SaschaFranck

Do you have any plans to actually play through HX Native (or maybe some other plugins in addition)? In that case, the Helix hardware isn't the best choice due to rather high latency figures and you'd be served better with your FR interface. You'll be running into the same issue when using both as an aggregate device, fwiw.

Look here, says January 2022: https://gearspace.com/board/showpost.php?p=15796206&postcount=5092 There might be further additions later on in the thread.

There's some units with double purpose outputs, though (not the Helix however), such as my Zoom G3. Its left/mono out doubles as a headphone output (which is then stereo). No idea whether there's some clever switching happening inside once you plug the phones in, though.

As said, part of what might be the reason that quite some people prefer Fractal's modeling, might be that out of the box the Fractal units are sounding quite glorious. And I can still remember it myself... when I got my Helix, first thing I did was updating and restoring the factory presets. Then I decided to go through some of them. Wow, what an underwhelming experience, regardless of the guitar I plugged in. Was pretty similar when I loaded pretty much any A+C block into an empty preset. A while later I had an Axe FX III borrowed from a friend for some days, apparently with pretty much all factory content (presets and defaults) intact. What an incredible difference, really. And while that - very obviously - is quite a subjective thing, it's still what you read in all sorts of related discussions. Having said that, even after tweaking the Helix for quite a bit, I still think that some models in the Fractal offerings are better, perhaps even a lot. But in the end, the handful of models I ended up using within the Helix were pretty much as good and it certainly didn't justify the extra money and/or hassle to even think about switching. If I would ever get an Axe FX, it'd be for other reasons but sound quality. But I'm further away from even thinking about it than ever before.

I'm on Mojave myself as well and I can backup my HX Stomp just fine - did you check different cables and USB ports (and make sure you're not using a hub)? Can you export your presets and favourites? Because if you could, you could do just that and restore the global settings manually after the update. You could then perform the update itself as described here:

I think a newer list can be found in the GS thread (thread starter is the owner of the dawbench site as well).

I do the same with one switch. Freeing up snapshots for other tasks. All throughout 3-4 years of using the Floor exclusively as my live rig, I used 3-4 presets.

I never did that, so stomp switches have been paramount for me.

Oh right, sleep mode still isn't something Windows is doing properly, forgot about that (not an issue under macOS almost since decades).

Doesn't matter. But it might be a good idea to not start your DAW before the Helix is switched on. Some DAWs still don't seem to like "hot swapping" interfaces under Windows.

- Stomp mode allows me to do some things snapshots don't. For instance, split modules can't be excluded from snapshot bypass, but I may want just that (in fact, I do want just that). - Along similar lines, stomp mode allows me to control block(s) patchwide. I can for example add a global boost with a stomp set to snapshot bypass. - Stomp mode allows me to use the capacitive switches to quickly navigate to the controlled block(s). - Stomp mode allows Floor users to have 10 of them, whereas there's just 8 snaphots (which IMO is a really stupid limitation, why aren't there 10 snapshots as well?). When I had the Floor, I usually used the 4 stomp, 4 snapshots mode (and always wished it was 5/5, which would as well be possible).

Babyfaces are a great choice. You might not be able to get them at this point in time, though (massive supply shortage). Heck, Thomann has even taken them out of their shop since a while already. I have as well heard pretty good things about the latest Motu offerings. In case you're prepared for some reading (but for the most complete information on that very subject as well), I highly recommend this thread on Gearspace: https://gearspace.com/board/music-computers/618474-audio-interface-low-latency-performance-data-base.html Unfortunately, that won't work. Latency is always as high (sometimes even a bit higher) as what the slowest part of the aggregate device is able to deliver.

Don't thank me, you'll become a pastafari soon enough!

Fortunately just "most", not "all". https://www.spaghettimonster.org/

All this is incredibly buggy. I can select an empty patch (the default "factory" one), insert, say, an EQ and control the bypass status via EXP 1 (which is my latched footwitch). Then I can select an exact copy of the same empty patch, do exactly the same and it doesn't work. I can then copy the block from the working patch into one that doesn't work (controller assignments will be kept intact) and it doesn't work. If I copy the block from a patch where it didn't work into a patch where it did, the assignment all of a sudden is working. Bottomline: This isn't anything I would ever rely on. Thanks for nothing, Line 6. And fwiw: Yes, my footswitch is working perfectly fine. As soon as I set it to normal footswitch operation, it's working each and every time.

If you plan to use constant detunings a lot, don't do it inside the Helix. The algorithms aren't good enough for that and are introducing plenty of latency. If you only use it very ocassionally, you might be fine.

It is more or less dead simple but there seem to be quite some bugs - otherwise the two identical patches wouldn't show any differences.

Yet some more observations: When you control "route to" via EXP 1, the "Wait" parameter is missing. Why would that be? You can even see there's a little delay. Also, even if you set "Max Route To" for B to 100%, the switch will only go to 99%. All this is seriously bug-ridden, as it seems.

WTF is going on with all this? I've got two absolutely identical patches, with one the switching is working, with the other it isn't. Stripped them down. "Blah" is the one where it's working, in "Jaja" it's not. Simple EQ bypass is controlled by EXP 1, nothing else happening. Blah.hlx Jaja.hlx

And fwiw, why doesn't that "active sensing" work with a plain latching footswitch as well? Sure, the EXP workaround is in fact working, but it's not just as easy to set up. And, possibly even more important, I do now need to remember to always switch the EXP/FS tip setting when I pull the Stomp off the pedalboard, because in standalone mode I'm using 2 momentary switches.

H Hrrhrr...

Ah! Success - forgot to set the preferences of EXP/FS tip to EXP1. Why on earth is that on yet another page than the switch/EXP functions? Anyway, working as expected now.

And fwiw, I thought abusing the switch as an expression pedal might do the trick (as in heel down controlling off, toe down controlling on), hoping the Stomp would do active sensing for expression pedals, but that doesn't seem to work at all.

Hi, I can't get this to work, no idea where to look or what to do anymore. Scenario: I have a latched footswitch connected to the EXP jack of my Stomp (in fact, there's two switches connected, but the second one is just there for tap tempo and simply working). Now, that very switch has a status LED, which is excellent. LED on = contact closed, LED off = contact open. Pretty much business as usual. I have now been setting up a patch in which this very switch controls the "route to" function of an A/B spilt. Working fine, too. Well, not really, because that's where the problems start... When I set the properties of the switch to "latching", I need two switch operations to trigger things - which is sort of to be expected. So, I changed the switch properties to "momentary". All fine. At least for now. A single switch operation causes the routing to change, onboard LED of the switch is working fine, too, LED on representing, say, "route to B". Ok, patch saved. Now, whenever I select another patch and use the external switch just once (so its LED is off) and then return to the saved patch, the split is still routing to B - but the external switch's LED is off this time. The latter being expected, because after all I switched it off and it obviously can't know what the Stomp is doing. But: The Stomp should know the setting of the switch. So once it detects a closed contact, it would route to path B, once it's opened, it'd route to path A, regardless of the saved state. Obviously however, this can't work as the switch assignment's properties have to be set to "momentary", as a result of that, the patch will always revert to the saved status. Ok, long story made short: Is there any way I can assign something to an external switch so it always looks at the status of the switch and then sets the assigned parameters according to the switch status, regardless of the saved state? In synth lingo, a function such as this would be called "active sensing", so any external controllers with clearly defined values (on, off or anything inbetween, as delivered by expression pedals) would be read out once the patch is loaded. This is the way, say, expression pedals work as volume pedals on many devices. Is that somehow possible using an external latching switch? Thanks for any hints!

First off: It'd massively help if you'd a) used paragraphs and b) used the common signal flow descriptions such as guitar -> HX -> amp input, etc., rather than the other way around. And it'd help if you could get some parts of the terminology right, at least a bit. As an example, a power amp isn't sending audio, it's receiving audio. In case english isn't your native language and hence causing you problems, rather use Deepl. If you wanted to get things right in a 4CM scenario, the most important bit would be to get your send/return levels right. This is especially true for Fender amps as they usually don't have a "true" master volume, the entire overall volume often sits in the preamp (with the power amp always running at full volume), which results in the send level of the amp to wildly vary once you adjust your levels on the amp. I wouldn't bet on it, but I could imagine this to be no different on your amp. As a result, when running that kind of amp the 4CM way, you should possibly rather not touch the amps volume controls too much others than to balance the two channels. The Helix output would then function as your new master volume. Then, the first thing you want to make sure is that the HX loop your sending from to the amp is set to instrument level, that's just what the amp expects (this is done in the global menu). You should ideally also not do the entire cabling at once but start with the portion of the Helix you'd want to run in front of the amp. So, your first attempt would be to set up the amp so it sounds great. Then you'd run your guitar into the HX input, bypass everything on the unit, set up a send and connect that send to your amp. Ideally, things would now sound the same as without the Helix. Note: For a start, make sure to use one of the FX Loop blocks, not the separate send and return blocks. This is just to make sure the entire signal passes through the loop (the mix slider needs to be at 100% for that, which is the default). Your tone should now be pretty much identical to the pure amp tone. Note: a certain (pretty small but existing) coloration is to be expected. After all, the signal is converted to the digital domain and back, in addition the Helix has an input amp (even if it largely just serves as a buffer). In case the signal is somewhat higher or lower in volume, you can adjust the send level accordingly. Later on you might as well fool around with the impedance setting in the Helix, could as well be that the amp has a different input impedance than 1mOhm, so you might like to mimic that on the HX input - but for now, leave that setting alone (hence at "auto"). Also make sure the Gate and Guitar Pad are off. Next step would be to disconnect the HX and run your guitar straight into the amp (this is not a requirement but just to make sure things do in fact work). Now grab the signal from your Fender's preamp out and feed it into the return of the HX loop you plan to use. Then connect the output of the HX to your amp's power amp in. Ideally, the tone would now be pretty similar to the tone without the HX inserted. Compensate for volume using the HX big volume knob. Very important note: The previous step is possibly *the* most tricky part of it all. The level coming from your preamp out might be pretty hot, so the HX might not like it too much on a loop set to instrument level (which is what it needs to be because you're as well feeding the amp from there), but I wouldn't happen to know. Maybe things are just fine. In case they're not, you would possibly have to use two different loops, the first one set to instrument level, the second one set to line level. You would then use the separate send/return blocks and send to the amp using loop 1 but plug the amp's preamp out into the return of loop 2. If you should ever have to try it, make *absolutely* sure that "dry through" is set to 0 on the send and mix to 100% on the return. Otherwise a portion of the signal wouldn't run through your preamp. But: You might not have to do any of that, the plain FX loop block might be fine, so that's defenitely where you should start at. Anyhow, in case you're happy with the results of the last step, also do what you did first, namely connect your guitar to the HX and the send to your amp's input. This should now be a working setup to start with. Alternatively, ditch the entire preamp section of the Fender and just run the Helix into the power amp in. Just make sure to bypass all cabs. Ideally, you might as well just use the HX's preamp models instead of full amp blocks. But bypassing all cabs is paramount.