Helix 3.0—"THE ALONG CAME POLY UPDATE"

[stompr]

The poly effects are stunning.

 

The Shuffling Looper and Glitch Delays are insanely addictive.

 

Really impressive update.

[JimGordon]

Not gonna lie- once again the actual updating was rough going- even in update mode, it kept failing, even using an offline firmware file, and took like 8 tries.  Maybe it's the USB cable I'm using, but I remember having issues last time using a different one, the one that came with the Helix.  I'm glad it worked flawlessly for some, but I think this is one area that could use improvement.

 

That said.......wow- we finally got a Diezel amp!  Haven't even tried the Princeton yet, but I'm hoping for some serious retro dad-rock vibes.  The new global auto-impedance setting is going to have me going back, and undoing some of the compromises I had to use for patches that had more than one "old" fuzz (where I'd have to set manual impedance, and could then only have one "proper" low impedance pedal per patch.  The poly capo sometimes warbles if you set it too low, but I think I got it working decently.  The acousticator + 12 string effect is a pretty good "quick 'n dirty" solution for getting a faux acoustic sound finally.  The HM-2 is pretty cool too.  There's still a bunch I have yet to explore.  It was worth the wait.

 

Here's to hoping 3.1 has a couple more amp models (Laney and Super Reverb would be great).  But honestly, at this point, the unit has more than lived up to its potential, despite starting off with an underwhelming selection way back when it came out.  Line 6 really stepped in and took over the space Digitech decided to vacate.

[Thehook]

Not another fake 3.0 post!...  Wait,this one's real! Product support and updates is one of the reasons I switched to Line 6. Very grateful to the Line 6 team. Some really great features in the update.I have not updated yet(just got in) but it seems not much dedicated to bassists. I think there was more than enough guitar amps and distortion options already. Maybe 3.1 for bass?

[Wondo100]

I noticed that the factory settings for 3.0 are lower volume than previous. I do not know why this is. When I loaded the old setlist back in again. They sounded louder. That is the only weird thing so far. Other than that, I am very impressed with the new models that I have tried so far. Love the pitch updates!

[glideman]

It kinda sucks that my Helix is sitting inside the church awaiting the Sunday morning service activities.... Dohhhhh!!!  :P

[rsvette12]

Awesome stuff Guys - thanks so much :)  

[kjyork512]

I updated my Helix Floor to 3.0 but the update is not showing up on HX Edit on my mac. So I have the "US Princess" on my floor but cannot edit it on Edit because it is not there. Any suggestions?

[rondesjardins]

Updated my HX Stomp to 3.0, but it seems that when I’m in Snapshot mode, the first foot switch is lit but when I hit FS2 or FS3 it does not change into Snapshot #2 or #3 and the corresponding foot switch does not light up (and the snapshot icon on the screen does not change). However, a small letter “e” appears next to the camera icon on the display.

 

If I then switch into another mode and press a switch (let’s say FS2), and then go back to Snapshot mode, then FS2 is lit and the screen shows the camera icon with the number 2 in it. I then try any FS to change to another Snapshot and it won’t change or light up the switch.

 

is this a bug or did the update wipe out my Snapshots?  Or, is there some new setting I need to change? If none of the above, do I just need to restore my presets from my backup?

 

Can’t wait to try the new stuff! I literally just upgraded from the Pod Go to the Stomp 5 days ago, so the 3.0 release timing is awesome.

[phil_m]

13 minutes ago, kjyork512 said:

I updated my Helix Floor to 3.0 but the update is not showing up on HX Edit on my mac. So I have the "US Princess" on my floor but cannot edit it on Edit because it is not there. Any suggestions?

You need to download and install the new version of HX Edit.

[klangmaler]

You.did.a.great.job. Again.

You guys are really awesome; thank you all for your great support!

[jazzyhands]

Any hope for us POD Go peasants to get the amp sims, and maybe a couple of the pedals? 

[AppleTreeChen]

 thanks so much 

[SaschaFranck]

5 hours ago, donkelley said:

Make sure your instrument is perfectly in tune first.  Makes a big difference.  Also set your levels carefully before the poly pitch block.

 

I was using the PolyPitch with all sorts of input levels (straight after the input, straight after the amp, no boosts or whatsoever). Shouldn't be required to adjust anything there. Also, by default the tuning shouldn't matter at all, this is no intelligent pitch shifting - or let me put it that way: If the tuning matters, the algorithm is useless. What if I'd like to tune to concert pitch 444Hz? Or to 438? And octave is an octave. Besides, if the tuning would be relevant, bends, vibratos and whammy bar actions wouldn't work at all (apart from all that, my guitars are pretty much well tuned).

But, benefit of a doubt and all that, feel free to record a similar arpeggiated chord pattern as in my example and post it. I will then have another look at what I might be doing wrong. Until then, I trust my ears. And they're telling me that this is a warbly affair. Can still be pretty useful (and I like it already for some things), but it's not a high quality pitch shifting algorithm in any way.

[molul]

6 hours ago, SaschaFranck said:

 

Listen to the attachement. 1 bar without, 1 bar with PolyPitch, even set to 0 semitones, so there's no work to do and no misleading by the transposition itself. Does that sound nice and clean?

PolyPitch.mp3 194.82 kB · 26 downloads

I see. I can't make this test, but honestly, I wouldn't expect a polyphonic pitch to be as clean as if you just tuned your guitar up or down. These kind of artifacts are a good treat for being able to do what you can do with these effects.

[genesound]

Awesome! First time I've checked for months and here it is!

[SaschaFranck]

14 minutes ago, molul said:

I see. I can't make this test,

 

How so? Don't you own a Helix?

 

14 minutes ago, molul said:

but honestly, I wouldn't expect a polyphonic pitch to be as clean as if you just tuned your guitar up or down.

 

I don't. But in case someone claims that the shifting quality is not "warbly", that needs to be put into perspective.

And IMO there's quite better pitch shifting available (for instance, the Kemper examples I heard were quite astounding). Personally, I'd even vastly prefer a more artificial tone - but without the warble (think along the lines of an EHX HOG or POG).

Whatever, I didn't even mean to argue about this, especially as there's little to argue about. Using PolyPitch results in plenty of artefacts as soon as you play something else but powerchords, no way around it. Still very useful, though.

[soblivion]

2 hours ago, rondesjardins said:

is this a bug or did the update wipe out my Snapshots?  Or, is there some new setting I need to change? If none of the above, do I just need to restore my presets from my backup?

 

 

 

I'm not familiar at all with the stomp, but I have the LT and after doing the update it changed my button assignments from snaps to presets. My guess is something similar happened on your stomp.

 

In regards to the update itself, I'm happy with it.  The update procedure was painless and quick on both LT and Native.

 

I do have to agree with  SaschaFranck  in regards to the poly stuff. What little I played with definitely had "the warbles" and other artifacts. I don't use that sort of thing much so it really doesn't bother me.  It's entirely possible that  I don't know what I'm doing and don't know how to implement it.  I also to agree with SaschaFranck also in regards to tuning. Half my guitars are in Eb, does that mean I can't use it?  That doesn't make sense to me. But I'll reserve judgement until I educate myself better on the subject.

 

So far its the new Horizon Drive is what has me most excited.  I can see it replacing the TS 808 in alot of my existing patches.

 

Oh, and a tuner in Native! That's also a big plus.

 

[molul]

1 hour ago, SaschaFranck said:

 

How so? Don't you own a Helix?

Oh, yes. I meant "can't do this right now". I'll try tomorrow ;)

[SaschaFranck]

Really loving the Princess. As said, that one will become a staple, might even make it as my standard clean amp. Does incredibly well with my alltime favourite drive, namely the Top Secret OD (I really wish they'd do an extended version with tone controls and more output level). That Horizon Gate thing already starts growing on me, too - even if I may never actually use the gate function.

[sonerath]

This update is awesome !! I would like to see a 4k monitor compatibility for Helix edit though....

[ruperthawkes]

WOW!   Stereo widener and acoustic sim.   And that's without checking out the load of other cool features.

 

THANK YOU LINE6!   So glad I bought the rack :-)

[PierM]

4 hours ago, SaschaFranck said:

 

How so? Don't you own a Helix?

 

 

I don't. But in case someone claims that the shifting quality is not "warbly", that needs to be put into perspective.

And IMO there's quite better pitch shifting available (for instance, the Kemper examples I heard were quite astounding). Personally, I'd even vastly prefer a more artificial tone - but without the warble (think along the lines of an EHX HOG or POG).

Whatever, I didn't even mean to argue about this, especially as there's little to argue about. Using PolyPitch results in plenty of artefacts as soon as you play something else but powerchords, no way around it. Still very useful, though.

 

Oh man  just shut up and play LOL!

[SaschaFranck]

13 minutes ago, PierM said:

Oh man  just shut up and play LOL!

 

As you can clearly see by the example I posted, that's what I'm doing.

[SaschaFranck]

4 hours ago, soblivion said:

I also to agree with SaschaFranck also in regards to tuning. Half my guitars are in Eb, does that mean I can't use it?

 

Nah, the tuning comment can't be taken seriously, really (no offense meant, donkelley). It'd exclude anything but meticulously (standard) tuned guitars that you don't use bendings and vibratos with, either. Playing a saz? Don't use PolyPitch. Playing a sitar? Don't use PolyPitch. You can see where this is going to...

However, it's very likely that PolyPitch (just as many other similar algorithms) is majorly irritated by hamonic overtones. Out of sheer interest, I was playing some plain sine wave patch from a synth through it. Works a *lot* better. Even when playing less complexed chords (such as triads), it's working kind of ok. But once you're using more complexed chords, it all get's warbly, sometimes even more than that (a typical piano Cmaj7 chord such as G-B-C-E is rendered *completely* useless - and fwiw, quite obviously that synth was perfectly in tune). Add to this picture that guitars are far away from producing sine waves and you're into warbling almost all over the place.

Having said that, I suppose that with certain bits of pre-filtering (rather extreme high cuts, maybe some low cutting, too) things will become noticeably better. I'll check that out in a bit. But quite obviously, you'd sacrifice your precious guitar tone a lot when doing so.

[rondesjardins]

Thanks @soblivion. Unfortunately, I can't find any settings that let me define the behavior/function for FS1 and FS2 (I can define the functions for FS3, and the external FS4 and FS5). 
It's weird that all foot switches work correctly in all other modes, except in Snapshot mode.

 

Anyone else have a suggestion? I am admittedly new to the Stomp, so am hoping it's just a setting I'm not familiar with.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions/insights.

[datacommando]

13 hours ago, spacelake said:

HX Stomp does not get the new artist presets, right?

Hi,

 

Get them here, they are right at the bottom of the page - be sure to take note of the warning at the top of the page!

 

 

Hope this helps/makes sense.

 

[lou-kash]

17 hours ago, msmithphoto said:

is v3.0 of HX Edit compatible with Mac OSX El Capitan? It's not clear from the downloads page.

 

Installs fine and works.

However:

1) I still kept v2.92 for the time being, renaming it to "HX Edit 2" before installing v3 to avoid overwrite.

2) My Stomp hasn't been updtated to v3 yet. But HX Edit 3 connects fine to firmware 2.92

3) Login will not work on El Capitan, see

4) Most importantly, Helix Driver v1.0.9 is not fully compatible with El Capitan. Keep using v1.0.7!

[lou-kash]

7 minutes ago, lou-kash said:

Login will not work on El Capitan

 

Hm… now that's interesting: login works on El Capitan with HX Edit v3! It even offers me to update the Stomp to firmware 3!

Now, that's slightly puzzling… :)

[datacommando]

44 minutes ago, SaschaFranck said:

Add to this picture that guitars are far away from producing sine waves and you're into warbling almost all over the place.

I guess this will be refined, because as it says in the “Known Issues” section of the firmware download page:

 

• In the Poly Pitch models, very fast playing may exhibit some minor onset smearing. Additional improvements to the poly pitch engine are forthcoming

 

My bold emphasis - I think they maybe already on the case.  

[SaschaFranck]

21 minutes ago, datacommando said:

I guess this will be refined, because as it says in the “Known Issues” section of the firmware download page:

 

Yeah, we'll see. In my case it's not about fast playing, though - ok, sure, you could of course describe chords as some extremely fast played notes. As said, we'll see. As is, once you're playing slightly more complexed chords, PolyPitch won't even just warble but throw up instead.

[PierM]

Had fun for hours with Poly, still, to me feels and sound amazing. So, again, thank you L6 for the huge bonus.

 

I'm a player, so I'm not there sitting in front of my stuff, with an oscilloscope, to prove algo is glitching, I don't care honestly (unless it's borked, which is not). I do also have a JTV59 armed with a tripleplay, and in some condition those are way more glitchy and warbly than what I'm experiencing with that Poly algo.

 

Said that, the only glitch I find a bit annoying so far, for my playing, is that a "pulse" kicks in, when you are playing a phrase, on top of open string notes. Pretty sure that's the tracking trying to keep the "drone" notes up to date, while complex stuff is happening underneath. If they improve that, I'm sold. :)

 

Really, no offense to anyone, but it's about music and having fun with it. If the approach is to over analyze everything, you'll always find something to be picky about - especially on extremely complex algos like that. I personally don't care of this approach, it's not productive. It's a free toy, works great for my style of playing, all good stuff. Funny is, I was planning to sell my Helix Rack, after this I'm keeping it a little more. :P

[Jyda]

Great update. Thanks for the hard work!

 

The update worked smoothly on my Helix Floor. You just have to follow the instructions to the number as there were some unusual steps.

 

I haven't had time to go through all new stuff, but the "Favorites" feature is killer. I hope it sees further development. Maybe so we can categorize them and share (export/import) favorites?

 

Nice idea with artists presets so we can lay at rest the talk about all presets sounding bad. It would though be very useful to know if a certain preset was developed for stage or home use.

[spikey]

Logged in just to see if anything was new this morning and was S H O C K E D!

 

Thanks Line-6 ! I better get to downloading YIPPEE!!!! 

[SaschaFranck]

21 minutes ago, PierM said:

I'm a player, so I'm not there sitting in front of my stuff, with an oscilloscope, to prove algo is glitching,

 

Well, if you need an oscilloscope to notice the warbling that is all over the place, that possibly says more about you than about the algorithm. Sorry, but the warbling is *so* obvious I fail to understand how anybody could say it's not there.

[gk001]

Brilliant

A quick, easy and painless upgrade to my Helix Floor and some great new sounds

Love the poly

Thanks

:)

[noisyneil]

Loving it so far. Trying to figure out a way to have Poly Sustain on path B so I can add some chorus, but can't make it 100% wet as they only included a level control, so kinda scratching my head... 

[Gregory57]

Thank you Line 6! 

 

I love the Helix LT and can't wait to update from 2.92. to 3.0 so I can try the Acoustic Sim.

[spikey]

I've Been playing (not tweaking- PLAYING) for over 2 hours now and can state that Line-6 "knocked the Fender Princeton Outta the park" with this one!!!!

Best Ive ever heard with that model, owning Helix, Kemper and having owned an Axe FX 2 XL+. I am More than Impressed with this tone! Add in some Time Machine or Volante and play till there is nothing but nubs left LOL!!!!

[CraigGT]

7 minutes ago, spikey said:

I've Been playing (not tweaking- PLAYING) for over 2 hours now and can state that Line-6 "knocked the Fender Princeton Outta the park" with this one!!!!

Best Ive ever heard with that model, owning Helix, Kemper and having owned an Axe FX 2 XL+. I am More than Impressed with this tone! Add in some Time Machine or Volante and play till there is nothing but nubs left LOL!!!!

 

It's capable of some good Neil Young if you overdrive it too!

[SaschaFranck]

10 minutes ago, spikey said:

I've Been playing (not tweaking- PLAYING) for over 2 hours now and can state that Line-6 "knocked the Fender Princeton Outta the park" with this one!!!!

 

Slap the Top Secret OD in front! And bump up your monitoring volume for extra fun. Apart from some brief look at the Benzines (not exactly my COT but the Mega channel might be useful) and PolyPitch, I was just playing with the Princess so far.