SaschaFranck

And fwiw: The global recording offset compensation of some (these days most) sequencers hasn't exactly been added to compensate for offsets introduced by less than shiny interface drivers but because you might be dealing with things the driver of whatever interface can't adress, such as using an external AD converter. The latency introduced by such an external converter is something unknown to the interface, so the only way to find out about it (apart from things being documented by the converter makers) and cure it, is performing a loopback test and adjusting your global offset compensation. In case of an interface coming with a fixed set of converters, that shouldn't be required. Anyway, I didn't even mean to start a discussion about all this. Just wanted to report this driver bug.

As said, this has *zero* to do with device latency, be it from converters, internal processing or whatever. It's about a recording offset - which is an entirely different thing. One of the most crucial features of an audio interface is to record things in time. For this to work, the driver needs to communicate with the host. And in case, say, the input converter is adding 2ms of latency (arbitrary number, I know it's less on the Helix), the driver needs to tell the host "Hey, please take that into account when placing the file on the timeline". Same goes for any internal processing the Helix is doing before the signal hits the sequencer. This is what each and every even remotely professional (or semi-professional) interface will do. If you have access to one of these, you can check for yourself by perfoming the dead simple loopback test described above. They're "suffering" from the very same converter and processing latency as the Helix (sure, the exact numbers will vary as they're all designed slightly different) - and yet, recordings will be placed accurately on the timeline. The reason being that the driver is properly communicating with the host (well, on most interfaces at least). It's pretty much exactly the same what I'm now doing with Logics global recording offset compensation, just that it's happening on a driver level, which a) is likely more efficient, b) takes the burden off the user and c) doesn't need re-adjustments when changing samplerates (which is often required with interfaces suffering from that very issue). Fwiw, these very issues are something often ignored in all sorts interface reviews. You may find resumes about how great an interface performs at low latencies, how great it sounds and what not - only to find out it comes with a massive recording offset once its in your hands. Which, btw, isn't necessarily a dealbreaker, as long as the offset isn't varying (something happening as well on rather shoddy interfaces), but it's still something that shouldn't happen. It's a matter of proper QA in the driver development department and should be adressed.

Well, as the lack of proper driver communication is known by most host makers these days, quite some of them are offering a global record offset compensation. Once that is done, you're all fine. I'm using Logic and after measuring the Helix offset, I just set the global compensation to -90 samples and that was it. It's just that I have to remember it whenever I switch to another interface not suffering from recording offsets (would be great if the host would remember the settings per interface). In general, it's quite astounding, though, because even some dedicated interfaces are still suffering from that issue - let alone those slapped in as a sort of afterthought. The one in my Zoom G3 comes with a recording offset of a whooping 475 samples.

Just fool around with some EQs and see how far you can get. You might want to throw in some light compression (with shorter attack values) behind them to sort of simulate the sag of a typical tube power amp. Fwiw, I have a bunch of IRs taken from clean tube preamps and full tops. Now, as these are IRs, they won't reproduce the dynamic behaviour of the captured amps, IRs just can't do that, but they're introducing some interesting frequency responses that you won't be able to recreate with any EQ. Let me know if you'd like to try them out in the HX FX IR block and I'll post them.

Personally, I don't fear the Helix to be obsolete at any time. Good sounds and proper usability won't become worse all of a sudden. A Marshall amp is as outdated as it gets, so is an acoustic piano - and still people are using them all over the world. At least for me, there's a huge difference between earlier modelers. Their sounds would indeed become outdated because pretty much everything (at least out of the things I've tried) left something to be desired (or even plenty of that). With these days modern modelers, for me that's not the case anymore. IOW, I can get some sounds out of them which I don't need to be improved anymore. Sure, there's always the one amp or pedal that you might want to have included, there's better FX algorithms and usability improvements. And it's not unlikely that you may want these in your hands and hence buy a Helix V2 one day. But that still doesn't mean the current Helix will become obsolete - unlike, say, my Boss GT-5, GT-10 or my old POD units, which are simply outdated because of their sound. My biggest fear is that the Helix hardware will not hold up too well, it's just not as heavy duty as I wish it would be (in fact, it's even sort of fragile on some parts).

And fwiw, that SOS article is pretty dated and not exactly well written. The guy doesn't even mention the socalled "safety buffers" each and every interface will introduce. These exist to warrant proper functionality and they're usually not documented, plus, apart from a few rare exceptions (I know MotU offers low safety buffer options - which doesn't seem to help their interfaces, but that's another story...), you can't access their settings as a mere user, so they're baked into the interface. And quite often they're responsible for a large percentage of your overall RTL, especially on cheaper interfaces. Which is also why you will get vastly different RTL values from different interfaces, even if you're using the same samplerates and buffersizes. The SOS author is not mentioning this, which is a bit of a shame, as SOS usually is a pretty reliable source. In case you want some extensive but interesting reading, I recommend this thread: https://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-computers/618474-audio-interface-low-latency-performance-data-base.html Anyway, it still hasn't got much (if anything) to do with the recording offset the Helix introduces. That's all about proper host-driver-communication.

Very sorry, but you don't seem to understand what this is about. It's a recording offset. Interfaces are supposed to record the stuff coming in and have it placed on the timeline in a sequencer just at the right position. This is all about proper communication of the driver and the recording software and it's got zero to do with latency (which I am absolutely informed about) but with a proper driver implementation. Any decent interface doesn't suffer from this problem. And while most humans won't be able to detect 2ms od delay reliably, it's good enough to cause other issues, such as phasing ones. Anyway, this is very clearly a bug on the interface side of things. And as said, it's got nothing to do with latency. My other interfaces don't suffer from that issue, regardless of their RTL values or the buffersize settings. As far as testing this goes: Play any audio file in a sequencer and re-record it. Then compare the two signals on your timeline. Ideally, they would align perfectly, regardless of the samplerate and buffersettings. Which they are, using other interfaces. Which they aren't, using the Helix. Hence it's a bug. One that should defenitely be adressed in case you want to call the interface part of the Helix decent.

That's why each and every halway decent PA (these days even including cheaper ones) have dedicated delay lines for each array of speakers. The front speaker will be virtually pushed back a few feet until they're at stage distance, using these delays. Works a treat.

Helix Floor as an audio interface causes a negative recording offset of 90 samples at 44.1kHz on USB 1/2 or 7/8 (empty preset, but that shouldn't matter). So all recordings will be delayed by around 2ms. Some (maybe most by now) sequencers allow for a global compensation of such offsets, in case someone cares and wants to look it up. Should be corrected on a driver level by Line 6, though.

You can't do that. In my own layman terms: Different blocks have different DSP requirements and would likely cause a "re-calculation" of things, which would be counterproductive to the nature of snapshots, which are there to allow for instant, gapless switching.

Having to turn a unit off to avoid possible damage just to connect a mic is ridiculous. If that was like a recommendation for a mxing console, you'd sell exactly zero units. As much as I like the thing, it has to be said that the Helix suffers from absolutely serious hardware issues/flaws, there's no way around it.

You need to set the Helix as the device for system audio. Alternatively, the player you're using will have it's own setup menu in which you might be able to select an output independently from your system audio settings. Quite obviously, you want to chose the Helix there. Don't change anything on the Helix just yet - it'll usually play back things fine at its default settings. The fact that your backings are playing through your laptops speakers/headphone-outs indicates that the Helix isn't assigned properly there.

Yeah well, my comment was a bit quick-handed or so. Yet, there's such an amount of flexibility when it comes to amps delivered with the Helix that I could hardly think of much sounds that you couldn't already realize in one way or the other. Ok, admittedly, I'm as well having a sort of an issue with people asking for more and more of the same stuff over and over again (the amp requests on Ideascale are about endless). Personally, I think it'd be much more interesting to have some more wicked options available - and amps are, well, defenitely required but completely boring, so I'm not getting excited about them at all. Anyway, it's all fine if people are asking for amps. It's just super boring in my book.

Might be. But as said, he's waiting for around 2 months by now (for a broken joystick, btw., something that - unfortunately - has to be considered a standard). Fwiw, he's in Switzerland, but apparently it might as well take some time in Germany, at least from what I've read. I really hope this will never happen to me. Unfortunately, some parts on the Helix aren't exactly "road ready" (both joysticks, the mic preamp, some LT EXP pedals, broken LEDs and what not). Yes, I knew this before I bought it and still did so, but well, it always leaves me a bit scared that something may happen.

Two more things: - DunedinDragon already mentioned the possible option paralysis you might be running into with IRs. I would really recommend to stick with the default cabs as long as it takes for you to get the hang of the Helix. IR management is far from ideal, too, so that might add to the confusion. - Before buying preset packs, do yourself a favour and try to build some patches yourself. Even if they might not turn out to sound like the greatest things on earth, you will learn how to deal with the Helix' "architecture" - which will be really important once you need to adjust patches to suit your taste. Even the best presets usually don't work straight out of the box for most people, so being familiar with the various ways to achieve this or that inside the Helix will really help you to adjust things.

Over here in Europe it's probably a better idea to consult a decent technician rather than relying on Yamahas quite shady support. It's a shame the way Line 6 treats Helix customers over there hasn't made it across the world, really (I know of one guy waiting for his Helix to return from a repair since 2 months already, which is completely inacceptable by any standards). Hence I applaud people for posting such videos.

Good to know, thanks. And now let's hope they add a cancel function for the initial recording...

Fwiw, unlike Mr. Sadites I don't exactly recommend to start with a compressor as a sort of standard at the end of your signal chain. Yes, it may help to polish your sound, but it may as well cut off some of the delicate dynamics of an amp that you would otherwise like. Guitar amps by themselves already add a lot of compression (defenitely true for anything overdriven), so there's often not too much of a point in adding some more - at least not straight "out of the box". Especially when playing live, I often want to maintain as much dynamics as I possibly could instead of squashing them yet some more. This is not meant to say "never do it that way" - but I'd simply not start with it. It's nothing you'd do with your real amps, either. It's also not how things are dealt with in studio recording situations. When dialing in your sound, there's usually *zero* tweaks coming from the engineer operating the console. He/she simply won't slap a master compressor on your sound (unless you explicitely ask for it). As you're just starting out, there's these things I highly recommend (I would probably do all this with the Powercab set to flat mode): - Insert a looper as the very first thing in your signal chain. This allows you to record something into it and do all tweakings while someone else (the looper) is playing. If anything, this is by far the biggest time saviour in my world when creating guitar sounds (I was using external loopers just for that purpose since decades already, can't be beaten, really). It's an entirely different thing from playing something, have a note/chord ring out, adjust things, play again, adjust things - etc. Especially as we're not dealing with a nice amount of physical knobs (but just 6 you need to switch to or the editor), this will save you time. And I'm not talking about saving you some seconds but literally *hours*. Record a riff, adjust, stop the looper, record another riff, to see whether that would work with the same sound, stop the looper, record some single notes, etc. -- Insert just an Amp+Cab block and go through *all* the models while the looper is playing. Sometimes the default settings programmed by Line 6 aren't ideal, so I strongly suggest to spend a little time on each amp to at least adjust the drive(s), master and sag parameters, these are the most crucial to adjust the drive amount (obviously) and the amps dynamic behaviour. In addition, you may want to turn down hum and ripple (they're basically nonsense IMO, at least when it comes to selecting sounds, plus they add noise even in case you're not playing, which is annoying - I have no idea why they're turned up that much by default, if it was like that on a real amp, you'd possibly think about having it repaired). - Once you found an amp that's in your tonal ballpark, play through it. Then go to your global settings and check out the leftmost entry under "Ins/Outs", it's called "Guitar In Pad". It's off by default. Switching it on will globally attenuate your input level. I think the main reason for this to exist is to compensate for guitars with pretty high output, but many people (myself included) think of it to work pretty well on lower output guitars, too. My main axes really don't throw out much level and I keep the Input Pad on all the time. There's still tons of gain if I need it. In fact, I think most amps are a bit too much on the gainier side of things, so I absolutely welcome the additional headroom for clean and slightly sizzling sounds. YMMV, but this might be an important decision to make. - Back to the "ballpark" amp, have the looper playing a bit more and check out all the cabs without changing the amp - or at least the similar cabs. So, in case the Amp+Cab block comes up with a 4x12, make sure to check at least all the 4x12s. This makes a *huge* difference. Like *really huge*. Depending on the amp model, using a different cab might even sound like using an entirely different amp. Gets even more drastic once you change the base cab model (such as from 4x12 to 1x12). - Once you found the cab you like best, you might want to fool around with the mics and their positioning (IMO close is fine for a start, regardless of the mic). For mic selections, I find it to be particularly useful to actually play around and enter pedal edit mode, then select "Mic" and use the "Value +/-" switches to go through the mic models. Note: Pedal edit mode in itself is extremely useful for plenty of fine tunings, as it allows you to play around while adjusting parameters simultaneously - and as great as using a looper is, patches always feel a bit (or even more than a bit) different once you play them yourself. Personally, I'm always using the looper to get me as close as possible and then do fine tunings via pedal edit while playing around (ideally with some backings). In my case, doing it like that allows me to come up with very useful patches in a very short amount of time. As usual, YMMV. Of course, pretty much everything applies to further edits (such as adding other blocks), too.

Well, if anyone needs all these amps, there's better modelers around. Pretty easy.

I think 13 out of 67 amps (some of the none highgain ones often just representing differently jumpered channels) is quite a decent percentage.

There's certain reproduceable bugs. Just because you're not running into them doesn't mean they're not there. And fwiw, I think there's a pretty high percentage of high gain amps.

I really hope L6 will concentrate on usability and bug fixes (just found another pretty nasty one...).

Fwiw, I like stacking gain pedals myself, too, but do it too much and you lose most of your dynamics, even if the overall drive might not be that much. This is even more true in case the first pedals in the chain have a sort of compressing character, simply because when you turn down your guitar volume, only the first pedal will be affected.

I don't know much about the others, but with Atomics stuff you can at least bake the IR into the patch file - which would be a massive improvement and possibly sufficient already. And fwiw, I don't think it's got anything to do with the Helix' price. Each software sampler shows how things can be done, too, so it's not rocket science or anything, either. I love the Helix a lot, I also applaud Line 6 for doing a marvelleous job in improving the unit, hats off and all that - yet, let's face it, the IR management is almost as bad as it gets. In case you'd release a software sampler with sample management like that (and yes, it's absolutely comparable), your sales would be zero.

Fwiw, I have set myself a rather arbitrary limit of 30 IRs to stay on the Helix no matter what. For obvious reasons, they will be those in the first 20 slots. These will be the ones I'm using live and as a base for most patches (in case they need IRs). First 20 will be cab IRs, the remaining 10 kinda "special purpose" ones, such as what I may need to enhance acoustic guitars or generate pseudo acoustic guitars from electrics. I think I'll be fine with that limit - so far, I have only loaded 3 cab IRs that will stay and 1 acoustic IR for my nylon string (to be changed as it'll get a new piezo the next days). I also only ever drag additional IRs into the Helix up from IR slot 41, should I ever feel I needed to expand my sticky IRs. This allows me to not care about the IRs for my most relevant patches and it's still giving me plenty of slots to mass drop whatever IRs for testing purposes into the unit. For all other patches using whatever special IRs, I use the manual route (obviously, as there's no other choice) and save the IR(s) and a small text file along with the patch. For recording duties, IRs aren't exactly relevant for me as I only monitor with cabs/IRs and select the final cab in my sequencer. Whatever, none of all of that should be required. It's almost 2020 and computers are insanely great at storing and sorting files. There's no reason why the Helix should be an exception. It's a miraculously great piece of software and shouldn't be limited in terms of useability by something as trivial as this.