Can footswitches do this?

[zooey]

(Don't have a Helix yet, this might be obvious if I did...)

 

For an amp with several overdrives in front of it, can some footswitches be set up to turn each drive pedal on, and the the others off?

 

I think I maybe read here that each effect can only be controlled by one footswitch. If that's true, then it's not possible, which would be a shame.

 

Do I have that right? Hopefully not.

[HonestOpinion]

(Don't have a Helix yet, this might be obvious if I did...)

 

For an amp with several overdrives in front of it, can some footswitches be set up to turn each drive pedal on, and the the others off?

 

I think I maybe read here that each effect can only be controlled by one footswitch. If that's true, then it's not possible, which would be a shame.

 

Do I have that right? Hopefully not.

 

You do indeed have that right although there are some limited routing workarounds that allow you to, for instance, bypass around a pedal or turn a distortion pedal's drive parameter down and level up, effectively making it transparent. The Helix needs the ability to create scenes but they have heard that from others and myself for months now.

[floyd99]

this would be an awesome feature.. being able to "group" effects blocks together such that only one block in the "group" is active at a time, and hitting another member of the group automatically turns off the other.  I think others have requested this too.

[fukuri]

There is a one to many relationship Each effect can only be controlled by one footswitch but one footswitch can control many effects

So you can have a footswitch that switches one drive on and another two off

What you can't do is have another one that switches on just that drive

I can imagine it could get hellishly confusing if you allowed a many to many relationship between pedals and footswitches

[mikisb]

I think - if i understood right, fukuri hits the point.

The possibility to do what zooey would like to have would'nt make footswitch assingning easier for more basic use. Just for my brain, the helix offers rather to much possibilities than to less. I have the same thinking about the number of different addditional amps some call for as i would prefer 20 pretty good amps than 100. With to much possibilities, i get rather lost. All the things in the Helix has so much parameters to tewak, that one should always find a way to do it with the existing toolset.

 

What i would do if i wanted the same setup with different distortions: Well, the Helix offers so much slots to store - I would duplicate that basic tone to a second, third...slot, modify each slot with the desired distortion is set to on by default and thats is. So i could switch easily between different distortion pedals with the advatage to tewak some other parameters to match this specific pedal better.

 

I think that a lot of the wishes to combine a lot of things on one footswitch (wich make it more difficult to use the system) comes out of a time where slots or presets... where rare and therefore precious. We are all used to this kind of thinking but times has changed - and possibilities to do things has increased a lot ;)

[zooey]

Too bad. I get that that kind of flexibility could be confusing, so it really needs to be set up to be as easy as possible to manage.

 

I gets worse. With my Amplitube rigs, I sometimes want to turn several stomps on and off together, like an EQ-distortion-EQ chain, which Amplitube can do in response to a MIDI controller. It can also toggle between the configured min and max values when that controller is seen (rather than use the controller value itself), and/or reverse the sense of a controller (switch the min and max values). All of which means a single controller number can turn some things on and other things off. It has a whole UI for setting these things up, and you can create both global and pre-preset controller-to-stomp-parameter linkages.

 

The way Amplitube handles this is pretty awesomely flexible, and to be honest, not really confusing at all, once you figure out how the UI works.

 

In an ideal world, Helix could do something similar. Without that, you can have sexy color-coded labels on your footswitches, but you still have to do the multiple-footswitch tap dance between the verse and the chorus.

 

Any idea of such a thing is being considered, or with what priority?

[jeremyn]

This where some kind of 'scene' snapshot would come in handy. You set the effects the way you want and assign the current configuration to a scene snapshot. Then just assign the snapshot trigger to a button.

[zooey]

This where some kind of 'scene' snapshot would come in handy. You set the effects the way you want and assign the current configuration to a scene snapshot. Then just assign the snapshot trigger to a button.

Sounds like, wait for it, a "preset" !

 

Of course saving whole presets for this sort of thing gives you completely flexibility and control, and I may end up going that way, at least some of the time. Part of the question is how you footswitch it, and how you organize it in all in your head. I'm certainly not going to remember hundreds of presets, seems much more feasible to know 10, and have the stomps each on comes with labeled by their scribble strips.

 

Before Helix, heading towards Amplitube and Scuffham, I'd been thinking about one of those big 18-button plus bank select MIDI footswitches, probably set up as 10 patches, each with 5 stomp options. (Forking expensive things, those are...) Frankly, Helix doesn't have enough footswitches for my taste, may use an external MIDI footswitch with it for that reason.

[jeremyn]

Sounds like, wait for it, a "preset" !

 

Of course saving whole presets for this sort of thing gives you completely flexibility and control, and I may end up going that way, at least some of the time. Part of the question is how you footswitch it, and how you organize it in all in your head. I'm certainly not going to remember hundreds of presets, seems much more feasible to know 10, and have the stomps each on comes with labeled by their scribble strips.

 

Before Helix, heading towards Amplitube and Scuffham, I'd been thinking about one of those big 18-button plus bank select MIDI footswitches, probably set up as 10 patches, each with 5 stomp options. (Forking expensive things, those are...) Frankly, Helix doesn't have enough footswitches for my taste, may use an external MIDI footswitch with it for that reason.

 

The difference between a 'snapshot' within a preset and another preset, is that the software doesn't need to re-load any new effects or amp blocks. And therefore, won't have that discontinuity that happens when changing patches (see the other threads regarding patch delay for why something like this is useful).

 

But, I suppose that within a preset, you could still use an external midi controller to fire off/on all the individual effects that you need.

[zooey]

Understood, good point about blank-out time changing presets. I'd like to think that wouldn't be too bad IRL, but I know many people find that it is.

 

Also, I lived with the multiple-footswitch tapdance for years, and all those stomp combinations gives you tons of flexibility in an easy-to-understand format

 

Regardless of anything else, I'm super excited about a rig consisting of nothing but a guitar, Helix, and one or two powered FRFR boxes. I've designed and built some pretty complex full custom setups back in the day, really would prefer simple and stock today. (Leaving aside my guitar anyway...) Definitely going to see how working with just Helix feels before convincing myself I need *anything* additional.

[HonestOpinion]

It is unfortunate to see people characterizing scene functionality as "too confusing". It is actually easier to use than convoluted routing schemes and has been successfully implemented and embraced by the users who have access to it on other MFX. Even if it was too complicated to implement it on the Helix's physical interface it would be great to be able to load scenes from a well designed editor page.  For those who find it too confusing they could opt not to use it.

[mikisb]

Not so be misunderstood: I don't think that the Helix itself is confusing. I think the inverse, that the Helix offers a huge amount of possibilities with the best usability i can imagine. What tends to confuse me is just the endless amount of possibilities and how i get "my" sound with - perhaps for the reason of my age ;)

Could anybody please invent a kind of brian scanner wich is just modelling the sound i have in mind? ;)