want to prove that I'm not going crazy and misremembering something. :) Thanks guys!

I think I will need to go back to 3.11 and capture exactly how it worked there, then come back to 3.15 and compare. Just to make sure I have my head straight. IIRC (and I'm not sure I do 100%) I could save a snapshot with the Variax enabled with a specific Variax setting. I could then change to another snapshot, disengage the Variax, save the preset and the disengagement of the Variax was saved for that snapshot only. Toggling between the two snapshots would engage/disengage the Variax. Now, if I save the preset with the Variax engaged, it saves that state for all of the snapshots. Same if I disengage it. It no longer saves the state of the Variax per snapshot. I hope this explains it? It's been a while since I set these up and it just seemed to work that way.

Variax settings is per preset. Factory reset was done (twice to be sure) and reset from backup each time. This seems to work fine for the initial snapshot when coming into a preset. But if there is a " secondary" snapshot where the Variax should be "turned off" and let the mags take over, this is where I'm having an issue. The Variax is not turned off. I can always change the snapshots to use another Variax setting, not a big deal, but the behavior does seem to be different than previous releases. This is the only issue I have found.

Good point. I did check. I'm thinking the one that would affect this is the Recall snapshot edits vs Discard Snaphot edits. It is set to Recall. I can't think of another that might affect this behavior.

OK - So I have gone through the update process a couple of times and have reset things from my backup and I'm having one issue in particular. I only have 2 presets where, within snapshots, some snapshots are using Variax settings, and others are using the built in pickups. For instance: Snapshot 1 uses the spank setting #2, where snapshot #3 uses Variax mags, wherever the switch may be positioned. What I'm finding is that when I switch to snapshot #3 now, it maintains the spank setting. It used to turn off the Variax and just go to whatever the mags were currently positioned to. The Variax no longer turns off when I switch to a snapshot where it used to do that. Anyone else seeing this?

I have used various cables from BTPA including this one. A little pricey and takes time to arrive but VERY GOOD cables. Never had an issue with them.

This is kind of what I have done myself. It would just be nice to be able to do it all within the Helix. :) If the synth is AUV3 compatible, you don't even have to use AUM to make it work.

^^^^^^ Me too... :(

Looks like this happened to me last night at a gig. It happened during soundcheck and I bring a backup M20d with me just in case as these units are getting older. Saved the gig totally. @treewiz, did you ever get this solved?

Yup... always has been. Elaborating even more on this... Depending on the laws of each city, local Pawn shops "may" be required to submit ALL pawn tickets to the local PD. At a couple of our customer sites, this was an electronic file where we would upload all of the data from the pawn shops into the PD's property database, and if any serialized items were found, we would spawn the automatic NCIC check to verify if the item was reported as stolen. If so, we would email the pawn detective of the hit to confirm if it was a matching item. There are some larger agencies that have a detective dedicated to monitoring the pawn shops because they are the most common place for thieves to sell their stolen items. There are some Pawn shop software companies that may be handling this themselves these days though as I haven't seen this requirement at our newer customers. It then comes down to whether the pawn shop owners themselves are recording all of their purchases and who they are buying from. :)

Given that I work for a company that does software for police agencies, I thought I would add my 2 cents... When property is stolen, and you have a valid serial number for it, you should report this to your local police agency. MANY agencies will actually allow you to self report this type of crime and list the details of your stolen property. The more detail you can provide, the better the chances are of recovering it. They don't have to send an officer out to take the report and you can do it at your own leisure in the comfort of your own home. The police agency is then required to verify the report, and if there is any property with a serial number on it, they are to add it to the NCIC database which is national in scope. Any agency within the US can then search this database, using the serial number, to verify if it is indeed registered as stolen. If you don't have a serial number, it won't go anywhere other than the local PD. Your chances of getting your property back are pretty much nil. But you need the report for insurance purposes. So... how I can see that this could work is... Line 6 notifies the owner that their stolen property has turned up somewhere. The owner can then notify their local PD that their stolen item has turned up somewhere (if they have previously reported it). That agency can easily verify NCIC that the item has been reported stolen and is on file. They can easily contact the local agency where the item appears to have been located with any information on who appears to have it. It is now up to that agency to attempt to locate the item. It certainly will be a low priority item for that agency, but they are required to attempt to locate the item. Typically, when patrol has some down time, they can poke around. Their goal is to get the property back to the owner. If they DO manage to locate the item, the person in possession of it can only be charged with possession of a stolen item at the most. This might end up being a citation depending on the history of the person. They can't prove that they stole the item, and they certainly won't "investigate" it. Depending on the story the possessor gives, they might just seize the item and walk away. The PD can then notify the local PD of the recovery. How the item then gets back to the original owner is outside of my knowledge. I think it's up to the owner to make those arrangements. Random audits are performed at each agency for them to validate that the NCIC record is still valid. This applies to Stolen Vehicles, Missing persons, and Stolen Property. The agency must contact the reporting person to see if the status of the record is still accurate. The more common way stolen property ends up being recovered though is purely by accident. Someone gets arrested for some crime (typically drug possession), and they happen to have a lot of "questionable" property on/with them. The cops can easily check the serial numbers against NCIC to see if it has been reported as stolen. This, I can tell you, is VERY common practice. Our mobile software that is in the police cars has the required form to do this, and they do it all the time. If any of the property is stolen, it's an additional charge that they add, and help someone get their property back. So it happens more than you think but... you HAVE to report it to your local PD. They definitely won't investigate it to try to find out who stole it, unless it's a massive theft, but there are tools in place that can help you get your property back. I know the same process exists in Canada as well. Can't speak beyond those two countries though. I just had a meeting with a local PD yesterday afternoon where this was one of the topics of discussion. They are very conscious of reporting stolen/serialized property to NCIC. So... document the details and serial numbers of ALL of your musical gear that you might want to have the slim chance of getting it back if stolen. You might need it some day.

Just my two cents... I run our live sound for out band so I don't have anyone to ride faders for me. We are a two guitar band so I find that in order for the solos to stand out, both of us need to boost significantly more than if only one guitar player. Both of us use a mix of volume boost in the amp section, maybe a slight boost at the end of the chain, but more importantly, mid EQ boost does wonders for making it stand out in the mix. And that is what you are really looking for. Maybe a little high end too. I go out and see a lot of other local cover bands in the area, and more often than not, particularly in two guitar bands, the guitar solos simply do not stand out when they should. It's not just a volume thing.

I have a Helix floor now and an Pod GO as my backup/rehearsal unit. I have had various Variaxes since the 300 came out. Prior to owning the Helix, I spent several years manually changing the Variax from electric to acoustic and back again. The Helix makes it much easier but it is certainly doable. I put my mostly used guitars in the Custom Bank on the Variax so that changing from electric to acoustic was as easy as flicking the pickup switch, versus moving knobs mid-song. I have very similar patches in the Pod Go as what I have in the Helix, so when using the PG, I just have to remember to manually flick the switch to change guitars.

Not to downplay your experience in any way, but I'm including my experiences below. I have been using the M20D with Stagescape speakers since 2013. The ONLY time I had any issues was early on when I was using standard XLR cables. Since going with AES cables I have not experienced any issues with data transmission to the speakers. Our typical live setup is 2 mains (either L2t's or L3t's depending on the venue) and 2 L2m's for monitors. Averaging 2 gigs a month. I've been using a Variax model of some sort since... 2008 maybe? Started with a 300. Currently own 4 JTV's of some sort and a 600. I actively use a JTV 89US and a JTV89F for live gigs. I've been using a Variax with a Helix for about 4 years now. I don't have any recollection of any issues using the VDI other than user error like saving a patch with the JTV engaged on a snapshot when I didn't want it engaged... Things of that sort. Although I do have a Powercab 212, I'm not actively using it live as we are all going direct to PA now. I am aware of the reported issues, but I was not taking advantage of that functionality so I have no opinion to offer here.

++ on the Alto TS308. Both myself and my fellow guitar player in my band use them.

Haven't looked at one of these yet. Currently. I go Variax to Helix, out the USB to an iPad where I run Midi Guitar 2 and use a couple synths on the iPad to get sounds back in through the Helix. It works, but can be sketchy at times where MG2 doesn't want to connect to the Helix. It also requires my fingering/picking to be very accurate which it isn't! It certainly generates questions at gigs on how the heck I'm getting synth sounds out of my setup. I have also used a EHX Synth9 and a Boss SY-300 and found that my current setup offers the best flexibility in terms of variety of synth sounds on the fly. But I'm always looking into new technology to see how far I can take it.

I have tried the Triple play - which sounded great - but didn't want to have to have a computer on stage for live play at the time. Just looking for an all-in-one solution... making it even more of a niche product :)

Would love to see Line 6/Yamaha buy out these guys and put both technologies into a new Variax option :) :) https://jamstik.com/collections/all/products/studio-midi-guitar

^^^^^ I never even thought of doing something like this. Not that I need it at this point but now I might try to find a reason to!

Here is my ugly solution to this problem... I have an older iPad that cannot be upgraded to the new versions of IOS. I use that iPad ONLY for the Stagescape application. Another band member also has an old iPad and they both work fine with the Stagescape app. I think mine is an iPad 2, and it can't go beyond IOS 9.x. You can probably pick up an iPad 2 for relatively cheap these days. So... use one obsolete device to work with another obsolete device. :(