Helix Floor/LT/HX/Stomp/PodGo owners' Club - Tips, Ideas & Patches

[mr zed]

22 hours ago, Al Krow said:

You managed to find a workaround?

Happily yes thanks, I have found a workaround. The workaround was to finally bite the bullet and upgrade my old windows laptop to a MacBook Air.  Worked first time. All's right with the world again  

[Woodinblack]

Played a gig today on a truck with a proper sound crew and good equipment. Connected up, the sound guy said that there was a lot of noise coming through my rig, and gave me headphones but I couldn't hear it. I assumed it was my wireless so decided to go wired (not like you can go far on a truck anyway). Asked him if it was better and it wasn't, but we had to start so we did. Sadly the noise was clear in the monitor, as soon as I stopped playing it got noisy, like a compressor. I checked the HX effects, no helix in the patch (my normal patch). Turned everything off, still there. After I did baker street and didn't need the looper thing any more, I powered the rest of the rig down, and just went through the HX and nothing else - so Bass -> hx -> amp. Noise was still there. So in the next song I took the cable out and went straight into the cab, noise gone.

No idea what it was, will have to check it. But it was the first time I have used it since the 2.8 update so I hope it isn't that.

[CameronJ]

What kind of noise was it? Hiss, hum or buzz?

[Woodinblack]

I was like pink noise I suppose. It wasnt there when there was anything from the bass. Going to try it today

[Muppet]

Duff patch lead or cable? 

[la bam]

The Helix can do that depending on your settings

Any excess drive, gain, eq, volume, can cause that white noise. I had the same issue, thought it was my bass, but it wasnt. Changed the patch and it was fine.

[fretmeister]

Global Settings have been completely reset and changed in the 2.8 update - so check them.

 

Also - make sure the idiot on the board has the phantom power switched off!

[Woodinblack]

The guy on the board was far from an idiot - he was friendly and helpful and got a really good sound. The original source was Bass -> smooth hound -> Digitech Jam Man -> HX Effects -> their backline amp -> DI & ashdown speaker.

I took them all out one by one until the final thing was just going from my bass to the backline, and then it was fine, so it was certainly the helix. If I had had any sense I would have just turned the helix off first to see if it was that, but you know what it is like when you are panicking. I didn't even try bypassing it, because I assumed it was wireless of power supply for the jam man.

Anyway, I will look at it today as I have the day off.

[Cuzzie]

https://www.musicradar.com/news/kemper-finally-releases-the-profiler-stage-floorboard

All those noise and reliability issues can be solved with the above

[Woodinblack]

9 minutes ago, Cuzzie said:

https://www.musicradar.com/news/kemper-finally-releases-the-profiler-stage-floorboard

All those noise and reliability issues can be solved with the above

For the money I will just hire a roadie to do it for me!

I just tried the HX now on its own in my room and as loud as I turn it up I am not getting the same thing at all. So no idea what it is, but it seems to be something related to there.

Irritating though.

[Rik (ESA)]

Just received my hx stomp, and contemplating putting the kids an hour early to have some play time on it ;o) 

Any tips for the first hour with the unit? Most keen to try out the amp sims and synths...

[fretmeister]

23 minutes ago, Rik (ESA) said:

Just received my hx stomp, and contemplating putting the kids an hour early to have some play time on it ;o) 

Any tips for the first hour with the unit? Most keen to try out the amp sims and synths...

Make sure it's got the latest firmware on it.

 

You miss the new toys otherwise

[fretmeister]

5 hours ago, Cuzzie said:

https://www.musicradar.com/news/kemper-finally-releases-the-profiler-stage-floorboard

All those noise and reliability issues can be solved with the above

Maybe. Just with pretty much zero interest in bassists.

[Rik (ESA)]

3 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

Make sure it's got the latest firmware on it.

 

You miss the new toys otherwise

Thanks fretmeister, is there a link anywhere here on the best way to do this? Or a YouTube jobbie? 

[foxyFuze]

Regarding the new HX Stomp first hour:

Make sure it has v2.8 installed. You'll need to create a Line6 account, get the updater etc. A faff but worth it. 

Try one of the presets and experiment with one of the SVT amps. There's much fiddling to be done, so be patient!

Have a look on Facebook for Jon Willis and his page (Dr Tone I think it's called?). Heaps of clips, advice, presets etc that help to make sense of it.

 

Regarding the Kemper, their amps are pretty good for bass: the not numerous but a fair amount to play with...

 

 

[fretmeister]

2 minutes ago, Rik (ESA) said:

Thanks fretmeister, is there a link anywhere here on the best way to do this? Or a YouTube jobbie? 

Here you go.

 

Follow it EXACTLY - apart from that you don't need to back it up if you've never used it before.

 

https://line6.com/support/page/kb/effects-controllers/helix/helixhx-280-release-notes-r913/

 

 

[Cuzzie]

14 minutes ago, foxyFuze said:

Regarding the new HX Stomp first hour:

Make sure it has v2.8 installed. You'll need to create a Line6 account, get the updater etc. A faff but worth it. 

Try one of the presets and experiment with one of the SVT amps. There's much fiddling to be done, so be patient!

Have a look on Facebook for Jon Willis and his page (Dr Tone I think it's called?). Heaps of clips, advice, presets etc that help to make sense of it.

 

Regarding the Kemper, their amps are pretty good for bass: the not numerous but a fair amount to play with...

 

 

Cheers for that - 1 or 2 there methinks......love that pickguard

[CameronJ]

1 hour ago, foxyFuze said:

Regarding the new HX Stomp first hour:

Make sure it has v2.8 installed. You'll need to create a Line6 account, get the updater etc. A faff but worth it. 

Try one of the presets and experiment with one of the SVT amps. There's much fiddling to be done, so be patient!

Have a look on Facebook for Jon Willis and his page (Dr Tone I think it's called?). Heaps of clips, advice, presets etc that help to make sense of it.

 

Regarding the Kemper, their amps are pretty good for bass: the not numerous but a fair amount to play with...

 

 

That’s an excellent clip! Surprised that there are so many bass-specific rigs on the Kemper. I’d never really looked into it before. Full preset list here: https://www.kemper-amps.com/factoryrigs

Edited July 22, 2019 by CameronJ

[OzMike]

On 22/07/2019 at 15:20, Woodinblack said:

 

I just tried the HX now on its own in my room and as loud as I turn it up I am not getting the same thing at all. So no idea what it is, but it seems to be something related to there.

How was the HX connected to FOH? I use a passive DI box to provide a feed for the sound guy, haven't once had any troubles this way and don't need to worry if phantom power is on or not.

My stomp is definitely saving me money; for a new project I need some delay and reverb, and the Helix has plenty of viable options. It's pretty easy to whip up a patch even in rehearsal.

Maybe I'd be happy with some other manufacturer's gear, but the HX is what I've got  and there's no reason to change. Featherweight amps, small light and loud cabs, plus DSP boxes like the HX; a pretty good time to be a bass player.

Edited July 23, 2019 by OzMike

[Woodinblack]

3 hours ago, OzMike said:

How was the HX connected to FOH? I use a passive DI box to provide a feed for the sound guy, haven't once had any troubles this way and don't need to worry if phantom power is on or not.

By jack out to their backline amp, which I assume was DI'd.

[LukeFRC]

Hmmm went to the music shop today, took my IEM and sat and played with a jazz bass and helix for an hour or so, then rushed home to compare it to my Zoom B3n ... interesting!

[BassBus]

8 minutes ago, LukeFRC said:

Hmmm went to the music shop today, took my IEM and sat and played with a jazz bass and helix for an hour or so, then rushed home to compare it to my Zoom B3n ... interesting!

and...?

[LukeFRC]

55 minutes ago, BassBus said:

and...?

Plug in set up amp and cab, and playing and I’m like, meh sounds like *shrug* - then turn off the amp and cab and it’s like a “oooohhh - so that’s what it was doing” 

had a few more “ooh” moments playing. 

For me though the biggest plus is the input seemed to deal with a bigger dynamic range and output it nicely ... the zoom is good but into my IEM it does odd things, even at unity gain .. which I had always put down to my IEM ... turns out it might not be my IEM - I think this is linked to how hard I tend to hit the strings- so for me it’s a massive plus - but that’s more due to my playing style.

[LukeFRC]

Aaahh all the basic reverbs were in the stereo list, not the mono where I was looking - explained why I was a big lost when faced with a random list of names and nothing like “plate”, “hall” or “spring”

 

[Apeneck Sweeney]

This may be useful to anyone wondering about the Stomp’s versatility.

 

I do a doubling gig with a function band where I have to change from double bass to bass guitar mid set. I use IEMs but still have my amp on stage. The way I use the Stomp is bass guitar into the mono input, double bass into effects return, Effects Send to my amp (with a send block just before the amp/cab sim at the end of the chain), the Left output to a radial JDI for front of house (with amp/cab block) and the Right output going to my IEM mixer using a TRS to XLR (though the headphone output would work too). I’ve found that I tend to have to use the ground lift on the JDI.

 

My double bass patch has an effects return as first block (with no signal coming through it from main input) and a send at the end so it works the same as the bass guitar blocks in terms of front of house and stage amp. One problem with this setup is that I can’t use the Stomp’s tuner for the double bass without swapping over plugs. I do have a small Wee Lush A/B switch but I’m trying to keep the setup as simple as possible.

 

I have a larger board with HX Effects and Mesa Subway DI on but found stage real estate enough of a problem with having the double bass and bass guitar. The Stomp and JDI fit nicely under the band music stand.

 

I had thought about swapping over the Mesa with the Stomp and having the HX Effects in an effects loop from the Stomp. That way I could just take the Stomp on smaller footprint gigs but still have the amp sims when there was more room. To do this I’d have to change my doubling gig presets with the Amp/Cab block on path B at the end of the chain with it panned fully left and the dry path (without amp/cab) panned to the right side. Left output to FOH, right to stage Amp and the headphone output to IEMs.