WHY DOESN'T LINE 6 CONSIDER ADDING METRONOME SOUND TO NOTE GENERATOR (ON HELIX FLOOR)??

[abhi888]

What do y'all use for metronome/click while playing live with helix?

I've tried all the workarounds like 3note generator with tremolo, etc. None have been really successful so far for me. I need to get a proper click sound on my IEMs while playing live and I want it to come through helix since all my delays/fx are mapped with the BPM on it. No, I'm not interested in an external midi source since I want my helix to be a one stop shop. I mean, I have a patch for each song on my helix and tempos are already programmed on it. For any additional midi device I'm adding points of failure. WHY DOESN'T LINE 6 CONSIDER ADDING METRONOME SOUND TO NOTE GENERATOR??

Does anyone echo with this issue? Any suggestions or ideas?

[silverhead]

On 6/9/2025 at 2:10 PM, abhi888 said:

….No, I'm not interested in an external midi source since I want my helix to be a one stop shop. ….…..

 

"..WHY DOESN'T LINE 6 CONSIDER ADDING METRONOME SOUND TO NOTE GENERATOR??

…

 Well, Helix is not a one stop shop. It’s onboard looper is not a fully functional looper either.

 

Who says they’re not considering it? At the top of this page you’ll see a banner about Ideascale retirement. Read that to learn how to submit a feature request.

[DunedinDragon]

Typically a click track is something everyone in the band uses together typically generated from the mixing board so everyone is in sync, so an individual click wouldn't really make much sense other than for personal practice.  These days it's usually more of a prompt/click track to not only align timing but ensure people are prepared for the musical transitions.

[theElevators]

Yes, I can confirm.  We played with a click track.  An easy way to do so is to simply have a stereo signal played from any device, even an iPod.  Left is the click that everybody hears, the right is the backing track.  Later on we got an external sound card for the Macbook, and ran our backing tracks in stereo, while sending an additional click track separately.  The drummer could also have his own mix he could adjust on the fly.  When we played, the click track was only heard by the drummer, but anybody else could also dial it in in their monitors if they wanted to.  Our drummer wore headphones. 

 

I've also played with bands without a click track, and that's what I prefer.  It's much better to simply have the drummer check the tempo right before the start of the song, and then play it by feel.  I have used some delays that were sync'ed to the BPMs, and I found it pretty forgiving if it were a little bit faster/slower.  Plus, I always have my presets so that I could tap in the tempo, if the tempo starts to drift.  One of the songs we played had an arpeggiator sound on the guitar as the main hook.  I would start that song by scratching on the guitar so that everybody would feel the pulse, and then we would start the song.  

 

BTW U2, with Edge heavily relying on the delays played without any any click track early on in their career and they did just fine!  But later the drummer started using a click track as a metronome around 1982-1983...

 

Unless you have BPM-specific tremolo that subdivides your notes into 16ths, there shouldn't be a problem without a click track live (given the drummer's internal clock is consistent).  But I also found a workaround for these situations when the tempo may not be necessarily exact with the tremolo effect--it's Bleat Chop Trem, and there is another equivalent in the Legacy folder.  Basically, the tempo of the tremolo can change between 4 different values.  I figured out that if I have it slightly faster, then slightly slower than the actual BPM, it syncs up very naturally without conflicting with the song.  A very neat trick, if you ask me!

 

Anyways, when the tempo changes slightly throughout the performance, that's what makes it sound natural and old-school.  If you quantized Led Zeppelin and made them play to a metronome, they would not sound the same.  Same for AC/DC.