silverhead

The Helix and Variax behaviour can be set to global or per preset. You do that on the Variax edit page, either on the device or with the Helix editor program. You can reset it in any preset but it applies globally until you change it again ain a preset. For your purposes, set it to Preset. In terms of physical connections you connect your Variax using VDI and connect your regular guitar to the Guitar input. On a preset basis you change your input from Variax, Variax Mags, or Guitar according to which instrument or pickups you want to use. Avoid using the default Multi input.

You would need a powered cabinet, preferably an FRFR or PA speaker.

You're right. If you want a PC/Mac based editor, don't buy the AMPLIFi/Firehawk products. Buy a POD HD series or Helix product. One of the primary distinguishing features of these product lines is wireless mobility vs. fixed wire connectivity. They target two different market segments - mobile vs. wired. That's built into the very heart of the product, by design, and that gap won't be bridged. Users who want wireless connectivity using mobile devices should go with AMPLIFi or Firehawk. Users who want wired connectivity to a PC or Mac should buy a POD HD or Helix. That's the most important distinction and it will remain. To use a (perhaps poor) analogy, you decide up front whether you want a sports car or a pickup truck. Having bought one you don't expect it to somehow become the other as well. .... And it's not a trivial task to turn the Helix editor into an AMPLIFi editor - even if it didn't violate the basic design principles of the two product lines. The respective editors share a similar user interface paradigm. That's all that is remotely similar between them; the device designs and operating platforms are completely different.

Concerning the discussion of incompleteness vs. imperfection, I believe Godel's Theorem of Incompleteness fully resolves the issue. Especially when considered in the context of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. If any of us need a refresher of these (and I doubt it) a quick re-read of both should suffice. The objection raised in Hegel's Dialectic turns out to be just a red herring.

Well, well..... You are a fountain of knowledge, as always. :lol: :P

To my knowledge nobody has done that yet. But if you think it would be useful feel free to do it and post it here for anyone to use.

Even if you don't want to create your own presets you should still prepare for your gig by copying the factory presets you want to use into a User setlist. Order them appropriately (1A, 1B, ... ) to reflect the order of the songs you plan to play. Then during your gig you will not be fumbling around switching setlists and hunting for the preset to be used in the next song. You just hit the footswitch for the next preset.

The incoming dry signal from your DAW over USB is not available for selection as an Input for the POD preset. Hence you need another audio interface to get the dry signal to the POD using its analog or s/pdif inputs. Also I think this additional interface nees to have at least 2 stereo channels in order to properly isolate the dry signal being sent to the POD from the returning processed signal.

Yes you can do that both on the device and with the app. Firehawk stores over a hundred different presets and you can manage and order them in banks of four. You can prepare your setlist in advance and then just step through the songs/settings one at a time during the gig with a single footstomp.

Just to be clear, I am not an employee of Line 6. Nor are others who carry the 'Expert' tag. So do I hate these threads. And yes, both sides have valid points. In my post I simply tried to outline the nature of these repetitive threads, and characterize the two sides. I didn't make any statement about my personal opinion (at least not here), or which viewpoint I consider more reasonable. All opinions expressed on this topic are valid and I wasn't trying to discount anyone's viewpoint. Just observing that one viewpoint leads to disappointment and the other doesn't. The mechanism for influencing Line 6 is Ideascale. Nobody is going to change anyone else's mind in these pointless threads that may or may not even be read by Line 6.

The HD500/X output is stereo - two channels, L and R - not the five channel output of a 5.1 system. As I understand it the dedicated speakers in a 5.1 system are not frequency based (unless you have a 6th subwoofer speaker) they are position based - L, R, C, RL, RR. I don't know how you would connect it, but you will only hear the L and R stereo channels, even if those 2 channels are duplicated in some fashion across the 5 speakers.

Your opening sentence in this post..... ... and your latest.... Looks like you're a prophet! ;) While you may not be actually trying to start an argument, you certainly knew what to expect. This thread has unfolded in exactly the same way as the many dozens of similar threads I've witnessed in my years here. And it has nothing to do with the specific product - it can appear in any product thread at any time. The participants change, but the theme is always the same: Group 1: We expected more, faster, and Line 6 is letting us down. We're disappointed that our expectations are not being met. Group 2: You bought a product and it is still doing what it did when you bought it. You are not entitled to any updates, although there probably will be some. Consider them a bonus. Group 1 chooses to live in constant disappointment by unmet expectations. Group 2 chooses to be repeatedly pleasantly surprised with expectations exceeded. Glass half empty, glass half full. ... and the beat goes on ......

The tones Pod Farm uses are stored in a specific folder on your computer. If you routinely make a backup of this folder (and you should) you could try copying/restoring the backup to the Pod Farm tone folder. If that doesn't work you could reinstall Pod Farm to recreate the tone folder while also installing a fresh copy of the program. Then make a backup of the tone folder.

Yes. The easiest way is to use the Helix editor. On the Variax page there is a parameter to Lock the Tone control. This will keep the tone the same while the assigned parameter for the Tone knob changes as you rotate the knob.

Yes, you can assign different Variax models (or the Variax mag pickups) to different Firehawk presets. You could arrange these presets in the same bank (e.g. Bank 1) so that you select and recall these different assignments with a single foot-tap on switches A, B, C, and D. You could have preset 1A be an acoustic tone, using an acoustic Variax model with no guitar amp - just a compressor, EQ, light modulation and delay. Preset 1B could use, for instance, the 12-string Rickenbacker (Chime 2 or 4) model with a Vox AC-30 amp and some suitable FX for a Beatles Ticket To Ride tone. Preset 1C could be a twangy Tele-based country or blues tone for Sweet Home Alabama, and 1D could be a Les Paul model or your JTV-59 mag pickups with a Marshall amp for some heavy Led Zeppelin type stuff. All that is easily achievable. You can have a Variax connected to the VDI input and another guitar connected to the Guitar input simultaneously. Firehawk, though, does not have dual-channel processing so you can only use one input at a time in any preset. But you could switch guitars between songs as you switch presets without having to change any physical connections.

It also depends very much on the nature of the sound being recorded. A very quick attack with a very short sustain and no compression (something like a snare drum hit) will have an evident peak. But a heavily distorted guitar sound with significant compression, sustain, and other FX processing (something like heavy metal) will show almost no peak at 'the note' because the sound has very little distinction between the note and its trails.

No need to delete the thread, and it's not a waste of resources. Someday someone else may read this and recognize that they, too, should use their Line 6 username rather than their email address to login. Glad you got it sorted out.

Since you didn't get the battery charger power supply I'm wondering if you got the correct USB interface package. Are you sure it's OK?

I suggest you use a fully charged JTV battery, a regular guitar cable, and leave the A/B power unit out of the picture.

The volume difference among the amps is normal. That's the way the real amps are - some are much louder than others.

Do you have a fully charged battery in your JTV? Is your guitar Volume knob turned up?

I expect this is a hardware malfunction in the LCD piece. If a firmware reinstallation does not fix it it sill probably need servicing. Open a support ticket to be sure. However, unless the device is still under warranty, or it is causing a problem with the sound I would try to ignore it. It could be an expensive fix for a purely cosmetic issue.

To erase a loop on Firehawk you have to hold down the playback button for a second or two.

That means you are approaching the DSP limits. The items that are not selectable are those which require more than the remaining DSP capacity. The items that are selectable require less DSP and can still be added to the signal chain.

I believe the comment/edit feature in Customtone is broken right now. Don't know when it might be fixed.