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Block Favorites in Helix Editor Please!


jonnyforsythe
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I'm new to the forum, but I've been looking around for a while and haven't seen anyone recommend this yet, so I wanted to make a suggestion.

I am enjoying the Helix Editor software quite a bit, but one fairly simple change would make the program much smoother for me to use. If they would add a pulldown menu of favorite blocks, I could build new patches much easier. I know that I can open a preset, copy the block, then scroll to the preset I'm working on and paste it where I need it, but having your favorite chorus or delay already set and ready to go would be great!

Anyone else with me on this?

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I am enjoying the Helix Editor software quite a bit, but one fairly simple change would make the program much smoother for me to use. If they would add a pulldown menu of favorite blocks, I could build new patches much easier. I know that I can open a preset, copy the block, then scroll to the preset I'm working on and paste it where I need it, but having your favorite chorus or delay already set and ready to go would be great!

 

Would one favorite per model suffice? How important is it to have multiple model favorites?

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Would one favorite per model suffice? How important is it to have multiple model favorites?

 

For my $0.02, this would be a great feature. I would prefer to see an open bank where you can save your preset effects/amps, regardless of how many of one type there are. Rather than some number of presets per effect, I would rather have fewer overall available slots for presets if I can save as many of the same effect as I want within those available slots. I'm sure I'd end up with ten Tube Screamer presets but no Megaphone presets, so having a preset dedicated to the Megaphone would be wasted memory for my purposes and would artificially reduce how many TS presets I could have. I'm sure I'd be glad either way though. Thanks for chiming in.

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Would one favorite per model suffice? How important is it to have multiple model favorites?

In my case, I would love something similar to the behaviour of the Zoom multi-fx (at least G1on, and MS-50 that I have had). That is: within a patch, the devices remember all the parameter settings of any fx (including amps and so on) so that every time you recall another fx you get the settings that you already tested. I found this way very useful for example if I want to compare two different amps/effects when I edit anything. For example I edit the amp parameters of a Matchless then I try a Mesa... and when I select the Matchless again I find all my previous settings and not the default ones.

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For my $0.02, this would be a great feature. I would prefer to see an open bank where you can save your preset effects/amps, regardless of how many of one type there are. Rather than some number of presets per effect, I would rather have fewer overall available slots for presets if I can save as many of the same effect as I want within those available slots. I'm sure I'd end up with ten Tube Screamer presets but no Megaphone presets, so having a preset dedicated to the Megaphone would be wasted memory for my purposes and would artificially reduce how many TS presets I could have. I'm sure I'd be glad either way though. Thanks for chiming in.

 

That's basically what I mean. It would be great to dial up a SRV Tubescreamer sound, or a delay that sounds like The Edge and save those parameters in a Favorites list, then while you're in a different preset you can just pull that SRV sound back up. It could work like this: Press the joystick button to assign a new block, in the scrolling list below NONE and DISTORTION have a FAVORITES list that you build by assigning your most used blocks. This would save me a ton of time.

 

And then to answer your "I would rather have fewer overall available slots for presets if I can save as many of the same effect as I want within those available slots."  issue, take a deeper look at snapshots. First access your global settings menu, select footswitches and on the second dial, scroll to Snap\Stomp; now in a preset when you hit the mode button, instead of having all eight footswitches used as stomp switches, only the bottom four buttons will be your stomp switches, and the top four buttons are snapshot buttons. With snapshots, you are able to change any of the parameters of all of your blocks for instant toggling. You can change gain on your amp, change the microphone placement, turn on an overdrive, turn off a phaser, and crank up the repeats on your delay all with one button. It's kind of like using a bypass looper that does multiple functions while only pressing one thing. That said, you can accomplish your ten different Tubescreamer sounds fairly easily. It's definitely worth looking at. You can also rename your snapshots.

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Would one favorite per model suffice? How important is it to have multiple model favorites?

One favorite per model would be sufficient for my needs. I seem to use the same parameters on the same group of models most of the time.

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That's basically what I mean. It would be great to dial up a SRV Tubescreamer sound, or a delay that sounds like The Edge and save those parameters in a Favorites list, then while you're in a different preset you can just pull that SRV sound back up. It could work like this: Press the joystick button to assign a new block, in the scrolling list below NONE and DISTORTION have a FAVORITES list that you build by assigning your most used blocks. This would save me a ton of time.

 

And then to answer your "I would rather have fewer overall available slots for presets if I can save as many of the same effect as I want within those available slots."  issue, take a deeper look at snapshots. First access your global settings menu, select footswitches and on the second dial, scroll to Snap\Stomp; now in a preset when you hit the mode button, instead of having all eight footswitches used as stomp switches, only the bottom four buttons will be your stomp switches, and the top four buttons are snapshot buttons. With snapshots, you are able to change any of the parameters of all of your blocks for instant toggling. You can change gain on your amp, change the microphone placement, turn on an overdrive, turn off a phaser, and crank up the repeats on your delay all with one button. It's kind of like using a bypass looper that does multiple functions while only pressing one thing. That said, you can accomplish your ten different Tubescreamer sounds fairly easily. It's definitely worth looking at. You can also rename your snapshots.

 

I'm 100% with you; but I was afraid I wrote that post too late last night to be intelligible. I guess my fears were correct. I used the word "preset" to mean what you referred to as a "favorite" effect. Your suggestion is a really great concept and I wanted to voice my thoughts and give feedback to DI about the number of favorite effects templates that could be saved. I should have just responded, "very important." But then, I've never been accused of obnoxious brevity.

DI's question about how many favorites per effect you would like to see made me think Line 6 was considering something like being able to save one favorite for each effect model, and my fear was that, sticking with the Tube Screamer example, that would mean I could save as a favorite a clean-ish boost setting, but then wouldn't be able to also save a heavier overdrive setting as well. Meanwhile, I'd have the option of saving a favorite Megaphone setting, even though I've never used it, and probably never will. I'd rather be able to dedicate that Megaphone allotment to the Tube Screamer.

Your proposal about scrolling down below NONE on the first page of the new block menu is good. I could see it going two ways.

1. At the very bottom of the first page--below LOOPER, I think--would be the FAVORITES sub-menu where you could save any number of favorite settings/templates, including amp models and cab models. And you wouldn't be limited to one favorite per effect model.

2. At the bottom of each effect type within the new block menue--i.e., DISTORTION, AMP, DELAY, etc.--you could save a similar list of favorites within that category.

I also though it would be very useful to be able to save favorite AMP and CAB combos (not just combo amps in a single block, but a linked set of two separate AMP and CAB bocks.) I don't know enough about programming to know whether what I'm suggesting is impossible, but nobody's yelled at me yet for fantasizing about Helix possibilities. 

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The Vetta let you save your default model of amps and FX so when you pulled them up, it had your favorite settings ready to go. It was one of my favorite features on that amp. Saved tons of time !

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Best option seems to me to be several pieces:

- Save any number of named settings for each block type

- Recall any of those settings into a given block of a preset you're editing

- Set the default settings used when you first insert a block of that type. Probably that means choosing one of your named settings as the default, which probably means that updating those named settings makes the new version the default.

 

If that's too much work short term, just the ability to save the current settings of an existing block as the defaults for that block type would be great.

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One favorite per model would be sufficient for my needs. I seem to use the same parameters on the same group of models most of the time.

 

I see advantages to being able to have multiple favorites for a given block although even one would be a great addition.

 

It would also be cool to have the option to designate your "Custom" blocks as a global default such that if you changed its settings they would change in every preset that contained that custom block. 

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This is one area that Kemper already does so it would be neat to see it incorporated in the Helix. In the Kemper you can literally save any FX setting(drive pedal, delay, chorus, whatever) as a favorite, name it, and pull it into any amp you are playing. I like this idea for the Helix. I'll vote on it!

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That one's scary to me. What would you be affecting? Could you find out?

 

I know exactly what you mean. You have to be extremely careful with that functionality. The key is backing things up before you modify a "global" custom block in that sort of implementation. It might even make sense to have it automatically invoke a bundle backup or a backup of all affected presets before allowing the change. It is powerful but has the capacity to make unanticipated changes to presets if not used carefully. It is great functionality if used properly though as it offers an almost 'evolutionary' capability to constantly improve your tones en masse and update many of your presets at once.

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