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any thing in helix you think sucks?


shanecgriffo
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There is a usb issolater you can buy. Can't remember the name of it...I've been using it for about a year now. Sucks cause you need the expensive multi channel one.

Tape over the Ground pin on the usb connector is a free diy hack to lift the ground. Haven't had any problems as a result. But with the expense of the Helix this SHOULD NOT be necessary. Was very frustrated untl I found the hack.

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Tape over the Ground pin on the usb connector is a free diy hack to lift the ground. Haven't had any problems as a result. But with the expense of the Helix this SHOULD NOT be necessary. Was very frustrated untl I found the hack.

 

There's not necessarily anything Line 6 can do... I suppose they could give out USB isolators with the Helix (Arturia does this with some of its devices), but ground loops are simply something that can happen whenever you're connecting multiple devices that have individual connections to ground. Each piece of equipment is at a slightly different voltage potential, so nuisance currents starts flowing, and that comes through as noise.

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Tell you something else i think sucks. The fact that anything less than 11% on the mix control for effects, is pretty much off.

 

The thing that exacerbates this is that for several of the effects the taper is not gradual enough. They seem to become audible all of a sudden at 11-13% and then there is not a gradual enough change in the direct to effected mix. Sort of like the difference between a linear and logarithmic expression pedal taper. The mix control becomes a little to much of an on/off control rather than a subtle and gradually increasing mix control. Might be the nature of the beast but I have noticed this issue particularly on the delays.

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The thing that exacerbates this is that for several of the effects the taper is not gradual enough. They seem to become audible all of a sudden at 11-13% an then there is not a gradual enough change in the direct to effected mix. Sort of like the difference between a linear and logarithmic expression pedal taper. The mix control becomes a little to much of an on/off control rather than a subtle and gradually increasing mix control. Might be the nature of the beast but I have noticed this issue particularly on the delays.

Thats it exactly. Sometimes 12% is too much. and 11% sometimes, is non existent or not enough. 

 

Not that i disagree with you, but how could it be the nature? Is it mixed in, or is it not? It almost seems as if its NOT a mix.

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The thing that exacerbates this is that for several of the effects the taper is not gradual enough. They seem to become audible all of a sudden at 11-13% an then there is not a gradual enough change in the direct to effected mix. Sort of like the difference between a linear and logarithmic expression pedal taper. The mix control becomes a little to much of an on/off control rather than a subtle and gradually increasing mix control. Might be the nature of the beast but I have noticed this issue particularly on the delays.

 

I feel that way about the volume pedal "effect" Even when it's set to Logrithmic, the first part of the taper seems to be awfully quick

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Thats it exactly. Sometimes 12% is too much. and 11% sometimes, is non existent or not enough. 

 

Not that i disagree with you, but how could it be the nature? Is it mixed in, or is it not? It almost seems as if its NOT a mix.

 

By this I just meant it may be some interaction between my ears, requirements for the effect, routing, what equipment I am connected to, etc.. There are a lot of moving parts here. There is also as discussed before the fact that for most effects 50% is an evenly split wet-dry mix so depending on your routing you may really only be dealing with half of the parameter knob's travel (0-50%); therefor the taper and the point at which the effect becomes audible is more important than if you were using the full 100% travel of the knob.

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The EQ on all the modern high gain amp models (Soldano, Engl, etc.).

 

Took me days of tweaking tones to realize that the block's EQ is largely useless for me on the high gain amps. Which is weird, because it's so responsive on the other amp models.

 

But, yeah, it's useless. On the brightside, we've got plenty of EQ blocks to choose from and they make things sound "real". They all work wonderfully and interact with the various amp models in different ways. Make everything sound great and provide a lot of variety. You can have an EQ before and after the amp. Or at the input. Or at the output. Or different EQ settings for different snapshots. So many options :D

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The EQ on all the modern high gain amp models (Soldano, Engl, etc.).

Took me days of tweaking tones to realize that the block's EQ is largely useless for me on the high gain amps. Which is weird, because it's so responsive on the other amp models.

But, yeah, it's useless. On the brightside, we've got plenty of EQ blocks to choose from and they make things sound "real". They all work wonderfully and interact with the various amp models in different ways. Make everything sound great and provide a lot of variety. You can have an EQ before and after the amp. Or at the input. Or at the output. Or different EQ settings for different snapshots. So many options :D

I don't know if its the case with these particular amps, but some high gain amps choose to limit the range of the amp's tone controls. This is because having a lot of bass and treble along with a lot of distortion can lead to mud and fizz. Limiting the range of the tone controls can help avoid this issue while also getting more gain out of a limited number of gain stages. Tone controls have to cut in order to provide boost.
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USB 1/2 input TRIM is awkward to get to. For anyone who regularly uses an iPad or iPhone over USB with their HELIX to play backing tracks, use a looper etc etc  this is a pain.

 

If there was an option that let us somehow adjust this volume level without so many button presses it would be great. 

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I think Line6 kind of missed a trick by not putting a 9v output on the Helix for powering additional stomp boxes. Alas, this isn't something that can be fixed with a firmware update.

 

 

Agreed.  That would have been cool.  Especially if the amperage was high enough to power several pedals.

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The Tuner isn't up to par with the rest of the unit. Really bad, and hard to get a stable reading regardless of instrument.

 

My work around is I just use the tuner on the controller (I have a rack unit). It's much more "stable".

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I think what is maddening is that they haven't put in an effect such as the Drop Tune so you can lower your pitch without having to go to an external pedal.

Maybe they should've just called the pitch change effect a detune effect and then limit the range of the pitch change.

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Three things come to mind off hand. 
One- the update process with the backing up and taking photos of my ir list and bundles and yeah...
Two- No official Dumble modeling, I know they tried to throw some stuff at the wall with the litigator deal but still nothing official. The steel string singer is a MUST have for me.  
Three- The tuner. It shouldn't even be called a tuner. It's not even close to being accurate. 

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FYI: I use the rack version:

1. Pitch shifting is not good, I needed to buy a pedal

2. Size if the tuner screen on the foot control unit (for rack version) is too small for live work

3. Better control no/off assignment on bypass - trying to turn reverb off and at the same time both echo and overdrive on

4. Would like the option to turn off snap-shots completely and get to use those foot-pedals for effects

5. Input for a wireless system on the back of the rack (yes I know I can reprogram the return, but then all the presets don't work)

6 A volume pedal set-up that works how you would expect it to (I know I've looked this up on line, tried all the tips shown, no joy, in the end gave up and stopped using the pedal)

May be that some of this is me, so don't lynch me. But my time available for playing about with Helix is in short supply and I find it very time consuming to trawl these forums trying to figure stuff...

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FYI: I use the rack version:

1. Pitch shifting is not good, I needed to buy a pedal

2. Size if the tuner screen on the foot control unit (for rack version) is too small for live work

3. Better control no/off assignment on bypass - trying to turn reverb off and at the same time both echo and overdrive on

4. Would like the option to turn off snap-shots completely and get to use those foot-pedals for effects

5. Input for a wireless system on the back of the rack (yes I know I can reprogram the return, but then all the presets don't work)

6 A volume pedal set-up that works how you would expect it to (I know I've looked this up on line, tried all the tips shown, no joy, in the end gave up and stopped using the pedal)

May be that some of this is me, so don't lynch me. But my time available for playing about with Helix is in short supply and I find it very time consuming to trawl these forums trying to figure stuff...

 

1. Pitch shifting is pretty specialized. It's why I keep my POG2. Glad it's so easy to integrate into Helix.

2. Set the rack where you can see the front of it, or use a separate tuner if need be.

3. there is no reason you can't do this very easily. it's in there right now. VERY easy.

4. You can set your Control to have 10 foot switches, all stomp boxes. It's already in there. It's in globals.

5. I COMPLETELY AGREE! I wish there was a guitar input on the back!

6. I have no problem with the volume pedal setup. Can you give more detail about what doesn't work? Maybe in a separate thread?

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Maybe they should've just called the pitch change effect a detune effect and then limit the range of the pitch change.

But is a polyphonic type pitch change or detune? I have played with it yet. I need it for chords for songs that I am doing live which we change in pitch.

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But is a polyphonic type pitch change or detune? I have played with it yet. I need it for chords for songs that I am doing live which we change in pitch.

It has been my experience that while pitch shift fails when you're trying to shift the pitches up or down a fifth or an octave, it works well enough for detuning a few cents polyphonically.
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The update process sucks, and.. if we're talking about things that suck, that's it for me.

If we talk about things I think sucks they haven't been included... I miss some models from the HD (Vocoder, Dimension chorus, Pattern tremolo, Jet Fuzz and some other L6 models), M series (filters and synths) and XT series (Synth stuff and autowah).
By now, for some of those applications, I've found other models that work for me, but there's nothing that sounds quite like the Growler, for example, and you just can't replace the pattern tremolo with anything, or the vocoder.
Anyway, those are things that I was using on the HD and previous generations, and I understand that some filters, synths and such things (specially the vocoder) are niche stuff, not what most people use.

I don't like the rotary speaker models on the Helix. I own an Eventide H9 max (which I'm using with the Helix)  and a Korg G4. Both sound great to me as rotary speaker sims.
I also own a real leslie, an 825.
I don't know, I just don't like how the rotary models on the Helix sound. Even with the cab sims or IRs off, it's as if they don't come across, they get lost.

I'm not crazy about most of the reverbs and delays, and by that, I mean I like others better, like the ones in the H9 (of course, it's a 400$ pedal doing just one effect) and some Lexicon plugins and rack units I've been using... well, duh... both brands are known to specialize in space/time effects... but I've been using the reverbs, delays (and everything but the rotaries) on the Helix since day one, and I still have to feel I'm missing something. 

There's a lot of stuff I'd like to see one day on the Helix. Some of it will make it, some won't. Meanwhile, color me 90% happy.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I have had the Helix for 6 months and spent countless hours messing with it.  Purchased tons of IRs, watched tons of videos, purchased Glenn DeLaune's entire pack of presets.  Programmed dozens of patches.  After tweaking patches for hours on end, you kind of convince yourself that it sounds good.  But when you come back with fresh ears, you realize it's not.  I don't like the effects, no depth and intensity to them.  I'm till trying, I still want to like it, and I am hoping to stumble across the secret sauce to make this a viable live rig.  That you have to put a noise gate on every higher gain patch is my biggest complaint.  I also find that there is no sustain, no feedback at stage volume, no ringing metallic clang of strings. It is digital and harsh sounding.  In fairness, you are constantly fighting that problem with any digital modeler.  But so far there is no high gain sound that I have set up that doesn't require squashing it with a noise gate.  That immediately kills the tone, sustain, harmonics, the notes just die, etc.  You can get good cleans and mid crunch tones, but high gain is tough.  Once that noise gate is on, the open sound goes away.  I purchased the HD500x about a year before and it suffers from alot of the same issues, but I was able to get some usable patches, still nothing I want to take on stage.  

 

I used an ADA MP1 for most of my career as a full time touring guitarist.  That went into the Boss GX700, a BBE, and a Mosvalve power amp out to 2 4x12's  It wasn't the greatest but it was MIDI which was a must, and it did the job.  The Helix is beautiful for sure.  It has so much cool stuff and versatility that I want to love it.  But I am near the giving up point.   

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I have had the Helix for 6 months and spent countless hours messing with it. Purchased tons of IRs, watched tons of videos, purchased Glenn DeLaune's entire pack of presets. Programmed dozens of patches. After tweaking patches for hours on end, you kind of convince yourself that it sounds good. But when you come back with fresh ears, you realize it's not. I don't like the effects, no depth and intensity to them. I'm till trying, I still want to like it, and I am hoping to stumble across the secret sauce to make this a viable live rig. That you have to put a noise gate on every higher gain patch is my biggest complaint. I also find that there is no sustain, no feedback at stage volume, no ringing metallic clang of strings. It is digital and harsh sounding. In fairness, you are constantly fighting that problem with any digital modeler. But so far there is no high gain sound that I have set up that doesn't require squashing it with a noise gate. That immediately kills the tone, sustain, harmonics, the notes just die, etc. You can get good cleans and mid crunch tones, but high gain is tough. Once that noise gate is on, the open sound goes away. I purchased the HD500x about a year before and it suffers from alot of the same issues, but I was able to get some usable patches, still nothing I want to take on stage.

 

I used an ADA MP1 for most of my career as a full time touring guitarist. That went into the Boss GX700, a BBE, and a Mosvalve power amp out to 2 4x12's It wasn't the greatest but it was MIDI which was a must, and it did the job. The Helix is beautiful for sure. It has so much cool stuff and versatility that I want to love it. But I am near the giving up point.

Interesting. Up until I got the Helix, I've never been able to get the sounds and that I've always wanted. Close, but no cigar was always the result of months of tweaking. I too had an ADA MP-1 for years and for me it was always missing one major component - power tube compression. During its heyday, the only option was to use a real tube power amp. No thanks. These days I just don't have to do any tweaking at all anymore. My sounds are all always available in the Helix. And no lack of sustain or feedback and at moderate levels at that. No muss, no fuss.

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1. Pitch shifting is pretty specialized. It's why I keep my POG2. Glad it's so easy to integrate into Helix.

 

right now I have a pitch factor, a whammy, and an ancient pearl octave on my board (and I am debating adding a pitch fork as i have a switch set up like one on the helix).  While it is easy to integrate it kinda sucks that the helix can't even do simple whammy tricks without glitching all over the place.  People complain about the reverbs but enough tweaking and they are fine for live (if i wanna get really picky i have an Otto BAM and a wet i can use).  The whammy is actually worse than an ancient digitech XP100.  That's pretty garbage.

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@TheBoyWithDog, I would love to see multiple Parallel Split and Merge points per Signal Path (as you depicted graphically in your other post):

 

post-2523982-0-45200700-1499818480.png

 

Just not sure if Line 6 would feel too many Helix users would use the feature.

 

You should post a separate IdeaScale suggestion for this: Multiple Parallel Split and Merge Points in a Signal Path. Your existing IdeaScale post does not adequately emphasize this suggestion!

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1) Pitch shifting can't handle complex chords. Wouldn't bother me, but my Whammy IV can!

2) Roto speakers sound really dark and muffled. Might well be authentic, but I prefer the "fake" ones from my GT-100 and Guitar Rig

3) No "undo" button

4) Encoders sometimes "jump" from small to large increments further and faster than is necessary. I'll be trying to adjust delay by a few hundred ms and end up waaay past where I want to be

5) Lack of metering makes it hard to pinpoint clipping

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1) Pitch shifting can't handle complex chords. Wouldn't bother me, but my Whammy IV can!

2) Roto speakers sound really dark and muffled. Might well be authentic, but I prefer the "fake" ones from my GT-100 and Guitar Rig

3) No "undo" button

4) Encoders sometimes "jump" from small to large increments further and faster than is necessary. I'll be trying to adjust delay by a few hundred ms and end up waaay past where I want to be

5) Lack of metering makes it hard to pinpoint clipping

 

Good stuff here.

 

But.

 

1. I wish Helix had FX loops so you could use your Whammy IV in--- uh, never mind... Yeah, I get this. Great poly pitch shifting (mostly octaves for me) would be super cool.

2. Yup. if you turn your IR or cab block off when you turn on the rotary, though, problem solved.

3. Save often. But I think an Undo button would be super cool.

4. I agree, but with a hybrid approach, using the computer editor and front panel at the same time, I find it mitigates this a lot.

5. If you don't go nuts with levels you will never have a problem EXCEPT... you need to turn headroom UP on those Vintage Delays (and a few other FX blocks). I think that perhaps I'd prefer if all headroom parameters were set to max.

 

And 6. Am I the only guy who wishes that any non-"djent" amp defaulted to a clean sound when you first pulled it up?

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Good stuff here.

 

But.

 

1. I wish Helix had FX loops so you could use your Whammy IV in--- uh, never mind... Yeah, I get this. Great poly pitch shifting (mostly octaves for me) would be super cool.

2. Yup. if you turn your IR or cab block off when you turn on the rotary, though, problem solved.

3. Save often. But I think an Undo button would be super cool.

4. I agree, but with a hybrid approach, using the computer editor and front panel at the same time, I find it mitigates this a lot.

5. If you don't go nuts with levels you will never have a problem EXCEPT... you need to turn headroom UP on those Vintage Delays (and a few other FX blocks). I think that perhaps I'd prefer if all headroom parameters were set to max.

 

And 6. Am I the only guy who wishes that any non-"djent" amp defaulted to a clean sound when you first pulled it up?

 

Ha, yeah, I have thought about looping in my Whammy, but I've got a rack unit. The thought of it shifting slightly out of tune during a performance and turning my beautiful shimmering chords into an atonal mess puts me off that, and the pedal's so old now that the treadle needs resetting every now and again. I don't trust it to behave.

 

Good point with the IR, I hadn't thought of that. Of course it's a cab, isn't it . . . 

 

6 - on a slight tangent, it would be nice to set up your own default settings for each amp. I'm sure this is on ideascale somewhere.

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Not that it sucks, but i'd like the ability to drag and drop downloaded .HLX preset files into the editor instead of having to import, steer to the folder, scroll up and down find the file and click open. That basic functionality was available in L6's SpiderEdit editor.

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