Line 6 Helix

Cabicular

RandallFlagg said:

I'm probably going to show my ignorance here, if you have a Helix why do you need the Helix plugin? wouldn't you just plug your helix into the audio interface?

My live board is all packed up at the end of a gig
i don't really want to haul it out and plumb it in to my mixing desk and outboard every time I want to record or even mix something on the iMac plus the plug in will recall its settings track by track without you having to manually save and take. It's of which patch you used on which track

Cabicular

RandallFlagg said:

digitalscream said:

John_A said:

Just for convenience I suppose, at home you wouldn't need to set up the helix.  You could also use it on multiple tracks of a recording simultaneously, assuming enough CPU was available.

Or when travelling - assuming you take a laptop with you, all you need is a small interface and a pair of headphones. Far more convenient than lugging a Helix everywhere.

...and a guitar

Not necessarily
slmetimes I go down to Newcastle to record Drums or vocals and unless I print the guitar tracks (which I generally don't do till mix stage) I have to haul and plumb in the Helix too
in short if you already have a Helix and you do recording 99 quid is a bargain for the convenience 

digitalscream

Cabicular said:

RandallFlagg said:

digitalscream said:

John_A said:

Just for convenience I suppose, at home you wouldn't need to set up the helix.  You could also use it on multiple tracks of a recording simultaneously, assuming enough CPU was available.

Or when travelling - assuming you take a laptop with you, all you need is a small interface and a pair of headphones. Far more convenient than lugging a Helix everywhere.

...and a guitar

Not necessarily
slmetimes I go down to Newcastle to record Drums or vocals and unless I print the guitar tracks (which I generally don't do till mix stage) I have to haul and plumb in the Helix too
in short if you already have a Helix and you do recording 99 quid is a bargain for the convenience 

For me...my side-desk currently has two amps, two reactive loads and my USB interface on it, my pedalboard underneath it and every single cable I own hooked up in an insanely complex signal path behind it along with isolating transformers, power supplies etc.

With a Helix plugin, I could replace all of that with the TC Mimiq, a couple of cables and the interface and reclaim both the desk and all the space below and behind it. This is what I always wanted to do with the Eleven plugin, but Avid - in their infinite wisdom - refuse to allow the use of it outside Pro Tools.

Bridgehouse

Someone in the helix team earned their bonus this year...

gearaddict

digitalscream said:

rossyamaha said:

@digitalscream totally get it. I have another idea though. Could get interesting. ;-)

OK OK, I'll wait quietly. 

No pressure, but my potential decision to buy a Headrush kinda depends on this

Anyone know when we are likely to get some details on the Headrush?

digitalscream

gearaddict said:

digitalscream said:

rossyamaha said:

@digitalscream totally get it. I have another idea though. Could get interesting. ;-)

OK OK, I'll wait quietly. 

No pressure, but my potential decision to buy a Headrush kinda depends on this

Anyone know when we are likely to get some details on the Headrush?

There's a video on their Facebook page which has some interesting stuff, but I don't want to go into it on a Helix thread

However, since @rossyamaha asked earlier...it's supposed to be available in April.

guitarfishbay

digitalscream said:

For me...my side-desk currently has two amps, two reactive loads and my USB interface on it, my pedalboard underneath it and every single cable I own hooked up in an insanely complex signal path behind it along with isolating transformers, power supplies etc.

With a Helix plugin, I could replace all of that with the TC Mimiq, a couple of cables and the interface and reclaim both the desk and all the space below and behind it. This is what I always wanted to do with the Eleven plugin, but Avid - in their infinite wisdom - refuse to allow the use of it outside Pro Tools.

As a side note - my room is infinitely better for mixing now there aren't a bunch of cabs and heads in there (and I've put acoustic paneling in instead)

digitalscream

guitarfishbay said:

digitalscream said:

For me...my side-desk currently has two amps, two reactive loads and my USB interface on it, my pedalboard underneath it and every single cable I own hooked up in an insanely complex signal path behind it along with isolating transformers, power supplies etc.

With a Helix plugin, I could replace all of that with the TC Mimiq, a couple of cables and the interface and reclaim both the desk and all the space below and behind it. This is what I always wanted to do with the Eleven plugin, but Avid - in their infinite wisdom - refuse to allow the use of it outside Pro Tools.

As a side note - my room is infinitely better for mixing now there aren't a bunch of cabs and heads in there (and I've put acoustic paneling in instead)

Yep, that's exactly what I'm thinking.

With that said...whether it's a Headrush, Helix or Helix Native...there will be a lot less clutter. This is the year I finally go fully-digital, I think.

crunchman

Teetonetal said:

@digitalscream ahem Tgp. .. line 6 wrote it.

Oh full price is 399 usd

Too much for me.  Hopefully that will come down over time, or there will be promotional deals.

guitarfishbay

digitalscream said:

Yep, that's exactly what I'm thinking.

With that said...whether it's a Headrush, Helix or Helix Native...there will be a lot less clutter. This is the year I finally go fully-digital, I think.

I'm not quite 100% digital, still have bass preamp pedals as they're way faster to work with than anything else I've found.  Saying that if the Darkglass model is good in the Helix then I'd be pretty interested in the plugin just for bass.  The clips Drew has sent with Helix on bass have sounded really good I've thought.

TTBZ

Well this changes things! Sounds like this would be a much better alternative to Amplitube for playing at home. 

Sporky

I'd happily use the Helix effects on other things too - and that means only one interface to remember. I think the plugin is almost more compelling for Helix owners.

guitarfishbay

Plugins are the way forward for home recording I think.  A high spec computer can run a lot of stuff these days (though obviously I don't know how much CPU is required to run Helix native).

Teetonetal

Sporky said:

I'd happily use the Helix effects on other things too - and that means only one interface to remember. I think the plugin is almost more compelling for Helix owners.

Don't know. A large part of my helix use is reamping and using the 4 loops for a boss slicer and a couple of moogerfoogers on synth vsts. Certainly a very worthwhile secondary function of my floor unit.

Will be picking the native version up though.

fretmeister

Apparently Native is a 4 machine license.

That's rather lovely of them.

digitalscream

fretmeister said:

Apparently Native is a 4 machine license.

That's rather lovely of them.

That's pretty amazing. If you're a Reaper user, and if it has high CPU usage, there's a neat trick you can use.

Install Native and Reaper on a second machine (eg laptop), then you can run Reaper as a slave on that one and offload all the Helix processing to it over the network (you'll need a gigabit network, or very fast wireless).

guitarfishbay

The most lovely thing is you're not screwed if you a) forget your iLok, or b) forget to upload your licenses to Waves Central when you switch from desktop to laptop etc.

Travisthedog

Anyone successfully use the helix live?

kjdowd

Travisthedog said:

Anyone successfully use the helix live?

Yeah I've got a clip somewhere that I keep meaning to upload. Was really happy with it. Prefer the ax8 but got a great sound out of the helix. 

rossyamaha

Travisthedog said:

Anyone successfully use the helix live?

Been using it for the last few months in any one of three ways. Started using as a straight up pedalboard. Great results. Moved over to 4 cable method. Better results. Did some smaller gigs going direct. Just as good as with the amp. Took some tweaking mind. I was used to a specific way of working and a specific sound but now I've got it dialled in both tonally and operation wise I'm not sure I could live without it. 

The cool thing is I will always get through a gig. If my amp blows, I have a set of presets using amp models so I can quickly switch over without anyone knowing whats going on.