datacommando

Mine is hooked up all day long to my Mac via USB, that's partly what it was designed for. It is used as my main studio interface for recording with Logic Pro X, for playback of iTunes, general Internet Radio and YouTube stuff. I have never noticed it even get slightly warm, let alone hot enough to do any damage. That is totally weird, and I don't understand what has happened, unless something shorted out?

Oh no, you will miss the next firmware update, which may be the Holy Grail/Droid that you seek. Ah, well never mind, you will never know - goodbye to the cruel world of Helix. Happy trails!

Welcome to the Twilight Zone of Helix and USB connection. There are worm holes in space where the sound vanishes, but it's truly fantastic when it works properly. Just treat it as an X-File incident.

Not a bad job for a rough mix. Did I detect a slight touch of Joe Satriani influence in there?

Watdafunk! The troll has hi-jacked his own thread with the "Back to Mono" one and taken us on a new helical trajectory! Ye Gods!

O.K. If it's not up for debate (although, it kinda looks like it is), there is a very simple solution - STOP! Ars longa, vita brevis!

LMAO, once again. Did you hear about the guy who was selling rat turds as "Learning Pills" for $1,000 each. For a while lots of people bought into it and he sold hundreds. Then one guy tried one, but he immediately spat it out. "Tastes like rat $hit!" he exclaimed, to which the seller replied, "Now you're learning!" It really is all Snake Oil ;)

Ye Gods, are you psychic? I'm actually wearing a "Dark Side of the Moon 40th anniversary" T-Shirt right now and I was a pioneer of the quadraphonic hi-fi systems. Saw PF many time in the old UFO days but Knebworth '75 was the "mutts nuts". Steve Miller band with Les Dudek, Captain Beefheart (with Winged Eel Fingerling and Drumbo), Roy Harper and Trigger - Outstanding!

Sorry HO, but that's too much. Now I really have to phone the Pope! :o

Damn - Too late! :P You've got to laugh!

HO, I can feel that you are already typing away at some huge and expansive riposte to my last humourous quip, which will reverberate around the galaxy, so I will get in first and say: Fuggedaboudit! I'm off to listen to the latest release from Hot Black Desiato and Disaster Area - IT'S QUADRAPHONIC! :o

Well Honest, that's very honest of you because it seems that you have already answered your own questions. As phil_m has noted these reverb algorithms began life on the previous HD platform and were ported over to Helix. I suppose the Line 6 techies could have spent another couple of years re-writing everything to suit but I think that would mean we would still be drooling and waiting the arrival of the incarnation of the fantastic Helix machine! Only now when we have it does the whole world and his brother decide that what we have is inadequate and missing stacks of features. Then everyone starts to cry out for "updates, updates" and no matter what is included in the update some folks will NEVER be satisfied or happy! If ya want mono do a Van Gough and chop an ear off! I'm more of an ambient, dimensional reverb exponent. And before you ask - No, I'm not just some Hoopy Frood who has lost his towel! Jeeziz - I cannot remember the last time I needed a stereo distortion! :P ;) :)

Guys, Now I am becoming totally confused. BACK TO MONO? - Whatever happened to Phil Spector? Ooops! There are posts all over this forum, and a multitude of requests on Ideascale, for reverb effects that go above and beyond than those which are available in the Strymon and Eventide hardware. Only now it seems that mono must be the way to go, although it has been noted that the stereo paths can be summed to mono outputs. Well, if mono is going to be the next big, must have thing, then someone needs to get this thing voted up. That should amuse the developers at Line 6. Does anyone really know what they want from this machine, because it's starting to become the Infinite Improbability Drive of the guitar universe?

Happy birthday to us, one and all. I acquired my Helix on November 23, 2015 and it worked flawlessly, right out of the box. Patched straight into my (then one month old) iMac 27" Retina 5 with 32GB RAM - perfect plug and play. It continued that way until March 2016 when it started to malfunction with both audio and MIDI. There then ensued much wailing and moaning from me until May when Digital Igloo informed me that Line 6 had a fix for my predicament. Sadly, it was not 100% effective and I limped on until the July when FW 2.01 seemed to improve things a little. Once again, this was still not quite a 100% fix. Then just a mysteriously as it had started being weird with MIDI and Audio bugs it seems that this piece of alien technology healed its self and returned to perfection. No one has any explanation for the bout of extreme flakeyness, and as long as it continues to function as it does - I don't care. I have even indulged myself with a second Variax (JTV59) to pair up with the Helix. It is a thing of total wonder!

D'oh! Obvious really - my brain must have been somewhere else!

O.K. Now you see it, now you don't. Could be down to a flakey prefs file. I found this info that may help (or not). See if it work for you. On rare occasions, a Mac preference file relating to audio devices may become corrupted. This can cause a device to not show up as an input/output device in System Preferences > Sound even when there is nothing wrong with the device itself, or cause the device's MIDI ports to not show up. On these occasions, deleting a few preference files can sometimes fix the issue. The first set of files to be deleted can be found by navigating to Mac HD > Library > Preferences > Audio. There should be two preference files in this folder: com.apple.audio.DeviceSettings.plist com.apple.audio.SystemSettings.plist Any additional files in the Audio folder will likely be duplicates (which can often be the cause of the problem), you should delete these files as well. The other preference file that can cause a similar problem is found in a different Library folder. On OSX 10.7 and later, open Finder > click 'Go' at the top of the screen > Hold down the "Alt/Option" key and click on the Library folder > Preferences > delete 'com.apple.audioMIDIsetup.plist' On OSX 10.6 and earlier, the User Library folder is not hidden and so can be accessed by navigating to Mac HD > [your username] > Library > Preferences > delete 'com.apple.audioMIDIsetup.plist' Note: This filename is lengthened to 'com.apple.audio.audioMIDIsetup.plist' on systems running OSX 10.10 Yosemite. There are 3 Library folders on a Mac so if you cannot see one of these files it’s worth double-checking that you are navigating to the correct one. After trashing these files restart your computer.

Would an attenuator/power soak be a feasible solution in this case? I know it's usual to put a power soak/load box between a tube amp and the speaker cab to be able run the amp flat out "loud" and the speakers at a lower volume level. Although, I don't know if this would function between Helix and your Gemini 2 rig? Anyone know?

Hi again, I just realised that you noted that the Helix USB doesn't show up as a sound preference. Question: Have you used the installed the Line 6 Custom USB driver and run OSX Audio Midi Setup utilitly to configure the Helix? Maybe worth checking if not.

My guess they went for stereo because in the "real world" natural reverb is actually a stereo effect, possibly even better to be described as 3D. Although, I can see the idea behind having mono versions of the reverbs available. I read somewhere that early EVH recordings had his guitar signals panned to one side and mono reverb on the other - but, I don't know if that's true, I never bothered to check!

Hi guys, Zooey may well have a point - if the Mac goes to sleep then it will effectively just "forget" what is attached, which is why a reboot brings everything back. Suggest you try disabling the "Computer sleep" option in the Energy Saver section of your System Prefs and see if that keeps alive the link to your Helix. Suppose you could always simply pull the USB cable out of the socket on the Helix and then re-connect. Crude but efficient. Worth a shot - let us know if it works.

Hi Tomas, I would think you can just install a copy of the editor on your laptop without any problem. The Line 6 Updater is responsible for Firmware installation, that's when you usually need to do a "Reset" on Helix. The "updater" application also installs the USB driver and the "Editor" software. The editor is simply a tool for communicating with and modifying the settings inside your Helix hardware. So, you could do that from any computer with a suitable USB port, driver and editor installed. Note: It maybe a good idea to also make another copy of your presets on the laptop. Think of it as a "Fail Safe" backup.

Wow - Satellite! That's military grade internet connection stuff. Jeezziz, are you gigging on a cruise ship?

Oh, that's not good, and AFAIK, yes you're correct - the Line 6 Updater is just for Helix. Suggestion - Maybe you could get someone else to get the download of the software you require, Monkey etc. Then they could send it to you as an email attachment - Monkey is only about 3.5MB or you could use DropBox, WeTransfer or some other FTP system to get you back up and running. It's just an idea. I would offer to do it for you but right now I'm at home and I'm posting this from my wife's MacBook Pro. If you can wait a little while I can send you the stuff when I go down to the studio. Just let me know what bits you need and your OS and I will set up a Drop for you if you like?

Hi Martin, Here is a link to a post in this forum that explains how to download the editor software: http://line6.com/support/topic/19444-latest-helix-editor-201/?do=findComment&comment=165558 If you don't have success with that, simply click this link which takes you to the free software downloads page. http://line6.com/software/index.html From here just select the "All software" pop out panel and scroll down to select Helix. Then in the next panel, choose your operating system, Mac OSX, Windows 10 or whatever. Now click the "Go" button and that should take you to the Helix Editor v2.01. Hope this helps one happy Helix user.

Hi slydawg65, Short answer YES! See my earlier posts in this thread (#15 above) I have both versions on my Mac running El Cap - HD version for my JTV59 and the older version is still on there to communicate with my ancient Variax 600. If your non HD version is not working, then you may need to update various bits of software (Monkey etc.) to the latest releases that do work with El Cap. Hope this helps.