ozbadman

I asked about updating from a flash drive and was told no, but it's possible they just do not want people attempting it

The HELIX only has a USB B port, not a USB A port or mini, so there's nowhere to plug a flash drive in.

Theoretically they may be able to do updates over MIDI similar to AxeFX if they chose to go down that path, but just plugging a USB cable into your computer seems easier.

I wouldn't be plugging a CV output into a switch input. It doesn't sound like a good idea to me at all.

However, you could use the CV output to control an external device that took the CV input and converted it into switches using relays. I don't know exactly what you have in mind, or if such a device already exists, but that'd be the way to do it in principle.

Joystick issue with accidentally turning while trying to move left, right, up or down. A common issue and complaint.

Just curious as to what idea you might have on how they could 'fix' this? If they don't respond to the turns, the response becomes sluggish so I'm not quite sure what you have in mind here as a solution. I don't have a HELIX, so I'm not sure what happens, but maybe something like "if the joystick is not centered, turning the knob has no effect". Or does it already operate like that? If not, would that 'fix' the problem?

I can't imagine they would be tied in any way.  The two are mutually exclusive. 

To be pedantic for a second:

Mutually exclusive = relationship = tied (they cannot happen at the same time).

They are more likely to be as per your first sentence, fully independent of each other.

It is as described in the link above, and to simplify for this context, it is essentially a sample/recording of a cabinet and microphone pair. You can then play your guitar through the sample and straight to a FRFR or PA system (without the cabinet and microphone) and it will modify the sound exactly as if the cabinet and microphone were actually in the audio path. It allows you to accurately reproduce a wide range of cabinet and microphone pairs without needing to carry the original equipment.

Sorry, ozbadman—I need to remember to use smileys! I took no offense at all.

 

Here's a link that explains what's going on a bit better.

OK. Cool. Yeah, the internet is a bit like that.

The link refers to deferred income and is part of accrual accounting. It is an attempt to make company accounts more accurately reflect the true state of the company and is the norm for most companies. Without wanting to restart this, it is not related to public vs private information and unfulfilled promises, which are however, as you stated, sensible business decisions.

Line 6 has a long standing policy, like many other companies, of not commenting on work in progress. On rare occasions they may comment on up-coming bug-fixes if they deem it sufficiently important. They have been burnt many times in the past on setting customer expectations, then being called "late".

Asking the people at Line 6 for information that hasn't been released yet is asking for "inside information." That is, material information about a publicly traded company which is known by the company's board of directors, management, and/or employees but not by the public. The SEC forbids trading of stock based on such information and can seek fines or criminal prosecution under these circumstances. This definition also applies to anyone outside of the company who somehow had access to that information and acted on that information for their personal benefit.

 

Inside information is also kept within the company to avoid giving competitors an advantage.

Sort of, except for clarification of the first and last sentences.

Once the information is disclosed and is generally accessible, it is by definition, public. i.e.: no longer "inside information". So from a legal standpoint, nothing prevents the company from disclosing product information. There is a requirement to disburse the information efficiently (i.e.: so that everyone gets access to the information at the same time), and usually this would be done as an announcement while the trading of stock is halted. The problem is when information has not been made public that will affect the share price. Anyone holding that information is not allowed to trade.

As I said a few times above, inside information is routinely kept within companies for various very good Business reasons. Competitive advantage, customer expectation management, NDAs (although this is also a legal reason), etc.

To go back to my first post, while Line 6 could disclose their product roadmap, they have made a long-standing business decision not to, and it is pointless asking.

Are you an attorney specializing in trade law? If not, cool—I'm not either, but Line 6 employs them, and I just reiterate what I've been told. True—even if that Enron debacle didn't generate all these new rulings and guidelines, we wouldn't show our roadmap to the masses (that'd be really stupid), but smaller companies have been sued to oblivion for less.

Hi DI,

I'm sorry if you were offended by what I wrote, but would prefer not to have misinformation repeated as it gets into our psyche. As I said, if someone can explain why that would be the case legally, then I'm all ears. The whole point of discussions is to increase our collective knowledge, so if you don't agree with someone, you should speak out so that we all learn. My understanding of the law is as stated previously, but if someone can correct that with evidence, then I'll change my mind happily.

As pointed out by others, publicly traded companies have to be very careful with disclosure of information, but not in the way described. It is to do with disclosure of material facts, ie. facts that would affect the stock price, and timing and equal distribution of that knowledge to ensure interested parties are on a level playing field. A consequence of this is that if you are in possession of material information that the public is not, you cannot trade stock until that information has been made public. But, as far as I know, there is nothing illegal about a company promising something if they believe it is genuinely true, then changing their minds and making that public too. It happens all the time. It is ony illegal if it was never true, and was done to manipulate the stock market.

As I also said, not showing your roadmaps for business reasons is perfectly normal. I don't know why you had such a strong reaction to what I wrote since as far as I can tell, you agree with it. Sorry if for some reason it offended you.

Granted, I am still speaking out of pure conjecture since I dont have the Helix yet ... come on SW come on!  But I know with the 500x, adjusting the global EQ was never as effective as just making your patch at the intended level, or at least I haven't had much luck with doing that. 

The level is part of it, but each room also has its own acoustics so you have to adjust the global EQ to suit the room in any case. The acoustics also change once the audience turns up, so you will also need to make final adjustments at the start of playing.

Any idea when the editor will be available?  I will buy a Helix once the editor is available as its not practical in my studio setup to either be setting the unit up on the floor or putting it on a chair/table every time I want to change something.

I think someone said it was about 2 months away, but I could be wrong.

This is one of the main reasons for the global EQ. When you get to a gig, play at gig level and adjust the global EQ to suit the room. This will then compensate all your patches equally. Usually, this is done either with a post-EQ like an MXR, or at the mixing desk, but the global EQ gives the HELIX operators the opportunity to compensate themselves.

Hey guys...so I now have MY dream rig (at least for now). Helix, Variax JTV and decent set of studio monitors. I would like some suggestions for cool ideas to integrate Helix with Variax. 

 

question,

-when using Variax with Helix:

a)should I be using both cables (VDI and 1/4")? and sending both inputs simultaneously to my effects loop?

b)should I be able to VDI to my Helix and my Helix to my computer to recognize the Variax (I think that works for POD)

 

Please shoot me your Helix/Variax integration ideas!

 

Thanks!

a) no

The VDI carries both the magnetic and modelled sounds, as well as power, so if you are using the VDI, you do not need the 1/4 inch.

You might be able to use global EQ to achieve this. I'm not sure whether you can assign turning it on/off to a footswitch though. It is assigned to the bypass footswitch, but needs you to hold it instead of just pressing it. Personally, I would just add the boost block to every preset since it's not that much work to do, or put a boost pedal in the loop to give me the same settings for every preset.

Nope not posted it before. Just repeating what Digital Igloo stated.

 

Nope, and we've discussed it ad nauseum on more than a dozen threads. Basically, it deals with deferred revenue, trade law, and believe it or not, Enron. No company is allowed to promise (or by extension, state something that could be inferred as a promise) anything without deferring revenue until said promise is fulfilled. Smaller independent companies, while still on the hook, are rarely baited, but larger, publicly-traded companies such as Line 6's parent, Yamaha, are under close scrutiny at all times.

 

The only reason Apple's able to announce products or features many months in advance is because they have billions in cash and can afford to defer revenue.

 

Hmmm. I'd be interested in seeing the reference number of the law that is being referred to here. The most likely thing being referenced is Sarbanes-Oxley which came in partially as a response to Enron. It basically says put in more controls, and more disclosure to eliminate fraud opportunities and increase accurate reporting of assets, but does nothing like that noted above. ASC 820 requires fair-value assessment of assets but again, that has little to do with the above statement.

Deferring revenue may be a reference to accrual accounting vs cash accounting. Other than that, if someone has a link that describes what is being discussed here I'd be interested to read it.

As a publicly traded company they are not at liberty to divulge work in progress until a certain point.

This is absolutely not true. I think you posted this before. As a publicly traded company, they can divulge any work in progress they wish to. It does not necessarily make good business sense, but there is absolutely no law against it.

The reason Line 6 and other companies do not disclose information are purely business reasons.

To answer the original question, Line 6 has a long standing policy of not advertising what may or may not be included in future updates or products, as it makes it more difficult for them to change their minds since they have to deal with the subsequent backlash. It's pretty standard customer expectation management.

Problem is I can't seem to get enough input signal to Helix from my acoustic.

 

Pickup, battery and cables are all good. I've tried all inputs. Do I need an external preamp or DI to do this? Helix is out to L2t via Link 6.

Acoustic pickups even without a battery are a decent signal level. If you have an onboard pre-amp, there's no way the acoustic isn't generating a hot enough signal (assuming battery, pickup and cable are all OK).

So, my guess is, either pickup, battery and cables are not all good, or you've misconfigured the Helix, or plugged in to the wrong input. None of that is very useful other that no, you don't need an additional preamp or DI.

Try your electric. When it's working, plug your acoustic in instead of the electric and see if the signal level is OK. Also try both straight into an amp, to make sure your acoustic is pumping out an OK signal. My guess is you've probably just not set up the Helix properly.

I have found using a good blend of my Redwirez IRs into the 2048 mono IR on helix makes a lot of difference.

Absolutely. Changing to a different cab IR/mic will make a massive difference. It's just a case of finding the right cab/mic for your purposes, whether Line 6 or 3rd party.

Not exactly HELIX, but I went there today to see what the most requested features for HELIX were at the moment.

I hadn't been there for awhile, and so I got confronted with the new Ideascale interface. Wow. Just terrible. About 2 topics per page on my laptop. Impossible to quickly get an overview of topics without scrolling endlessly through screens. A list view with just the topic titles would make this MUUUCCCCCH quicker. I would have posted this on Ideascale, but I figured that it too will get lost since I quickly abandoned trying to look at things on Ideascale.

Please Line 6, ask Ideascale to make this more user friendly, or go back to the old design which was at least usable.

Cheers.

So anyone load up a nice quality IR yet? night and day difference? interested in hearing peoples results

Not sure what you're expecting here.

Your topic title is flawed. Cabs on the HELIX ARE IRs, so the title "IRs vs Cabs" does not make sense. It could be "HELIX IRs vs 3rd Party IRs" if that's what you are interested in knowing about.

An IR is a sample of the cabinet, with a particular microphone, whether it's a Line 6 IR or a 3rd party IR. It's not like synthesis, where the modelling system itself can make a huge difference. The differences you will hear between IRs are not so much to do with "quality" of the IR, as the particular cabinet sampled and the microphone used to sample it.

So "night and day" differences when it comes to IRs are more to do with individual preferences rather than any actual quality differences.

The HELIX supplied IRs I'm sure would be excellent quality, but they may not be your particular preference, so it's not like you can load up a so-called "good-quality" IR and expect that instantly, the HELIX will sound "much better". It may however, sound "much better" for your purposes.

Gee, is it a big surprise that most folks tend to prefer the sound of the device they own?!

 

And of course keeping with that, I think the Axe FX has a wider more pleasing spectrum of sound  ; )

 

BUT I will say the Helix does sound better then my old Pod HD 500.

Actually, I own the AxeFX2, but I prefer the HELIX sound in the samples above. Whether that will translate when I hear the unit live is another question entirely.

On most of them, and I hate to say it, but the Fractal sounded a little more warm.  I would suspect that this can be easily fixed with dialing up presence, checking SAG, etc.

Really? To me the bottom end of the HELIX sounded much clearer than the AxeFX. The AxeFX seemed to have more high-end fizz, making it sound muddy and making all the sounds very similar. And I own an AxeFX. I like it, but this is a problem that I have always had with the AxeFX. Very happy that the HELIX at least sounds different to the AxeFX and to my ears on the internet (whatever that's worth?), the HELIX sounds better so far. Looking forward to it getting out of early-adopter mode so I can purchase one next year.

New firmware has been released. You might want to try that.

As far as I understand it, it's like this:

Kemper is quite a different beast. It effectively samples the Amps at one point, and then guesses how to make adjustments to that to give control. So, it is perfect at the exact point it was sampled, and less so at guessing alterations to that.

HELIX design philosophy is much closer to AxeFX2. They both sample the Cabinets, but they also model the sections that make up the design of the original models. So, they are much better at "guessing" the changes to an amp than a Kemper, but maybe they are not quite as accurate as the Kemper on the sweet spot that the amp was sampled at for the Kemper.

But, the real question is, after listening to them, which one works best for your needs, and is it worth it to you at that price?

Hey Line 6,

  Gimme a 12pay Option at American Musical Supply or zZounds and I'll buy yer punk wah-wah-box.

Why would you think Line 6 has anything to do with this?????