rwinking

I tried my Variax cable and it didn’t work, I could see that is was on but none of the scribble strips were lit up. HMMM….

Will cat 6 work also?

I don’t have my rig with me, but is that the same cable as the Variax?

That’s great! I will order one today. I had no idea that it would work. Muchos Gracias!

I use a Helix rack and love it. The control uses a cat 5 cable. I bought a couple of new cat 5s and they are really solid. However,they are too snug and when I try and take them out I have to wiggle and pull and eventually they come out. Is there a recommended easy fix for this as I know I will do some damage at some point by pulling them out.  They have those little buttons and I can push them until I am blue in the face and it is still a pain to get them out. Would it be possible to shave some of the plastic off the male end or some other simple fix?

thanks

rick

Thanks Kilrahi! I just picked up the 212 today an can't wait to try it out. Finding a nice acoustic pre amp is just what I am looking for along with eq and a nice stereo verb. Will def check out the videos now that I have the unit. Even though the 212 is not very wide, I am sure the stereo will sound cool. I also  think that using the tweeters will help with an aooustic. I'll et you know how it plays out!

thanks again.

rick

I am thinking of getting the 212 powercab for some live aacoustic stuff. Currently I am using one of the old trace Elliot acoustic amps which has a great preamp that I go into a little EV tower style PA. I am qondering if anyone here has used the powercab in conjunction with a Helix for acoustic stuff. I have both the stomp and Helix. What are you using in the way of Helix preamps for an acoustic (two pickup system with the Dimarzio Black Angel piezo/mag combo) and how are you setting it up?

thanks

rick

Yep. I guess I didn't look far enough down on the Helix page. I am now enjoying a big dish of crow and humble pie.

And as I look through the current threads, I still don't see any about 3.5. It is 3.15 and back from there. 

Weird. At anyrate I got it going. For some reasonit said it was updating HX Edit but it wasn't I finallydelted HXEdit and started w=over completely and it worked just fine.

Yep, this morning, all I saw for threads was updating to 3.15 unless later in the thread it talked about 3.50.

Anyway, I'm good now.

Am I missing something? I got an email from Line 6 about the 3.5 firmware update and I have not seen anything here on the forum about it. I tried to update my LT and I update the HXEdit first as it says Then I try to hit the update now button for the Helix LT and nothing happens. I have a Rack, Stomp and HXFX an would like to get them all updated.

thanks

The reason my Helix and other line 6 products do not collect dust is that they keep working to improve them and they are more and more viable.

Several years ago I had a deal with Gibson. This was during the Henry years. Anyway, Gibson was working on an acoustic version of a Variax, modeling different acoustic guitars, mandos, banjos, etc. They were about to give me one to play and then the company blew up. My point here is that others were working on this including Fender. Did they all give up because of a limited market or because they could not pull it off past where we are at today? In the tech world, it seems that where there is a will, there is a way. As I sad in an earlier post, most people that play my Variax say something to the effect of " Wow! These are pretty close. I will get one once they get it closer...." which they never did. As stated earlier, that was my attitude on the POD. Once they got it closer everything kind of went crazy and the Helix is pretty much everywhere. It would be nice if they took a chance on the Variax.

On 9/4/2022 at 11:35 AM, amsdenj said:

The issue may be that Line6 ran up against limitations in the technology used to capture and model the guitars.

Maybe, but wasn't all of these captures done something like 20 years ago? Again, if they can move by so many leaps and bounds on the amps, they should be able to get rid of the sterility on the Variax. If we take it back even longer, look what they have been able to do with synthesizers in the past 60 years.

I would hope that if Yamaha went in this direction they would keep it to where it could still be integrated into the Helix stuff. That is the great thing about it....hitting button and having a new tuning on hand. I can't help but think that if they worked on the sound aspect and nailed it like was done with amp modeling, there would be no stopping this. Kind of like 15 years ago when serious guitarists would not have a modeled amp because of the fizziness of the sound or how sterile it was. Now days serious guitarists own or use amp models as a matter of course. I would never sell my 1962 Epiphone Casino but it would nice to have a serious model of it for live work. And BTW, the Casino models needs a lot of work....

That would suck as I paid a lot for the JTV-US. It would be nice to upgrade it or be able to retrofit it with the new stuff. 

So is line 6 still having the guitars built or is this just old stock being sold off?

But if you use instrument when it should be line, there would be no distortion? Just a little less signal maybe?

Here's what it looks like:

Guitar into Helix

Helix FX Send to Syn 2 input

Syn 2 FX send to Helix return

Helix main out to Syn 2 FX return

So all of those should be line level except the Helix input?

So I have a Shuriken and a JTV-59US and they are both nice guitars. I bought them for things like a 12 string part or sitar and for that they work nicely. The other models remind me of the original POD years ago. It was not quite a toy and you could really hear the potentiel in it. A few years later with the Helix, they got it nailed. I feel the same way about the Variax....they are so close. Just like with the POD, there was a sterility about it that just wasn't quite right and then they nailed it just a few years later. I really doubt  that Line 6 is going to do anything more with this technology, but it is a shame as we all know it is possible. Like the POD years ago, serious musicians said "Yeah, well, not quite yet..." If they did a little bit of work on the Variax, I would be their biggest salesman ever. Now, people hear me and ask about it and I say that it does some things pretty OK but it is lacking, which is what I said about the early amp modelers.

C'mon Line 6....step up to the plate one more time and knock it out of the park. We know you can. There are a lot of Helixs' out there that were purchased because of my praises of it. I would love to do the same for the Variax.

I am using the Helix 4CM into a Synergy SYN 2 and then into an egnater RM50 so I have a bunch of tube preamp choices. The issue is what to do with  the line level vs instrument knob. After watching a video I got a little confused. All of that out board gear....should it be line level or since they are all tube preamps should they be instrument? and with the FX loop, I have the same question.

thanks

rick

Hey, Thanks so much! I had no idea that you could bypass that volume knob. It really helped in the tone department....like a lot! I have a bunch more presence and clarity now. This is a real game changer for me. I mean I liked my tone but this will make it tons easier to get my tone and beyond.

So I assigned it to digital which really isn't doing anything anyway, right?

rick

Hopefully I can articulate this properly.....I use the Helix rack and control for FX only and it is superb. I don't mind the amp models but prefer my tube amp. So I run the rig 4CM with distortion and compressor  going into the front of an egnater modular amp (with the tube preamps) then into the time based FX and then out into the power section. My question is the volume control on the Helix and where to set it. Do you think it is better to have the master volume on the egnater set high with the Helix lower or set the Helix high and the master on the amp low.

It's interesting that the HX FX doesn't have a master volume on it.

So what do you think and what is your reasoning behind your conclusion?

Thanks everybody!

rick

I get how to do custom tuning. I just would like a knob like my 59JTV has that would fit on my Shuriken now that I have all of the 59 models and will soon have all of the 59 tunings on there. I guess my question was simple and I am not sure if you answered it.....If I get a 59 model and tuning knob, will it fit on the shuriken shaft or are they different sizes?

Will try later. Thanks. I am not worried about using the stock Shuriken patches. They are pretty quirky and probably only apply to some obscure 10 ft ninja tunes anyway.

I have a JTV 59 and don't need the knob. I also have a Shuriken (which is a great feeling guitar, BTW) and have no use for the models or the tunings. In another post I am now trying to change out the tunings to be what my 59 has. It would be nice to have both knobs that correspond to the new tunings and models. Are there knobs that would fit on the Shuriken from any of the other variax guitars?