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I just did this last week: Mono XLR to the house PA, 1/4 mono out to my "personal" monitor. The trick is to go into the Global Setup and disconnect the volume knob from the XLR outputs. Makes setup a breeze.

I did a private gig last week – a 9th Anniversary party with essentially 3 different bands (all friends/former/current band-members of the couple) and 4 sets. I played on three of the sets – 90% covers, 10% originals. I walked into the gig with my main strat and my backup guitar, my Helix, and my Alto TS10. I sent the PA a mono signal from the XLR out (with the Volume control decoupled from the XLRs) and fed the Alto with the 1/4†out as a personal guitar monitor. It was one of the easiest setups and breakdowns of any gig I’ve ever had, and I got a bunch of complements on my tone. What a wonderful world we live in. Thank you Line6 for making it easy (and saving my poor, old back).

According the PDF specs sheet, the internal button is a Polarity flip switch. But given that you can flip the polarity on the Helix itself, you don't need to bother with the internal switch.

I'm not so worried about the Factory Presets at this point. It was just odd that my Helix didn't do the automatic reboot after the firmware update as it did in Glenn's video (and the instructions say it would). I did the 9+10 Reboot before I loaded my patches back in.

Decided to update to 2.30 now that my band is done in the studio. Everything went almost perfectly. I downloaded the new HX edit and got all of my patches, IRs, etc backed up with no issues. Next, I ran the Line 6 Updater and it didn't see my Helix. Relaunched the Updater in "Admin" mode and all was good - "pilot error" on my part. Ran update process and waited while my Helix did it's thing. However, t the end of it, my Helix didn't reboot... it just sat there with a black main screen but all the scribble strips had the patch names from my set list on them. How odd. So I reboot the Helix and waited for it to rebuild all the patches. This worked fine, but I still noticed that after it finished that all of my patches were still in there. Very odd. So I shut down and rebooted with the 9+10 switches down and let it re-wipe/rebuild the prefs, IRs etc. Once that was done, I launched HX Edit and restored from my backup. And as far as I can tell... everything is good and stable. YMMV.

I went from AxSys 212, to AX2 (AxSys 212 chip upgrade and new front panel sticker), to Vetta II, to HD500x, to finally the Helix... a long tone journey. The FX in the Helix are (more or less) the same as the HD500X - with a few of the odd/fun filter FX missing as others have pointed out. But what they Helix gives you is SO MUCH more than the HD500X could ever do... it's almost a no-brainer: More Amps Insane routing capabilites Snapshots! Super-easy interface even without hooked up to a computer IR loading Fresh pine scent Don't look at it as just "better" FX on one or the other... look at it as a complete upgrade to your rig.

The price seems fair for what they are. Someone had to come up with the specs (for two versions) and manufacture them... they aren't an "off the shelf" item. Seems if I spent $1500 on a Helix and I gig enough to make access to the buttons a priority... then $130 for knobs is worth it. YMMV

My personal opinion is to bypass an "real amp" entirely and go to a Full Range, Flat Response (FRFR) setup... a.k.a a self-powered PA speaker. This is going to get you the closest to what you've been hearing in your headphones. There are a number out there depending on how much you want to spend. But I think this is really the best route to go with the Helix. YMMV.

I think the hardest/missing/weakest part of the Andy Summers tone to get using just the Helix is the Electric Mistress. There is a certain sound to the real thing that is missing in the Helix: https://youtu.be/irW-k5icylw?t=5m22s The (now defuct) Hartman Flanger got really close to the EM sound.. and without the noise, but the EM model in the Helix just isn't quite there. I would love to see them improve it in a future firmware update.

This is a good place to start. An old mixing trick is to split the bass in two, EQ the highs out of one by quite a bit and then compress that "low end" signal pretty aggressively. Then EQ the low end out of the "high-en" signal and then just a bit of compression. This can help tighten up a bass sound. The same technique can be used in the Helix with the multi-band comp.

This is F-Ing brilliant! you really did your homework and critical listening. The "echoplex/octave" trick is an often overlooked part of Ed's rig. Granted it's only really used on Eruption.. but such an awesome bit of "special sauce."

Has somebody been watching That Pedal Show? ;)

Wow... a Steve Reich reference on a guitar forum about a digital amp modeler... what a word we live in ;)

Sounds like a clock issue. I have an old Presonus FP10 FireWire interface that I use with my PC. When I need to do a SPDIF connection, I have to make the FP10 slave to the clock coming from the SPDIF device. I think think the 192 needs this as well... from the manual: Power User Tip: In UC Surface, you will need to set “S/PDIF†as the Clock Source and the sample rate to correspond to the external device when using an external S/PDIF device as your master clock. See Section 4.6 for details If you haven't already... you might try this.

No dog in this fight.. but a good read.. The Case Against "True-Bypass" http://www.petecornish.co.uk/case_against_true_bypass.html

Quite true... I guess my fingers got ahead of my brain, or I just was drunk when I wrote that.

I knew a guy who would swear up and down that emailing an MP3/WAV file changed changed how the file would sound.

I've been very happy with them, I have the older TS10As that I used with my HD500x before the Helix. The best thing is to be able to walk into rehearsal with my Helix in the backpack on my shoulder, an Alto in one hand and my guitar case in the other. One trip from the car and I have all I need for rehearsal! As we get older... having to schlep less gear is a BIG plus ;)

So much this! FRFR (Full Range, Flat Response) is both, A: a lie and B: a marketing-hype term that inaccurately describes PA speakers. Some people prefer the sound of their amp-modeler of choice through a standard guitar cabinet. Others (myself included) have chosen to go the self-powered PA speaker route. Both are fine and completely valid choices; it just depends on what a user feels give them the best sound. No right or wrong about it. I haven't yet tried going straight into the PA yet with the Helix - although I did do this in the past with my Vetta II on occasion. To be fair.. my bad doesn't gig that often and the places we do play tend to not have great PA setups... so I usually just use my Alto TS10A on a pole.

I've never had a problem with it. Both the XLR and 1/4" outs have a MONO out - where everything is summed. So you should be just fine sending a stereo feed to FOH and a mono feed for monitoring.

Could be the noise gate on the input block. Have you tired turning it off... assuming you have it on?

Just came across this.... John McFee has quite the kind words about the Helix and Variax. https://youtu.be/nMPK8XTVFWc?t=14m7s

Sad tone? Hmmm.. I'm not sure the tone is what makes it sad, but more what you play with it. Here is a ditty I did way back when I was going thru my breakup/divorce. The tone is a pretty awesome lead tone (Vetta II as a matter of fact), but the feeling and playing are sad. https://hearthis.at/christopher-clement-r5/hymn/

I know I'm late to this party... but this showed up on the Seymour Duncan Facebook feed this weekend. Seemed like more fat for the fire. Chris Letchford July 14 at 5:30pm · Just finished putting together my rack for the upcoming tour with Marty Friedman! Check out the dates and VIP upgrades here. www.scalethesummitstore.com Tickets are on sale now! For all you gear nerds: Monster Pro 2500 Line 6 Relay g90 wireless Line 6 Helix Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 Seymour Duncan Power Stage 700 Gator Cases 12U rack case And a huge cable mess in the back