SaschaFranck

There's no problem with you being happy. But there's also no problem with me asking for some things (which I have extremely good reasons for). And no, it's not weird at all.

While I would like certain drive models and some FX, I really don't need any. I'd vastly prefer a huge usability update. At least they seem to have adressed the dreaded IR issue (still curious to know whether it really solves all related problems...) and I will likely make some use of the control center improvements. But there's still a truckload of things where the Helix could do with *massive* improvements in terms of usability, so I'm actually already hoping for 3.0.

So, list price at GC in the USA is $1699, german price is €1589€. At €/$ = 1/1.11, that would be $1763.79. Not all that much more already. Now, the german price includes 19% VAT. Substract that from €1598 and you're roughly at €1342.85. Which is roughly around $1490.56 - around 200 bucks less than in the USA. Bottomline: No economical gripes (of whatever sorts) between USA and Germany are the reason for the raised german prices. Add to this that the Helix is a japanese product built in China, so the USA have pretty little to do with it anyway, regardless of how you put it. But talking about China, I think we've already found the reason. Given the current situation, it's just clear that prices for many things made in China will rise because the supply is possibly severly limited.

Well, it's their fault then. But that won't keep me away from mentioning things here. In all honesty, while I think they're nice guys, they're a bit too much into PR. And you don't get much paid back from PR in your own forums. Hence they rather use TGP. And I'm absolutely serious: It's their loss. Hah - on a funny sidenote: That certain speaker designer is now banned from TGP as well. Back when I got banned there's been a drama proceeding that was beyond belief. The guy causing it still being there (even if he got banned multiple times before). Well, they can just keep going with literally the same discussions over and over again as long as they want. Again, it's their loss to ban people who actually add content to a forum (which is what forums are all about).

Because it's a POD, not a Helix. And because if they would do that, the next step would be asking "can we have capacitive switches, too, please?". Or "one more switch please!°. Or "I don't need the onboard pedal!". Line 6 would end up with 8926 hardware iterations of the Helix.

Well, this is Line 6s official forum. People have complained about it on Ideascale. Nothing happened. I am not up to date about the TGP status quo and as I'm not welcomed there, I can't complain there. So I do it here, on their very official channels. If they care about things, they should look into their user forums in the first place. As easy as that.

Yeah well, sorry - but comparing is really a *whole* lot easier when you have the individual files lined up. In case it helps, I promise to do no further harm to the files and just abuse them personally.

My advice would be to try pretty much everything so you'll have a bit of time at your next gigs soundcheck, allowing you to listen to the PA from the front (hence from the audience spot). In case you don't run wireless, you could slap in a looper block (ideally at the beginning of the signal chain) and record some riff. Now, I would assume that you won't manage to check this with all patches, so my next tip would be to have your global EQ ready. Decide whether you need it on all outs or just on the outs going to FOH. Set up hi/lo cuts as needed there. Additionally, you might want to check a pretty broad midband boost, as essentially this is resulting in a similar thing. Combining both isn't bad, either, sometimes it's all about removing excessive low end (low cut), shrill highs (high cut) and probably adding a bit of things to cut through better (midband boost). When back home, you might want to try adjusting individual patches according to your global EQ. But you may as well not do that, because, well, there's the overall EQ, so why not having patches that work both live and at home...

Many thanks for your efforts, quite enlightening. Gotta say that so far (haven't compared all too much yet, but I have the clips lined up against each other in Logic, so I can easily do quick A/B comparisons) for me any of these would possibly just do the job.

Uh-oh! Ok, by now I'd think of myself as a rather experienced Helix user (well, at least kinda), but this guy *completely* slipped my attention so far. And I really mean completely. Yeah sure, I went through all the drives but down the list they have a tendency to get less interesting for me (even if I love fuzzes, just not the Helix ones, at least not too much). But now I expored this fella for around an hour or so nonstop, slapping it into all kinds of patches - and what could I possibly say? Thanks a ton for bringing this up, what a fantastic drive! On a sidenote: Possibly goes to show how the L6s default values for quite some blocks aren't chosen too well (all you need to do to prove this is to chose any of the delays - which IMO are all *way* too loud for common use situations). I just compared the KWB settings I came up with to the default settings and it's a difference like night and day. From thick and juicy all the way to thin and absolutely unimpressive (at least IMO). Now, I'm using the Helix with the input pad on, and I do think the factory patches and defaults were made with it off, but out of interest I just switched it off and the KWB sounded even worse at its defaults. Anyway, thanks again for the heads up, this will find plenty of use and may even replace my current favourites (usually Teemah, Heir Apparent and Top Secret OD, plus some Dhyana here and there) in quite some patches.

The *only* way to dial in recording levels is to do it within a patch, there's no global level adjustment for the various USB audio paths. If you ask me, that's quite a shame, even my cheesy Zoom G3 has such a feature. Personally, I'm using dedicated patches for my recording duties in case I'm not recording just the DI signal and slap it into Helix Native, which, btw, for many situations, is the most comfortable thing to do. I'm often recording at least a tad more traditionally, though, as committing myself to a certain sound while recording already takes away quite a bit of option paralysis later on. So, this here is my typical recording chain, the important thing being the split in path 2. 2A includes everything up to the amp and has USB 1/2 as its output. I can adjust the recording level straight on the output here. Path 2B is running through some more things, such as: - An IR block. Don't want to record that, I load IRs when the signal is recorded, so I still have plenty of mixing freedom while already having decided on the amp. - A volume (pedal) block that is used to quickly adjust my guitar monitoring level (I sometimes slap that into path 2A, in case I need to record swells). - Delay and reverb. Just there for monitoring pleasure, don't want those to be recorded at all. 2B is running into the 1/4" outs (I may switch that to XLR every now and then, but I'm not having issues with noise and my monitoring mixer only supports 1/4" ins on its stereo channels). Fwiw, usually the looper is sitting in the first block position on path 1A, so I can adjust patches while the loop is playing. I was just having some looper jamming fun with this patch, so it's at the end of 2B (I wish I could switch between two loopers...). Once I had this basic layout set up, all I had to do was to copy it over and replace amps and what not. Works a treat. And as said, for me it's a nice mixture of having to make decisions on sounds when tracking already, while at the same time having plenty of mixing options. Anyhow, some, hm, "words of general wisdom" maybe: In case you're running into too hot recording levels (especially on "plain/default" patches using USB 1/2, representing the same signal that goes to your master out), this is almost certainly an indicator that your patches are too hot internally already. In case you load any of the factory patches, you can see that none of them will clip your USB inputs 1/2 (ok, you may perhaps run into issues with hot pickups, global input pad off and clean patches). I would take their levels as guidelines for your own patches. I have created most of my patches so they're even lower in volume, just to always be on the safe side. In case they're too hot, they may cause clipping on the DA converters, something you very defenitely don't want.

Gotta say that I don't understand the problem at all. But in case you want to use the same mic running into Helix' mic in, you can always route it out (to whatever target... your post is pretty unclear about that) using a send block. That way, you would lose pretty much no CPU juice and could still deal with your patches any way you want.

2.9 =/= 42

So, do you think you'll miss out on the release of 2.9 just because this thread has gone off topic?

I have heard the same about "wear" (It's pretty plausible, too), but the old hippie in me won't let me get away with leaving any electronics on all day. And yes, I'm actually serious.

Just to add this: The LTs stomp mode only allows for 8 stomps whereas the Floor allows for 10. I think you're losing the leftmost ones of each row, so in case you're using 10 stomp mode a lot (as I do), make sure you assign something not too relevant there.

Gotta say I can't agree here. Even if all this isn't happening in my native language (hence my options to contribute are severely limited), I found this to be one of the most enlightening discussions on any music forum in quite a while, especially as people stayed so well mannered (instead of doing things such as proving Godwin's law yet again or whatever...). Also touched quite some subjects *way* more important than 2.9.

I second that. Excellent post, qwerty42 (if partially sad, depending on how you look at it). As far as the latest "discussion" goes. Uhm, I thought about joining in earlier, but unfortunately you folks are making use of this funny language (which, obviously, is fine and even necessary round these parts). Maybe in my next life. Err...

Well, my playing time isn't exactly limited. And I usually use pedal edit to quickly go through a bunch of new IRs, which allows me to instantly feel them under my fingertips. Most often this very quickly tells me whether I like an IR or don't. And fwiw, I don't use tons of patches at all, either. I'm always only using one single patch per gig. Yet, I like checking out IRs because they're extremely great to deliver, say, a different point of view. Fwiw #2: In addition to using IRs for plain cab sim duties, I really like to fool around with some more "esoteric" ones when recording. Ever used a spoon sample (or whatever might come to your mind) as an IR? Can be quite interesting. Whatever, all that shouldn't matter because it's no excuse for the poor IR handling of the Helix platform. And seriously, after around 5 years it's about time this gets a decent update.

Additional XLR outs require additional internal wiring, additional hardware and more space. Also, the connection plate of the POD Go is pretty crowded already, can't see how two XLR outs would fit there all too easily. Further, add XLR outs and rest assured people would be asking why there's no dedicated volume control for XLR and 1/4" outs, so an additional op amp would be needed. Etc.

It takes almost no time to audition 128 IRs, where's the problem?

I would like to see the person(s) being able to reliably tell whether a DI box was used for whatever sound, especially in a live context and even more especially in case there's line level running into it. I guess we're talking about some number approaching zero. And as far as DI boxes supplied by the venue go, just buy yourself one. 20 bucks (or even less) and you're sorted.

Quite an interesting concept, btw. Even if latency might not be much fun to deal with, one could still use the Helix' looper and fiddle around with IR mixing. But then, the same can be done in any sequencer without any extra expenses (exporting mixed IRs works just fine, too).

Do you have any other programs opened using the Helix as a sound device? I noticed multiclient support to be pretty bad with the Helix under OSX - for instance, sometimes I just can't use WaveLab while running Logic as well in case both are using the Helix as the audio device.

I already said so elsewhere, but all that was required to export and import presets along with the correct IRs was a file management as we know from software samplers (or sequencers in general). When you export a patch, there should be options to save just the patch file, the patch file along with the used IR(s) or a consolidated file. Works exactly like that with, say, Native Instruments' Kontakt or Battery. Then, when you import a patch, it should automatically find the right IR(s) - in case it's loaded into the Helix already (fwiw, there should be a checksum check in addition to a name check). In case it's not, HX Edit should ask you to locate the correct IR or perform a search (entire filesystem, just a drive, just a folder). Once the right IR is found, HX Edit should ask you which slot to import the IR to (or just use the first free one). In case all slots are filled up already, you should be asked whether you wanted to replace an IR. Ok, this might introduce some (correct patch) data loss. So let's see for further things proper IR management should allow for to adress this: All IRs in use should be tagged as such. That way, you'd know which ones could be deleted easily. Should be a piece of cake to implement that (at least compared to some of the other coding marvels we see being done on modelers). But that still could be improved. When you select a loaded IR that is tagged as being in use, there should be an option to display a list of all patches the IR is used in. That way you'd know whether deleting the IR would affect important patches. It should further be possible to batch save all patches using a certain IR, so you could safely delete them (along with the IR). Amen to all that! It's 2020 and I still have to deal with truncated file names? I could actually understand if reading them would become problematic on some displays (so they would possibly scroll and it'd take a while for us to see the full name) - but truncation? Really, that's just embarrassingly Win95-ish. I would absolutely love to be able to free up large parts of my IR slots to temporarily explore larger chunks of IRs straight on the Helix, simply because it's just friggin' excellent to do that in pedal edit mode while playing. But it's impossible to go for that unless I do a full backup (which takes time and hence reduces fun instantly). And even if I decide to do so, what if I wanted to keep some of the fresh IRs? Take note of the fresh IRs I want to keep, backup all new patches using the fresh IRs individually, take note which patch uses which fresh IR, reload the backup, find slots for the fresh IRs, load the new patches, re-assign the fresh IRs to them. If it wasn't that sad, you'd think this was a comedy. Fwiw, just some days ago I imported a bunch of IRs and found some of them extremely nice. So I went crazy creating patches with them. Let's say like around 30. Now I want to throw the unused ones out but don't exactly remember which ones I didn't use (ignoring my own advice that I give to everybody asking me about these things, how clever...). In addition, I placed those IRs somewhere in the middle of the IR slots - but I'd prefer the 2-3 ones I'd actually like to keep be moved up to my first 30 slots (which I decided to reserve for "keep these on the unit all the time until there's a solution for the IR dilemma" duties), so I would have to re-assign them anyway. As a result, I will now have to try to remember all the patches I created ever since the IR import, write down the IRs used, delete the new IRs or move the ones used up and then re-assign them in the patches using them. And that was just dealing with a mere 10 (!) IRs. Now try to imagine what I would end up with in case I started to select IRs from the RedWirez Big Pack that way (which comes in with around 20k IRs). I'd likely spend the rest of my life taking patch-IR-relationship notes.