chuskey

Thanks!

I did a quick video using the Archon lead channel from the new 2.10 firmware. I'm not a hardcore metal guy, but to my ears it rocks pretty hard :) https://youtu.be/orqQBEyoI6Y

I'm still going to tell myself that it's a Dumble, it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling :) Regardless, it's an awesome amp model!! Well done.

I saw someone explain why it was a Dumble. Apparently there's a term on The Gear Page where they refer to people as a "blues lawyer". Meaning someone who is wealthy/businessman and has to own super high end gear, but isn't really a player and doesn't go out and gig. More of a collector, and to borrow a skateboarder phrase, a bit of a "poser". So they did a twist on the the lawyer theme and called it the Litigator. That's the story I read anyway. Seemed to make sense. Plus once I installed the update and looked at the image of the amp in the editor that pretty much confirmed it :)

Thanks!

Just joined the group. I hope it goes well and I'm looking forward to being a part of it! First, I do understand where you're coming from. To play a little bit of devil's advocate here I will say that I've been in the other group for several months and have had some conversations with Chad Boston. I think he's a genuinely good guy, I just think trying to provide support to a group as large as that Helix group has become is just overwhelming. At the end of the day we all have to make a living and the premium group I think is Chad's way of trying to stay as involved with the Helix community and make a living. For many months he put in HOURS every week helping people at no charge. Personally I'm surprised it went on as long as it did. He did one on one skype calls, direct messaging, hosted group hangouts, etc. The premium group has been a fairly recent development. A month or two at the most I think, but I don't remember exactly when he started it. He really does care about the group. It seems he really wanted to find a way to combine something he loves doing with making a living at it. Can't fault anyone for that. I can personally attest that when you try to mix music, even music gear, and making a living it's an uphill battle :) In fact just today he posted on the group that he's going to have to back off a bit and focus his time on other avenues to make money. Which I think is smart. I see how if someone is relatively new to the group it could seem like it's a push to make money from the user base, but after seeing how much time and effort Chad's committed to the group in the past year or so it's been around, I just wanted to give a little different take on it. Based on my interactions with him I really don't think he's someone who's just out to try and make a buck. Just my .02

First off, love the new amp and effects, thank you Line 6!!! Did a quick video today using the Dumble model. I think that model nails that edge of break up SRV type sound, plus it sounds really good with the SD-1 too. The link to download the patch is in the video description if anyone wants it. https://youtu.be/5NpeyO8TJwQ

Thanks!!

Here's an AC/DC patch I did if anyone is needing one. The patch link is in the description. https://youtu.be/CBDHv0Q11cI

Probably anything that I can add to the discussion has been said, but I'll throw in my .02 worth. I think it's fair for the people who put a lot of their time into creating patches to charge for them if they choose to. I think if creating patches is something you don't have the skillset for, or the time, then commercially available patches make sense. Also if you're new then buying a few patches to learn from would be well worth it if you didn't have an understanding of amps, effects, signal flow, etc. You could then use the same techniques to build your own patches. Personally I don't see the point of buying patches for myself. I've been using Line 6 gear since the AxSys 212 and at this point I know exactly how to get the tone I'm looking for from their gear. After 20 years I should be able to right :) I could see purchasing IR's or the custom tone IR's that Glenn has done with his boutique pack because that goes past just tweaking parameters. If I wasn't completely satisfied with my tone I'd consider Glenn's boutique pack. He had me at the word Dumble :) As is, I love my tone and like using everything in the box without any IR's. But one day curiosity may get the better of me... I forgot all about the Institute of Noise. Spent a lot of time over there back in the Vetta days!

That's why they make workbench :) It took me some time, but I got really happy with the strat sounds. It needed some boosting and adjustment to get it to where I wanted it. I did a video for a request someone made on my YouTube channel about getting good strat sounds with Variax. https://youtu.be/rCC53oxoBpU

From what I've read it has to do with the latest build, the anniversary edition. Even if you've patched an older version it doesn't do this. My laptop is a fresh build from Lenovo, so lucky me got the build that doesn't play nice with the drivers :)

After some Google searching and some help from the FB group I used solution 2 in this link to get around the issue for now. http://www.drivethelife.com/windows-10/driver-signature-issue-on-windows-10-anniversary.html Apparently Line 6 knows about this issue and is working on a solution.

I rebooted Windows to disable driver signature enforcement and everything worked fine. Once I rebooted back into regular mode it quit working again. So it's an issue with Windows 10 rejecting the driver. I opened a support ticket with Line 6. Has anyone else had this happen?

Thanks for the feedback! I think I did all those steps, can't remember if I rebooted or not. I had tt get to some tunes I needed to learn. I'll try this again tomorrow.

I absolutely LOVE the Helix Variax combo. I've had a Variax 300, 600, Acoustic 700, and now own a JTV69 and JTV59. You could say I'm a pretty big fan of the Variax line :) Everyone has different tastes, but I've never really had any negative issues with them. They have more or less resolved the palm muting issue that was a much talked about thing on the older generation of Variaxes, but other than that I have no complaints. After getting my Variax sounds dialed in with Workbench I prefer the tone over the magnetics. Just like with Helix, or any other digital device, I never liked relying on the stock presets. I have a nice Strat and a Les Paul Standard that I use some for recording, but I gig exclusively with the Variax guitars.

So I just got a new laptop with Windows 10, had previously been on 8.1. I plugged up the Helix after installing the Helix application, driver, and updater. It gave an error that the driver was not signed, therefore Windows didn't trust it. I uinstalled/resintalled the software, but still getting that error. Device manager see's the Helix,but has the exclamation icon over it. When I try to update the driver manually it says the current driver is the correct one. I don't really have the time to troubleshoot at the moment as I have to learn some music for tomorrow morning. I was wondering if anyone had run into this and had a quick solution. If not I'm sure I can get it working tomorrow, but thought I'd shortcut it and ask here first. Thanks!

I was digging through some old footage for a video project and found some shows from back in 2001 when I was using the AXSYS212. Man that amp sounded good! I wish I would have never sold it. They got so much right with that amp. One of these days I'm going to track one down.... https://youtu.be/g5X9iZ9XyRI

You're very welcome! With paths 1A, 1B, 2A, and 2B you could have up to 4 separate inputs. Since I was pitch shifting the Variax digital signal I had to make sure to use the Variax Mags for the other paths. I setup 2 separate Variax Mag paths so I could use 2 different pitch shifters without them interfering with each other. If I wasn't using Variax I'd set all 3 inputs to guitar or multi and add a pitch block on patch 1A shifting up an octave, which is what I have the Variax digital signal doing.

I had a crack at making a POG/organ style effect with Helix. I did it using a Variax, but you could just as easily do it with a regular guitar. Here's a video about the patch: https://youtu.be/BcVZ3p644uY Here's a link to the patch: http://line6.com/customtone/tone/2500797/

You can get amazing results from Helix with an acoustic instrument or Variax as is. You don't need a firmware update to do it. The reason they are touting the acoustic possibilities of the Spider V is because it uses a FRFR speaker setup. That's why it says "regular electric amps just can't match". Because regular electric amps are fitted with guitar speakers, not FRFR. I think the phrase "Variax Acoustic Technology" may be a little misleading here, but someone in the know correct me if I'm wrong. I'm hearing about this amp today just like everyone else. I don't believe this amp has any type of built in acoustic modelling. I THINK what they are implying is because of the speaker setup and built in effects it works great with acoustic (Variax) and electric. Again, I'm not in the know per se, just going by what I see on their site. In this Anderton's video Paul Hindmarsh chooses to use an acoustic guitar for the acoustic loop at the end. Even though he has a Variax on hand. This tells me that there isn't any acoustic guitar modeling going on inside of the amp itself. https://youtu.be/I6GzGvjQDPg I did a video with a patch that I have on custom tone with an acoustic patch using Helix and a Variax. I think you can get great results: https://youtu.be/NjiPjWgV7YI

Having played both on multiple occasions, and owning a Helix, my personal take on it is that the feature set was the deciding factor. They both sounded great, but Helix brought a lot more to the table for what I needed to use it for. Others maybe not. Things that made a difference for me: USB audio interface UI ease of use Routing and effect block flexibility Scribble strips Variax integration There are other things I could mention, but those things jump out when I think about the differences. I do want to stress that both are great units and capable of creating amazing tone.

I can't speak to how I can't speak to how well it performs with a wind instrument, but I can say that I feel the mic pre is MUCH better in the Helix than it was in the HD500(X). I use it all the time to process vocals live with great results. Never been a big user of the harmonizer feature in either unit, so I don't know how much improved the Helix is over the HD model.

I'm glad the comparison was helpful! Having now played the Helix for a few months I can probably give a better opinion now rather than when I first made this clip. I had been using the HD500 for years and had it dialed in exactly how I liked it and was just learning the Helix. So here are my thoughts on your situation: The 500 is a great unit. Especially with a DT50. I got to mess around with that amp for a little bit at a buddy's house with the HD500 and it sounded awesome. Where I think you'll be glad you upgraded from the 300 is where you can freely assign things to the 8 footswitches. Adds a ton of flexibility and you can have more effects at one time. On the question of whether you should have spent the extra on Helix I can only share with you my personal opinion on Helix. I never like to tell someone how they should or shouldn't spend $1500 :) The more I play Helix the more I love it. I haven't once regretted upgrading. I waited several months after Helix came out because I was happy with the HD500 and couldn't justify spending the extra money. Once I did though I haven't looked back since. Once I started really building patches from scratch with no preconceived notions from how I did things on the HD500 I got better and better results. It's like any other piece of gear, you have to get familiar with it and learn the ins and outs. I ended up landing on the Matchless Jump amp model and that's literally the only amp model I use for electric guitar. Even though there are plenty of other amp models in there that sound great! I just tend to find the core tone I'm looking for and build everything up around that. Just a personal preference. The things that to me put it on another level are things like routing flexibility, number of available effects, much more DSP power, ability to have up to 4 signal paths with multiple/different inputs, high quality mic pre (I use it to process vocals live), snapshot feature (huge bonus!), scribble strips, more robust audio interface, etc. I do think that the amp modelling is better than the HD series, no question, but honestly it's the feature set and things I listed above that make it worth the extra money to me. Everyone has different needs and preferences though. The Helix is just such a Swiss Army Knife of tools it's unbelievable. Plus being a flagship product you know it's going to continue to get the lion's share of new firmware development. So to sum up, will you be happy with the HD500X and DT50? Most likely. It is still a great combo. Don't feel like if you stay with that setup that you don't have amazing tools to work with. So for sure it's "good enough". Also if you spent the extra money would you feel like the Helix was worth it? Most likely. It's an amazing piece of gear for the reasons I've mentioned above. It has more features and tone than the HD500, but it is 3x the price. As far as value for your money goes I rank both units pretty evenly. If you want to you can check out my YouTube channel. I have a lot of Helix content on there that may be of some interest to you. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO9JwLO8HgC91MxohYw1Paw/videos Either way you go, rock on and have fun!! :)

I haven't had the chance to compare them since the latest Helix firmware, but the patches I'm using having really changed any tonally. With the new snapshots feature I feel like the only thing the AX8 had that the Helix was "missing" has been taken care of. I completely stand by my original opinion that for me Helix is the preferred unit of choice. Tone wise they're in the same ballpark and as I said in the review if you can't get good tone from either something else is wrong :) To me it did, and still does, come down to the feature set since both units sound great. Helix has: Better UI Built in expression pedal with toe switch Scribble strips Better routing flexibility Great sounding mic pre Able to freely assign effect blocks as desired (not limited to a certain number of each effect) USB recording interface (huge feature for my use) I'm sure there's more, but that's what comes to mind off the top of my head. You really can't go wrong with ether, but I have to say that I still think Helix is the best on the market ;)