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Helix II


MattRyan3777
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If there ever will be one (which is likely), I'd love to have a bit more horsepower and more switches (another row of 6 for example) and knobs (again another row) to support that additional power sufficiently. I'd be very interested in such a thing. As far as devices/FX go to use up that additional horsepower, I'd love to see HOG2 and SY-300 clones (or derivates...).

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On 10/19/2019 at 3:07 PM, lungho said:

 

Two musicians falling all over each other to access one pedal board?  No thank you.

 

On 10/18/2019 at 10:58 PM, cruisinon2 said:

 

Fighting over footswitches on the same device with another overly picky, tone obsessed guitar player? I'll pass... let the other guy buy his own gear.

 

 

 

I don't mean anyone fighting over switches.  It's more about using the pedal as the Control Center.  While that part is available already, it would be ideal to be able to run full rigs from one unit. 

That makes a difference for people like me where fellow musicians can't afford decent equipment.  Or users who are touring and want to limit the amount of gear they are lugging around.  Or for recording where I'm using one unit to handle a few people.

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On 10/18/2019 at 4:09 PM, Kilrahi said:

 

Maybe. The thing is though, we always want MORE. Any processor created will always be able to have more power for one user than if it's split between two users. 

Historically, what two users can do with a Helix now is pretty crazy (each can have their own amp block, reverb, delay, modulation, wah, compression AND distortion and in most traditional cases they won't max out the DSP). 

 

However, BECAUSE we've seen how crazy one user can get with the Helix, we automatically wish that two people could do the same. For the next generation processor the same thing is likely to happen. You'll still feel like two users are limited, even if it's more advanced than what 99% of guitar players have done for decades. 

 

BTW, I used to do this with the X3 Live.  It was true dual path with up to 8 blocks or whatever, and I could make an entire rig for both me and my singer/rhythm guitarist.  Then I made the patch changes and he could just play and sing. 

 

The HD500x wasn't powerful enough if I recall correctly, unless the rigs for each were pretty simple.  Dual amping really took a lot of DSP.


I can do the same in the Helix now if I'm careful about selections, but it would be nice if it just had a little bit more juice so I could squeeze in an extra Delay and or the Dual Cab sim or something.  

 

:)

 

 

 

 

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If Fractal had really stepped it up with the upcoming FM3, with insane DSP, multiple amps per preset, etc. then I'd say Helix might be in need of an upgrade soon. But as it stands, they really didn't do much more than put the AX8 into a smaller package and update the modeling and GUI. I'll probably buy one, but my Helix won't be going anywhere soon.

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On 10/18/2019 at 1:52 PM, Kevin-M said:

One thing that might make sense for new hardware is if they go down the path of polyphonic synth/pitch shift and the current processors can’t keep up

 

I know there hasn't been much interest in it as of yet but another reason to upgrade hardware would be if they ever decide to let plugins run on their floor processors. That would open up the Helix to a whole brave new world of third party effects and processing (and potentially crashing).  Still an appealing idea to me though.

 

Vote it up:  https://line6.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Enable-plugins-to-run-on-the-current-Helix-or-a-future-version/869179-23508

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17 hours ago, HonestOpinion said:

 

I know there hasn't been much interest in it as of yet but another reason to upgrade hardware would be if they ever decide to let plugins run on their floor processors. That would open up the Helix to a whole brave new world of third party effects and processing (and potentially crashing).  Still an appealing idea to me though.

 

Vote it up:  https://line6.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Enable-plugins-to-run-on-the-current-Helix-or-a-future-version/869179-23508

 

In all honesty: I would *love* such a thing. But my vote would go against it unless there'd be an option to *always* and instantly switch to a completely plugin-free setting that can't even be "seen" by plugins. Everything else IMO is asking for trouble at one point in time, especially in case you plan to use standardized plugin formats such as VST or AU - as you can't use them without at least partially integrating the OS they're using as well.
In addition, if you really wanted a Helix/Plugin hybrid setup, that's pretty much possible already as you could simply use Helix Native, a powerful laptop (or something like a Mac Mini) and a decent low latency interface.

 

However, what I could pretty much imagine is a better audio interface being integrated in the next Helix incarnation. The current interface is offering roundtrip latency values of around 7ms at 32 samples buffersize at 48kHz (and that's just a driver-reported value, haven't measured it physically, may do that later on), which isn't exactly shiny. Once the latency would be down to what actual great USB3/TB interfaces can deliver (which could be around as low as 3ms, possibly even lower at higher samplerates), it'd become a lot easier to integrate pretty much any computer into your setup. That way nobody would have to worry about whatever weird operating system related trouble as you could always just plug out and use the stock Helix things.

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