silverhead

Yes POD Go can be used with the Catalyst. For best results bypass the Catalyst preamp (use Power Amp input) when using an amp model in the POD Go preset. Experiment with using a cab/mic model or not.

1) Yes, any electronic device you purchase now (not restricted to guitar multi-FX pedals) will become outdated in a few years. I guess what matters is your personal definition of ‘a few’. But in any case unless the device malfunctions it will continue to do what it did when you bought it. Always buy electronic devices for what they will do for you today, not what it might or might not be able to do in the future. 2) Of the examples above I would avoid the POD Go because it includes amp/cab modeling which you don’t seem to want, so why pay for it? I recommend the HX FX but I don’t have any experience with BOSS pedals. You can probably try them out at your local Line 6 retailer.

There are two parameter settings you should check. One controls the bypass state of the Wah FX and a different one controls the pedal used for the sweep of the Wah effect. Sounds to me like you may have the on/off state assigned to some midpoint position of one pedal and the sweep assigned to a different pedal.

This sort of symptom often indicates a problem with the power supply. Check the cord/connection. You could try a replacement with exactly the same specs or, if you’re in the US you can buy one in the Line 6 store (see the SHOP a button at the top of this page).

No, that wasn’t a reply. It was a positive response to your post, an ‘upvote’ indicating that he liked your post. There was no content posted. If you visit your profile you will now find that you have 1 reputation point; that was it.

No, not realistic It depends on the type of FX blocks being used. A mono FX block will defeat the stereo inputs and output a blended mono signal, where you will hear what you describe: both left and right input signals coming out of both outputs.

I haven’t investigated but I am under the impression that the device restarts in the same state it was in when shut down. In other words, if you turn it off in Signal Flow view it will restart that way, and same for Stomp view. Similar for switching presets. No?

Connect the Pod Go Main Output(s) to FOH. Connect the Amp Out to your FRFR speaker/cab. Experiment with the Global Settings -> In/Outs for Amp Out, Main Out Level, and Volume Knob values (see manual pg 42) to determine what works best for you.

Problem? Maybe, but I suspect all real-world physical amps and analog pedals would also behave the same if it were possible to make those parameter changes simultaneously while continuing to play. Your tricks are very helpful.

No. You can create a template preset that contains all the desired assignments and then copy/edit that each time you create a new preset.

The results are good as far as the connections and technical aspects go. But if you’re using a bad sounding external pedal, or not configuring it appropriately for the Helix preset then yes, you can make it sound bad.

It’s one of the pre-JTV Variax models, either a 300, 500, or 600. I can’t tell them apart but others will be able to tell you exactly which model it is. Regardless, they are all very similar and their modeling is identical. The differences are in the build. Whether it’s any ‘good’ depends on its current both physically and electronically. It looks to be in good physical shape but you would need to test the electronics. For its time the earlier Variax models were, and remain, quite good. Some still prefer the Acoustic and Spank models in those guitars to the upgraded modeling beginning with the JTV series.

You could also try increasing the Channel volume on your clean tone to max and reduce the amp parameters on your dirty tone. If it’s not loud or dirty enough consider adding some overdrive or distortion FX blocks to the dirty tone. Keep their output levels at default unless you really need to crank them. Be cautious about that to avoid the harsh transitions. You could also try adding a Gain block to the clean tone and turn it off in the dirty snapshot. There’s also a Level parameter in the Output block that can be assigned to snapshots. Increase it in the clean preset.

Yes, that will probably help. Use the amp Drive, Channel and Master levels to balance the gain structure.

That’s not unusual when there are significant changes in gain between snapshots. It mimics exactly what would happen using real-world physical amps if such changes were applied instantaneously. I expect the only way to make a smoother transition is to reduce the severity of the gain changes. I don’t think it has anything to do with impedance.

You can avoid this by setting Global Setting -> Preferences -> Snapshot Edits to Recall. With this setting your snapshot edits will be retained while you navigate among different snapshots. You will need to Save the preset when you're finished not after each Snapshot edit.

Yes I think your understanding is correct. Now you’ll just need to experiment with the options and see what you like best. Regarding definitive information, you are assuming that there’s a ‘best’ approach to this. There isn’t. What’s ‘best’ is whatever sounds best to you, including downstream overloading of FX if you like how it sounds. The sound of a good overdrive pedal is often desirable, even though by definition something is being ‘over’driven. The only thing you really want to avoid is digital clipping which I don’t think sounds good to anybody anywhere. And you’ll know it when you hear it. But I’m sure there’s someone who will disagree with that. “Nothin’ I likes better in me mix than a good whack of digital clipping!”

Yes, I think adjusting the amp levels directly would generally have the same effect as adjusting the mix in the merge block. However it’s still possible that adjusting an amp level could have negative effects on the tone (e.g. unwanted distortion/clipping at the input of a downstream FX block). Those would then be present in the final mono mix, whereas you could keep the amp level lower to avoid those effects and still emphasize one path over the other in the merge Pan control. This all relates to ‘gain staging’ and it can get complicated.

Then I think the only difference would be how you choose to pan at the Merge block. You could emphasize one or the other of the A/B paths in the mono output signal.

I think it depends on whether the signal at the split point is actually stereo or simply dual mono. If it’s stereo with different L/R components (e.g. a ping pong delay FX block immediately before the split) then the resulting blended mono output tone could be different than if the split signal was dual mono.

In the Templates setlist check out presets 2C, 2D, and 4A. Inspect their setups and choose the one that most closely matches your copy your preference. Copy it to you destination and start editing. For simple stereo use 4A, change Input 2 to Guitar, edit the blocks as desired, then use the Pan control in each Output block to define the stereo separation of each Path.

Helix Rack/Floor/Lt, HXStomp/XL, HXFX, HX One.

You can set the input level for the Returns to instrument which will match your guitar pickup output levels. However, unless your guitar has different physical outputs for each pickup you will need an adapter to split your single guitar output to two duplicate signals. That won’t separate the individual pickups on your guitar to L and R. It will simply give you the same guitar signal into different Returns so that you can process the same signal differently within your Helix.

Not directly. If you're talking about creating new presets you can set up a preset that contains only your preferred amp model and settings. Save it and then copy it every time you want to set up a new preset. If you're talking about changing parameter values in existing presets you can create a Favorites model for the amp with the preferred settings. You will still have to edit each existing preset to replace the mp model with your new Favorite model.