Line 6 Helix.

[Musicman20]

GuitarGuitar prices gone up to over £1400 for the Helix Floor over the last two hours. I asked their online help and they said that is the price they now are.

Wonder who gets the additional money for the stock they already own?!

Edited August 11, 2017 by Musicman20

[fretmeister]

New ones should have the latest firmware, but if not, update it straight away. Don't want to make a cool patch and then have it sounding different 5 mins later.

Also, when using the cab models, use the high and low cuts. They are set to zero. They are the "secret" to a good amp sound. Set the low cut at about 75hz and the high at about 6khz. Stops the low end boom and any fizz.

[steviedee]

I'm (as we say up here) a bawhair away from buying a Helix LT are people happy with them?

[fretmeister]

Very.

There's no internal differences between full fat Nd LT.

Usual rules apply as for every preset based item: bin the presets and make your tone from scratch

[steviedee]

[quote name='fretmeister' timestamp='1502782014' post='3353405']
Very.

There's no internal differences between full fat Nd LT.

Usual rules apply as for every preset based item: bin the presets and make your tone from scratch
[/quote]

I think the LT would be more than enough for me. I love my pedals and I have some classics but the board is huge and it's a pain in the arse! I bought a Firehawk for messing about in the house and was frankly quite impressed by that.

[fretmeister]

I've got the rack and although I started using the loops as I've learned the unit more I have now removed all but 1 external pedal from my set up - the BSW.

The latest firmware had tons of stuff for bassists. More compressors / amps / drives.

I'm actually tempted to get the LT as well as the rack and the other bits in the rack is quite heavy. Need to save up a bit first!

[Musicman20]

It arrived, but my friend brought his over for me to play on (latest updates with his tweaks). Whilst it does sound good, I don't know, I really like the tone of my amps and pedals, both guitar and bass related.

I have no intention of selling any of them. So to me this is just another option which would possibly be used direct for bass, or into an amp for guitar, and it just seems too large for something like that. Going direct with bass, I use a Sansamp (which I LOVE) or similar. Much smaller and I can literally turn up to rehearsals or even gigs and just use that! Guitar is a bit different obviously.

Quality is great but I'm not 100% sold on the concept. I like new technology but I like my individual pedals.

EDIT - Now I've spent time and started from scratch I think this technology is superb. It is also the highest quality pedal I've ever bought in terms of construction and technology. Superb.

Edited August 19, 2017 by Musicman20

[BigRedX]

I too, am on the verge of getting a Helix of some description. AFAICS the LT only has less input options, only one external effects loop and no "scribble strip". Is that it?

What do the "scribble strips" display? Do they have the names of the associated patches when in the appropriate mode? Do they help at all when editing directly from the unit?

Is the position of the effects loops programmable for each user patch? How noticeable is the latency? I plan to use mine in association with a Linn AdrenaLinn (unless the Helix already does sequencable, MIDI synchronised filter effects).

[fretmeister]

[quote name='Musicman20' timestamp='1502788864' post='3353489']
It arrived, but my friend brought his over for me to play on (latest updates with his tweaks). Whilst it does sound good, I don't know, I really like the tone of my amps and pedals, both guitar and bass related.

I have no intention of selling any of them. So to me this is just another option which would possibly be used direct for bass, or into an amp for guitar, and it just seems too large for something like that. Going direct with bass, I use a Sansamp (which I LOVE) or similar. Much smaller and I can literally turn up to rehearsals or even gigs and just use that! Guitar is a bit different obviously.

Quality is great but I'm not 100% sold on the concept. I like new technology but I like my individual pedals.
[/quote]

In a day you won't even scratch the surface of the box it came in, let alone the unit.

Loads of people in the FB group use it direct for guitar as well, or with a small FRFR monitor on stage instead of an amp. Stage levels down, better control at FOH. No traditional amp at all.

I use it in a couple of ways for bass. Either with cab models and into a Yamaha DXR10, or without cab models and into a power amp and my Barefaced cabs.

For guitar I've abandoned trad cabs completely - just go into the FRFR DXR10. I'm mighty tempted to get another one so I can go stereo all the time (rather than just with a PA) and use the lovely stereo FX, and mic and pan different amps left and right.

I have a great patch where I use 2 different amps panned 75% in opposite directions, then on 1 of them there is a 2 cent detune (about the difference you'd get from 2 different real guitars tuned the same to human ear accuracy), and a 25ms delay - about as tight as a good twin guitar band.

I can turn that bit on and off - so I can make it sound like 1 guitar, and then hit a button to bring in the other signal path and all of a sudden it sounds like 2 guitarists. Easy enough to organise for harmony parts too.

I love it. It's completely changed the way I find sounds.

[fretmeister]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1502789167' post='3353492']
I too, am on the verge of getting a Helix of some description. AFAICS the LT only has less input options, only one external effects loop and no "scribble strip". Is that it?

What do the "scribble strips" display? Do they have the names of the associated patches when in the appropriate mode? Do they help at all when editing directly from the unit?

Is the position of the effects loops programmable for each user patch? How noticeable is the latency? I plan to use mine in association with a Linn AdrenaLinn (unless the Helix already does sequencable, MIDI synchronised filter effects).
[/quote]

Scribble Strips display a variety of things. They can show patch names, or individual FX names, or Snapshot names. And you can rename them to what ever you like.
You can also have a half and half. So 1 row shows Snapshots and the other shows FX pedals. So You could have 8 Snapshots, or 4 shapshots and 4 separate FX that you use sparingly (that's what I do)

You can put the loops anywhere in the path. There are Joint send and return blocks that route the signal to outboard and then back in immediately, or you can have separate send and return blocks so you can jump an internal block and mix in parallel.

Latency - Complete patch changes do have a little latency (depending on DSP load) and that is what the Snapshots avoids. A Snapshot is full rig changes WITHIN a patch, so there is no required time for loading a patch as it is already there.

Snapshots are amazing. It is well described.

It takes a "Snapshot" of every setting you have on the screen and allows you to recall it. Then you change every setting. Turn 1 amp off and another on. Then change your drive pedal gain and tone settings. Speed up the phaser. Change the harmoniser from minor to major.

Then save those changes as Snapshot 2.

Then swap between them with a footswitch.

You can even set a snapshot to remember on the fly changes you make (such as turning on a drive pedal) so if you change SS and then come back to the first one it doesn't revert to what you have saved, it remembers you turning on the drive pedal.

There is no latency using Snapshots. Load everything you can into a single patch (assuming you don't run out of DSP - depends how mental you go and which models you use) and then use Snapshots.

[AndyW]

Got my LT yesterday and yes it's absolutely amazing, but:
1) Is quite a bit bigger and heavier than expected so carrying around on public transport with my other bits won't be practical (London joys)
2) I'm also happy with the D.I. Straight out from my amp so, the extra amps are just a treat. Effects are what I was most interested in.

So, will be returning it and probably getting another Eventide H9 for my main effects with a couple of extras on the side. If I had roadies or transport it would possibly be another scenario.

Edited August 15, 2017 by AndyW

[BigRedX]

I hadn't considered latency when switching between patches, since my BassPod XT sounds instantaneous, so thought that was a thing of the past. I used to own a Peavey BassFex in the 90s which was a fantastic unit for features but the pause between switching from one patch to another made it completely unusable for mid-song switching as the whole unit went silent for about half a second when you elected the new patch. Good news that there's way around it.

What I meant was latency when using external effects loops as the signal obviously need to be converted back to analog for the send and re-digitised on the return. The effect I'm intending to use it with is one that need to be in series rather than in parallel with the signal path going through the Helix, so any delay added by using the loop could well be noticeable.

[steviedee]

I'm pretty much moving to in ears (deafness!) and the band have an X32 desk so it looks ideal. And the option of being able to have a two output channels looks really cool. I used to have a Sansamp RPI and RPM into a power amp with separate outs which I loved but was just too heavy.

[fretmeister]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1502792315' post='3353538']
I hadn't considered latency when switching between patches, since my BassPod XT sounds instantaneous, so thought that was a thing of the past. I used to own a Peavey BassFex in the 90s which was a fantastic unit for features but the pause between switching from one patch to another made it completely unusable for mid-song switching as the whole unit went silent for about half a second when you elected the new patch. Good news that there's way around it.

What I meant was latency when using external effects loops as the signal obviously need to be converted back to analog for the send and re-digitised on the return. The effect I'm intending to use it with is one that need to be in series rather than in parallel with the signal path going through the Helix, so any delay added by using the loop could well be noticeable.
[/quote]

Latency will only get worse with new modellers. The software models are now so massive there is a load time.

The L6 guys said it could be done with zero latency, but that would mean putting in 1 or 2 new DSP cores that only dealt with switching and not sound. They did think about it, but the sale price would be far higher than it is - possibly making it more expensive than the Fractal stuff.

The Axe-FX has latency in that way too - they have a thing called "Scenes" as a work around.

The only Zero latency patch change unit out there at the moment is the Digitech GSP1101 - and that's because it has 1 core for sound and another purely for switching. It's not a bad unit by any means, but it's not up the standard of Fractal / Helix / Kemper either.


I can't detect any latency when I'm using the Loops, but I am only using 1. I suppose it might be noticeable if you were using 4 separate ones.

I am similarly upset by latency. When I got my Helix I was assigning multiple things to individual footswitches (you can assign 8 on / off states to a single switch) to avoid patch changes. Then Snapshots came along in a firmware update and made it all much easier.

A mate plays guitar in the David Cross Band (the remains of King Crimson) and he usually uses a pair of Axe-FX II. But it's heavy and expensive to fly his rack around so he's currently trying to recreate his monster prog rig with a single Helix. He finds the UI and the Snapshots to be superior to the Fractal. At the moment he prefers the Fractal sound, but he admits he's been using them since they came out and he's more familiar with them. He has some weird channel morphing needs too and he reckons he's cracked it. Can't wait to try his patches!

[fretmeister]

Just been confirmed - Helix Native plugin will be released tomorrow.

[BigRedX]

Thanks for all the info. I suspect that as DSP gets even cheaper, more powerful and more efficient, at some point it will be practical to put enough of them into a multi-effects unit so that we won't have to rely on tricks to get around the problem of patch-switching latency.

[fretmeister]

I suspect that they'll go a different way to keep the prices down - make the individual patch sizes so massive so the amount of stuff that can be loaded into a single patch is far bigger - perhaps to the point where everything is effectively loaded at all times and switching is only an issue of routing and parameter changes.

I can make a patch with 3 amps in it with some FX already without latency. Although most of the time I use 2 amps and more FX within a single patch and get 4 core sounds out of it (Clean / Crunch / Filth / Solo) while still leaving another 4 footswitches for FX that I don't want to be part of a core sound

FX that are on all the time don't have to have a switch assignment - they can run "hidden" even if the Snapshots are changing the parameters. For example, I always have compression on, but the values are different per core sound. So that doesn't need it's own footswitch - the parameters change as I change core sounds.


It's got lots of lovely little things too - like the footswitches are capacitive - so you can just touch them with a finger and the screen will change to show what that switch is assigned to, and the parameters. If you lightly touch (not press) 2 at once, then it will ask if you want to swap their positions on the floor controller.

There's a Home button to always bring you back to the full path screen, and another AMP button to show you your amp and parameters. If you have more than 1 amp it will cycle them, so mid gig you can always find your amp setting page with a button press.

If you change a parameter to something you don't like, as long as you haven't saved the change yet, a push on the knob will put it back to where it was.
Just highlighting a block will let you scroll through everything on the Helix with a rotary control.

Whoever designed the UI deserves all the medals - I looked at the cheat sheet when I got it, but I haven't opened the manual (comes on a USB stick) at all. It would't surprise me if the only people who use the manual either have never had a multi-fx unit before, or want to look up the midi mapping stuff.

[fretmeister]

Christ, I'm turning into a real fanboi!!

I don't work for them, promise!

[BigRedX]

Have you been using the Helix Edit software at all? If so is it any good, and does it offer a significant advantage over the Helix's built-in display?

One of the things that is making me pause at the moment is that Line6 don't have the best reputation for keeping up with Mac OS X updates, and since my main computer (the one with all the big screens which is the main point of having a "proper" computer) is also the one I make my living on, updates are dictated by the needs of my graphics applications, and if I do get a lot of use out of the editing program, I don't want to suddenly find that it no longer works because I've had to update the OS to keep up with the latest versions of Adobe CC.

Edited August 18, 2017 by BigRedX

[steviedee]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1503050785' post='3355311']
One of the things that is making me pause at the moment is that Line6 don't have the best reputation for keeping up with Mac OS X updates.
[/quote]

Can't comment not the Helix software but the IOS app for the Firehawk was really great. Certainly one of the best mobile apps for music devices I've come across. Potentially Line 6 being owned by Yamaha might give them a bit more resources when developing software.

[steviedee]

I've just preordered a Helix LT! Really looking forward to getting it!

[fretmeister]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1503050785' post='3355311']
Have you been using the Helix Edit software at all? If so is it any good, and does it offer a significant advantage over the Helix's built-in display?

One of the things that is making me pause at the moment is that Line6 don't have the best reputation for keeping up with Mac OS X updates, and since my main computer (the one with all the big screens which is the main point of having a "proper" computer) is also the one I make my living on, updates are dictated by the needs of my graphics applications, and if I do get a lot of use out of the editing program, I don't want to suddenly find that it no longer works because I've had to update the OS to keep up with the latest versions of Adobe CC.
[/quote]

I use it with a 2013 Macbook Air

The Helix has to be plugged in to the PC / Mac to use the editor.

I've had Helix for over a year - everytime the firmware has been updated, the PC and MAC editor and installer has been updated at the same time.

The top of the editor page is a reproduction of the helix screen, and the lower part is a more detailed layout of the parameters. Lists of presets etc are on the left.

I don't have much experience of other editors, but I find it easy to use

[Musicman20]

Scrap what I said, I'm keeping it.

[aidanhallbass]

I'm really interested in the helix LT, currently just have a zoom b3 for effects like fuzz / distortion / chorus and use the sansamp emulator for my standard tone into a tb500.. I'm curious to know how good the valve amp emulator sounds and also how good the fuzz and distortion is. Usually with digital fuzz effects you lose quality in comparison to say an analogue pedal. I *was* considering getting a sansamp and a couple of other pedals for live gigs but this looks like it can cover the lot! I also play through an AD200B (when my back feels up to it) and I wouldn't need any amp or cab emulation with that, just effects, but as much as I love it I'm considering selling this to fund a helix.

[fretmeister]

[quote name='Musicman20' timestamp='1503150261' post='3356072']
Scrap what I said, I'm keeping it.
[/quote]

Were the patches a success?