mdmayfield

I'm glad you're experiencing success. For the remaining 5% by your assessment, I'm afraid you'll find that's a physically impossible ask. It's like trying to DI vocals; that's just not how it works. Consider this: it's possible for a plugin or synth to create a piano tone that, when played through speakers, is indistinguishable from a recording of a real piano played through those same speakers. But a physical acoustic piano sitting in a room doesn't have any speakers at all. The sound is produced through the piano strings and soundboard, which fundamentally behaves differently from speakers. No plugin or synth can overcome the physics of arbitrary playback speakers such that they become indistinguishable from a physical piano soundboard in the room. Even a theoretical 100% truly-perfect amp modeler can't act as just the amp and cab, without a mic or room...and still somehow be able to produce that amp+cab's sound physically in your room, directly to your ears without a mic. There's still a modeled mic, cab, and room - plus whatever playback speakers you're using, and your own physical room. The problem is not one of adding to modeling, but of taking away. So you could model just the preamp and power amp, with no cab/mic emulation, and run that to a physical guitar cab. That would create the amp in the room sound...but it's because you'd be supplying a physical amp+cab...which is not modeling. Kind of like playing a MIDI file through a physically-present, digitally-controlled, robotic acoustic grand piano; it doesn't count as synthesis or sampling, because a real piano soundboard makes the sound. Regardless, my opinion is analogous to Jim Lill's: it doesn't matter. If I can play in a studio on headphones, listening to the sound of a mic picking up a physical amp in a soundproof booth, then I can play through a modeler, which is near enough identical as makes no practical difference.

I used to have a tough time answering this question, but then Jim Lill came out with this amazing video:

Yeah it sounds like one of those quirks that makes sense to just live with. I'm very used to those, as a regular Linux user :D I'm actually playing there this coming Sunday, 2-5 - It would be fun to see you if you can make it!

Hi DunedinDragon, I wonder if maybe, at some point along the way, you installed HX Edit on the laptop as administrator...meaning that an installer/updater that doesn't run as administrator can't overwrite it to update it. Dunno, that's just a guess! But have you tried completely *uninstalling* HX Edit and then reinstalling it on the laptop? Also, I remember seeing your username on this forum for years long before I had ever heard of Dunedin, FL...and now I live 10 minutes from there and have actually played some gigs there this year (at the Honu, the Dunedin Woodwright, and the Rusty Lyon)!

I have experienced this kind of issue twice over the last 7ish years with my Helix and JTV-69, so I don't think it's the firmware update causing it. Both times, I never was able to figure out the cause, and after some days, the problem went away. Since I mostly play with the instrument volume at 10 at all times, it wasn't a complete dealbreaker. I still don't know exactly why it happened nor why the problem went away both times.

To even begin to guess at the source of the problem, someone would need to see the actual error :-) Otherwise, maybe start here: https://opentechschool.github.io/python-beginners/en/getting_started.html

:-D

Exactly - this particular concern is basically hypochondriac in nature. They're not talking about anything that will affect the sound. They're talking about stuff like consolidating the low-level electrical functionality of two chips into one. The input is still the same 6 L.R. Baggs piezo pickups routed into a high-quality multichannel A/D converter, and the DSP math is identical. If anything, why wouldn't one assume that the newer circuit boards are more economical and efficient, and therefore cheaper and flimsier? This is a non-issue.

Oh OK. I didn't mean to call you out; my point was that it wouldn't be very easy to implement a quality, robust Undo, especially if they haven't architected the software in preparation for that all along. For example, what counts as one step of undo - adjusting a parameter? If the user made several quick small adjustments, they'd think of that as one change so it would be annoying to have to Undo a dozen steps to get back to where it was. Maybe it would require some logic to account for small changes within a certain window of time, with a "knob untouched" timeout that would register an actual state change. But that's hard to fine-tune to get exactly right for a wide variety of people and workflows. An Edited/Compare mode might be a good "80/20" solution since a lot of people are familiar with that - then only two edit buffers are needed, and at any point the user can toggle back and forth between the original patch and the WIP, and if they want to undo one specific change they could either refer to the original parameters or maybe copy/paste from Compare mode to Edited mode.

I'm guessing you don't develop software for a living... :ph34r:

If coming from traditional amps to a FRFR setup, whenever you are dissatisfied with your sound, investigate overall volume first. (i.e. Channel Volume, Gain at the output of the Helix, Master Volume, the volume controls on your speaker.) Our ears play tricks on us when it comes to overall volume - the exact same signal can sound very different at different levels, and yet it often doesn't seem to be because of volume (even though it is).

You could create a blank patch in the HD500, connect the Variax to it via VDI, and send the raw Variax signal to your computer via USB. This would be as clean (and at the same amplitude level I believe) as running the Variax into a hardware Helix, with the major disadvantage that Helix Native still cannot control the Variax's model or tone. (Helix hardware can, just like the HD500)

I would love to see a guide like this, being in transition from macOS to Linux and moving to REAPER from Logic. Incidentally, have you had any luck getting HX edit (or Variax Workbench HD for that matter) running under Wine?

OK, I'm probably wrong about the MIDI Thru option then; it was one of many things I tried but I don't remember the whole story. Otherwise, regarding your MIDI signal path, the first thing I'm wondering is, where exactly does IAC come in here? It seems to me that there are 2 separate signal paths here that don't need to (and shouldn't) interact at all: 1. Fishman USB dongle ----MIDI notes and patch changes----> Mainstage --> audio signal 2. Helix ----MIDI notes----> DMXIS software --> DMX lighting control Neither of those should involve IAC; introducing IAC may well be what's causing the feedback loop. Also I don't believe DMXIS uses MIDI Bank or Program Change messages; the only way I've ever used it is to send MIDI Note Ons on channel 15 to select a bank, and Note Ons on channel 16 to choose the scene within that bank. Maybe they added Program Change support since I used it. Either way, you can get deeper visibility into what's going on by using a program called MIDI Monitor. It's free to use and you can find it here: https://www.snoize.com/MIDIMonitor/

I've seen this before. You probably have a MIDI feedback loop somehow between the computer and the Helix, such that whenever a MIDI instruction like a note on or program change is sent, it goes round and round in infinite copies, which quickly overwhelms the Helix's MIDI processing and causes a hang. If I recall, I fixed it by disabling MIDI Thru in Global Settings; not sure though, that was a long time ago. I can't give much more advice without knowing a lot more details about your exact setup EDIT: MIDI signal path. I'm not clear on why Mainstage and DMXIS would need to talk to each other through IAC at all in your setup, for example.

This is almost certainly not an issue with the firmware update per se, but something in your Global Settings that got changed (back to default). For example, check your 1/4 and XLR output settings to see if they got switched from Line to Mic.

I saw you were using a bassoon with the Helix.... Times have changed a lot since New York Counterpoint huh? :-D

There is already a hidden power amp stage in the Helix. It's simple to activate! Just wire up a custom AC-mains-to-XLR plug, and attach it to L6 Link. With standard USA wiring, the connections are Green (safety ground) to Pin 1 / shield, Black (120V live) to pin 2 / hot, and White (neutral) to pin 3 / cold. Easy! In the UK and other 240V regions, you may need to attach a Power Soak or similar to achieve the desired result. Don't actually do this, or you will cause fire and explosion and be killed by electrocution. Worse, you will damage your Helix.

At about 2:00 in that video, they show holding the button down to change the pitch. You can already do this in the Helix by assigning a pedal to a parameter or snapshot controlling the interval. At 2:37, there are delay effect arpeggios, which are also doable in the Helix easily using a 50% Mix on a delay in the top path plus 100% on another delay in the bottom path. This pedal doesn't appear to have the ability to automatically mix, say, 3rds and 4ths for different notes within a scale (as would be necessary for licks like The Boys Are Back In Town). The Helix can't do this either, but you can assign a pedal to Momentary mode and coordinate feet with hands. Also, being a pedal, it's hard to put after the amp in order to get a nice studio double-tracked sound. At best you can put it in an effects loop. On the Helix you can actually harmonize the post-amp sound. On the other hand, the actual pitch shifting algorithm does sound better to me than Helix's. It sounds like TCE is doing some sort of formant correction which the Helix does not (Helix pitch shifts can get a little "chipmunk"-y). Personally, I only use harmony on a song or two here and there, and from the video at least, this pedal doesn't seem enough of an improvement to me over the Helix's built-in pitch shifters to be worth lugging around and putting in a Helix effects loop. It looks more like something specifically for people who want to stick entirely with individual pedals instead of programmable multi-FX.

Here's a way to see if it is actually clipping at the input. 1) Create a Helix path with *nothing* in it - no amp, nothing. 2) Set the input to Variax Models (not Variax) 3) Set the output to USB 1/2 4) Connect Helix to a computer with a DAW 5) Record-enable a track and observe the meter If the meter hits the top, you know it's digital clipping from the 705 sending too hot a signal. If not, then it was probably just "analog-modeled" distortion of being too hot at the input to the amp and a Gain plug + compressor or similar tool might be in order.

Does it still sound weak if you turn up your monitoring (Helix output/speaker input/etc.) 18dB to make up for it? Also, if you have a Variax guitar, is its output in the ballpark of the 705 with -18dB gain block, or is there clipping going on there too?

Someday I want to build a connector that will take the AES/EBU signal coming from the VDI cable and impedance-convert it for the S/PDIF inputs of my audio interface, while powering the Variax... Then I can leave my Helix at the rehearsal studio!

OK thanks!

Helix Native is looking and sounding good! After importing presets, I wanted to know if there is any easy way to reproduce the FS functionality from the hardware Helix. I'm using Native as a way to tweak my patches (to be used live later) using a dry guitar signal within a rehearsal multitrack mix, and often, I use several footswitches, each of which controls several parameters and bypasses. So far, I'm not seeing anything in the Helix Native UI that seems to correspond to the footswitches as programmed within the hardware Helix presets. Is that not currently part of Helix Native functionality, or am I missing something obvious? Thanks, Matt

Unfortunately I'd be extremely surprised if the Variax Workbench hardware has the ability to pass audio to the computer. As I understand it, the device only functions as a glorified proprietary MIDI interface (since the Variax control stuff is done via MIDI CCs and sysex messages). EDIT: and no, this is not MIDI notes but only control messages. There is no possibility of guitar-to-MIDI conversion using the Workbench device.