no undo-button or -command for last step changes?

[hkberlin]

I am new to Helix LT. Great Sounds, if altered  :-))  . During Alterations, I sometimes had wanted to have an "undo"-Button for my last step. Or even better:  for each of my last steps in succession.

I did not yet find a solution (even word-searching "undo" in Manual does find this feature in "looper", only).

 

Any idea  (other than saving every step, and if last alterations went wrong, closing and opening the altered preset again) ?

 

Regards

[phil_m]

There is no undo function in the Helix... Generally not a thing that exists in the effects processor world, at least not on the hardware side. The Kemper is one exception I can think of.

[TheRealZap]

if you want to go back to the last saved point, its easy enough to just go back and forth, out of and back into the preset....

only helps if you're doing the saves though.... 

[hkberlin]

if you want to go back to the last saved point, its easy enough to just go back and forth, out of and back into the preset....

only helps if you're doing the saves though.... 

Yes, as mentioned in my question already = saving every step.....

To the experts of you:  wouldn't it be beneficial to have an undo button, anyway? I sometimes hit a knob by accident and if I made several alterations befor that I had to go back from the beginning of my alterations. It is nasty to always "save" one step, in order to be able to get back to the last step. Moreover, a regular undo-button as I am used to in pc-software, usually can step back step by step and undo it.  Best

[TheRealZap]

well yeah... lots of things WOULD be good... i was telling you what it can do....

 

it would be good if the footswitches gave my feet mini massages as well... but it cant do that....

 

for things you think WOULD be good... https://line6.ideascale.com/

 

Yes, as mentioned in my question already = saving every step.....

To the experts of you:  wouldn't it be beneficial to have an undo button, anyway? I sometimes hit a knob by accident and if I made several alterations befor that I had to go back from the beginning of my alterations. It is nasty to always "save" one step, in order to be able to get back to the last step. Moreover, a regular undo-button as I am used to in pc-software, usually can step back step by step and undo it.  Best

[hideout]

I think an Edit/Compare option would be more useful. This may be difficult with the actual Helix but I think would be doable in the editor and Helix Native.

 

https://line6.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Edit-Compare/820832-23508

[cruisinon2]

it would be good if the footswitches gave my feet mini massages as well... but it cant do that

Or better yet, a small electric shock if you're about to do something stupid... think of all the time it would save in here. 😉

[studiox19]

I do miss the dots on the old POD (xt) that indicate where the knob/slider was before edit. Pretty sure that would be easy to implement in the Helix.

[jbuhajla]

I do miss the dots on the old POD (xt) that indicate where the knob/slider was before edit. Pretty sure that would be easy to implement in the Helix.

M5/9/13 had those too. 

[VirtualGuitars]

At a minimum it would be nice to have an "Undo" action in the HX Edit application.  Ctrl-Z (Windows), Command-Z (macOS), etc.  That should be very easy for the Line 6 developers to implement.

[DunedinDragon]

At a minimum it would be nice to have an "Undo" action in the HX Edit application.  Ctrl-Z (Windows), Command-Z (macOS), etc.  That should be very easy for the Line 6 developers to implement.

I think you may be confused about HX Edit.  Even though it's a standalone program it really has no functionality of it's own other that saving and restoring or general backups.  All other functionality is simply a remote control of the functionality contained in the Helix hardware.  In order to have an Undo type of functionality, that capability would have to be in the Helix hardware first.

 

I've never missed an undo operation since I generally understand the concept that nothing is permanent until it's saved on the Helix hardware.  If I've made a lot of changes and abandon those changes I simply don't save it and select a different preset then come back to the one I was working on and all the old functions will be there as they were before I started.  If you really want to be sure you can go back simply save the preset to disk and you can always recall it.

[silverhead]

I think you may be confused about HX Edit. Even though it's a standalone program it really has no functionality of it's own other that saving and restoring or general backups. All other functionality is simply a remote control of the functionality contained in the Helix hardware. In order to have an Undo type of functionality, that capability would have to be in the Helix hardware first.

 

....

Not sure that it can't be done using HX Edit alone, although you are correct about it being only a remote control in terms of editing. I think the HX Edit program could maintain a stack of changes made by the user. The program would add to the top of the stack with each change and pop off the top of the stack with each undo. The stack would need to store the pre- (not post-) edit values for each Edit operation. For instance, if a parameter was changed from value X to value Y the HX Edit program would store Parameter Value X (not Y) on top of the stack before sending the change in value (Y) command to the Helix device. A subsequent Undo operation would pop the X value off the top of the stack and send that command to the Helix.

 

Doing this on the Helix device itself would be more problematic because of the dynamic memory required to maintain the stack. Where would this new memory space be found? It may already exist just waiting to be utilized (meaning the device is over engineered and perhaps slightly more expensive than it has to be) or the space would have to be reallocated from an existing feature. For instance, reducing the number of snapshots from 8 to 6 would free up memory space for 64x2 = 128 parameter changes to store in the Undo stack instead of in the Snapshots memory space.

[DunedinDragon]

Oh, there's no doubt it COULD be done.  I'm just not sure how far they want to deviate from the traditional architecture of the program.  Once you open that door it's sometimes hard to close it.  ;)

[silverhead]

Agreed!

[Verne-Bunsen]

The only time I really find myself wishing for "Undo" is when I'm using the joystick to navigate from one block to another and accidentally rotate it while on a block in between, changing the selection in that block. You can go switch it back but all of the settings are restored to default. D'oh!

[VirtualGuitars]

Not sure that it can't be done using HX Edit alone, although you are correct about it being only a remote control in terms of editing. I think the HX Edit program could maintain a stack of changes made by the user. The program would add to the top of the stack with each change and pop off the top of the stack with each undo. The stack would need to store the pre- (not post-) edit values for each Edit operation. For instance, if a parameter was changed from value X to value Y the HX Edit program would store Parameter Value X (not Y) on top of the stack before sending the change in value (Y) command to the Helix device. A subsequent Undo operation would pop the X value off the top of the stack and send that command to the Helix.

 

Doing this on the Helix device itself would be more problematic because of the dynamic memory required to maintain the stack. Where would this new memory space be found? It may already exist just waiting to be utilized (meaning the device is over engineered and perhaps slightly more expensive than it has to be) or the space would have to be reallocated from an existing feature. For instance, reducing the number of snapshots from 8 to 6 would free up memory space for 64x2 = 128 parameter changes to store in the Undo stack instead of in the Snapshots memory space.

 

That's exactly what I was suggesting.  Thanks for adding the details.

[mdmayfield]

That should be very easy for the Line 6 developers to implement.

 

I'm guessing you don't develop software for a living... :ph34r:

[VirtualGuitars]

I'm guessing you don't develop software for a living... :ph34r:

 

I am a registered Apple developer; however, I'm a senior network engineer at AIG for my real day job.

[mdmayfield]

I am a registered Apple developer; however, I'm a senior network engineer at AIG for my real day job.

Oh OK. I didn't mean to call you out; my point was that it wouldn't be very easy to implement a quality, robust Undo, especially if they haven't architected the software in preparation for that all along.

 

For example, what counts as one step of undo - adjusting a parameter? If the user made several quick small adjustments, they'd think of that as one change so it would be annoying to have to Undo a dozen steps to get back to where it was. Maybe it would require some logic to account for small changes within a certain window of time, with a "knob untouched" timeout that would register an actual state change. But that's hard to fine-tune to get exactly right for a wide variety of people and workflows.

 

An Edited/Compare mode might be a good "80/20" solution since a lot of people are familiar with that - then only two edit buffers are needed, and at any point the user can toggle back and forth between the original patch and the WIP, and if they want to undo one specific change they could either refer to the original parameters or maybe copy/paste from Compare mode to Edited mode.

[tommasoferrarese]

Strymon Nixie editor implements it fairly well.. and saving each step in mouse release seems a good strategy.

[VirtualGuitars]

Oh OK. I didn't mean to call you out; my point was that it wouldn't be very easy to implement a quality, robust Undo, especially if they haven't architected the software in preparation for that all along.

 

For example, what counts as one step of undo - adjusting a parameter? If the user made several quick small adjustments, they'd think of that as one change so it would be annoying to have to Undo a dozen steps to get back to where it was. Maybe it would require some logic to account for small changes within a certain window of time, with a "knob untouched" timeout that would register an actual state change. But that's hard to fine-tune to get exactly right for a wide variety of people and workflows.

 

An Edited/Compare mode might be a good "80/20" solution since a lot of people are familiar with that - then only two edit buffers are needed, and at any point the user can toggle back and forth between the original patch and the WIP, and if they want to undo one specific change they could either refer to the original parameters or maybe copy/paste from Compare mode to Edited mode.

 

No worries!  I was mainly just wanting a one level Undo in the HX Edit application.  It shouldn't be that hard to reverse the previous action which is basically an API call to the hardware.  Just a simple undo would be nice, but it would be difficult to undo a deleted patch for example.  I do get that.

[DunedinDragon]

No worries!  I was mainly just wanting a one level Undo in the HX Edit application.  It shouldn't be that hard to reverse the previous action which is basically an API call to the hardware.  Just a simple undo would be nice, but it would be difficult to undo a deleted patch for example.  I do get that.

 

Actually what you're describing there, if I'm understanding what you're driving at, would actually be simple to implement with the existing architecture.  In other words I gather you're saying basically the same functionality as already exists when you roll off of the preset you're working on then roll back to it.  It reverts to the last in-memory saved version.  That would be simple as it's just a shortcut basically to restore that last in-memory image of the patch.

[VirtualGuitars]

Actually what you're describing there, if I'm understanding what you're driving at, would actually be simple to implement with the existing architecture.  In other words I gather you're saying basically the same functionality as already exists when you roll off of the preset you're working on then roll back to it.  It reverts to the last in-memory saved version.  That would be simple as it's just a shortcut basically to restore that last in-memory image of the patch.

 

That's exactly what I'm getting at.  Thanks.

[saks]

There is an installed program on your system. It has access to the disk. Dropping a .hlx file to disk and reload them in reverse order of drop would be trivial. Even cross platform this is the most basic of system programming.

 

The hlx files are so small I wouldn't even try to do diffs. I would just drop a full hlx file for every change. This could also take advantage of the hlx import code already available in HX Edit.

 

Communication between edit and the hardware wouldn't have to change at all.

[DunedinDragon]

There is an installed program on your system. It has access to the disk. Dropping a .hlx file to disk and reload them in reverse order of drop would be trivial. Even cross platform this is the most basic of system programming.

 

The hlx files are so small I wouldn't even try to do diffs. I would just drop a full hlx file for every change. This could also take advantage of the hlx import code already available in HX Edit.

 

Communication between edit and the hardware wouldn't have to change at all.

 

I don't think that's what we're talking about here.  It's more like a "Save" or "Restore" to/from an in-memory image of what you're currently working on and that capability already exists in the Helix.  That's different than  a full file based Export or Restore.  More like a COMMIT and ROLLBACK in database parlance.  It doesn't affect the stored image on disk but restores an intermediate image in memory of what you last saved.  Most of the time you only export .hlx files once the patch has been finished.  It doesn't really need to be cross platform since it only applies to a single unit where someone is actively working on a preset.

[zooey]

Back in my early days of hardware synths, many of them had a simple Compare button -- press it once to hear the original patch before you modified it, navigate through its settings to see what they were -- press it again to go back to your edited version.

 

I'd love that feature for Helix. Nothing fancy to understand, very little memory required, no complex recording of every micro-action so it can be undone, it's just simply useful.

 

Today I tend to save multiple versions of a patch, which is super flexible since they're all there, but then you have to deal with all of them. I kind of like the idea that instead, you'd just have to decide, is this version better than the original or not? You can always save multiple versions if you want anyway.

[spikey]

Or better yet, a small electric shock if you're about to do something stupid... think of all the time it would save in here. 

 

 

Now why OUCH, did you have OUCH, to bring that OUUUCHHH up???  :P

[hideout]

Back in my early days of hardware synths, many of them had a simple Compare button -- press it once to hear the original patch before you modified it, navigate through its settings to see what they were -- press it again to go back to your edited version.

 

I'd love that feature for Helix. Nothing fancy to understand, very little memory required, no complex recording of every micro-action so it can be undone, it's just simply useful.

 

Today I tend to save multiple versions of a patch, which is super flexible since they're all there, but then you have to deal with all of them. I kind of like the idea that instead, you'd just have to decide, is this version better than the original or not? You can always save multiple versions if you want anyway.

^^THIS!^^

I remember that feature as well. Not only was it a useful feature, it was efficient and elegant.

[rolandro]

Line6 please add an undo function to HX Edit! This shouldn't be a hard thing to do.

 

The above mentioned "compare with orginal sound" feature would be nice as well. But an Undo/Redo function is a must, not a nice to have.

[Rikthoven]

So there's been a lot of hub bub about a lack of undo and the response for a couple years now is "The editor program is just a remote control and the unit itself has no undo therefore  the desktop editor doesn't either."   I will give you that to put undo into the Helix firmware/hardware is likely difficult and expensive.  However putting undo in the editor is not.

When a user brings up a preset.  Cache the entire preset's setting in an array of preset objects in memory.  As changes are made to blocks in the editor and sent to the,  update the array in memory.   I would update the array any time a block object lost focus and there were changes from the previous instance of the object.  Index 0 is the preset at the start.  Index 1 is your first change etc.  It would not be difficult to program for that in the editing software.  It would give users of the editors the ability to undo even though the actual unit can't.   If a user selects undo Grab the highest index in the array and send it to the Helix.  That would in effect "undo the last change".   If you wanted to get fancy you could allow for "Re do" as well, just walk up the index of the array, sending the changes to the Helix as you step through the array.   So it is possible.  It just needs to be prioritized.  Those using the editor expect it to behave like a normal desktop app and when it doesn't there's frustration.   Those editing on the Helix itself would expect it to behave like a rack unit where, yup, undo is a bit spotty or non existent.     That's my suggestion to help improve the user experience.  This is a great unit.   I just think a small tweak to the desktop editor as I've outlined above would improve the editing experience especially for tone tweakers.   Thanks!

[cruisinon2]

52 minutes ago, Rikthoven said:

That's my suggestion to help improve the user experience.  This is a great unit.   I just think a small tweak to the desktop editor as I've outlined above would improve the editing experience especially for tone tweakers.   Thanks!

 

Put it in Idea Scale... in here it'll never get seen by the powers that be.

 

Besides, rumor has it they're working overtime on the heated pick dispenser first. ;)