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HX Edit ... should work without Device connected


PaulTBaker
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I was trying (yes, at work :) to look at a patch someone posted using the HX Edit.... it looks like it will not work unless a device is connected.  Is that correct?  I hope not.....   It was nice to load patches with HDEdit without the HD500x connected.  It was a great way to compare patches.

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Because you can tweak patches "without" the editor in Helix, the editor needs to see Helix so it can load in the latest information. You can't really "hear" what you have tweaked in the editor without Helix producing the sound. It's like wanting to run your motor without the rest of the car, without both what's the point?

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25 minutes ago, spikey said:

Because you can tweak patches "without" the editor in Helix, the editor needs to see Helix so it can load in the latest information. You can't really "hear" what you have tweaked in the editor without Helix producing the sound. It's like wanting to run your motor without the rest of the car, without both what's the point?

 

I don't get it either. Yes, the old HD Edit would run in "off-line mode", but to what end? You can't hear anything without the hardware, so what are you accomplishing? Arranging icons on a screen doesn't reveal a blessed thing... without audio, there's no way to tell if you've created a masterpiece or a plate of boiled crap.

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18 minutes ago, cruisinon2 said:

Yes, the old HD Edit would run in "off-line mode", but to what end? You can't hear anything without the hardware, so what are you accomplishing? Arranging icons on a screen doesn't reveal a blessed thing... without audio, there's no way to tell if you've created a masterpiece or a plate of boiled crap.

 

Although i never finalized patches without being connected.... I found "offline mode" in HD Edit to be quite handy.

 

For me conceptualizing a patch/preset is the beginning stage.... just like a flow chart in business or a storyboard for a film producer. Sure, I couldn't finalize anything but I know my gear - so I could get things into the ballpark rather quickly... without having my HD500 by my side. 

 

I own Helix Native so that has become my "offline" visualization with the Helix. I don't need a guitar in hand to conceptualize or prepare the routing for a preset. 

 

Just my take on it....

 

 

 

 

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I don't know any of the implementation details re: how HX Edit is designed vs. POD HD Edit but I know that it was (and still is) possible for the POD HD device and the POD HD Edit program to get out of sync. This would sometimes happen when the user made editing changes using both the program and the device itself during an editing session. I suspect that this behaviour is directly related to the capability of the HD Edit program to run in offline mode, where it presumably needs to maintain its own memory space (edit buffer) in some manner for preset definitions to permit offline operation.

 

HX Edit, on the other hand, probably does not maintain the same sort of edit buffer but communicates instantaneously with the device to pass edit commands back and forth. There is a single copy of the preset data - on the device. This means there is no possibility for things to get out of sync, and also means no capability to run in offline mode.

 

Again, just my perhaps simplistic and inaccurate speculation but seems to make sense to me. Personally I prefer the HX approach - no data loss or inconsistency.

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6 minutes ago, silverhead said:

I know that it was (and still is) possible for the POD HD device and the POD HD Edit program to get out of sync.

 

True.... in addition to my response above I should state that I only used HD Edit as a sketchpad, I rarely did any tone editing on it. I preferred to do all of that on the HD itself...

 

6 minutes ago, silverhead said:

Personally I prefer the HX approach - no data loss or inconsistency.

 

You may be on to something with this... although I have encountered a few inconsistencies and problems with HX Edit and the Helix in the past. But it's been rare enough that I do not know if it was the pairing or human error :) 

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I too would like to be able to do things in HXedit without having to have the device connected and/or a guitar in my lap.  And that's not senseless at all.  Makes perfect sense.  Codamedia said it best earlier.  And it would be nice to be able to "simply" study presets and approaches of others.  I'm feeling I'm at a point where I know my equipment well enough to get use from Edit in this manner and that while a "total" dependence upon "hearing" instantly  is a necessary step in the Helix learning curve, it's also something that should become less necessary in the early part of the creation process as one becomes more familiar with the process.   Sometimes having too many options is a distraction more than anything else.  Currently "Native" is the only, and closest, option for what's being suggested, but you also have to have your audio program of choice open as well in order to use it.  And now that I've upgraded my Cubase to pro, I have to have a damned USB dongle to open that.  So I might as well just bite the bullet and hook up my Helix to start with.

 

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4 hours ago, silverhead said:

I don't know any of the implementation details re: how HX Edit is designed vs. POD HD Edit but I know that it was (and still is) possible for the POD HD device and the POD HD Edit program to get out of sync. This would sometimes happen when the user made editing changes using both the program and the device itself during an editing session. I suspect that this behaviour is directly related to the capability of the HD Edit program to run in offline mode, where it presumably needs to maintain its own memory space (edit buffer) in some manner for preset definitions to permit offline operation.

 

HX Edit, on the other hand, probably does not maintain the same sort of edit buffer but communicates instantaneously with the device to pass edit commands back and forth. There is a single copy of the preset data - on the device. This means there is no possibility for things to get out of sync, and also means no capability to run in offline mode.

 

Again, just my perhaps simplistic and inaccurate speculation but seems to make sense to me. Personally I prefer the HX approach - no data loss or inconsistency.

 

I think this pretty much captures the main differences.  The thing is, HX Edit doesn't contain any of the rules or logic associated with the business of building a preset.  It depends entirely on the Helix to enforce the rules such as how much DSP has been employed  and what blocks are still available for use based on the DSP left on a given signal chain.  This ensures that you can never build a preset in HX Edit that would not work in the Helix which is a VERY good design and ensures there's a single source of logic to managing preset building.  In order to provide offline editing you would have to incorporate all of that logic into HX Edit and I doubt seriously that Line 6 would be willing to do such a thing.

The fact is, anyone with some knowledge JSON and patience could build an offline editor, but there would be a very good chance it would build presets that would be seen as corrupt or un-importable into an actual Helix since it's not likely to know all the rules and limitations that need to be applied when building a preset.

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As has been mentioned already Native IS the offline editor for HX devices. If you really want that functionality just pony up the bucks for Native and get a whole lot of other use out of it as well. You just have to import or drag & drop the Native presets into your HX device rather than run a synch operation. Not to say I wouldn't use an offline HX Edit, I would, but I agree with Silverhead. I don't want to have to worry about synch issues. Several firmware release have had bugs in the editor operation, known or otherwise. I could see an offline HX Edit actually substantially slowing down firmware releases due to the much more rigorous QA process and error-handling that would be required for bullet-proofing the synching of  firmware and hardware to an offline editor. Not to speak of all the users new to their device who would complain that a bunch of their presets got mysteriously modified when they started up HX Edit, unaware that it was due to changes they made while they were offline. Line6 could provide a screen as a lot of mixers do to mitigate this to some extent by prompting the user with "Synch editor to device" or "Synch device to editor" but this also has inherent risks including the ones detailed above. Now, unlikely but watch L6 prove me wrong and add offline functionality to the next release :-)

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My use of the HD edit offline was not to tweak patches, but to look at the settings I had for certain patches so I could mimic those on another patch... Yes, I know about starting with the other patch and doing the save as thing... however, I may only want to tweak one thing.... so instead of writing down the settings (which I have done alot), I would start HD edit offline, load in my latest patches from the computer (where I save all my stuff... alot!)  ... pull up the patch I want, then go make the change on my HD500x.... it was a great way to see what you had.

 

I use the HD edit in offline mode now when I am starting making new patches on the helix, just to get a ballpark as a starting point.

 

I never worried about the syncing issue, because i was not changing anything offline.  I also used it to look at patches that other people did just to see the approach they took..... sometimes at work (lunch time of course :)).

 

I would be great if there was a way to print out the patches with their settings!

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  • 3 years later...

My use for an offline editor is to sort all my presets into the playlist for the next gig. I use to put all my presets and in the correct running order of the show. 

that is something that I wish to be able to while sitting on my sofa while my helix is still in the studio.

 

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On 3/14/2023 at 2:28 PM, gertroscam said:

My use for an offline editor is to sort all my presets into the playlist for the next gig. I use to put all my presets and in the correct running order of the show. 

that is something that I wish to be able to while sitting on my sofa while my helix is still in the studio.

 

Unfortunately all the intelligence for determining whether the change you're making to the preset is valid is in the Helix itself, not in HXEdit.  This is why an idea promoted back in 2019 never gained any traction and never will under the current architecture of the Helix.

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On 3/14/2023 at 6:28 PM, gertroscam said:

that is something that I wish to be able to while sitting on my sofa while my helix is still in the studio.

 


As noted by @DunedinDragon in the post above, this ain’t gonna happen anytime soon, so don’t hold your breath. It works in real time. The other thing that keeps cropping up, that also isn’t going to happen, is a version of the editor that runs on mobile devices - tablets, phones etc. 
 

HX Edit is quite simply not designed that way, it’s a remote editor that saves you from having to crawl around on the floor twisting encoders, and pushing buttons. It’s an umbilical cord and it requires the hardware to be connected.

 

Hope this helps/makes sense.

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I'd love HX Edit to also show the tuner, but that also isn't going to happen!  One thought is whether you can use HX native in this fashion - I appreciate that it's a plug in for a DAW, but if you have a track recorded, you can use Native to change settings and re-amp, is it possible to then export the settings from Native to HX Edit/ Helix?

 

Probably not, just not something I'd ever considered.  Currently at work or I'd give it a go.

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On 3/15/2023 at 9:30 AM, porky_pie said:

I'd love HX Edit to also show the tuner, but that also isn't going to happen!  One thought is whether you can use HX native in this fashion - I appreciate that it's a plug in for a DAW, but if you have a track recorded, you can use Native to change settings and re-amp, is it possible to then export the settings from Native to HX Edit/ Helix?

 

Probably not, just not something I'd ever considered.  Currently at work or I'd give it a go.

Helix presets are fully compatible between Helix Native and HX Edit/Helix devices. You can export any Helix Native preset to a file on your computer and then drag/drop it into HX Edit. You can easily transfer your studio sound to the stage. You can even use Helix Native's Hardware Compatibility mode to transfer presets among different Helix device (e.g. HX Stomp to Helix Floor).

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On 3/15/2023 at 1:30 PM, porky_pie said:

I'd love HX Edit to also show the tuner, but that also isn't going to happen!  One thought is whether you can use HX native in this fashion - I appreciate that it's a plug in for a DAW, but if you have a track recorded, you can use Native to change settings and re-amp, is it possible to then export the settings from Native to HX Edit/ Helix?

 

Probably not, just not something I'd ever considered.  Currently at work or I'd give it a go.


Hi,

 

Tuner in the editor?
 

Good grief! You must have been reading all those old posts from @spikey, before he jumped ship and bought a Quad Cortex! Hmm… well that was a good idea - he is now still waiting for a desktop editor for that device! 
 

As for Native… we’ll that is the software version of your real world HX unit. It uses your computer do exactly what goes on inside the hardware. You can edit, chop, change and modify presets to your hearts content, but in order to get them into your hardware unit, you have to export the preset, setlist or bundle and load them into HX Edit to transfer them to your real world box of tricks. You can even drag and drop a preset between Native and HX Edit, but it is not possible to make changes to a preset loaded into Helix Native and have those changes reflected on the hardware in real time, even while connected by USB.

 

Hope this helps/makes sense.

 

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I was always on board with the tuner in the editor!  Been lurking a long time, but most people have far more valid/helpful insights than I do.

 

Wouldn't have thought Native could have been used that way, but it's not something I'd ever considered, and from a workflow point of view I could see it being a real boon.  There would be no need to have it change in real time, rather adjust the settings via native while you are away from the unit and restore it in a similar fashion to restoring a backup.  You could then reamp to your heart's content, and load the completed settings back into the helix.

 

Mind you, it's only a thought exercise about a nice to have possibility.  It's not designed that way, so will never happen. 

 

If my aunt had ***** she'd be my uncle!

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Offline editing it's just a recipe for disasters, like preset overriding, setlist mismatches, broken database etc...

 

Also what's the point to edit a tone that you can't listen? I don't really get it lol!

 

Tuner needs an audio engine, and this isn't available in the editor (because it doesn't need one).

 

It will never happen just because it's a technical nonsense. :)

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On 3/16/2023 at 7:58 AM, PierM said:

Offline editing it's just a recipe for disasters, like preset overriding, setlist mismatches, broken database etc...

 

Exactly right. The POD HD editors would run offline. And there were constant reports about issues of lost updates, out of sync data, and even device freezes. Line 6 abandoned the feature with Helix, for good reason.

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On 3/16/2023 at 11:58 AM, PierM said:

Also what's the point to edit a tone that you can't listen? I don't really get it lol!

I think the point is that you can have a track saved, run it through native in a DAW and as you make changes in native there, you can hear the result of those changes by playing it through the DAW.  Once you get a setting you like, the idea being then that you can upload from Native to Helix (I know this can't happen, just trying to point out that I can see a reason for wanting to be able to do it) and play with the setting.  No different to being at a Helix and having a loop block as the first one, playing a piece and setting it to loop, and then changing the preset blocks after the looper to change the preset.

 

With decent headphones, it could help you with preset selection whilst away from the unit.  The alternative is to do as I suggested above, but then you have to manually change the blocks, but this could take a while if a lot of settings have been changed.  Does this make sense?

 

I don't think it's just blindly twiddling settings, then returning to a Helix, uploading settings and seeing what you can get without hearing any of it, I agree that would be insanity!

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On 3/16/2023 at 9:12 AM, porky_pie said:

..., the idea being then that you can upload from Native to Helix (I know this can't happen, ...

I believe I answered this earlier in this thread in reply to your previous statement that this can't happen Yes, it can. I do it regularly.

 

And, as you point out, for those who have Helix Native it renders the offline version of HX Edit redundant. (or, at least, it passes the buck to your DAW which may itself require that an audio interface device such as Helix be connected in order to operate.)

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On 3/16/2023 at 1:12 PM, porky_pie said:

I think the point is that you can have a track saved, run it through native in a DAW and as you make changes in native there, you can hear the result of those changes by playing it through the DAW. 


Well, at the risk of stating the bleeding obvious, this is exactly what is possible now!

 

The only downside to this is when you make your desired edit in Native you need to save it in order to import it, or drag and drop it, into HX Edit to port across into your hardware device.

 

I really don’t see the issue here. It’s creating problems that don’t exist.

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No problem, I think I have misunderstood/misread earlier posts. @silverheadI had missed your point on saving the Native preset and then copying it into HX edit, I didn't realise that feature was there. In which case, agree wholeheartedly - No problem exists.

 

Apologies, I'll go back to being silent!

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