My fingers hurt, I blame Snapshots!

[ColonelForbin]

Yeah, so due to a variety of random bad luck in July I hadn't played guitar in about a month; broke the hiatus last night. Jammed my left thumb beginning of July, and got bit by a dog on left forearm about 2 weeks ago.

 

Anyway, to continue the cycle of pain I decided to do the 2.1 firmware update. All is well that ends well, but it failed on two direct attempts, one pre-downloaded the file attempt, until  I got a total boot failure. Yay!

 

At that point I hit ctrl-alt-esc, (windows 7) and loaded up the task manager and shut down every random process that I should have already shut down like they say to, but I forgot to check back ground process B.S., like iTunes helper, spotify loader, etc. For good measure since that PC is on a wireless internet connect, I stopped the streaming video I had going on the other PC, to ensure adequate bandwidth.

 

And then the update worked. Breathed a big sigh of relief!

 

Funny; it makes you wait for around 10 minutes while it rebuilds all your presets, then the instructions have you wipe all your presets, effectively undoing all that work/>? I am not complaining; I backed up the few presets I wanted to keep and did the global and preset reset thing again, and then spent the next five hours jamming out!

 

I put my pair of M-Audio BX5 speakers on top of my pair of L3m speakers. Ran 1/4" to the M-Audios (could also use XLR) and used L6Link to the L3m. Nice blend of not-too-insanely loud for home, but with a little more fullness and oomph than just the two BX5's.

 

My callouses are pretty much gone, so my fingers are like WTF was that? Snapshots is what that is!!! Love 'em. Still just scratching the surface, but have a pretty good idea about some things I want to try.

 

It's hard to describe to anyone still using a 'traditional' pedalboard. Meaning; yes pedal switchers are great in that they can provide preset switching, and newer complex units like the Boss can also switch sequence.

 

But that is where they end. Helix Snapshots is like a team of guys dedicated to changing your settings on each snapshot change; not just settings on your pedals - imagine reaching down and instantly changing or tweaking knobs on every stomp box on your board - instantly with no audio dropout... Now imagine another team of guys (or gals!) adjusting settings on your amp. 

 

FAR OUT!!!!!

 

Even just for subtle things; you can crank the gain up in an amp model across four snapshots, while balancing levels, adjusting EQ to compensate, channel level, etc. SO powerful. What is the real mind blower, is they had that designed in advance of the Helix release, and were just biding their time until it was ready to drop that on us.

 

Imagine what else they are sitting on, giggling about, thinking,"can't wait till we see their reactions to firmware 4.20!"  ;)

 

CHEERS LINE 6!!!!!!!!!!!

[duncann]

As a guitarist, it is of primary importance to protect the hands!

 

Snapshots are great. I honestly don't know what else they can really do to improve Helix aside from adding some missing filter effects and an autovolume.

[ColonelForbin]

As a guitarist, it is of primary importance to protect the hands!

 

Snapshots are great. I honestly don't know what else they can really do to improve Helix aside from adding some missing filter effects and an autovolume.

 

Yeah; I am behind the curve on figuring stuff out, or at least, getting to the point where any level of familiarity sets in to the extent that I notice anything that is 'missing', or not (yet) there. I realize they have some moving targets with some of the models that are being ironed out; quirks and such that are more a product of how options are programmed rather than any serious bug.

 

I think once the base code matures then they can focus up more on content, and it seems they are moving in that direction!

 

I just get too distracted playing and forget to dig into all the crazy deep options! I am going to build some patches from scratch, rethinking construction / design / etc with the Snapshots front and center to that process.

 

I've retro-fitted some existing patches with snapshots, but you are working backwards from other design choices; for example turning on or off a 'lead boost' switch, that in itself does several things can be advantageous, or a limit - depending on how much free-range per-effect control.

 

If you are ok with one button that does several things, and that button being grouped with other changes, then the layering becomes quite interesting - but the control of the effects can get a little quirky. If you have a single effect set to a multi-effect footswitch, then also set that single effect to it's own footswitch, it pulls it out of the multi-grouping, as I would guess it should based on the programming. Hence, working backwards from a patch that was done pre-snapshots can be challenging. 

 

I bought several of the Glenn DeLaune patches; I've tried to work Snapshots into those, and had some mixed results, mostly really good since the starting point of the patch is already awesome! in general, it's an excellent 'crash course' on how to make Snapshots work for you.

 

-The easiest analogy I can make, is the patch is your pedalboard, and amp, and speaker and microphone, in whichever combination you come up with.

 

-The Snapshots are all the various options you might 'dial in' on that rig to get a particular tone. Snapshots are tones within a certain available pallette of fx and amp controls.

 

And there is no way you want to redial all those analog pedals after you've dialed in a perfect tone! So much little tweaking, each adjustment impacting things down the chain and the overall 'tone'; not to mention moving cabinets and microphone placement.

 

It's the ultimate amp switcher; you can easily toss around what would be very heavy and possibly delicate; at the very least tempermental, 'real world' gear, in this virtual playground. Any other modelers out there let you switch between THREE amp models in a single patch, routing them per Snapshot into various IR or cabs? How about a FOUR channel amp patch>?

 

Yeah, no - just Helix actually! So, Kudos Line6!

 

~Helix is a Walk Off Grand Slam~

 

Now, where it gets deep is how then you can do more than just stomp on or off individual effects, or combinations of effects - which is certainly cool - but the ability to adjust parameters without turning effects or amps on/off goes way beyond that. You could use just the amp gain to achieve four snapshots of 

 

-clean

-funk

-crunch

-lead

 

just by tweaking the amp EQ, gain, and such - before you even dive into effects! I like how Glenn was using a variety of additional clean boost, delay, reverb, and general enhancement to the tone for his 'lead boost' switches; I think that being able to contain a stand-alone multi parameter toggle like that inside of a snapshot is what is super awesome! You get to keep your lead boost no matter which snapshot you are on; you don't always just want distorted or overdriven 'lead' - it represents a wide variety of tonal options, just 'louder' and more awesome sounding, to pop above the mix no matter whether clean, crunch, funk, blues, rock, soul, bluegrass - it's so stellar I don't even know how to wrap my brain around all the things it can do. 

For now I've been doing the four snapshots on bottom row, four effects / stomps (often 'lead boost' style grouped effects), with bank up/down for the far left. I set up anything else I might need 'stomp' control over on the secondary stomp mode; but for the most part get 90% of the way there with just the four snapshots as four different 'base' tones, with the four stomps on top row as the most likely 'need to toggle that' switches; though also a great place to do things like clean boost, lead boost, etc. though also good to keep it simple, with chorus, flanger, delay, reverb.

 

I tend to build the gain levels and overdrive/fuzz on/offs into the Snapshots, but also like to give individual OD and dist/fuzz and sometimes the compressor effects their own footswitches on the stomp mode page. that's where it gets tricky; some are your 'primary' delay/chorus/reverb, etc. which you can toggle on/off in any of the snapshots.

Then there can be this second layer of additional boost, delays, chorus, reverb, eq, and whatnot that only gets toggle on or off as a grouping of something like 'lead boost', that would be applicable to any of the four snapshots. IE, you might want a clean channel lead boost vs maybe a crunch 'clean' boost, that doesn't introduce new effects, but perhaps tightens up amp eq, or jacks up the channel volume a little; subtle like the tides, rise and fall across the snapshots! I don't like them to go from quiet to loud, it gets hard to go from raging lead back to a nice swirling clean tone when the volume also drops going clean, so I spend a fair bit of time trying to dial in those levels between snapshots, then use stuff like 'clean boost' or 'lead boost' across the board on all four, as a toggle on/off once inside the Snapshot, rather than as a result of switching to the snapshot.

 

Which then begs the question; so do you tell Helix to ignore the individual stomp on/off status when switching between snapshots, or preserve it? IE, you are on clean channel with lead boost on. if it ignores setting, then you change to another snapshot, it will turn the lead boost off. Or if you tell it to preserve the stomp changes, it will leave on any given effect or group of effects from one snap to the next... Both have their advantages and disadvantages, depending on what YOU are trying to do. It sounds cheesy - but this thing has wayyyy too many ways to go about achieving any given goal; there are many paths, intertwined - just pick one!

 

(Twist-A-Plot meets Choose-Your-Adventure!)

 

I find making myself like the 'horse with blinders' is a good approach; just get in the groove and go! Try not to look around too much and don't get spooked, just keep it cool, keep moving forward, clip-clop, clip-clop.

 

And ZZZZZZZZoooom there goes flying by a brand new Solar Vibes powered Tesla Helix Mark IV  :)

 

p.s.

Now I don't want to be remiss; I can't go mentioning 'walk off grand slam' without some cool distractifying content, so thanks YouTube!

 

 

[duncann]

It's still amazing to me just how much - in terms of options, routing, and different ways to achieve the same things - Line 6 has crammed into Helix while still somehow retaining the ability of a simple, cohesive, and extremely easy to use device. The people behind Helix went beyond designing and building a guitar processor to making something that's a work of art in it's own right and category.

 

If only more of the junk sold today had that sort of philosophy behind it...

[spikey]

I mangled/smashed the end of my right hand middle finger in between an 1800 pound Xray, and a wall a few years back. We were moving it the same as I had always done before for maintenance. It not cut but "blew out" the end of the finger, and caused me 4 stitches and a touchy finger on the end to this day. So- take care of those fingers boys and girls. 

[PiFromBRC]

Sore fingers are some of the most gratifying pain one can experience. 

[glideman]

Yeah, you damage a finger tip bad enough it's tender for life just about...