Helix Rack | Control + MC8

[mowi22]

Hey guys, I have a bit of a puzzle I’m working out. I have the Helix Rack and Control in our studio. We have about 50 pedals of various types that we’ve decided to rack mount instead of display them. Artists and producers spend so much time working in a pedal for the workflow. We now have 4 rjm effect gizmos in 2 racks with 5 shelves each. We also plan on getting an 2 Ampete Switchers to switch our heads and cabs.
 

As most of you are aware, the Helix has only 10 foot switches available per preset for this mostly midi-based configuration . We’d want to be able to bypass toggle a pedal on any shelf to audition sounds in a chain via Midi Cc toggle. Unfortunately, 10 foot switches per preset is very limiting in our case.
 

We do use Helix effects and IRs. We love the snapshots in recall mode and use those, but switching presets doesn’t have that recall feature and midi just returns to the saved midi cc toggle state. So we couldn’t use presets as “pages” effectively. 

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3 options to solve this:
 

Option 1 is allowing presets to not automatically clear the midi cc toggle state.
 

Option 2 is to save midi presets with Midi CC data in a block to recall on any preset. Then we can build custom midi cc chains without the use of a spreadsheet

 

 Option 3 is to allow “footswitch pages” so we can add as many items to footswitches as we like by paging within a preset. Then snapshots can be used with all of our pedals and not just 10. 

Other options that I’m aware of are the Morningstar MC8 or  RJM Mastermind gt22. Both of these devices have foot switches pages to pair with the Helix Control. We could control the Helix via midi with these units. We are also considering the mastermind GT22 to do this work, but it seemed a shame to add another large foot switch to the space. Any thoughts or options I’m missing here?  You’re help would be greatly appreciated. 

[mowi22]

Ok, I think we found a work around using Presets and midi CCs. Each shelf on the rack has a preset and pedals don’t get reset (like with Midi CC toggle) each time you go back and forth between presets. 
 

I was able to get this working with the Helix control by setting foot switches to “Midi CC” and not “Midi CC toggle” the only downsides are that we don’t have an illuminated LED that shows the toggle state and we cant use snapshots effectively. 
 

This may or may not work with PC I can test that tonight to see if that works and report back.

But for anyone building a pedal rack it’s this or make each shelf a pedal board up to 10 pedals. Which may or may not be limiting for your workflow. For now I’m using all the racks through 2 fx loops, Before and after amps so each preset has to have those loop blocks in the signal flow to pass the audio. 

[mowi22]

I’ve also added these to ideascale for those interested in seeing these added to helix. 

 

footswitch pages would make it easier to add more Midi CCs to a single preset 
 

https://line6.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Footswitch-pages/1034324-23508

Midi CC definitions make it easier to add defined Midi CC blocks to make presets easier when building chains with midi destinations. 

https://line6.ideascale.com/a/dtd/HX-Edit-Midi-profiles/1034326-23508

Allow clear midi toggle on presets to be disabled by the user 

 

https://line6.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Option-to-disable-clear-midi-cc-toggle-when-changing-presets/1035653-23508

[phil_m]

Hmm… This sounds really cool, and I’m not sure I followed everything you’re doing exactly, but I’m pretty sure you’re probably the only one in the world doing it. But I’m glad you found something that works for you for now even if it’s not perfect.

[mowi22]

Yea to sum it up briefly…

Problem:

I want all of the shelves in my racks to act as a big pedal board in series without swapping pedals in and out in recording sessions. How do you do that with 50 pedals on a helix rack?
 

Work around solution:

The only way I can do it is to make each preset on the helix work as a “footswitch page”  where midi CCs toggle bypass pedals. Each helix preset is a shelf of pedals on the rack. 
 

Better solution:

Allow more “footswitch pages” on a single Helix preset. Then snapshots and midi CCs toggle can be used to control more than 10 pedals or midi values. 

[mowi22]

This guy does it with the mastermind gt22 @18:31 

 

 

I just want to do it with the helix rack and control only. It would be badass and compact. 
 

I essentially got this working though with the workaround I mentioned. It’s not perfect but it’s working.

 

These are the rigs I’m using as goals for our space.

[mowi22]

Update: After running with the workaround midi CC system over the past week we have seen what is possible with midi CC on helix presets and the helix control. However, cc toggle is still preferred since we can’t see the toggled states of the pedals.The toggled effect state is visible on the rjm effects gizmo itself. We just can’t see it on the helix control board which sucks…. 
 

So, I think an easier ask for line 6 to help us out is to allow toggled presets to not be cleared as an option in preferences with this option:
 

Clear midi toggle ENABLED would do as it already does and reset the toggle state each time you enter the a preset 

 

Clear midi toggle DISABLED would not reset the toggle state and if the state has been previously changed it would work like it does on snapshots and retain the states.

 

This would essentially solve all problems for us. Snapshots would still be lost for this design, but generally at that point we could use presets as footswitch pages.

 

Also, MC8 just arrived and we are setting this up on that device to compare with the helix control.