Help with Amp Channel Switching in Snapshot Mode (Hx Effects)

[jbarno2]

Hey everyone. I am a new Hx Effects user and have been cruising along on my quest to replace my board. Unfortunately, I hit my first snag tonight and am having trouble tracking done an answer on the forum and through tutorials on YouTube. 

 

I am looking for help with switching between my clean and dirty channel for my amp between snapshots. I am using a TRS cable to switch channels and it works perfectly in preset mode. It looks like it should be as easy as stepping on the assigned switch in snapshots too. However, for some reason all snapshots per preset will only stay on the channel that is engaged in snapshot 1. I am really scratching my head on this one. Thanks in advance for your help!

[goggles]

noob question. I have 4 snapshots set up for the 4 presets I am using. Everything works great.  BUT If I am on preset 1 snapshot 3 for example and I switch to preset 4, when I return to preset 1 I need the helix to remain on snapshot 3. Currently it always switches to snapshot 1 and then I have to pedal dance to get it to return to snapshot 3. Is there a config that preserves the snapshot state when switching between presets?

 

[silverhead]

A preset is loaded with the active snapshot being the one that was active when the preset was last saved. That behaviour is fixed and not changeable. Knowing that, perhaps you can determine which snapshot you want to be active when you load a preset, and then save the preset in that state.

[goggles]

Thanks for the err, bad news.  Am I the only one that thinks that's a terrible design decision?  In an old school pedal board this would not be the behavior as the state of the stomp box would remain what it was last set to?

 

Since I am new here - what is the best way to socialize this request?

 

thanks

 

[silverhead]

The official feature request mechanism that Line 6 uses is called Ideascale. Submit your request there.

 

Also, if by ‘old school’ you mean analog pedals then there’s no analogous situation because they have no saved states at all. You simply can’t do what Snapshots do using an ‘old school’ pedalboard. You would need to manually adjust all the pedals and parameters you want to change in real time, pushing switches and rotating knobs. Try that in the middle of a song without interrupting your playing.
 

Introducing multiple ’saved’ states within the same preset in the modeling world means you have to decide what to do when recalling the preset. Which of the several saved states is to be active? Line 6 made a design you think is ’terrible’. What do you think it should be? You say the state should be as it was last set to. In fact, that’s what it is if you recognize that ‘set to’ means ‘saved’ in the digital realm. Like most computer programs, unsaved changes are lost when you close the file (leave the preset).
 

[goggles]

thanks for hanging in there with me Silverhead.

 

I may be confusing the issue with the old school reference.  What I feel would be a more natural behavior is for the stomp to track what the current snapshot of PS1 is.  If I switch to PS2 and come back to PS1 it should just use the last snapshot - to assume that the user wants to go to a potentially different snapshot that was used when the snapshot was saved is an arbitrary assumption imho.

 

I have two tones i was using for a song and I had to do unnecessary pedal dancing to simply get the snapshot I was using on PS1.

 

Looks like what I need to do is to avoid snapshots and simply switch between the 2 presets i need.

 

 

[silverhead]

I’ll hang in with you a little longer…..

 

I think what you’re proposing would require a significant hardware (memory) upgrade in order to be properly and completely implemented. The current design stores all presets in permanent memory and has a SINGLE edit/audition buffer in RAM where the currently active preset is temporarily loaded and processed by the DSP engine. That’s what happens under the hood when you change presets.That’s also why there’s a brief audio dropout when you switch presets, which is the entire motivation for having snapshots. All edits are made in this temporary RAM buffer and changes are saved back to the permanent storage on user command. When a new preset is loaded it replaces the previous preset in the RAM buffer, meaning any unsaved changes are lost.
 

Where would the fact that SSx was active when you left the preset be saved/stored if not by a Save command from the user? You would need additional RAM space of some size. Granted It would be miniscule for this single usage application, but it makes no sense to limit your design change proposal to keeping track of the active snapshot. If that were possible for the active snapshot it should be made possible for any block or parameter change, shouldn’t it? Or do you just want this capability solely for your own use with snapshots and to heck with the guy who wants his modified delay tempo to be similarly retained while switching among unsaved presets? So the additional edit buffer space you need would be the same size as the edit buffer that is used now - two separate edit buffers, one for each of PS1 and PS2. You see where this leads, right? If you have this for two presets, what about the times when you want to swap among more than two unsaved presets and still retain all changes?. How many edit buffers do you need to satisfy all usage situations for this feature? There are 1024 presets stored in a Helix Floor/Rack/LT. 

 

Seems to me a proper and complete implementation of what you are proposing would require a separate edit buffer for every preset, essentially a doubling of RAM for preset editing. Otherwise you would be placing artificial limitations on the use of this feature (speaking of arbitrary assumptions). Makes no sense and ain’t gonna happen.

[datacommando]

On 7/13/2023 at 11:16 PM, goggles said:

Looks like what I need to do is to avoid snapshots and simply switch between the 2 presets i need.

Hi,

 

The whole point of Snapshots is to be able to create “presets within presets”. Snapshots allow you to modify 64 parameters in the current preset. The only thing snapshots can’t do is rearrange your pedalboard or swap out an effect for a different one (unless both effect blocks exist in the same preset).

 

If you are swapping to another preset, that is essentially a completely different set of effects to one one you’re already using,  then what you require isn’t going to happen, for precisely the reasons stated by @silverhead in the post above.

 

I realise you say in your initial post “noob question”, so I’m going to suggest that you need to rethink what you want to do, and how to achieve it in the simplest way. I know you don’t want to hear this, but the Owners Manual is your friend.

https://line6.com/data/6/0a020a411710a6112a67116f0b/application/pdf/HX Effects 3.0 Owner's Manual - Rev C - English .pdf

Hope this helps/makes sense.
 

 

 

[goggles]

Thanks for the detailed explanation on the memory issues with what I was proposing.  I lead software teams and have a lot of appreciation for what seems like a simple ask by users who are not entrenched on the nuances of the stack.  So point taken.  But regardless of the technical complexity I believe it would be a helpful option for any helix user to simply return to the preset with the last snapshot preserved.  

 

I don't think Silverhead meant to be spicy when you inferred that i only care about my narrow use case and wasn't considering all the other permutations of preserving snapshot state but all i can do is tell you what I find to be lacking in the product.  I don't claim to speak for every use case but to return to the last used snapshot of a preset strikes me as a valuable feature and i stand by my ask.

 

And contrary to data commando's assumption that i don't want to read documentation, I write a lot of technical documentation in my job and point many of my stakeholders to the info so I am big fan of docs.  the issue is that the impact of reading documentation doesn't jump off the page for noobs.  once one understands the solution the info can be understood in context.  

 

Bottom line is I appreciate you guys taking the time to respond about my feature request.  I will address my need by changing presets and can work around the slight pause while the presets load.  The tones I get out of my stomp XL are mind blowing and I am in love with the box

 

thx

[datacommando]

On 7/14/2023 at 6:00 AM, goggles said:

The tones I get out of my stomp XL are mind blowing and I am in love with the box

Huh!

 

The start of this thread was a question about using Snapshots on the HX FX to channel switch an external amp. It seems that you are using a Stomp XL - no matter, the firmware is essentially the same, other than the FX unit doesn’t have amp models or cabinet blocks.

 

Now I’m intrigued?
 

What are you actually doing that is so complex that you are required to switch between presets in order to perform one song?

 

To reiterate - think of each of your XL presets as a complete custom pedal board. Each preset can theoretically be loaded with all you need to perform a complete song, or whatever. Then by using the 4 Snapshots you can modify up to 64 parameters across any or all of the effects, amp settings within that specific preset. This allows you to perform feats of wonder that are impossible in the real world, eg: one click could change the delay feedback and mix, swap between a room and plate reverb, turn up the drive on an amp, or whatever else takes your fancy. That would cover 4 changes in one single S/Shot leaving another 60 options available to use across the remaining 3 S/Shots. You will find lots of HX users who like to configure their S/Shots to cover settings for Intro, Verse, Chorus, Solo and use them accordingly. In fact the S/Shots can be toggled using a single switch by using Snapshot Reselect.
 

I rather get the impression that you haven’t delved deep enough into the configuration and use of Snapshots to solve the issues you appear to have with “a terrible design decision”. As for the “slight pause while the presets load”, Line 6 have already addressed this for users who disliked it, but it came at a cost, a big cost. Users of full blown Helix models can use “true spillover” that allows for better switching between presets, but in order to perform this minor miracle means sacrificing the use of one of the two DSP chips. This effectively turns a Helix floor unit into a HX Stomp, but with almost transparent preset swaps. Personally, I have never found a need for it on my Helix floor, which has 32 blocks available per preset which should be enough for most people - unless you’re Devin Townsend who uses 2.

 

I would be interested to see what you have going on in your presets that requires you to tap dance so much.

 

Please upload a couple of your presets (.hlx) for examination, along with a brief explanation of what it is you want to achieve. You never know it may yet be possible.

Hope this helps/makes sense.

 

[silverhead]

On 7/14/2023 at 1:00 AM, goggles said:

…

 

I don't think Silverhead meant to be spicy …

No, I certainly did not. Sometimes black and white text can be easily misinterpreted and I appreciate your recognition of that. It’s been a productive and healthy exchange of opinions. I’m glad to hear you are enjoying the Stomp XL despite its limitations.

[goggles]

For the record I am loving snapshots and have programmed 10-ish presets with 4 snapshots each that do different things according to what I want to do with each preset - its very cool.

 

As far as for my "complex" need - we play a song that has a crunchy distorted tone for the verse and a slightly dirtier and louder tone for the chorus.  I am using snapshots with great aplomb for this.  the tricky bit is when the bridge kicks in.  I need a sound almost like a harpsicord.  I am using a clean preset with chorus and octave pitch and it works great - but as you can imagine in stomp land I have limited DSP so there are no remaining blocks on the crunch tone preset to cover this.  hence the need to switch to a different preset for this part...  i could not make a house payment this month and buy a Helix or just use two presets.

 

But the "default" snapshot that I store for PS1 might be fine for song 1 but not necessarily the default snapshot for song 2.  hence my now infamous "terrible design decision" sentiment. ha.

 

So in my git er done kind of way, I am planning on storing different default snapshots for my primary tones in different preset banks so I can switch between 4 presets for any given song and not have to click 4 buttons in a single beat.  Again - this would be SO much mo betta if the last used snapshot was stored in memory rather than giving such priority to the "default" snapshot.  just my $.03

 

Will send the two tones in another post.  on a diff computer now.  have a great weekend.