datacommando

Hi WickedFInger, Not sure what you referring to with that comment about "this Eb thing". If you want to drop your guitar tuning down to Eb you can do it using a pitch whammy block with the heel and toe positions set to -1 and 100% mix. Here's one ready to use in a patch I made a while back - find it under FS2 named Eb Drop. Line 6 CustomTone Have fun.

My guess is, Line 6 must have stolen the Infinite Improbability Drive from the Starship Heart of Gold and that's what is inside this black box. Infinite Improbability Drive - YouTube Well, it's as good a theory as the others - now, where did I leave those mushroooooooooooooooms! -:¦:-•:*'""*:•.-:¦:--:¦:-•:*'""*:•.-:¦:--:¦:-•:*'""*:•.-:¦:-

Yep. It sure is less robust - it's designed for a small mixer and 19" rack mount equipment. I went with a cheap temporary option - an old snare stand. Don't think it would be tough enough on the road, but for just me and studio tracking - it's fine.

Hi VIIyears, The one thing I don't understand is why you have Helix going into an interface and then into the Mac. Helix is an 8 channel USB audio interface. Your set up is just adding an extra layer of unneeded signal processing. Keep everything as clean as possible, then you have the option to re-amp with lots of different settings, amps, cabs, fx whatever. You still have your untouched original version that you can come back to anytime. Experiment - enjoy!

Ha ha ha! Oh damn, glad that was not me! I was just waiting to have someone say place the speakers further apart - LMAO. That's a real gem Spikey - classic! You're real star, man!

Hi ChristThePhone, You don't mention where in the signal chain you are adding the pitch shifter. This may seem obvious, but if you have inadvertently placed it before an amp/cab block it will collapse the signal to mono. Likewise, the same will happen if it is placed before any other block that is working in mono. I'm not really sure why you don't think you are getting a good stereo image because I can send myself nuts with 1/8 dotted and 1/4 note delays bouncing around my near field monitors. It gets even more crazy in headphones. If all else fails - you could split the final output into 2 paths and pan the signals 100% left and right. Not sure if this helps any because I'm not really sure what you want to achieve. Whatever it is - it's a Helix so it should be possible. Good luck.

Slick! Very, very slick! Ye gods - It's no wonder that you're prone to snapping wibble sticks!

Did I see someone on here make mention of a foolproof way of running a Firmware updater application? Well, I really think you should be aware, that nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool!

Hi willc, No doubt someone on here will be able to sort this out for you very quickly. Although regarding multi pedal set ups, have a look here and see if it gives any clues to help: http://line6.com/support/topic/20573-expression-1-toe-switch-question/page-1?do=findComment&comment=155232 Good hunting.

Hi ninjamedic, This a very old thread from 2015 - you may have more success in getting an answer elsewhere. Try this, it seems to have a similar topic. http://line6.com/support/topic/21866-my-helix-is-dead/?do=findComment&comment=166012 Or, try a search for "Bricked My Helix" - Sorry, I can't be more help on this one Good luck

Hi Texas Dave, Regarding your "special sauce" trick - here's a link that may be informative for you or anyone else who may be interested in this compressor after amp stuff. Check this link: http://www.barryrudolph.com/pages/compdirectory.html That's the audio engineer's notes on compressors! Essentially what you have with the model of the Universal Audio LA 2A is a "classic tube leveling amp". Transparent and tasty - yep - It's the "mutts nutts!". There are a couple of other studio compressor classes and all have their purpose and particular uses - eg: I am a long time (big) fan of Drawmer DSL 424 units which were regarded as an industry standard compressor/noise gate unit. Enjoy!

Ah ha, enlightenment! This could possibly explain why you were unfamiliar with the compressor after the cab technique, what TexasDave calls his "secret sauce". Example: In a recording studio situation a guitar player is generally stuck in an acoustically treated room, along with all his stomp boxes, amp and cab, which are mic'ed up by an audio engineer. The captured sound is feed into a mixing desk where it probably has to pass through a noise gate, maybe a compressor/limiter and a whole bunch of variable eq on the input channel. The subsequent signal can then be processed by various other bit of analogue or digital jiggery pokery; tape delay, chorus, flanging, reverb etc. This modified guitar sound can then further treated prior to "mastering" where who know what else may be done to it to achieve that final "sheen" on your recording. That's why you can add any of the Helix effects blocks after the cab. Your signal doesn't end there - it finishes when it hits your ears - you decide what it sounds like! As the man said, "You can't polish a turd - but you can roll it in glitter!" Experiment.

There you go - now you've got it - its easy! The only trouble with doing it through a pitch shifter as opposed to actually re-tuning your strings is if you can still hear your un-amplified and un-shifted strings. It can be rather confusing when you hear both together, if you understand what I am trying to say. Never mind - you will know when it occurs, it's very strange. Ah, who cares - play it loud! Enjoy.

Hi Nippyjun, First off, I think we need to differentiate between Alternate and Drop tunings. Alternate tunings are where the various strings of your guitar are retuned across the whole instrument e.g.: Accepted standard tuning is EADGBE which can be modified to DADGAD by dropping the pitch of the 1st and 6th strings down 2 frets. Likewise the 2nd string is retuned down to A. Simple! You now have what Jimmy Page used to refer to as his Celtic, Indian and Arabic tuning, others refer to it as D Modal. Try it - you'll like it. Listen to players such as Davy Graham, Bert Jansch, Al Stewart, John Martyn, John Fahey, Andy McKee, Pierre Bensusan, Michael Hedges and you will get the idea. Tunings such as Open G, Open D and Open E are great examples of tunings that are used a lot in bottleneck slide Delta blues stuff. Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones are great exponents of Open G. The Allman Bros are also renowned for this stuff. Buy yourself a Variax and a whole heap of this stuff is already built in, and you can edit even more - Easy! Now I will state that "Drop Tuning" is slightly different (IMHO) and is the sort of thing more associated with our "Metal Brethren" although many rock masters have been known to drop down half a step - Jimi, for one. So, dropping a guitar semi tone is ridiculously easy using modern pitch shifters - no more tweaking machine heads part way through a gig. Simple solution: Pitch Wham block set with position 50%, Heel and Toe Pitch both at -1 and Mix 100%. Assign it to a FootSwitch and custom name it "Eb Drop". Now whenever you are playing and want the your guitar to go down a semi tone - jump on that switch - Simple. A small caveat to this stuff: this is a real basic explanation of tunings - can take a life time to understand but, I once had a guy playing slide blues in less that 30 mins. He didn't know that a guitar could be tuned to anything other than standard. Also, another guy once told me that my guitar must be out of tune because the tuning pegs were all facing different directions - genius! Here's a link to a tone I made that already has an "Eb Drop" switch for you to play around with. http://line6.com/customtone/tone/2031305/ Have fun! PLEASE NOTE: A lot of users have complained that the upgrade to FW2.0 has screwed up the pitch shifting quality. Digital Igloo states that Line 6 are aware and a patch to revert the shifter algorithms will be made available.

Just stop faffing about and spark up the spliff, Canuck! That should make everything sound different Maaaaannnn! Ya ain't seen nuthin' yet!

Well, if he got you to buy something you were not impressed with, it must be down to Mr. Hindmarsh being a superior salesman, as well as an excellent guitar slinger. Pure genius! I've been having a mess around with the Helix EM model today and personally I find it good enough (for what I need). It does a pretty good digital impression of the old analogue swirly and notch filtering along with the mad oscillations and warbling, plus you can get all that clanging and chimey metal noise when the auto sweep is off. Guess it's all down to personal taste. As I previously mentioned - back in the day - I used to have an original NYC Big Muff Fuzz Pi, a 1974 version 2 Small Stone Phaser and the Deluxe Electric Mistress all going into a very old Simm Watt Eko Dek and a Selmer Treble & Bass 50 with a Goliath 18" bass speaker. Damn - when that stuff got lit up on a Saturday night, I could pick up radio transmissions from taxi drivers in Prague! Ha! Digital! Ya don't know your born. May be I could get Line 6 to model the noise of the seventies for us. ;) Oh, yeah. If you are after the Andy Summers "Massage in a Brothel" twangy sound - check this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyYXgJttHj0 Later Marra!

+1 on comment from silverhead. Lose the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 from the set-up - it's simply not needed and is just adding another bunch of signal chopping to whole thing. Use the Helix USB to hook up to Cubase on the PC. Patch your monitors via XLR outputs on the Helix rear panel. Build your own ideal amp/cap and FX preset and try that! Oh, yeah - It doesn't have a"Turn me into a Guitar God" button - you've got to work at that one. And, I have just noticed that you have the Rack Model - I hope you have the floor controller for it, or life will be hell. O.K. Not hell - but difficult. Have fun!

Console tape and a sharpie! A simple solution - a little old skool, but it works for me ;)

Hi Graemey, Just curious, but have you always been unhappy with the Courtesan model or is it a change to the sound since the latest update to the FW. There has been quite a few users who have mentioned that since the update it has somehow seriously changed the sound of Helix. Some, especially notable is Glen DeLaune, have found radical differences - the real big one is with Pitch Shifters. Wondering if this may be a similar thing. Or it could be that a digital representation of an old analogue effect is simply too precise and clinical. I certainly know it is totally different to the sound that used to emanate from my fizzing ancient Selmer Treble & Bass 50 way back in the mid seventies.

Yep, me too. Big fan of EHX But from the info in the manual, the Courtesan in Helix is based on the Deluxe Model Electric Mistress. This is the model that I used for years. A real classic. Why not try running it through a tape delay and a compressor - just an idea. (Oh, yeah - now I should get ready for more "why the snippy comment" comments coming my way for stating the bleeding obvious.) It's just an observation, marra!

Thanks Ralph, It was meant as light amusement, but my big clumpy hands must be far too heavy on this keyboard. As noted previously - Have fun with your new toy. ;)

Ye Gods - here we go again. Not snippy, dude, more my feeble attempt at humour - but as usual it gets misconstrued as a jibe. Has everyone on this forum had a sense of humour bypass operation. :)

Nope - they're "SNAPSHOTS" to me. But, there again, I'm not going cross-platform and suffering from GAS and headaches like you are! Have fun!

Dear Mr. Digital Igloo and other Line 6 Product Evangelists, Just when the whole world and his brother are singing the praises of the fantastic SnapShot feature and Cali amps, etc. I come along to rain on the parade! FYI - Thought that you should be made aware that, regarding your latest and greatest Firmware update, and the claimed "active sensing" bug fix. quote: Some MIDI keyboards (including those by Roland and M-Audio) send active sensing messages every 300ms, which could sometimes affect Helix’s MIDI input to the computer, causing intermittent dropouts - FIXED After waiting 4 months for this issue to be ironed out I'm very sad to inform you that, NO IT IS NOT FIXED! ​See attached image from midi monitor (Helix Test 07-07-16.tiff) - it's full of active sense messages every 300ms, and they only go away if MIDI Thru is switched off. This makes it impossible to have my controller keyboard pass thru Helix and into Logic. Which is kinda strange as it did when I first bought it in November last year, right until it decided to stop functioning in March this year. It's O.K. I worked around the basic problem by removing Helix from the equation. A $3.50 Chinese MIDI to USB cable simply does the job that this expensive black box cannot! This has started to become really annoying now, as my "escalated" CS ticket informed me, over a month ago (30th May), that a real fix would be in the new Firmware! You see, to some users, it's the little things that matter. Oh yeah, on the bright side - the ability to re-amp Helix has mysteriously healed itself and now works as it should. Odd that, because no one told me there was gonna be a fix for that! A nice little extra, so I will thank you for that.

No problem, happy to help. Now you can get on with the jammin'.