SaschaFranck

Every bit this. Just as you'd do with a normal guitar amp - you don't download sounds for those, either.

Well, they're probably not drastically different (it's been a while since I compared) but noticeably. Still doesn't render the 210s unusable. As said, I think the 210s are more likely to get a bit boomy and the high end might be somewhat pronounced, too. What I'd do is to: - Listen to some music you're familiar with through them, ideally using the Helix as an audio interface. Open the global EQ and see which frequencies might be somewhat offensive. - Listen to the same stuff and your guitar sounds through decent headphones (in case you got such a pair) and compare to see what's different. What are you using when listening to the YT guys that you seem to like the sound of? Run the Helix through the same system. Anyhow, why not just give a try what I suggested? Record some DI guitar bits (using Helix USB path 7/8) and post them. Also post some sounds that you'd like to be going for as a reference.

That's a strange preset. Why not just control the split to the amps with a switch but use a volume block instead? See attachement. PRS Archon Mod.hlx

I noticed that this is happening, at least for the looper commands. I really don't think it makes much sense, so I'm wondering whether it's intentional or a bug. I mean, you don't have FS 3 controlling a drive on snapshot #1 and a delay on snapshot #4, either, simply because it'd make little sense (or at least add confusion), so it should be no different with control center assignments. At least, if it was intentional, there should be a "Snapshot Bypass" option as with other blocks.

Fwiw, I have the successor of that one, the TS310 - and well, don't want to put the 210s down or anything, but yes, they're noticeably better IMO. I compared them A/B (and also compared the 310s with the Yamaha DXRs and DBRs) and went with the 310. I could've bought the DXR as well (money wasn't important for that decision) but simply didn't need to because the 310 was sufficient. Still, you should be able to at least get a pretty decent sound out of it. I recommend to fool around with the global EQ, though, from what I remember, the 210s tend to get boomy, even if placed on poles, so check out whether some additional low cut will help with tightening things.

Sure, why not? You might want to use one of the returns, though, as the line signal might be too strong for the instrument input.

Why would you listen through a different IR? Slap the one he posted anywhere into a free slot and bob's your uncle. No need to reassign anything. Unless you haven't updated to 2.9x yet.

The IR is in his posting, too. And ever since 2.9x the IR slot position is irrelevant (besides, there's just one IR in the patch, so even with an older FW version it wouldn't be too tough to assign things).

Well, with modern amps you usually don't need any drive pedals to get the desired gain amounts. Which is why most people tend to utilize TS kind of drives as high mid/treble boosters rather than having them add drive on their own. Helps to keep the lows tight on the target amp. That really depends on whether your guitars are pretty hot - in that case it might be a good idea to keep it on (it's backing up the input level). Quite some people recommend to have it on regardless of the guitar(s) used, which is what I also did at first, but after a while I noticed that with my main guitars (featuring medium output pickups) I would get better level and gain balances with it off. It's a pretty delicate decision, especially in case you created lots of patches already, simply because it's a global setting which will affect all your patches. Get's dramatically noticeable regarding the balance of clean and overdriven sounds. So IMO it's pretty wise to check some things with both settings out and then stick with the better working one for a whole while to come.

Paulzx, I downloaded your presets and fooled around with them. Now, all this hard rock stuff isn't my COT, but still, it seemed to me that these patches have *huge* amounts of drive. In case your plan was to use those as rhythm sounds, I'd say it's quite too much gain - and I only checked with medium level PUs. Do you have your Guitar Input Pad on or off? Mine is off (which is the Helix' default), but even when switched to on, it's still a whole lot of gain. Also, your Scream 808 settings aren't exactly what people usually do. You usually slap an 808 type drive in front of an already driven amp to a) possibly boost it a bit and - more importantly - b) keep the low end a bit tighter (808 kinda overdrives work as a sort of high mid or even treble boost). With the gain as high as in your patches, you are defeating that purpose already, because 808 drives aren't tight on their own. Also, running two noticeable drives serially (808 and amp in your examples) usually doesn't tighten up things, in fact more to the opposite. Having said all that, before you start worrying about cabinets and what not, I would recommend you to have a look at your gain structure. Also, if you want, post a recording of your DI guitar and some sound examples (from YT or wherever) demonstrating what you're after. Adjusting anything with different guitars and playing than yours usually makes no sense.

Even more of a reason to introduce global blocks...

This seems to happen quite frequently. I've been lucky so far but plenty of folks only seemed to be able to update offline. Fwiw, nice finding on HX Edit still running in the background once you cancel the update (not relevant for myelf as I'm on macOS, but some people seem to be running into similar issues as you).

Do an offline update.

The only real issue regarding updates would possibly the Line 6 server not working properly (which, let's be honest, happens quite sometimes). But for that there's the flash files that you can use to do any updates offline. Never had an issue with that.

You could possibly try to use it as an *analog* drumset. Just grab some drumsticks and start beating the Helix. You might want to connect a mic to it and process things at the same time.

Fwiw, I don't necessarily think that your attached audio example is particularly bright or harsh. Checked the patch as well and couldn't find much, either (but then, the guitar I used isn't bright on its own). You might be able to find a somewhat darker different cab, though. I replaced the cab with an IR block and slapped an IR of my own in. The IR is a bit more mid-rangey than the cab. You might want to give it a try (altered patch and IR in the zip). MAIN Headph Mod.zip

Pretty wellknown problem. Cheap hardware. As with quite some other parts. Unfortunately, I should add - and yes, I'd happily pay 100 bucks more for the unit in case the questionable parts were of durable quality. Things coming to my mind: XLR out that is not dealing well with phantom power. Joystick that is wearing out quickly (why a joystick at all in case it suits no purpose?) and oviously has sloppy soldering joints on lots of units. Mic preamp not unlikely to burn out in case you activate phantom power in the wrong order. Volume knobs becoming pretty stiff. LEDs that stop working (maybe not as common as the other issues but it happend with my tap tempo LED. These are the things that are getting used (and moved!) a lot, so they'd better be at least pretty decent. Replacing all of these in favour of at least something more durable would perhaps add around 50-100 bucks (likely less). As said, I'd be more than willing to pay that.

As one idea: The scribble strips could display the preset name using a special font, the latter indicating it was indeed "next/previous" preset rather than some obscure custom switch label you came up with.

Flawless update of Edit, FW and Native. Thanks and cheers!

You don't even need to deal with deconvolving. - Use whatever match EQ and what not in your signal chain. - Remove everything from the mixer channel you don't want to be included in your IR. For instance, if you run Helix Native, bypass that (you can't capture most things it does with an IR anyway as IRs don't support non-linear processes). - Slap a dirac IR onto the track and bounce it. A dirac IR is a simple full range spike. Here's a bunch of them in all common formats:http://www.saschafranck.de/tmp/diracs.zip - For additional safety, load the bounced file into any wave editor (or reimport into your sequencer) and trim it the way other typical IRs are trimmed (just have a look at some and you'll get the idea). Fwiw, this method also works tremendously well for mixing IRs.

I can only second what silverhead said. Possibly couldn't thank you enough!

I'm all with you. I'm also not using more than one patch per gig - and for very good reasons (basically it comes down to the fact that I can't adjust anything globally but the global EQ). And fwiw, even without more DSP juice, there'd be plenty of things that could be improved. Global blocks and more switches on multiple pages (I'd absolutely love that) being the most prominent ones coming to mind. With global blocks, one may not need more switches, though. And ever since the new Command Center, I also wish I could have the snapshot recall/discard setting per snapshot rather than having to make a global decision (I'd likely end up with 2-3 fixed snapshots and an additional "playground" one). Anyhow, as far as running out of DSP goes, especially for live useage, I noticed that I just don't need multiple cabs. I have a bunch of allround IRs working equally well for pretty much anything between the occasional jazzy stuff and some solid rock sounds (note: I'm not into metal). Also, depending on the gig, I may use a patch with just one amp and add some drive/gain staging with pedals, usually resulting in quite less DSP load (and more routing freedom). At least for gigs not requiring all that much tonal bandwidth, this is working fine for me (in case it's supposed to be more on the rock-ish side of things, the 2204 Line6 mod set to very low drive is fine for me, for gigs akin more into clean territory, I like the Cali IV Rhythm 1 (used the real deal for a lot of years) as it goes pretty well with pedals and has the graphic EQ built in.

This! My first take would've been Fletcher Munson, too (for obvious reasons), but once it was mentioned the same wouldn't happen with HXN, that was kinda flawed. So yes, I would recommend doing just the tests you've suggested.

Well, while I certainly wouldn't mind some more esoteric bits, the most interesting thing for me is usability. 2.9 is a nice step forward already, but I could still come up with plenty of ideas regarding the handling side of things. Oh, and I'd really love to see modulators such as input level, envelopes and LFOs. That could bring plenty of synth-alike things to the table without adding some actual FX.

Ok, so how do I listen to my Helix? Bunch of headphones. Still like my Sennheiser HD25 the most as they're pretty decent to find sweet or "un-sweet" spots in the critical midrange. Too bad they're not very comfortable to wear for longer periods of time, so I flip flop between them, a pair of AKG 240 MkII and a cheap Superlux HD-681, the latter being kickass value for money, very comfortable to wear, just that they sound too nice IMO (no good for critical mixing or sound programming tasks). Outside of the headphone realm I'm mostly listening through and old pair of Tannoy Reveal studio monitors, powered by an even older Alesis RA-100 amplifier. Already had an order for a pair of IKMM iLouds going (which should be perfect for my needs, already tested them) but cancelled that for the time being as I'm basically without work for an unforeseeable amount of time thanks to that goddamn virus. Still, these are great home studio monitors if space is an issue and if you really need to go for nearfield monitoring (the Tannoys need more distance, which right now is tough for me to realize). And finally, for the time being I took my live monitor (Alto TS310 - IMO excellent, even if some people like to blame it for whatever reasons...) home with me, so I can at least enjoy a little bit of banging here and there (until the neighbours start calling the police). Quite happy with these things, apart from the studio monitors I wouldn't know what to change (and yes, I compared my Alto to lots of others, even way more expensive solutions).