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The one thing that really drives me nuts about the Helix


MojoAxe
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When selecting different pedals within a category (for instance choosing between the different delay pedals) , Helix does not remember any of the current settings and it reverts to the settings it has embedded within the firmware for each particular pedal.  It makes it much more difficult to compare the sounds of different pedals to each other. 

 

For instance, lets say I'm trying to setup a slapback delay with a short delay and feedback rate.  I set the Simple Delay to 160 ms with a feedback setting of 25%.  Now I want to hear how the tone of that pedal compares to the Digital Delay pedal.  I turn to the joystick Digital delay pedal and the delay time has changed to 751ms /30% feedback.  I have to readjust these settings in order to audition the Digital pedal with the slapback time settings.  Now I want to audition the Analog delay.  I change to that pedal and the settings have changed to 255ms / 23% feedback, so I must readjust again.

 

The same goes for other effects such as Reverbs, Tremelos, and and even Amps.  I understand that the parameters are not all the same between effects within a category, so its impossible to have common settings across the board, but it would be nice if at least some of the basic settings were retained such as the ms, Feedback,  Decay, Rates,  Levels, etc. 

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As far as delays go, you can probably set your tempo to global and have the pedals just follow your global tempo, then you don't have to think about it so much. If you just want a quick comparison of how one thing sounds generally compared to how another sounds generally, honestly I would just leave the settings as they are , should still get you a pretty good feel. If you want a really in depth comparison of the two, I'd just put them on two different blocks and switch between them.

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Only way to really do this at this time would be to use duplicate blocks with different types selected, dial each in, then toggle them back and forth and keep the one you want. 

 

Not always feasible...but that's partially why I'd love the functionality of being able to save 'favorite' block settings.  For example, Lead Delay (simple delay), Ambient Delay....and just recall that favorite setting. 

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Yeah the Fractal has that feature and even the Boss GT series allows you to store 10 presets for every effect type including amps and then recall them from a quick menu. 

 

I don't mind copy paste...but when doing so between presets that are separated #wise or in different setlists it can be cumbersome

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37 minutes ago, TRENDKILLCFH333 said:

Great idea.  I recently got a Headrush Gigboard and they have a feature where you can save different presets for every amp/pedal/IR.  Helix would benefit well from this too.  

 

It seems like that would be a relatively easy feature to add that would consume a minimal amount of memory or computing power.   Boss has a similar feature in the GT-1000 called Stompbox that allows you to same up to 10 different variations of every effect.  Once you dial in an effect the way you like it, it can be saved as a Stompbox preset for easy recall into other patches.  When you recall one of these saved "Stompboxes" into a patch, you can either copy it into the patch such that you can edit it if you like, or you can reference it into a patch such that when its parameters are changed, they will change within every other patch that also references that same saved Stompbox.  Helix has Boss beat in most all aspects of the user interface,  but the Boss unit does have a few features that are really nice.  

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7 hours ago, themetallikid said:

Only way to really do this at this time would be to use duplicate blocks with different types selected, dial each in, then toggle them back and forth and keep the one you want. 

 

Not always feasible...but that's partially why I'd love the functionality of being able to save 'favorite' block settings.  For example, Lead Delay (simple delay), Ambient Delay....and just recall that favorite setting. 

 

That would be awesome. Then I could stop copy and pasting between patches when we write a new song...

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Yeah where I create presets per song (68+songs for our band) and then use snapshots to turn things on/off....it'd be nice to save an 80's Chorus, Lead Delay, 2204 80's Crunch, SLO Lead or whatever, and just drop in the presaved settings idea.  Instead of having to find the right preset, copy, go back to the 'new' preset, paste, then save, then back to another preset with another effect I like and repeat as needed.  

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1 hour ago, themetallikid said:

Yeah where I create presets per song (68+songs for our band) and then use snapshots to turn things on/off....it'd be nice to save an 80's Chorus, Lead Delay, 2204 80's Crunch, SLO Lead or whatever, and just drop in the presaved settings idea.  Instead of having to find the right preset, copy, go back to the 'new' preset, paste, then save, then back to another preset with another effect I like and repeat as needed.  

 

Why not just create a couple of new "templates" to hold the various pre-configured blocks that you wish to reuse frequently?

 

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that is fair...right now I'm going through a transition with my presets.  I just recently did some new 'core' tones (clean/gritty/classic/crunch/HG crunch/Modern/hard rock/hard rock scoop), these are all dry presets other than reverb and delay (for the lead versions of these). 

 

Off of my core sounds I then copy paste them into the song specific presets and add the song specific effects. I suppose I could just save an 80's template and such....I just think it'd be as easy to create from scratch by right clicking on the spot I want the block and choosing Amps>Fender Deluxe Clean, Effects > Chorus > Clean Chorus, or Pitch> Whammy > 2 octave dive

 

mostly not much of a difference...to me it'd be easier to call up the effects blocks verses saving a ton of presets.

 

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This identifies the core missing capability - the ability for a preset to reference some other preset, and override only certain blocks. Then we could build a generic preset that gets reused in many different variants, but update the reused blocks in only one place and have all those changes appear in all other presets through references.

 

You can do this today, but you need to do it by manually editing the JSON files.

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On 11/14/2018 at 3:16 PM, brue58ski said:

Hey, it's over a 1000 votes and has been in review for over 3 years, so I expect this to get implemented ASAP! :-)

 

Seriously, though, I think it's a great idea. I went to vote it up, but it showed that I already had a long time ago.

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I could be wrong, but I thought I remember somewhere reading in a thread that the issue with the editor only implementation is that the editor doesn't have the blocks stored in its programming that it reads the information from the Helix...So that might be a roadblock to having it an editor only option.  it would have to be implemented into the Helix software, which the editor would access then.

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3 hours ago, themetallikid said:

I could be wrong, but I thought I remember somewhere reading in a thread that the issue with the editor only implementation is that the editor doesn't have the blocks stored in its programming that it reads the information from the Helix...So that might be a roadblock to having it an editor only option.  it would have to be implemented into the Helix software, which the editor would access then.

 

I was thinking more like save your favorite settings to your computer and load them in from there. Kinda like loading in presets or setlists, but for individual blocks.

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What I’ve considered doing (but I just haven’t gotten around to) is to create a batch of patches, each one dedicated to a specific effect.  Each patch would have an amp at the beginning of the chain, followed by multiple instances of a specific effect.  Each patch would effectively be a library with different saved variations of an effect.  For instance, a “Reverb” patch could have a dozen different preset variations of reverbs.  It’s still not the perfect solution because it’s requires navigating to the library patch, copying the desired effect, then navigating back to the destination patch and pasting it, but it’s one way to save favorite sett8ngs all in one place.

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If you have Helix and HX Stomp, then you can have two HX Edit windows open at the same time and can use one of them as the source for copying you template blocks into your target without having to switch patches. Helix and Helix Native will work this way too.

 

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On 11/17/2018 at 1:11 AM, MojoAxe said:

What I’ve considered doing (but I just haven’t gotten around to) is to create a batch of patches, each one dedicated to a specific effect.  Each patch would have an amp at the beginning of the chain, followed by multiple instances of a specific effect.  Each patch would effectively be a library with different saved variations of an effect.  For instance, a “Reverb” patch could have a dozen different preset variations of reverbs.  It’s still not the perfect solution because it’s requires navigating to the library patch, copying the desired effect, then navigating back to the destination patch and pasting it, but it’s one way to save favorite sett8ngs all in one place.

 

Hi MojoAxe,

 

It seems that this approach appears to be quite a common trick among Helix users. As you suggest, simply create a whole bunch of presets with favourite settings for chorus, delay, reverb or whatever and store them in the “Templates” section of your setlists. Of course the option to custom name each effect, when assigned to a footswitch, makes them easy to find then just copy and paste into your latest creation. It very easy to do, I’m surprised that everyone doesn’t take advantage of such a simple idea.

 

 

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