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Footswitch modes & configuration


oehman
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Can the footswitches be configured so that the Presets are the top row and effects on the bottom row?

 

I usually don't switch presets in mid-song on my HD500X, but often turn effects off and on.

Its hard to step over that first row in mid song, especially when singing and then footing around for a boost or overdrive for a solo!

 

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Can the footswitches be configured so that the Presets are the top row and effects on the bottom row?

 

Yes, you can do this. There's basically three modes for the footswitches - Preset, Stomp and Pedal Edit (well, there's also Looper Mode, but that's accessed by hitting whatever switch you have the looper assigned to, not by the Mode switch). In Preset mode you have three options as to how the switches can be used. The default is both rows are presets. There's also modes called "Upper Row" and "Lower Row" that allow to have presets on the top or bottom while the other switches are used for effects. Also, there's another option to change the bank up and down switches to preset up and down, so you can scroll through presets using those switches. I think they've pretty much covered all the bases...

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In Stomp Mode, you can also repurpose Bank Up/Down as two additional stomp switches for a total of ten (it's always Bank or Preset Up/Down in Preset and Looper mode, though).

 

Oh, and if you hold both Bank Up and Down switches for two seconds, you can switch them to Preset Up/Down without having to open the Global Settings menu. Tons of little shortcuts like that in Helix.

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It seems there is going to be a lot of functionality with configurable settings. In the event of a firmware update or system reset, will the settings need to be reinitialized, and if so, will there be a way to save all of these settings and have them loaded back in one shot? Or must this be done manually?

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It seems there is going to be a lot of functionality with configurable settings. In the event of a firmware update or system reset, will the settings need to be reinitialized, and if so, will there be a way to save all of these settings and have them loaded back in one shot? Or must this be done manually?

 

Those settings should make it through a firmware update, but if you do an actual reset, they'll of course go back to the default. Typically global settings haven't been addressed in editors, but I don't want to speculate. All of these things we're talking are actually extremely easy to change on the unit itself. It takes one button click to get to the Global Settings menu, and once in there everything is really clearly laid out.

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Those settings should make it through a firmware update, but if you do an actual reset, they'll of course go back to the default. Typically global settings haven't been addressed in editors, but I don't want to speculate. All of these things we're talking are actually extremely easy to change on the unit itself. It takes one button click to get to the Global Settings menu, and once in there everything is really clearly laid out.

 

Ok. Thanks. Sounds simple. And no big deal if there isn't any way to save the settings. It's probably ten times harder to reset a computer's bios nowadays.

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Ok. Thanks. Sounds simple. And no big deal if there isn't any way to save the settings. It's probably ten times harder to reset a computer's bios nowadays.

 

IIRC, performing a full backup in the Helix app should include any Global Settings as well.

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Anybody knows if there will be an scene mode? And an A/B chain so you can change from 2 differnt amps (e.g. clean to distor) without changing the preset? (And thus avoid that anoying short silence when changing presets)

 

Thanks beforehand

 

Cheers!

It won't launch with scene mode. You can vote for it to be in a firmware update here:

 

http://line6.ideasca...de/727231-23508

 

However, you can assign each footswitch up to 8 commands. So you could have (2) different signal paths in each preset and use a stompbox footswitch to turn on/off different blocks (up to 8) within the preset.

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It won't launch with scene mode. You can vote for it to be in a firmware update here:

 

http://line6.ideasca...de/727231-23508

 

However, you can assign each footswitch up to 8 commands. So you could have (2) different signal paths in each preset and use a stompbox footswitch to turn on/off different blocks (up to 8) within the preset.

So it would be possible to have two signal paths in parallel with two different amps and change from A to B using a footswitch? Or there is a limitation of 1 amp per preset? 

Cheers

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So it would be possible to have two signal paths in parallel with two different amps and change from A to B using a footswitch? Or there is a limitation of 1 amp per preset? 

Cheers

Yep, you can have more than one amp per preset. This is more than likely the way I'll set mine up until scene mode becomes available.

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The FireHawk FX also uses an optical photocell expression pedal, and many observe that the Expression Pedal goes bananas when playing outdoors at Sunset. It occurs when The intense light angle is low it may accidentally trigger the Expression Pedal Photocell. 


(Reference)
http://line6.com/support/topic/14682-fire-hawk-went-wrong-during-a-gig/?do=findComment&comment=106917

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The FireHawk FX also uses an optical photocell expression pedal, and many observe that the Expression Pedal goes bananas when playing outdoors at Sunset. It occurs when The intense light angle is low it may accidentally trigger the Expression Pedal Photocell. 

 

 

(Reference)

http://line6.com/support/topic/14682-fire-hawk-went-wrong-during-a-gig/?do=findComment&comment=106917

 

Yeah, it's a possible issue with all optical pedals. Like I said though, the Helix construction is pretty different. There really isn't much of an opening under the Helix pedal, so I don't know how possible it is for light to leak in. The one nice thing with Helix is that there are two additional expression jacks, and you can also assign control functionality to the switches, so even if you did have to forgo using the on-board pedal for some reason, you could still have plenty of control.

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HD500X = No

From reading the Helix forum - Helix = Yes

 

 

This was a make-or-break requirement for me, so if CipherHost's assumptions are inaccurate, please let us know!  Thanks!

 

 

Yes, you can do this. 

 

I'm missing how my reply was inaccurate.

 

 

Oh, I get it. You wanted to make sure I was correct. I misunderstood.

Edited by CipherHost
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Yeah, it's a possible issue with all optical pedals. Like I said though, the Helix construction is pretty different. There really isn't much of an opening under the Helix pedal, so I don't know how possible it is for light to leak in. The one nice thing with Helix is that there are two additional expression jacks, and you can also assign control functionality to the switches, so even if you did have to forgo using the on-board pedal for some reason, you could still have plenty of control.

 

How does the Mission Engineering EP1-L6 pedal work with the Helix? Are there any other pedals from other companies that work well with Helix that you know of?

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How does the Mission Engineering EP1-L6 pedal work with the Helix? Are there any other pedals from other companies that work well with Helix that you know of?

 

 

Myself - I use Roland EV-5 Expression pedals with all my Line-6 gear: M13, HD500X, Firehawk FX 

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How does the Mission Engineering EP1-L6 pedal work with the Helix? Are there any other pedals from other companies that work well with Helix that you know of?

 

The EP1-L6 works great with the Helix. I actually recently broke down and bought two of them after using my old EX-1s for 15 years (they still work, btw). The Helix has a calibration function for external pedals, so I actually think any potentiometer based pedal with a TS connection should work, although I'm not sure if there is an upper limit to the impedance value it will work with.

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It's actually an auto calibration procedure. Manual calibration is no longer required.

 

Hold on, hold on, give us a bit more about this feature...

 

Are you saying that Helix guesses what the range of a plugged in expression pedal is, and then as you move it around refines its range definition?

 

What if you plug in a pedal set to minimum (say a few ohms of resistance) and then only move it half way (say to 5k resistance) and I don't move it farther.  Does helix now think half way is full range?

 

Will that muck up the user defined minimum settings on a Roland EV-5 by recalibrating it to be zero?

 

 

I'm not presuming you have anything wrong here and I am sure it will work like magic, but a bit more explanation would be good.

 

[is this another one of those "lets get the forum to write the manual" things? :) ]

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