Helix Models you wish they would add...

[soundog]

Yes, agreed. Line 6 focus has been on guitar, but the vocal processing potential of the Helix is untapped. It could easily surpass the FX found on the TC Helicon vocal processors. 

[mileskb]

For those looking for a partiular amp that's NOT currently on the Helix, I suggest this.  First remember the goal is generally to find the "mic'd" sound of an amp.   When we listed to our favorite guitarist, we're listening to a "recording"..   when you're at a show, you're listening to the mic'd amp.  Just keep that in the back of your mind.

 

1. Determine the configuration of the amp you are looking for.  12AX7 into 6L6's or EL84's, etc.. and note the type of controls such as gain stage and EQ
2. Find the model in the Helix that is closest to this configuration
3. Add appropriate blocks for gain, eq, reverb, etc..
4. Adjust to taste.

 

You'll be surprised at how close you can get to the mic'd sound of the original amp.

 

 

[PeterHamm]

Yes, agreed. Line 6 focus has been on guitar, but the vocal processing potential of the Helix is untapped. It could easily surpass the FX found on the TC Helicon vocal processors. 

 

But...

 

I hope that if there's any chance that development of the guitar stuff for Helix gets stifled that they don't make this a priority. Helix, to me, is for guitar and bass. To make it so that it does too many other things... then people will complain that they can't do 8 FX on their guitar while they do 6 on their vox because there is so much stuff in that chain that hogs CPU bandwidth.

 

a separate dedicated vocal processor is, to me, a wiser choice for performing anyways.

[shanecgriffo]

i like the vocoder idea and maybe a talk box - like they have on the new tc voicelive .. apart from that maybe a fender blues junior amp and anything really.. just want more 😉

[soundog]

a separate dedicated vocal processor is, to me, a wiser choice for performing anyways.

 

Totally disagree. I wisely bought this unit because it had XLR microphone input as well as guitar and Variax input. Right now its 99% guitar effects. Those of us who use microphone input are just asking for a measly 5% or so. Besides, the user decides which blocks they want to use, so it doesn't hog a guitarists bandwidth.

[Lachdanan0121]

Totally disagree. I wisely bought this unit because it had XLR microphone input as well as guitar and Variax input. Right now its 99% guitar effects. Those of us who use microphone input are just asking for a measly 5% or so. Besides, the user decides which blocks they want to use, so it doesn't hog a guitarists bandwidth.

I have to agree with you here again soundog. We are not asking for much, just a good vocoder and a handful of other effects. If the guitar focused stuff gets delayed I doubt it would be for much at all. They released a firmware with 3 Matchless amps and 9 new effects models.  I mean come on...  :P

 

Why even have a mic input if you don't have any effects focused on that? It even is supposed to have good mic PreAmps. 

 

In the studio this would do great for some decent to high quality vocal focused effects.  Just a handful.  It would be a wonderful wet monitor for recording dry, (just like guitar) and having it all in one unit means less ADA conversion OR points in the signal chain that invite interference/noise in the signal.  

[soundog]

The singing guitarists are restless tonight... 

[HonestOpinion]

I think I agree with both sides of the fence here. I solely use my Helix for the guitar (I use the PA for mixing vocals), therefor I want the focus to stay on more effects, a few more amps, latency, spillover, editor improvement, bug fixes, and other guitar related features. However, I can see where a singer/songwriter would want a little more attention paid to the microphone, not that you can't get a good vocal sound by throwing some reverb, delay, or a host of special effects into your microphone path now. I usually play out with my band but I do occasionally play a singer/songwriter type scenario and I can see the Helix as the perfect all-in-one solution for walking in, plugging into one or two powered speakers or even someone else's PA and being completely self contained with a killer guitar and vocal sound. Vocals on the Helix are extremely low priority for me but I don't think they should be totally ignored and if you are doing the solo or maybe even acoustic duo thing the Helix could be used quite nicely without a mixer.

 

I can also see some players wanting to take control over their own vocal sound and simply feeding it to the soundman. Might be particularly useful if you regularly find yourself at the mercy of an unfamiliar soundman or sound system or like to throw strange Devo like effects on your voice.

[Lachdanan0121]

I think I agree with both sides of the fence here. I solely use my Helix for the guitar (I use the PA for mixing vocals), therefor I want the focus to stay on more effects, a few more amps, latency, spillover, editor improvement, bug fixes, and other guitar related features.  However, I can see where a singer/songwriter would want a little more attention paid to the microphone, not that you can't get a good vocal sound by throwing some reverb, delay, or a host of special effects into your microphone path now. I usually play out with my band but I do occasionally play a singer/songwriter type scenario and I can see the Helix as the perfect all-in-one solution for walking in, plugging into one or two powered speakers or even someone else's PA and being completely self contained with a killer guitar and vocal sound. Vocals on the Helix are extremely low priority for me but I don't think they should be totally ignored and if you are doing the solo or maybe even acoustic duo thing the Helix could be used quite nicely without a mixer.

Pretty much.

 

Personally, mixed with whats already currently available on the Helix, I would be completely content in this department with the Helix if it just adds these 3.

1. Vocoder (that can be controlled by MIDI as well)

2. Doubler. 

3. Harmonizer much like Soundog was describing in an earlier post.

 

I don't expect these in the next update either lol. However just one, or possibly two, of them before years end would be quite a treat, and shouldn't eat in too much to other developments. But thats just my wish. I still want other guitar (and bass) goodies to be added, and improved upon just like all you guys as well. ;)

[HonestOpinion]

Pretty much.

 

Personally, mixed with whats already currently available on the Helix, I would be completely content in this department with the Helix if it just adds these 3.

1. Vocoder (that can be controlled by MIDI as well)

2. Doubler. 

3. Harmonizer much like Soundog was describing in an earlier post.

 

I don't expect these in the next update either lol. However just one, or possibly two, of them before years end would be quite a treat, and shouldn't eat in too much to other developments. But thats just my wish. I still want other guitar (and bass) goodies to be added, and improved upon just like all you guys as well. ;)

 

These would be great additions. I love doubling for thickening up vocals, this can probably be achieved now by using the "Simple Pitch" effect by setting it to an Interval of "0" with a mild delay and adding or subtracting a few cents; or maybe even the "Dual Pitch raised a few cents on one pitch and lowered a few cents on the other for vocal tripling.  ;)

[soundog]

Actually, you can get a pretty decent vocal doubler doing just as you say. But a vocal harmonizer is needed (with formants to avoid chipmunk effect), and with hard tune. And Lachdanan wants his vocoder!

[surfsup1955]

One acoustic guitar amp, like the Fishman Artist.

+1... that is my goto acoustic amp I own the 60w and the 180w versions.

[jeremyn]

An acoustic guitar amp is basically a mini (or big) PA speaker with instrument level inputs, some EQ control, and maybe some combination of effects like compression/reverb/chorus/delay. The Helix has all of that already.

 

For acoustic tone, less is usually more. But, there are a couple of things that would enhance the acoustic guitar experience:

 

1. An 'acoustic body' cab. Sometimes a little bit of guitar body resonance can help (eg. Fishman Aura), and the IR module is great for that. I'd like to see a built in 'acoustic cab' that allowed you to dial in a good body image for a given guitar - kind of like how that Bodilizer application works where you can dial up/down various body parameters (like depth, hardness, width, etc) to modify the body resonance to taste (rather than a fixed IR that can only be blended to taste).

 

2. An automatic feedback filter. This is useful when the volume goes up and the guitar starts feeding back. Being able to just stomp a button to automatically find and kill the howl by setting a notch filter would definitely be helpful in those situations.

 

For acoustic guitar, the Helix already seems to have everything else.

[surfsup1955]

For me, the Matchless, Channel 1 or Jump -> either the Dr. Z 2 x 12 or a dual cab with the Dr. Z on one side and the 4 x 10 on the other... is my go to... for every guitar and purpose... I will also use the /13, Shiva (gain WAY down), and Dr. Z amps mostly... but that Matchless is silly amazing.

 

free acoustic IRs here.

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1XgNa5vH3j1ZkVoTFJLQ241WTg/view

 

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/f2qdh9jtcl6s5cv/AACRlEt-UVeLAhuvV4YwMY7Wa?dl=0

 

All derived, I think, from Aura, but work tremendously well. There may be others out there now. I'm so delighted with these ones I stopped looking.

Thx, will be check'n these out..

[thedavidholden]

Now that we have the DC30, as far as boutique stuff goes, sounds like a Dumble OD style amp, and a Two Rock/Steel String Singer type amp would be good additions. I would also not mind having the Mesa Mark 1 in place of the Dumble OD if I had to choose. Personally a Jubilee model would be nice (Bonamassa cravings). An attempt to achieve the S.I.R. Marshall Slash used for AFD.

[arislaf]

A line 6 clean and a line 6 A class amp would be awesome also.

[gunpointmetal]

honestly, I hope more vocal FX are the LAST thing they worry about before they implement better MIDI integration, more guitar/bass based effects, except for MAYBE a cool mic pre model or something. This thing is the VoiceLive, which is designed for both. This is a guitar amp modeler with effects and a recording interface/mix input added as a convenience feature (I think) so you don't have to switch interfaces/USB dongles to go between guitar and microphone recording. There is soooooo much more stuff for the instrument end of things to do, that while cool, vocal use is probably a very tiny percentage of the live application of the device. 

[Lachdanan0121]

Honestly, the unit needs some vocal specific effects. I agree that it is a guitar processor first, and that is where the grand majority of the focus should be. However, a few vocal FX will not hurt. That being said I would rather them work on other things first. Like the midi improvements, bug fixes, and HX reverb. But why even have a mic input, mic pre and phantom power if there is little to nothing specifically geared for that in the box? At that point it becomes a waste of resouces, dev costs, and cost to the customer. There are already a decent amount of the guitar effects that work well enough for wet monitoring, but I repeat a few geared towards that WILL NOT hurt, especially once most of the bugs, and function are worked out.

[gunpointmetal]

Yeah, once all the MIDI integration and instrument stuff is maxed out, add as much as crap as they want! 

[PeterHamm]

For recording vocals, I would never use FX from a guitar processor.

For live, I generally rely on the board, too.

I don't get the desire for vocal FX, I very very much want to never see them in here at the expense of ANYTHING else.

[FarleyUK]

Not so much of a particular amp, but it'd be VERY cool if there were more options (probably via the editor) to 'mod' the amps. I know we can adjust the bias etc., but if there was a way to tinker more with them (so, for example, you could apply a Cameron / Jose mod to the JCM800 etc.), that would be immense.

[Digital_Igloo]

...before they implement better MIDI integration...

 

Like what?

[gunpointmetal]

There are multiple threads here explaining various shortcomings in MIDI functionality with other gear. Unless they've all been fixed in Firmware already that I don't know about.

[Digital_Igloo]

There are multiple threads here explaining various shortcomings in MIDI functionality with other gear. Unless they've all been fixed in Firmware already that I don't know about.

 

Any MIDI bugs should be reported to CS. Any MIDI-related feature requests should be posted to IdeaScale. Discussing either here is totally cool; just know that forum posts are a much slower and less efficient way to get things implemented; in fact, there's no guarantee we'll see it at all.

[CBTL]

Digital igloo, please can we have a vocal formant filter talkbox type thing pretty pretty please with sugar on top. Something like a Little Dipper 2.0! If you grant my wish I will ensure you get everything you want for Christmas, I have a deal with the big man 😉

[Digital_Igloo]

Digital igloo, please can we have a vocal formant filter talkbox type thing pretty pretty please with sugar on top. Something like a Little Dipper 2.0! If you grant my wish I will ensure you get everything you want for Christmas, I have a deal with the big man

 

IdeaScale, my good man, IdeaScale. Otherwise, this happens:

 

Digital Igloo: Hey, we should add a vocal formant filter talk box type thing.

Everyone Else at Line 6: Huh? I've never heard that request before.

DI: Someone on the Line 6 forums asked about it.

EEaL6: Yeah, sure they did.

[CBTL]

IdeaScale, my good man, IdeaScale. Otherwise, this happens:

 

 

Digital Igloo: Hey, we should add a vocal formant filter talk box type thing.

Everyone Else at Line 6: Huh? I've never heard that request before.

DI: Someone on the Line 6 forums asked about it.

EEaL6: Yeah, sure they did.

I do believe there have been several ideascales for a talkbox effect. Just thought I would chance my hand with a naughty bribe 🙄

[drspankle]

The ability to rename the bl**dy amps and pedals to what they're meant to emulate! I get why the Helix ships with non-copyrighted names, but I'd like to change them.

[jpdennis]

Helix version of M13 effects not currently on the Helix.  They could call it the Melix ... wait that name sounds wrong on so many levels!  OK, just add the effects (auto-volume, Slow Gate [OK, not on the M13 but you can't blame a guy for trying], and many of the FX types on the M13 not currently on the Helix .. that part I was serious about).

 

Dennis

[hideout]

But...

 

I hope that if there's any chance that development of the guitar stuff for Helix gets stifled that they don't make this a priority. Helix, to me, is for guitar and bass. To make it so that it does too many other things... then people will complain that they can't do 8 FX on their guitar while they do 6 on their vox because there is so much stuff in that chain that hogs CPU bandwidth.

 

a separate dedicated vocal processor is, to me, a wiser choice for performing anyways.

 

 

Indeed!! As much as I love convenience, diverting the Helix's focus from guitar and bass to add features for vocals would stunt the continued improvement of its sonics and usability.  There are plenty of products already available for vocalists.  Buy one of those.  No need to dilute the Helix's core purpose. 

[hideout]

Helix version of M13 effects not currently on the Helix.  They could call it the Melix ... wait that name sounds wrong on so many levels!  OK, just add the effects (auto-volume, Slow Gate [OK, not on the M13 but you can't blame a guy for trying], and many of the FX types on the M13 not currently on the Helix .. that part I was serious about).

 

Dennis

 

Or the Felix!   :lol:

 

All kidding aside, I think it's a brilliant idea.  Give it the same dual processing power as the Helix and it could be the answer for all those who wrongly bought the Helix for the wrong purpose - for effects only.  It would likely be able to do Polyphonic Pitch Shifting quite well!

[jpdennis]

Or the Felix!   :lol:

 

All kidding aside, I think it's a brilliant idea.  Give it the same dual processing power as the Helix and it could be the answer for all those who wrongly bought the Helix for the wrong purpose - for effects only.  It would likely be able to do Polyphonic Pitch Shifting quite well!

 

As long as the Helix absorbs the best of the HD/Pod/M-series effects and amps!  B)  Now how can I spend those royalty checks?

[hideout]

As long as the Helix absorbs the best of the HD/Pod/M-series effects and amps!  B)  Now how can I spend those royalty checks?

 

 

I would expect it to exceed the quality of all of those devices.

[hideout]

The singing guitarists are restless tonight...

I am a singing guitarist and I absolutely do not want anything diluting the Helix's capabilities as a guitar processor. When playing live, what my mixer provides is everything I need for my voice. In the studio, everything's covered too. Besides, when you're playing live, what if you need to adjust something on the vocal sound? Are you really gonna bend down to the floor every time you need to? At times vocals can require several adjustments so you'll be bending down quite often. Not for me, thanks.

[soundog]

Like what?

I think the MIDI support is pretty darned good. But Tap Tempo via MIDI CC is buggy, and needs fixing.

 

MIDI clock support would be icing on the cake, at some point in time. (Get it?)

[markman87]

I am a singing guitarist and I absolutely do not want anything diluting the Helix's capabilities as a guitar processor. When playing live, what my mixer provides is everything I need for my voice. In the studio, everything's covered too. Besides, when you're playing live, what if you need to adjust something on the vocal sound? Are you really gonna bend down to the floor every time you need to? At times vocals can require several adjustments so you'll be bending down quite often. Not for me, thanks.

No, you use pedal edit mode :D

 

Anyway, don't have an opinion on the vocal thing. I'm looking forward to seeing what will make it to Helix in the future. Already a fantastic product, and it just keeps on improving.

[jasdadgad]

If I were Mr. Yamaha, I would have a problem with including some of the more popular effects from other Line 6 products (e.g., autovolume) in the Helix.

 

Robbing Peter to pay Paul.  Taking money out of one pocket and putting it in the other.

 

I doubt they want the $1500 Helix to compete with the M-13 or DL-4 or whatever.

[hideout]

No, you use pedal edit mode :D

 

Anyway, don't have an opinion on the vocal thing. I'm looking forward to seeing what will make it to Helix in the future. Already a fantastic product, and it just keeps on improving.

 

 

Can't see what I'm editing well enough in pedal edit mode.

[markman87]

Can't see what I'm editing well enough in pedal edit mode.

I like it when I sit on a chair. Saves my back. But I don't use it for vocals other than recording. But the flexibility Helix has, sets it apart in my opinion.

[gunpointmetal]

If I were Mr. Yamaha, I would have a problem with including some of the more popular effects from other Line 6 products (e.g., autovolume) in the Helix.

 

Robbing Peter to pay Paul.  Taking money out of one pocket and putting it in the other.

 

I doubt they want the $1500 Helix to compete with the M-13 or DL-4 or whatever.

I don't think, even it had ALL of the features of both of those devices, it would be a competitor for either. There's still a MASSIVE price/features difference. All it would do would be to add value to Helix, not detract from the value of either of those devices.