Firmware 1.20

[Skitterhawk]

Lag time much better. Actually usable. Still getting a little noise on patch chances but has been lowered and might work for my next gig. THANK YOU... I'm gigging tomorrow night and this couldn't have come at a better time. Well maybe a few weeks ago would have been better. Ha...

[Badspike]

Glad its working for you guys but mine has bricked! 4 lights A,B,C,D. Says its at 1.20 but nada. Pissed!

[silverhead]

Run Line 6 Updater again (btw... did you update the Line 6 Updater program?). It provides instructions for recovery in case the update fails.

[Badspike]

Yep! Updater through USB. Update gets partially in to firmware update and craps out every time.

[Badspike]

If I had to guess I would say Line 6's servers are probably overwhelmed. I can't get a sustained download feed from there site. Using multiple sources.

[stevekc]

I did the update to FW 1.20 

 

Good news is  after the firmware 1.20 update, (after 4 months of struggle) for the first time ever I finally have a working ASIO Driver I can finally set Firehawk to 16bits or 24bits @ 44.1khz or 48kHz  - this never worked on my windows machine with prior firmware 

 

Despite asking weeks ago if any other Firehak FX owners have this working.

http://line6.com/support/topic/15647-firehawk-fx-and-windows-usb-asio-audio-driver/

 

 

With Firehawk FX Firmware 1.20 the patch change time is much lower  -but still  not as fast as the  HD500X

 

 

And  I  still get a "bang" on specific patch to patch transitions. 

 

try yourself by following these steps ( These are factory patches after a system reset - and no "Cloud" patches)

 

1 ) Select factory patch#  09A Another Brick ,

 

2 ) Strum a chord and  let it ring out,  

 

3 ) then hear the loud "Bang" as you select  factory patch#  09B Own A Lonely Hrt

 

 

 

or 

 

 

 

1 ) Select  Patch#  13A Streets no Name

 

2 ) Strum a chord and  let it ring out,  

 

3 ) Then hear the loud "Bang" as you select  factory patch# 13B Hysteria Octave

 

 

And this is new, I can report with FW 1.20 I am now experiencing the famous "A/D" Lights of death - with a  Locked up silent Firehawk FX with no sound and only a steady "stuck" glowing Preset  A  &  Preset D - occurs just random

First time Ive seen this well known "bug" on my hardware 

 

http://line6.com/support/topic/13591-a-d-patch-lights-of-death/

 

 

Not happy to have wasted 4 months for a solution - and still find remaining bugs which means this Firehawk FX is not reliable enough to use at gigs in my trio. 

 

Rule #1 for Firehawk FX is mute your strings before changing patches.

But the music style I play does not allow that

[mcbeddall]

Man that sucks

[mikedub]

That really sucks! and I really didn't want to read it :(

 

Think I'll hang on before updating...

[HMPoweredMan]

I did the update to FW 1.20 

 

 

And  I  still get a "bang" on specific patch to patch transitions. 

 

try yourself by following these steps

 

1 ) Select factory patch#  09A Another Brick ,

 

2 ) Strum a chord and  let it ring out,  

 

3 ) then hear the loud "Bang" as you select  factory patch#  09B Own A Lonely Hrt

 

 

 

or 

 

 

 

1 ) Select  Patch#  13A Streets no Name

 

2 ) Strum a chord and  let it ring out,  

 

3 ) Then hear the loud "Bang" as you select  factory patch# 13B Hysteria Octave

 

 

 

 

 

 

Out of curiosity, which output do you use on the device? The XLR output or the Quarter Inch mono output?

[stevekc]

Headphone output feeding Audio -Tecnhica ATH M50X headphones.

http://www.audio-technica.com/cms/headphones/99aff89488ddd6b1/

Also with FW 1.20 I hear less sonic detail and new Fizz and sizzle on the high end

Old FW 1.10 has more body to the tone and sonic detail and sounds better , just don't change patches while guitar strings are vibrating  - else you have birds chirps if delay is active but set to different delay times during patch changes

Or build patches with a clean amp and use a Tube screamer stomp FX. But that's limiting

[silverhead]

.....

And  I  still get a "bang" on specific patch to patch transitions. 

 

try yourself by following these steps

 

1 ) Select factory patch#  09A Another Brick ,

 

2 ) Strum a chord and  let it ring out,  

 

3 ) then hear the loud "Bang" as you select  factory patch#  09B Own A Lonely Hrt

 

 

 

or 

 

 

 

1 ) Select  Patch#  13A Streets no Name

 

2 ) Strum a chord and  let it ring out,  

 

3 ) Then hear the loud "Bang" as you select  factory patch# 13B Hysteria Octave

 

 

....

 

These two patch transitions definitely sound awful. But I don't really hear any 'bang'. To me it's just that the volume and tonal difference between the patches is so severe that the transition is a bit shocking.

 

Just as an experiment I tried decreasing the amp (not Master) volume on each of 9B and 13B to less than 10% and tried the transitions again. With the volume levels more balanced there was no audible artifact (or 'bang'), although I find that the tonal differences are still displeasing to the ear.

[stevekc]

Happy to hear Line-6 is listening to users experiences with their products - pass it up the chain of command.

[urbanspaceblast]

Sorry to hear your problem stevekc.

 

I updated mine to 1.20 today and played for an hour without a problem. It took 4 minutes to update via PC.

[stevekc]

Hope you have better luck than me 

[Badspike]

If I had to guess I would say Line 6's servers are probably overwhelmed. I can't get a sustained download feed from there site. Using multiple sources.

Switched to a USB 3.0 port and no problems updating. Unit functioning fine and no issues.

[HMPoweredMan]

Headphone output feeding Audio -Tecnhica ATH M50X headphones.

 

http://www.audio-technica.com/cms/headphones/99aff89488ddd6b1/

 

Also with FW 1.20 I hear less sonic detail and new Fizz and sizzle on the high end

 

Old FW 1.10 has more body to the tone and sonic detail and sounds better , just don't change patches else you have birds chirps if delay is active and are in the middle of a ringing chord during patch changes

 

Or build patches with a clean amp and use a Tube screamer stomp FX. But that's limiting

 

 

Perhaps it is an issue with the built in headphone amp, or the impedance of it in conjunction with  your headphones.

I've found that the headphone output is pretty bad and I think that it also bypasses speaker emulation. (but i could be wrong)

 

If you have an audio interface, try comparing the quarter inch output from the interface with the output from the built in headphone amp.

 

I personally don't consider bad headphone output to be an issue as I think it is more intended for stage monitoring than for fidelity.

[mcbeddall]

Speaker sims are present on the headphone output, you can hear them when you switch between them

[stevekc]

So we are clear,
With FW 1.20 switch time is much faster and Noise anomalies on patch change have been tamed - there are only specific events to re-create the "bang on patch change" for specific patches - all described in my prior post above

Just trying to find the switch sequence that triggers the " A/D Lights of Death" 

http://line6.com/support/topic/13591-a-d-patch-lights-of-death/

[mcbeddall]

I had a lock up on the old firmware mid song so I knew exactly what patches I was changing from and to and exactly what I was playing, guitar, set up etc but I couldn't recreate it at will, just seemed to be completely random the way it occurred

[Line6Tony]

stevekc, on 30 Sept 2015 - 11:53 AM, said:

 

So we are clear,

With FW 1.20 switch time is much faster and Noise anomalies on patch change have been tamed - there are only specific events to re-create the "bang on patch change" for specific patches - all described in my prior post above

 

Just trying to find the switch sequence that triggers the " A/D Lights of Death"

http://line6.com/support/topic/13591-a-d-patch-lights-of-death/

Steve, sorry you're running into trouble. My first guess is a bad patch. Please back up your tones then do a factory reset. IT's all covered here: http://line6.com/support/page/kb/_/effects-controllers/firehawk/recovery-from-corrupt-tones-a-and-d-lights-lo-r750.

 

You can then load your patches one-by-one to find which one triggers the problem.

[HMPoweredMan]

This patch seems to have fixed my issues with the Lights of Death. Good work Line6 thank you!

[agrimaldi74]

So, even if I download a "corrupted" tone from the cloud, created with a 1.01 version of the firmware, on a Firehawk updated to version 1.20 now I should not experience the A/D LoD, right?

Is there a way to see with which version of the fw a tone was created? I can't see this using the Firehawk Remote App.

[stevekc]

FWIW  -Only after I installed this FW 1.20 update and performed  a factory reset and using the factory presets  (no cloud) - was the 1st time I experienced the  " A/D Lights of Death"  issue  -

[silverhead]

Wait... you experienced this using ONLY the factory presets prior to having downloaded anything from the cloud or previously saved My Tones presets? That seems to be a serious bug that Line 6 would want to know about asap. Can you provide the recipe to recreate this situation?

[mcbeddall]

"Also with FW 1.20 I hear less sonic detail and new Fizz and sizzle on the high end"

 

Hey Steve, I also noticed that a lot of my patches now sound a bit thinner and fizzier since updating, not by a massive amount but they definitely require tweaking. My crunch patches seem to have more gain /drive than I remember too, but could be just the way I remember it as it's the first time I've had the firehawk out of the box for a couple of months

[TriPPleX]

mcbeddall - I thought it was only me.  My guitar sounds "hollow" now, way too much treble I think.  Gunna play with it.  Realtime patch changing seems plenty fast now, I didn't notice anything weird or slow while playing.

 

Thank You Line 6, you done good.  Now get to work on the ability to backup/add/change tones with a PC   :) .  Would be nice to browse for tones on the PC or at least use wildcards to get ALL the patches to sort through.  Typing in a search word leaves a bit to be desired.  Maybe browse by amp or cabinet, maybe tones using a specific pedal.  Just a thought.

[TriPPleX]

Also, I couldn't update to 1.20 on my fresh computer with Windows 8.1.  I used my laptop with Windows 7 and it worked like a charm.  Just in case some of you are having issues like I did.

[mcbeddall]

Yeah changing patches seemed good enough, so glad that it's fixed, now I feel like I can finally invest some serious time into creating my tones

Regarding the perceived change in sound since the update;

I didn't mess about altering my tones too much as I was using headphones (it's late here) and I want to try it with my amp first, it's possible I may have tweaked my patches the last time I rehearsed with the firehawk, I really can't remember. I did have a quick play with one of my "go to" tones and dialling the treble and gain back a bit seemed to get me back to how I remembered it sounding without too much effort. Oddly though it seemed like my tones were affected more, the presets all sounded as I remembered them.

I'd say the gain was the main culprit as I don't use many high gain sounds yet a lot of my created tones wouldn't have sounded out of place in a megadeth covers band

[stevekc]

regarding state of my Firehawk FX today, it remains in the same condition accurately expressed here - just follow the steps on yours

 

http://line6.com/support/topic/15814-firmware-120/?p=116088

[mikedub]

Are people experiencing this 'thinner / fizzier / hollow' sound change over just headphones or is it the same using xlr / 1/4 jack outputs into a desk / PA?

[stevekc]

 

 

Are people experiencing this 'thinner / fizzier / hollow' sound change over just headphones or is it the same using xlr / 1/4 jack outputs into a desk / PA?

 

its everywhere for me - and I understand the hurdle  / balancing act in place under the hood here. if you want faster patch changes, you must make the DSP algorithm less articulate and smaller data size  - this allows faster preset load time.

 

So I have the Firmware Updater for Windows 8.1 and locally stored copies of the  Firehawk FX firmware, will use this strategy:

 

* If you want more sonic detail in Studio session - use Firmware 1.10

 

* If you want faster patch to patch change time with no gaps / chirps for live gigs  - with a bit less sonic detail  - use Firmware 1.20 

[HMPoweredMan]

its everywhere for me - and I understand the hurdle  / balancing act in place under the hood here. if you want faster patch changes, you must make the DSP algorithm less articulate and smaller data size  - this allows faster preset load time.

 

So I have the Firmware Updater for Windows 8.1 and locally stored copies of the  Firehawk FX firmware, will use this strategy:

 

* If you want more sonic detail in Studio session - use Firmware 1.10

 

* If you want faster patch to patch change time with no gaps / chirps for live gigs  - with a bit less sonic detail  - use Firmware 1.20 

 

Would it be possible for you to give us an audio recording comparing the two? I'm curious.

[stevekc]

It will be a while - heading 200 miles south after work today to attend LA Amp show this weekend with Thomas Nordegg and compare Helix with Fractal AX-8 

http://www.ampshow.com/

 

 

 

* If you want more sonic detail in Studio session - use Firmware 1.10

 

* If you want faster patch to patch change time with no gaps / chirps for live gigs  - with a bit less sonic detail  - use Firmware 1.20 

 

The good news  -  all Firehawk FX owners can try this test  above and compare  and judge what firmware version works best for your needs

 

All the Firmware files and Firmware updater App you need are here - so any Firehawk FX owner can test the sonic differences between firmware 

http://line6.com/software/index.html

 

 

I suggest avoid using an iPad  / iphone as the wireless Firehawk FX Firmware update path - its very sluggish and prone to failure -

 

instead download the files and use the Line-6 Updater App on your Windows  / Mac and a USB cable 

[ArneLine6]

its everywhere for me - and I understand the hurdle  / balancing act in place under the hood here. if you want faster patch changes, you must make the DSP algorithm less articulate and smaller data size  - this allows faster preset load time.

 

So I have the Firmware Updater for Windows 8.1 and locally stored copies of the  Firehawk FX firmware, will use this strategy:

 

* If you want more sonic detail in Studio session - use Firmware 1.10

 

* If you want faster patch to patch change time with no gaps / chirps for live gigs  - with a bit less sonic detail  - use Firmware 1.20 

 

 

This is not the case. Firmware v1.10 and v1.20 use the exact same DSP algorithms. As a reaction to the statements here we are currently measuring Firehawk FX v1.20 to see if anything unexpected happened here. So far we have not found any difference.

[stevekc]

 

 

This is not the case. Firmware v1.10 and v1.20 use the exact same DSP algorithms. As a reaction to the statements here we are currently measuring Firehawk FX v1.20 to see if anything unexpected happened here. So far we have not found any difference.

Glad to hear Line-6 is checking this ( Ive been wrong before!)

 

Now If I could only trust that ths A/D lights of death lock up wont happen at a gig  

 

But I'll make comparison measurements of FW 1.10 vs FW 1.20  -  next week - after the LA Amp Show.

[kevell99]

Can you downgrade firmware back to 1.10? If so I'll do some recording over the weekend to compare the two....

[ArneLine6]

We have compared and measured the factory patches and we could not find a difference at all. This is as expected since these are the same DSP algorithms. If you are hearing some difference in a certain patch- could you send us that patch? Just make sure we are not missing something since we did not measure every effect in all settings.

[stevekc]

 

 

Can you downgrade firmware back to 1.10? 

 

Using the USB connection to Firehawk FX and Line-6 Updater Application for Win/Mac  - yes

 

just be sure you have

 

 

1 ) Installed the USB Driver  - I used a USB 2.0 port and this for Win8.1 "Line6Driver2FirehawkAudiov1.70Installer.exe"

 

2) Installed Line-6 Updater = "Line6Updaterv1.03Installer.exe"

 

 

3 ) Download the Firehawk FX Firmware files to a local drive

 

 

"FW 1.10 = "Firehawk_FX_1_10_00.tmf'

 

"FW 1.20 = "Firehawk_FX_v1_20_00.tmf'

[TriPPleX]

I noticed the 'distorted fizzy' sound with the patch from JSwan23, I Hate Everything About You.  I was messing with the sound, it was kinda cool, then the next day the update came out.  I updated, then I got the tinny, fizzy sound instead of the darker chunky sound.  I plugged my guitar directly in my amp and the sound was clean and loud, so I went back to the FH and adjusted the guitar input and outputs just to make sure I wasn't over driving the amp input.  Sounded the same, just quieter.  

 

Not sure what's going on.  Hopefully, not all the patches are that way now.  Maybe it's just me. 

 

I'll mess around more on Sunday.

[lknick5150]

I just tried to update my firehawk to 1.20.00 via my PC.......it said "error while installing firmware update"....."Firmware update failed"........Now A B C D lights are flashing and Firehawk won't work?