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Boot time?


cybersnyder
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I'm having difficulty searching the forum, but I did try.  I'm wondering what the boot time is for the Helix.  The time from power on to "I'm playing".  I haven't had a chance to try one yet and I'm concerned after seeing a bunch of synths that take 60 seconds to boot.  Thought this would be the best place to ask.  Appreciate it!

 

PS / Is this complete overkill for bass?

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21.67 seconds.

 

No.

 

I use it for bass and guitar. And it's really great for bass. But it depends on what you think is overkill and what you want out of your tools you connect your bass to. For someone that only will ever play one single tone ever, I guess that would be overkill.

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The only issue I could see is if you are playing in a venue with a limiter

I had this with the M20D

If it tripped the boot time was horrendous compared to an analogue desk

Next time a UPS sorted the issue but that's the only problem I can think of unless there is a competitive set up and breakdown scene for guitar players that I'm unaware of ..

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21.67 seconds.

 

No.

 

I use it for bass and guitar. And it's really great for bass. But it depends on what you think is overkill and what you want out of your tools you connect your bass to. For someone that only will ever play one single tone ever, I guess that would be overkill.

 

Mine boots in 21.62, man. I'm better than you.

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If I needed a faster boot up than 22 seconds I guess I'd stick with analog pedals into a solid state amp. You may come to that same conclusion after you look at the boot times of other modelers.

 

Although iirc, HD 500 boots up much much faster. But, again... I don't need to worry about it unless there's a power problem on stage, and if that's the case, 22 seconds is probably the least of my concerns.

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Mine boots in 21.62, man. I'm better than you.

 

Uh oh. Must improve my reaction time with the stop watch, or else my guitar playing will suffer as a result.

 

 

Although iirc, HD 500 boots up much much faster. But, again... I don't need to worry about it unless there's a power problem on stage, and if that's the case, 22 seconds is probably the least of my concerns.

 

The HD500X is much quicker: 6.50 seconds.

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I play at NFL games with very short setup times.  If I had to reset power or the plug was pulled anywhere along the line, 22 seconds is an eternity and I can't say "give me 15 seconds, almost there."  It's a fringe case, for sure.  

 

You need an UPS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uninterruptible_power_supply.

Or a very loud acoustic guitar with a bullhorn  B) ;)

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Oops.  I should have said 'comparable' modeler.

 

That's interesting that you bring that up. When I first got Helix I thought the HD was comparable to Helix, as far as sound quality.. This morning, I played through the HD after it sat there since I got Helix, and was completely floored how much different it sounds and feels. I couldn't believe it. So you're absolutely correct, in my view, when you say the HD and Helix are not comparable.

 

I wonder how long the AX8 takes to boot up. That unit would be comparable.

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Digital_Igloo..... you have just opened pandoras box, old boy. Haha. Shall I set the ball rolling or will it get me banned. EDITOR!!!! ......please. No pretty please or even pretty please with bells on.

Yes, the editor is next. In fact, we've had to defer a bunch of stuff we wanted to get in by now because it'd push the editor back even farther.

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Was thinking on the drive into work this morning, maybe I could run the Helix in an A/B loop switch and put a SansAmp in the other loop.  Then I would have analog backup if anything happened.  I'm not being hard on Line 6, but it's a computer and as an IT pro, computers fail, there will always be firmware 1.x.x +1 that has fixes.  It's just the nature of anything beyond 100 lines of code.  I like the UPS backup idea, but logistically that wouldn't work for what I needed.  Anyways, just thought I'd update with my latest thought.

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This reminds me of that episode of Seinfeld when George wanted to move the Frogger game while keeping it powered up... You just need to find a "rogue electrician". :)

 

Your idea above seems to be a good solution to me.

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  • 2 years later...

Old thread, but was curious if my Helix was in the ballpark. With firmware 2.52, my boot time is 17.5 seconds.

 

 

Just tested. Mine is even longer 20.08 seconds. Rack, latest firmware 2.53.

 

I'm trying REALLY hard to imagine something that matters less than boot-up time...

Ergggkh!.....grunt!.... arrrrrgh!

Nope, can't be done.

 

If you have to restart on a gig, it's a big deal. And I find it a bit long to be honest.

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Yeah, it's rare, but happens, even when you play only 30 or 40 gigs a year like me. Some rube kicks out a power cord, or you trip a GFCI circuit, or overload a breaker.

 

I agree, not a big deal...but a deal, nonetheless.

 

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Although shortening boot time is always a laudable goal in pretty much any device, given the choice, I prefer an emphasis on stability. That way for the most part I don't have to be concerned about boot time and restarts. I have found the Helix to be very stable across many shows. Maybe I have just gotten lucky but I don't ever remember having the Helix fail in the middle of a song or even between songs. If it did I would restart it and and try to divert the audience's attention to the keyboard player. :) I find the bootup time relatively negligible given what the device delivers once it is on.

 

To me the setup time I save with the Helix due to its consolidation and simplicity far outweighs the 20 seconds it takes to start versus an analog board which might come on immediately.  The cabling routing confusion and cable failures on complicated analog board setups have cost me way more time while setting up than the Helix ever has. I can see where there may be certain corner cases like playing during an NFL halftime where boot time becomes critical but I personally have never had a gig where I did not have the luxury of at least enough time to start my Helix. If I am late for a gig or have extremely limited setup time, the Helix's boot time is the last of my setup worries. If the device goes out due to a loss of power and that is going to be a career impacting problem with a particular gig, I would bring a UPS or if necessary just use something with an instant boot time. If I had enough setup time I might bring a fast-booting option as a backup on an A/B switch. If all else fails you can always learn to 'scat' your guitar parts vocally. ;)

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  • 7 months later...

I have an issue with boot time, but it's not the usual ~20 second boot time, it's only after restoring from a backup or after a firmware update. When I do either of those things, the next time I boot the Helix it takes more like five minutes to boot up! It says it's updating the patches. I can understand why it might take that long after a firmware update, but why doesn't it just take care of that at the time of the update? The display cheerily says "Update completed!", and the Helix operates normally. But then when I power down, take it to the gig, and power back up, it does this extremely long boot.

 

This happened to me last night at a gig where we had to strike the stage for the opening act and then set up again and play in about a minute. Ordinarily that wouldn't have been a problem, but I had restored from a backup between setup and our set, so I ended up standing there like an idiot waiting for the Helix to boot up while the band played the first entire tune without me.

 

Again, I can understand why the system would have to perform this process, but why not have it do it at the time of the update, not the next time you power up?

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As a guy who regularly goes to shows, I have to say even 30 seconds doesn't matter at all. If you're a reasonably skilled performer/lead singer you ought to be able to keep the audience entertained for well over that just by interacting with the audience.

 

I get it feels like an eternity, but that probably has way more to do with internal nervousness than an audience who is actually running out of patience.

 

Edit: And to the guy above, I mean, I'm sure it was an accident, but some of that fault seems to be on your band members for not making sure everyone is ready.

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57 minutes ago, mdoolin said:

I have an issue with boot time, but it's not the usual ~20 second boot time, it's only after restoring from a backup or after a firmware update. When I do either of those things, the next time I boot the Helix it takes more like five minutes to boot up! It says it's updating the patches. I can understand why it might take that long after a firmware update, but why doesn't it just take care of that at the time of the update? The display cheerily says "Update completed!", and the Helix operates normally. But then when I power down, take it to the gig, and power back up, it does this extremely long boot.

 

This happened to me last night at a gig where we had to strike the stage for the opening act and then set up again and play in about a minute. Ordinarily that wouldn't have been a problem, but I had restored from a backup between setup and our set, so I ended up standing there like an idiot waiting for the Helix to boot up while the band played the first entire tune without me.

 

Again, I can understand why the system would have to perform this process, but why not have it do it at the time of the update, not the next time you power up?

 

Is it possible the backup is from an earlier firmware version that what you presently have on Helix?

 

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Just to play devils advocate on this old thread....

 

20 seconds is less time than it takes for a tube amp to warm up enough to play it... and that always seems acceptable to most guitar players. It's also a lot less time than it takes to "trace and replace" a bad cable or connection on a traditional pedal board and is just slightly longer than making a guitar switch when a string breaks. S&#! happens sometimes! 

 

IMO... the only time a 20 second boot would be an issue for me is if I forgot to power up before the count begins. If the gig was that important I'd be on a UPS.

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Yes, it might well be a backup from a previous firmware version. Again, I don't have a problem with a long update process, it can take overnight as far as I'm concerned. I just don't think it should wait until the next time I power up to do it. It should do all its business at the time of the update, and operate normally the next time I run it.

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3 hours ago, mdoolin said:

.... I just don't think it should wait until the next time I power up to do it. It should do all its business at the time of the update, and operate normally the next time I run it.

Every time Helix powers up it looks for any potentially problematic presets - namely those that have not yet been rebuilt with the currently installed firmware - that may have been loaded since the last startup and rebuilds those presets. This is important because it ensures that all presets are structurally compatible with the installed firmware thereby pre-empting and preventing serious problems (like a system crash or loss of data) that can result from corrupt (e.g structurally incompatible) presets.

 

That's what happens automatically immediately after a firmware update since the system knows it needs to trigger the restart/rebuild process at that time. However the system designers needed to make a decision about when to rebuild presets in general since any time a new preset is loaded it could potentially be incompatible. Should the system pause (i.e. no sound and a second or two delay) every time you load a single new preset so that it can rebuild that one preset? That would probably be a very annoying interruption in your workflow during a heavy editing session.  So a reasonable decision, I think, was made: scan and rebuild presets as necessary during every system startup.

 

That means, unavoidably with the current design, loading a previously saved backup from older firmware will trigger this rebuilding process at the next startup. A corollary lesson from this is that it is good practice to manually shut down and restart Helix after loading a bunch of new presets or setlists - or especially a full backup since it takes a while - that were built in older firmware. This will force those presets to be rebuilt before they can cause potential problems during a heavy editing session - or especially a live gig. As a general rule this should become a habit: load all desired older presets all at once at the beginning of your editing session then restart Helix to do the editing.

 

Now that it has happened once you can manage the timing in future. It's a necessary step to avoid glitches that I recall used to happen occasionally before this process was introduced.

 

To illustrate, try loading a setlist from older firmware into HX Edit. Then shut down HX Edit and Helix. Now restart Helix and watch as the presets are rebuilt. It is operating normally, as you wish, to prevent potential problems.

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