HELIX: Can I turn on/off an effect in a patch while playing?

[mccloysong]

Once I'm in a patch, am I stuck with the settings?

There seems to be a silence/hiccup when switching patches.

What if I have it fairly clean and, say, I want to turn on distortion for the solo then back off.

In my Line 6 Effects I could: by selecting my patch there, it offered on/off switches for each effect.

Can I on the HELIX?

[silverhead]

That’s what Snapshots are for. Read up on how to use those - start with the manual. Using snapshots removes the brief audio dropout because there is no need to reload a new patch into working memory - snapshots exist within the patch. You can turn individual FX on/off with no audio gap, and you can control whether to have the FX ‘trails’ on or off (e.g. have the delay repeats continue or not after you turn off the Delay).

[codamedia]

On 6/10/2022 at 8:58 PM, mccloysong said:

In my Line 6 Effects I could: by selecting my patch there, it offered on/off switches for each effect.

Can I on the HELIX?

 

That is called "stomp mode"... and yes it exists in the Helix just as it does in the HX Effects. 

 

On 6/10/2022 at 8:58 PM, mccloysong said:

There seems to be a silence/hiccup when switching patches.

 

The GAP when changing presets has options as well. Learning snapshots (mentioned above) is the best approach (IMO) but since 3.1 the Helix also has a mode called "preset spillover" that removes the GAP when changing presets. That option will cost you an entire DSP (path), but some find it worth the sacrifice. 

[cglaser68]

As other's have stated, the best compromise you're looking for is snapshots.  The preset spillover, mentioned by the previous poster, is in my opinion, highly specialized and while cool, I think not needed in most use case scenarios.  I'm a concept guy. but not everyone is, so the following may or may not help you.

 

In the Helix a 'Preset' is ALL the devices you have configured for that patch whether they are bypassed or not.  When you select a preset by stomping the footswitch for it, the Helix needs to load EVERY device present in that patch.  So if your preset has a compressor,  two amps, two cabs, and overdrive pedal, a delay pedal, a modulation device,  and then finally a reverb, when you press the footswitch to select that preset, ALL of those devices must be loaded into the Helix.  This takes several (10 - 20) milliseconds to do.  When you load a new preset in, the old one is also cleared out.  So if you try to change presets while playing you will always get an audio gap or artifact. This artifact is because the old preset is removed, and the new loaded, and that cannot happen instantly.

 

What a snapshot does, is control any or all of the parameters of an already loaded preset, including bypassing or enabling any of those devices.    You can assign ANY parameter of ANY device of the currently loaded preset to be controlled via snapshot.  The concept to take away here is that snapshots don't load or unload anything.  They only control the configuration of the devices already loaded when you selected the preset.  These configuration changes can happen near instantly (it's not actually instant, but unless your snapshots change more than 20 or 30 parameters between them, it is effectively instant).  This allows you to do thing like, turn off the modulation, change the delay mix from 30% to 40%, change the feedback from 25 to 40, turn on the overdrive, switch from amp1 to amp2 and change the reverb mix all at once and you will get no 'gap'.

 

The downside of a snapshot is you can only work with devices that are in the currently loaded preset.  You can't add a new device or remove an existing one with a snapshot. You're stuck with what is present in the loaded preset.   So you can't for instance have a snapshot that had 3 amps in it already, and then switch to 3 different amps.  This means that you can run into some DSP issues when trying to integrate multiple amp changes or other large DSP devices all in one preset.  But I would guess that for 90% of users in 90% of cases, you can do what you need to do with a well designed preset combined with  snapshots. My band is a 70's - 2000's rock cover band, we have about 40 songs to choose our setlist from at any given time.  I typically have one preset per song, with snapshots set up for any changes (ie. intro, chorus, verse, solo, etc).  There are only two songs we do right  now, that I can't do all the changes I need via snapshots, and for both of those songs the limit comes from me having to dedicate one of the DSP paths to the piezo pickups of my Variax and the other path to the magnetic pickups. (I do this to mix the acoustic models of the variax in behind the distorted magnetic pickups) for these songs.

[musical1212]

cglaser68

How do you specify Variax piezo vs magnetic on the Helix? I am hoping to create a preset for my Helix and Variax and use an IR to get some kind of classical guitar sound. Any tips appreciated.

[silverhead]

On 3/24/2023 at 9:32 AM, musical1212 said:

cglaser68

How do you specify Variax piezo vs magnetic on the Helix? I am hoping to create a preset for my Helix and Variax and use an IR to get some kind of classical guitar sound. Any tips appreciated.

In the Input block of a preset you can select Variax or Variax Mags (along with the usual Guitar, Mic, Multi...). Selecting Variax accesses the Variax models (piezos), Variax Mags accesses the magnetic pickups.