SaschaFranck

It's still a big difference between that and being able to insert whatever unit between pre- and power amp.

Sure. For most of whatever "normal" or "utility" FX it might not make too much of a difference, but once you have an option to somewhat "dirty" up, say, a modulation effect, it might be quite worth the effort. I actually often like modulation FX to sit in front of a driven amp, but quite sometimes it's too much warble. In front of a driven/cranked power amp, it might however become just what the doctor ordered.

Well, not really. There's a pretty noticeable difference between cranking a master volume and boosting the input stage of a power amp. However, while I possibly wouldn't need dedicated power amps to feed them with super hot levels, I'd defenitely love to see them for basically two reasons: - To fool around with different pre- and poweramp combinations (which makes quite a difference). - To insert some FX between the two. The poweramp in this case might kind of "gel" things together or add some "bloom" - which I think could be pretty desirable effects.

And fwiw, just having independent power amps would be quite welcomed already. I have a Soldano SP77 preamp that sounds quite gorgeous through the power amp sim of my Amplifirebox. Can't use it as nicely with the Helix.

I would even take that a bit further. Even without going *too* much into whatever details (such as in Fractal or Bias land), I'd like to see some sort of "playground" amp model. What it could/should feature: - Independent pre- and poweramps. - Choice between various basic drive characteristics. - Pre- and post tone stack (that alone would make up for a whole new world of a difference), maybe even some inbetween tone stack options (such as on some Boogies). - Multiple drive stages (ok, we already have these on some ampe), so you could place a tone stack inbetween. In addition, all that would work a lot better with these options: - Customizable tone stacks (as in a parametric EQ). - A "consolidated" tone stack allowing you to not always see all parameters exposed. - Input level as a modifier, at least for all the amp internals (I wish there would be all sorts of modifiers all throughout the Helix, but I doubt we'll ever see that, which is as well a certain part of the reason why I will likely switch to something else). Especially the latter can do *soo* much in terms of dynamic interaction. Once you fool around with, say, Guitar Rig, you'll know how far input levels used as modifiers can take you. You can turn even the most stiff feeling amp into a dynamic monster within seconds. Now route input level to both drive and, say, a mid control (and maybe add some inversed modulation for the treble control) - and *whoosh* there's your amp which will clean up super nicely when turning down your guitar volume, regardless of the guitar used. Anyway, a custom amp would be quite some fun.

And fwiw, a Tube Screamer is indeed working best as a booster pedal, the drive itself is kinda gnarly - plus, it's always as if a part of the clean signal is still coming through. Which makes them a useful tool to boost an already driven amp.

Well, usually overdrive pedals deliver a smoother, less driven sound while distortion pedals are more agressive, producing more drive, too. Sometimes you can't even clearly distinguish the two.

Well, if it was only that, it'd render a whole plethora of drive pedals pretty much useless. As @loydall said already, there's two different approaches (and of course a mix of both). Clean pedal platform amps usually allow for a whole lot more flexibility as you can just slap another pedal onto your pedalboard, possibly giving you an entirely different sound. With amps you'd have to purchase them all, carry them around and find a way to get the required routing done. I mean, there's several MITB ("Marshall In A Box") pedals, pretty much their main goal being to work in front of a clean amp. Fwiw, I own an Egnater Goldsmith overdrive pedal. That one works particularly well in front of completely clean amps but not even remotely as well in front of any driven amps (for whatever reasons unknown to me).

Insert an EQ and control it's on/off status.

Hm, I should probably give that a try (got the RW Big Pack ever since it got released over a decade ago or so).

Well. Thing is, they're doing what most of their customers want. Nifty controller arrangements (let alone using external MIDI controllers) certainly aren't exactly en vogue among many users. Looking at TGP and the likes, people are constantly asking for yet more amp models, new reverbs and what not. So that's what Line 6 will deliver. Heck, in these 6 years they haven't even managed to implement a remotely decent IR management - so my hopes for anything more advanced are quite low. But well, once live playing is back to half normal (hopefully starting next spring), I will have a look at something different anyway. A GT-1000 looks like a pretty decent choice for my use cases, vastly better hardware quality too.

Whoops, I had already upvoted this.

I SOOO much second this, especially for external MIDI controllers! Wanted to create a sort of hack-ish thing to simulate global blocks with my Behringer BCR2000 - but no way I can even use the Behringer at all, unless I completely skipped snapshots, something I don't want. Also, yes, any parameter should be able to ignore snapshot bypass. I find this particularly annoying with the split blocks. Sure, you can switch snapshot bypass off for them, but that only defines whether the split is active or not and has no impact on, say, switching between path A and B. Anyhow, I doubt we will see the controller issue being adressed as it seems that the Helix is using the same protocol for both external MIDI controllers and snaphot controlled items. Seriously, that's making absolutely no sense, I still remember being almost shocked when I stumbled upon it.

I always found the Helix' Hiwatt to be sort of brittle, but it kind of starts to grow on me (probably has been the default cab, which I really don't like much). Not too likely it'll ever become my favourite, though. Fwiw, in real analog life, the best pedal platform amp I ever owned has been my Boogie Mk IV. In the end I even stopped using the other 2 channels but Rhythm 1 entirely. But I'm sure the major part of this thing working so well has been my cabs (4x12 Orange with original Greenbacks, 2x12 Mesa clone with Vintage 30 and a Peavey Sheffield, 1x12 open back with a Celestion G12H100). Was kinda proven because when I finally swapped the speakers in an 80s redknob "The Twin" in favour of the ones I had in my 2x12 cab, it instantly turned from a horrible, shrill, beamy experience (those "Fender Special Design" speakers the amp came with were godawful) into something almost as great as the Mk IV (just too heavy for most situations).

IMO it depends a lot (possibly even the most) on which cab you're running things into, as with clean amps that will be the deciding factor for the overall voicing (well, not only for clean amps) and hence define whether your drives will sound sweet and silky or harsh and biting (or anything inbetween). Anyway, my personal favourites as clean pedal platforms are the Princess, the Cali IV Rhythm 1, the Cali Texas Ch 1 and sometimes the Placater Clean. I usually set all of them so they allow for a lot of real clean headroom (I often like/need completely clean sounds). If you can get away with a tad of dirt on the amp, I like the P75 or one of the other Marshall variations (the Line 6 2204 Mod takes pedals pretty well IMO, but you might even have to roll down your guitar volume for a completely clean sound as it doesn't sound too great with drive values <0.8 anymore, at least to my ears). Whenever I don't need completely clean sounds.I prefer one of those as a little bit of dirt on the amp seems to "gel" sounds together a bit better. Regarding cabs, out of the ones coming with the Helix, I prefer the two 4x12 Greenback models, but the Cali IV or Cali EXT aren't all that bad, either. I also sometimes like the 4x10 Tweed cab. Most of the times I'm using one of my own IRs or one of the RedWirez Big Pack, though (especially live).

Well, I would disagree, especially in a live context. But each to their own.

But that only boosts the overall level sufficiently in case the amp isn't driving much already. If you push the front end of a driven amp, all you'll get is more gain but hardly much more level. And that's precisely what an EQ in an FX loop (or post amp in the modeling world) is adressing. It's a perfectly shapeable volume boost, could be perfectily linear or with whatever frequencies enhanced or cut.

Could you post a sound example? From my experience, these are the very frequencies adding mud and not helping a solo sound to cut through at all.

What I'm doing since ages (yes, even back when everything but delay/reverb was analog, using loop switchers) is to add a little boost kinda thing in front of the amp (usually either a light drive or a light compressor, pushing the input a bit) and an EQ behind the amp for the final boost level and to sometimes add a little bit of mid boost, too. Worked perfectly fine in the analog world, works perfectly fine with an amp, using the 4 cable method and also works just fine in an all digital setup. Also works with a whole bandwidth of basic sounds, requiring pretty little finetuning. I could post a sample patch and a sound snipplet, in case you wanted.

This should be doable. However, two things are coming to my mind instantly: - Three amps in total will eat up a considerable amount of CPU juice, so there might not be much left for other processing duties. You might want to try whether one guitar amp with some overdrive pedals in front would do the job as well. - In case the bass is active, you should be able to run it into one of the returns just fine. In case it's passive, you *might* run into some issues and it'd probably take some pre-Helix buffering (well, maybe a DI box would be sufficient to take care of impedance issues). Otherwise, as said, it should work just fine, in case you don't want to use too many complexed FX.

Well, if all you need is somthing to cover the Helix, get a blanket, a towel or even something made of plastic that you just put over it.

Well, I'm banned there since 3 years or so.

Many thanks for that! Not that this had been relevant for me so far (as said, my live patches are strictly mono to start with), but it's pretty good to know just in case.

There might be some FX that don't work as great in mono. For instance, some oldschool Chorusses are completely gone when mixed mono (it's because they're doing exactly the opposite on the L and R sides). Personally, I wouldn't happen to know, which ones, though - as I never play stereo in a live context, so all my patches are mono to start with (cab/IR block straight before the output makes them mono all throughout). However, a global mono switch is a pretty neat suggestion, would make much sense in case you'd like to check your patches for mono-compatibility in a stereo environment (most prominent example: through headphones).

Well, that's something I can perfectly understand. I have a bunch of presets that start with a completely identical sound - but the things I can do within each preset are completely different. In fact, this is one of the reasons why I'd like to see a global block functionality so much. Because I actually want, say, my 3 clean presets to sound identical. I just want to take them further in different ways (assuming a single preset wouldn't be sufficient to do all the things I'd like).