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Is helix stable yet?


aerosol_d7
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I never felt like it was unstable. I've owned one since the first shipment was released. Two days after I got it, I had it programmed and took it to a band audition...that speaks to how much I trusted the Helix. The only issues I've had is trouble with updates and back up presets. That is a Mac/El Capitan issue though. As far as function, there was popping happening when switching between amps within a patch, but that is gone now. I heard of other issues that people had, but I think it could have been isolated to specific units because I never experienced issues. Last night was my first gig in the last few months, so first with my Helix. I had absolutely no issues. I ALWAYS have a back up rig, so I would have been covered. But I didn't have a single worry about the Helix holding up. 

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Hi,

 

After 2 months of use, I can say the(my) Helix unit itself is totally stable.

I have never experimented a sudden reset or panic, crash with the unit.

There are some bugs but they seem to be fixed progressively with the regular firmware and software updates.

Helix is obviously well built and has enough horse power to achieve any virtual setup you can think of.

It only lacks now a proper patch edition and management app in the computer world, but I have no doubt it is a question of a couple of months and more emulations, because there aren't that many for a unit of this price range and quality.

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I have used it on gigs five or six times, and never had an issue. Add about twice as many rehearsal sessions. I would say it's pretty stable -- though there have been reports of things going wrong, they seem to be fairly consistent with specific setups -- so if it doesn't give you problem at rehearsal, I'd feel pretty confident with it live.

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Once you have your patches built and use it to perform or play, it's stable. I did have a complete freeze on as late a version as 1.04.01 or 1.04.02, and I'm not sure what caused it, but I think I was working on a patch nearing the DSP limit. One thing you might want to be aware about is the spdif out, which for me drops all sound usually around 45 minutes after being turned on and lasts about 1-3 seconds. I'm using that output the exact same way as I did with my HD500X, which never had a problem. Others on this forum have mentioned problems with the spdif output.

 

So, for me it's stable, but missing features currently.

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Well, obviously there have been some people having issues with freezes or audio dropouts under certain circumstances, and it seems like most of those have been dealt with now. Some of these depends on very specific "recipes", so it could be that the majority of users just never experience these things. Personally, I haven't experienced anything like that since the 1.0 firmware. I would be confident playing live with my Helix.

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I completely trust Helix and I did many gigs with it already and no troubles at all. As long as you are careful NOT to use the Helix XLR outputs to plug it in a mixer where you cannot switch phantom power off. You just can't, you'll have to use the other outputs.

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3 gigs, so far, and countless hours playing it, no general freezes. Seems I've had a freeze shortly after a FW update, but don't recall the details, think it was early on in the FW life of the unit. I've had mine since the end of October.

 

I explored it for probably a month or more before I took it gigging -- needed to get used to it, set up my go to patches. I've been amazed with the descriptions of people waiting for it, getting it on a Friday, and gigging it on Saturday. Way too soon for me, it's not that plug & play in my opinion. 

 

I just recently set up a set list as a test bench, with a stock fx set, then reproduced it with each of the available amps to see how they played & sounded. Once I got my Global EQ set for my speaker, I've been very pleasantly surprised with the different models. Some are definitely not my cup of meat, but I can get decent sounds out of all of them. I need to revisit my 500(X) with the global EQ adjustment I've learned, as there were many amps that I was going "what the @#*& were they thinking? How would ANYONE think this sounds good?" Well, once you get your speaker closer to FRFR, it all makes more sense....

 

Dave

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In December I had a freeze and the Helix did not properly boot again (just showing this animation and the firmware info).

Resetting to factory settings did not work too so I had to send it to a service center.

 

Today the Helix froze while I was adjusting the FX Loops send level, I had to do a complete reset before

the device booted again.

 

Such stability issues are a real problem for  a device of that price-class. I hope the Line6 developers are working on this 

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In a way, I feel like this question is somewhat of a red herring. All you're going to hear is anecdotal evidence from a people who answer. It's not exactly useless, but it's pretty close. Is OS X stable? Yes, by all accounts it's been one of the most stable operating systems made. My wife, however, has had all sorts of lock ups and issues with her Mac and using the Adobe Creative Suite software. It doesn't mean that the overall stability changes, really. It's just there's always going to be edge cases.

 

Not discounting what anyone says regarding problems. The only thing I can say is if you're having lock up or freezes or other weirdness, the best thing you can do is open a support ticket and make Line 6 aware if it. Try to be as detailed as possible as to the recipe (if you can find one).

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The question was is it stable Phil

I can't use it as an audio interface with my MacBook and certain editing scenarios cause it to lock up

So I would say no

I have raised good tickets for both of these but that wasn't the question

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The Helix has been 100% rock-solid stable for me over approximately 150-200 hours of use in the last few months in these circumstances:

 

- As a standalone guitar + vocal processor

- As an audio interface with OSX 10.9 Mavericks using Logic 9 and CoreAudio built-in drivers

- As an audio interface with Windows 8 using Reaper and WASAPI drivers

 

The only issues I have had have been with ASIO drivers under Windows 8 (Reaper would crash); the Helix patch librarian application on OSX (it would scramble patch names vs. patch contents); and one time that I accidentally set up a MIDI feedback loop, which caused the Helix to stop responding to MIDI.

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The question was is it stable Phil

I can't use it as an audio interface with my MacBook and certain editing scenarios cause it to lock up

So I would say no

I have raised good tickets for both of these but that wasn't the question

 

I'm not saying there aren't any issues still to be solved. All I'm saying is I think it's hard to discern how many of these issues are isolated and which are widespread and affect the whole platform. From my perspective, things seem to be pretty settled down for the most part, but there are still some cases where there are problems. It seem like it's in the tamping down random hot spots phase rather than trying to put out a forest fire stage. That's all. Not making excuses or dismissing anyone's experience.

 

Let me put it this way? Is the HD series stable? It seems to be. I occasionally see people having freezes or start-up loops with it, though. Unfortunately, those sorts of things are always a possibility on devices that are running software. I think the issue is that there is literally an almost infinite permutation of keystrokes, knob twists, footswitch presses, etc. that people can do on these devices  There's always a chance that some unique combination will expose some well-hidden bug.

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I'm afraid we'll have to differ

I had it for less than 3 days when I discovered the two bugs I have reported

None of which have any fixes that I know of and 1 of which could have ended up doing a reboot onstage

I understand what you are saying. With complexity there are sacrifices and it will vary from person to person

For me I maintain I don't think it is ready yet

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In a way, I feel like this question is somewhat of a red herring. All you're going to hear is anecdotal evidence from a people who answer. It's not exactly useless, but it's pretty close...

 

Yup. I will tell you this "anecdotal evidence". I am a beta tester for the rack, so until a few days ago, I've been dealing with pre-release firmware, and even with THAT I found Helix to be totally stable for 7 or 8 church services so far (I work at a church so that's my "gig") and rehearsals, too.

 

Even the niggling little "bugs" that were there at the very beginning didn't get in the way of stability.

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