SaschaFranck

I don't know how familiar you are with sequencers (I assume at least somewhat as you own that Focusrite), but once you have a bunch of "baseline" IRs ready, IMO it's making a lot more sense to bake your own by mixing them (and finally exporting them to a single one). I do that all the time and the results IMO are great. In case you're interested, I'll describe the procedure.

Well, I was actually only mentioning the Zoom, not exactly recommending it (even if I own the smaller model). Thing is, if you really never exactly need software audio monitoring (or just occasionally), other interfaces might be a better choice. The Zooms are pretty good but support seems to be non-existant, so in case something goes wrong (for whatever reasons, but let's assume there's a computer OS update and the old drivers won't work anymore) you'll likely be out of luck. Also, there's defenitely better mic preamps on certain interfaces in that league (such as on the Audients, which are really sounding excellent), so if you need these, that might be something to look for as well. Personally, my next interface (in case I really need one) will likely be a used RME Babyface (first generation) as RME is known to support their stuff for a loooong time after they stopped making them.

Yeah well - I might even accept that. I mean, it's fine to complain about these things and there's certain Mr./Ms. Golden Ears around in the world. It's also that a top modeler should possibly suit their demands as well. Yet, even in case you need an audio microscope, the first thing required to start any kind of analysis would be something that you could actually put under that microscope. But there's nothing. All throughout this thread there's been no audio file posted. When I discovered something was really going wrong with the fuzz and certain amp models on the Atomic Amplifirebox, the first thing I did was to post my patch settings and an audiofile over at Atomics forum. And at least their main support guy admitted that there's something wrong (has never been fixed, but that's a different story) so I knew I wasn't hallucinating.

Here's a video of a guy usually prefering the Axe:

Why is it that the people complaining never post a patch and a corresponding audio example? Yes, there's certain sound related areas I'm a bit "wondering" about, partially some "sizzling" that I wouldn't describe as a common thing with real amps (perhaps the infamous squirrels), but it's absolutely rare that I notice it (only seems to happen on a handful of drive/amp combinations). In general, the sound quality seems to be just nice or great, sometimes even fantastic. I would ask everybody complaining to post an audio example along with a Helix patch. It's the only way to do explore what might be wrong and possibly find a cure.

I wasn't talking about massive corrections, but minor ones. And usually there's some of these corrections, mainly regarding the low end. Even if I trim that away myself already, FOH dudes sometimes like a bit more low cut - which I think is just normal and to be expected. If there had to be massive corrections all the time, I'd think about my patches.

I don't know whether it makes sense to start a new Ideascale submission as there's already plenty of similar requests, but the Helix (or well, HX Edit) IMO urgently needs a better way to deal with IRs. And while I may wish for more IRs slots (as many people seem to do) as well, I think a better IR management would already solve quite some issues. So here's a few suggestions (I may combine them into an Ideascale submission later on but perhaps someone would like to add to this little list and we could combine this into a single submission): - Patches should not load IRs based on the IR slot but based on the IR itself. That way, one could always re-organize the IR list, which would be a *huge* improvement already. I would usually place all used IRs on the top so I can mass-drag new ones in at the bottom and go through them via pedal edit while playing (which, fwiw, is a most excellent option to check out IRs and a very good reason to wish for more IR slots already). - HX Edit should be smart enough to find out which IRs are in use so you could throw unused ones out. - In addition to the previous point, HX Edit should be clever enough to show you all of the patches using a certain IR (select the IR on the left and get a list of all patches using it somewhere on the right). In case they're all bogus patches, you may want to kick them out and hence make place for more IRs as well. - There should be an option to "tie" IRs to a patch. When you do that and export such a patch, the IRs should be exported as well - and obviously they should be imported along with the patch, too. On import, the IRs used should be placed in the first free IR slots. In case there's not enough IR slots, a warning box should pop up. "Not enough free IR slots - import without IRs, yes/no?". One should of course always be able to "untie" IRs. All this could be done within the "Save" dialog (sort of similar to software samplers allowing you to save just the patch or the patch and the samples in one container). This entire thing (or any other sufficient method to solve the issue) might actually be the most relevant improvement for me because resorting patches and their IRs when dealing with a bunch of exported files is a nightmare. So far I only did that with very small patch amounts and it has been horrible already. You actually *need* to set up a text document for each and every patch, describing which IRs are in use in which IR block because the patch itself will only give the slot number away. In case a software sampler would deal with samples that bad, not a single person on earth would use it. . There could be a "favourite" or "tagging" system for IRs. Colors plus stars might be sufficient (green: great for cleans, red: heavy stuff, yellow: acoustic IRs, whatever you make out of it, the more colored stars, the better the IR). - There should be a search for doubles. Obviously, this should check for file names and checksums (or so). In case they're identical, there should be an option to compare the IRs in question. With such a limited number of IR slots, you don't want to waste any slots for doubles. - More IR slots. But in case the other issues would be solved, this wouldn't have a high priority for myself. In the end, I may never need more than, say, 20-30 IRs loaded simultaneously at any single moment in time, but with the Helix you need to keep them "just in case". That should be my most relevant concerns for now.

There's one thing I could imagine one could be missing, which would be the automatic selection of devices and activation of their respective knobs, which is only partially possible with the Helix (by setting "Stomp Select" to "Touch+Press") because it doesn't automatically alternate between devices. But I honestly think it's a minor deal.

What exactly would you like to achieve with that?

In all honesty: I would *love* such a thing. But my vote would go against it unless there'd be an option to *always* and instantly switch to a completely plugin-free setting that can't even be "seen" by plugins. Everything else IMO is asking for trouble at one point in time, especially in case you plan to use standardized plugin formats such as VST or AU - as you can't use them without at least partially integrating the OS they're using as well. In addition, if you really wanted a Helix/Plugin hybrid setup, that's pretty much possible already as you could simply use Helix Native, a powerful laptop (or something like a Mac Mini) and a decent low latency interface. However, what I could pretty much imagine is a better audio interface being integrated in the next Helix incarnation. The current interface is offering roundtrip latency values of around 7ms at 32 samples buffersize at 48kHz (and that's just a driver-reported value, haven't measured it physically, may do that later on), which isn't exactly shiny. Once the latency would be down to what actual great USB3/TB interfaces can deliver (which could be around as low as 3ms, possibly even lower at higher samplerates), it'd become a lot easier to integrate pretty much any computer into your setup. That way nobody would have to worry about whatever weird operating system related trouble as you could always just plug out and use the stock Helix things.

I don't think "truly flat" does matter at all. There's so many factors *way* more affecting our perception of sound than a speaker being a little off from true flatness.

You're missing the point here. I don't want to alter my presets to adjust for a different kind of FRFR situation. That's what a monitoring EQ is made for. As easy as that.

Precisely. Shouldn't be necessary to add any further equipment for such an easy task.

Defenitely true for me in this case, simply because all the relevant controls of the Heir Apparent are visible on one screen, which makes finetuning it during soundchecks/gigs a lot easier.

Title almost says it all. I always found Line 6's tap tempo to be not too comfortable to deal with (in fact, this is true for plenty of others as well, such as Zoom). Especially when playing live (which is basically what tap tempo is kinda made for...) it's easy to tap a little off tempo. The way Boss and TC (at least the G-Force) handle this is a lot more elegant as they calculate an average tempo from the last 4 taps. It also doesn't matter if you only tap twice (or three times), in that case it works as with the Helix, but in case you keep tapping, it usually gets more accurate. Would be great to have that as well (at least as an option).

You can never be confident about that. Each and every FOH dude(tte) will most likely make some corrections to the signal, be it a low/hi cut or whatever. It's happening all the time. I very often ask the folks (in case they're into that kinda chat) what they had to do to my signal to make it suit their arrays and I pretty much never came across a "well, fader up" answer. Add to this that you will likely listen to your guitar within an entirely different mix. Usually, you will listen to your guitar a *lot* louder compared to the rest whereas the audience will listen to a way more balanced mix. IMO assuming that there's the same sound going out to the audience as to your FRFR is an illusion in 99% of all cases, not even considering that the FOH arrays are adjusted in an entirely different way on their master EQs. Also, you're talking about utilizing whatever contouring options of FRFR monitors - well, they are doing exactly the same thing as a monitor EQ. Just that the Helix' global EQ is a lot more flexible and easier to reach for.

Seriously, if you learn to make clever adjustments using the global EQ, there's really not much differences between the lower-end-ish FRFR candidates. Within the realm of modeler amplification, IMO this would even include the somewhat more expensive Yamaha DBRs (as said, I A/B-ed them with the Alto before making a decision). Yes, there's some differences in, hm, let's say "mid definition" that you possibly won't be able to compensate for entirely with the global EQ, but given my experience, these differences become pretty much not noticeable anymore once you play along with whatever it might be (bands or backings). I do defenitely think that there's a difference once you're dealing with the higher-end-ish coaxial solutions (even if my personal experiences with those are limited), which will be getting even more noticeable in case they're a bit heavier (to support whatever kind of "air pressure", something light models simply can't deliver), but we're talking about something like <500 vs. >1000 bucks here, so there better should be an improvement. Oh, one thing I haven't mentioned (in this thread at least): For me it has been a huge difference to find the right cab-IR. I have "shot" some myself and mixed and modified them pretty heavily at gig levels. They don't have much in common with the ones that you will get from the usual suspects - and while they might not be ideal for recording, I found them to be much more suitable for live work than anything else I've tried. I could happily post some of them in case you folks want to give them a try.

Not all that much anymore. There's a bigger version of the UAC-2 I'm using, the UAC-8, comes with 8 mic preamps, 2 line ins and when you feel like getting fancy you can connect another 8 I/Os via Adat connections, offering 18 ins and 20 outs in total. Price over here is around €600. Fwiw, that very thread over at Gearslutz is rather civilized.

Seriously, for me, RTL numbers higher than something between 5-6ms make things feel distracted. It's not even exactly a timing thing, just the pick feeling kinda "sticky". From 7-9 it's really not much fun anymore and I defenitely can't deal with anything above 10ms. Note: This is all when using headphones. Without, my tolerances are a lot higher (after all, 10ms equal a distance of around 3 meters and everybody will be able to play with his/her amp 3 meters away). Anyway, as I play a lot through headphones, low latencies are crucial for me. As far as the newer Scarletts go, I think I remember someone mentioning better drivers and lower latencies to come with the 3rd generation models. Maybe there's also something about it in this epic (and highly informative) thread at Gearslutz: https://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-computers/618474-audio-interface-low-latency-performance-data-base.html Personally, I'm using a Zoom UAC-2 under Logic, at 44.1 and 32 samples (a setting that works for most things but some rather demanding synth patches) my RTL is 4.5ms, at 64 samples it's 5.9ms. Add to this that some plugins add their own latency (amazingly enough, HX Native doesn't seem to) and things may cross my "headphone-latency-tolerance-line". Whatever, this is one of the very reasons why I really love the Helix so much. I can monitor through the hardware without anything but the device latency (something around 2ms) and just record the DI guitar which will then see HX Native slapped onto them. Fantastic - and a one of it's kind in the modeling world.

Using Native might not be a too great option with the 2i2 in case it's not a 3rd generation model as roundtrip latency isn't all that low. Anyway, I do as well recommend getting a small monitor controller or perhaps a small mixer (I'd actually prefer that personally). These can be had for cheap, especially in case you don't need the preamps much but rather use it as a line input mixer.

Fwiw, authorized HX/Native and it seems as if the issues are gone. Didn't expect anything different, but at least that's something. Still, the demo behaviour isn't what things should be like at all. And it doesn't seem to be a recent issue but an ongoing one. IMO this should be adressed - even if it was just in the interest of Line 6. I mean, a demo freezing projects isn't good publicity.

In all honesty, even if I'd like some new toys just as everybody, I'd rather love to see some handling improvements (and there could be quite some). But I certainly wouldn't mind some crazy synth-ish stuff, either.

I'm actually not all too happy with the fuzz ones (and yes, I tried at all input impedance settings, getting better at lower values but also impacts the rest of the signal chain, even if set to "auto"). I really like the fuzz in my Atomic Amplifirebox, even if it does cause some artefacts on ringing out notes or very lightly struck ones - but the general character is pretty nice. Fortunately, I don't exactly need fuzz tones, but I wouldn't mind a bit of a Mike Landau-ish woolyness that yet cleans up well.

Uhm, that doesn't read too good... You may try a complete factory reset - but in that case you'll be losing all the patches that you haven't backed up yet.

Did you check with a different USB port and cable?