How can I do this with a Helix?

PolarityMan

I have a helix floor which I use iin snapshot mode. For one preset Im only using 5 snapshot so I would like to use one of the spare buttons to act as a momentary toggle for a pitch shifter ie/ when the button is held down engage the pitch shifter, when i release bypass the block.

Can this be done? I dont want to leave snapshot mode as i still want one click access to the other snapshots. Id also rather not have to tap dance to get the pitch shifter so 1 snapshot on and 1 off isnt ideal either.

Musicwolf

Yes it can be done.  Control Centre is your friend here (I always do this from my pc screen).  I’ve powered mine down for the evening but tomorrow I’ll have a look at my settings but the way I use mine I have a combination of Snapshots, momentary and midi commands to external devices.  Basically any fs can be anything.  Feel free to nudge me if I haven’t sent you anything by midday tomorrow, it means that I’ve forgotten (age thing)

Musicwolf

OK.  Apologies if this becomes a long post.

The way that I use a combination of Snaps and Stomps is to operate in ‘Stomp Mode’ so, in Settings>Pedals, you would have the following settings

Press = Stomp Select

Preset Mode Switches = Snap / Preset

Stomp Mode Switches = 8 Switches

Snapshot Mode Switches = Auto Return

Up / Down Switches = Banks

Swap Up / Down = Off

When you return to home, and you are in Stomp Mode (top right hand FS which toggles between Preset / Stomp), you should see a pile of stomp switches laid out in front of you.  You need to get rid of these.

Hopefully you are editing on a computer of some kind (I’m using PC) so click on the Bypass / Controller Assign tab and you should see a list of all the footswitch / stomp function assignments.  You need to go through this list and set anything that you don’t need to see to ‘None’.  From  your post I guess that what you will want to see are 5 Snapshot footswitches (which we shall add in a moment) plus ‘Pitch Shifter’, so set everything but Pitch Switcher Bypass to ‘None’.  Decide where on the pedalboard you would like to have the pitch switcher footswitch and assign that number accordingly.

You should now have a pedalboard layout with Bank Up / Down on the left, Preset / Stomp and Tap Tempo on the right, the Pitch Shifter wherever you’ve chosen and everything else blank – great, don’t panic.

On your PC open Command Centre (Window > Command Centre).  You should see a new window with a representation of the pedalboard layout, with everything blank.

Choose which FS is to be Snapshot 1, click on it and from the Command Tab pulldown select HX Snapshot (second up from the bottom of the list).  Once chosen select the following options

Behaviour = Press / Release (default)

Press = SNAPHOT 1

Release = None (default)

On the Helix you should now see Snapshot one (or whatever you have renamed Snapshot 1 within your preset) on the board.

Go back into Command Centre and repeat the process assigning the other Snapshots to footswitches in whichever position you choose.

Back to the actual Helix.  When you select another Snapshot by pressing the footswitch something strange will happen.  The Helix will activate Snapshot 2 as you might expect but all of the Snapshot FS will now display SNAPSHOT and an Up arrow (which means ‘next’).  If you’ve selected Snapshot 2 reopen the Command Centre window and click on one of the Snapshot virtual FS.  You will see that the assignment is Press = Next.  You have to go through each snapshot in turn reassigning ‘Press’ to the appropriate Snapshot number.  It feels like a pain but, if you were only using 2 snapshots then you could assign them both to the same switch.  i.e. When you are in Snapshot 1 the FS displays SS2, press to move to SS2 and the FS now shows SS1, the same switch toggles between the 2 snapshots.

This may all seem to be something of a faff but once you master it (and it’s really not that difficult) you open up all sorts of possibilities.  I have a patch per song and each patch only displays the FS that I need for that song making life very easy when you are performing.  I even have FS assigned to MIDI commands such as muting the PA or triggering samples.

If you get stuck I’m happy to answer further questions or even do a Zoom call if it will help.

PolarityMan

Hmm interesting. It would need a bit of a modification to my other presets to just make them all have zero stomps if you see what I mean but I only have about 5 since I'm a big snapshot user so wouldn't need too time consuming.. I currently have command center also changing the amo channel per snapshot too I'm guessing this is assigned to the switch rather than the snap so should continue to function as normal?

Musicwolf

Yes, I think that you would have to change all of your other presets but, in my opinion, worth it if this layout works for you (at least you’ve only got 5, I’ve got 2 setlists of 30 odd songs each).  The  important bit is to establish a methodology that works for you.  You can do all sorts of things with the Helix once you know what it is that you want to do.

Amp channel switching can also be done per snapshot.  You could either assign the switching to a FS and leave it visible on the board (as per the Pitch Shift) or you may be able to do it with Instant Command (the little lightening symbols in Command Centre).  I must admit that I’ve had limited success with amp switching.  I’ve recently acquired a 50 year old Fender Pro Rev amp and I’ve been using my Helix purely for effects.  I tried to get the Helix to switch the Vib on / off on the amp but it hasn’t worked – yet (I suspect poor contact on the back of the amp rather than a Helix setup problem).

PolarityMan

I'll have to go and look tongith but i think i have it setup with instant commands right now

Musicwolf

PolarityMan said:

I'll have to go and look tongith but i think i have it setup with instant commands right now

They shouldn't be affected.  Good luck.

PolarityMan

Musicwolf said:

Yes, I think that you would have to change all of your other presets but, in my opinion, worth it if this layout works for you (at least you’ve only got 5, I’ve got 2 setlists of 30 odd songs each).  The  important bit is to establish a methodology that works for you.  You can do all sorts of things with the Helix once you know what it is that you want to do.

Amp channel switching can also be done per snapshot.  You could either assign the switching to a FS and leave it visible on the board (as per the Pitch Shift) or you may be able to do it with Instant Command (the little lightening symbols in Command Centre).  I must admit that I’ve had limited success with amp switching.  I’ve recently acquired a 50 year old Fender Pro Rev amp and I’ve been using my Helix purely for effects.  I tried to get the Helix to switch the Vib on / off on the amp but it hasn’t worked – yet (I suspect poor contact on the back of the amp rather than a Helix setup problem).

The more I think about this the more I thin k I will really  like a setup like this, back when I used a boss-gt10 it basically have 4 buttons for preset selection and then a ctl-a and ctl-b that I used for a 2db vol boost and then specific fx on/off ie/ delay etc and I did really like that halfway setup between changing everythign in one stomp but also having some flexibility to manually control certain fx. 

duotone

@Musicwolf ;

Would you be able to save what you have created on https://line6.com/customtone/ ?

Musicwolf

duotone said:

@Musicwolf ;

Would you be able to save what you have created on https://line6.com/customtone/

Let's see if this works.  I've created a simple preset to demonstrate the process, hopefully it will behave the same when loaded onto another machine.

I have a simple effects chain / amp with 3 snapshots:  Clean, Crunch and Lead.  Nothing special, just so you can hear the difference in the tones.  There is also a simple pitch shift stomp (set one octave below).

'

What you should see is, on the bottom row FS 8-11, the three snapshots and FS11 is called 'Octave'.  This last FS is momentary so it will only work as long as it is pressed.

https://line6.com/customtone/tone/5818036/

duotone

Thanks @Musicwolf ;;
I will download it later tonight. I am sure I will have a few questions, but I always find it interesting how other people make their presets.

duotone

Musicwolf said:

duotone said:

@Musicwolf ;

Would you be able to save what you have created on https://line6.com/customtone/

Let's see if this works.  I've created a simple preset to demonstrate the process, hopefully it will behave the same when loaded onto another machine.

I have a simple effects chain / amp with 3 snapshots:  Clean, Crunch and Lead.  Nothing special, just so you can hear the difference in the tones.  There is also a simple pitch shift stomp (set one octave below).

'

What you should see is, on the bottom row FS 8-11, the three snapshots and FS11 is called 'Octave'.  This last FS is momentary so it will only work as long as it is pressed.

https://line6.com/customtone/tone/5818036/

Just downloaded it @Musicwolf ;

It works exactly as you say.

I must admit that I haven't really explored this part of Helix (Instant Command & Momentary) but I will use your 'FB Test' preset as a Template (which I won't change) & have a play around with it & add some different amps & FX's.  Cheers!

PolarityMan

Musicwolf said:

When you return to home, and you are in Stomp Mode (top right hand FS which toggles between Preset / Stomp), you should see a pile of stomp switches laid out in front of you.  You need to get rid of these.

So jsut trying this out now, as soon as I went into stomp mode I already had nothing there, this may be because my preset already has some assigns?

Any way on the bypass  / controller assign I also dont have that much defined so gonna see if i can muddle on from here anyways

PolarityMan

yeah got it going..need to wait til tomorrow to hear the patches but all the switching works as expected...nice one @Musicwolf ;
cheers

PolarityMan

Musicwolf said:

duotone said:

@Musicwolf ;

Would you be able to save what you have created on https://line6.com/customtone/

Let's see if this works.  I've created a simple preset to demonstrate the process, hopefully it will behave the same when loaded onto another machine.

I have a simple effects chain / amp with 3 snapshots:  Clean, Crunch and Lead.  Nothing special, just so you can hear the difference in the tones.  There is also a simple pitch shift stomp (set one octave below).

'

What you should see is, on the bottom row FS 8-11, the three snapshots and FS11 is called 'Octave'.  This last FS is momentary so it will only work as long as it is pressed.

https://line6.com/customtone/tone/5818036/

One thing that has happened a couple of times is ive accdentally knocked preset/stomp button. Do you know if that can be disabled on a per-preset basis..ie/ so if i banked to another preset it would come back again but it would be disabled for this hybrid preset/stomp patch? 

Musicwolf

PolarityMan said:

Musicwolf said:

duotone said:

@Musicwolf ;

Would you be able to save what you have created on https://line6.com/customtone/

Let's see if this works.  I've created a simple preset to demonstrate the process, hopefully it will behave the same when loaded onto another machine.

I have a simple effects chain / amp with 3 snapshots:  Clean, Crunch and Lead.  Nothing special, just so you can hear the difference in the tones.  There is also a simple pitch shift stomp (set one octave below).

'

What you should see is, on the bottom row FS 8-11, the three snapshots and FS11 is called 'Octave'.  This last FS is momentary so it will only work as long as it is pressed.

https://line6.com/customtone/tone/5818036/

One thing that has happened a couple of times is ive accdentally knocked preset/stomp button. Do you know if that can be disabled on a per-preset basis..ie/ so if i banked to another preset it would come back again but it would be disabled for this hybrid preset/stomp patch? 

I don't think that you can.  You can have the Helix in either 8 or 10 button mode (in 10 mode you don't see the Preset Up / Down) but I haven't found a way to dissable Preset / Stomp.  I'll keep looking as I know what you mean about hitting it accidentally.

PolarityMan

Maybe ill stick my moentary pedal not on the one next to the stomp/preset button as hopefuilly if im not rapidly pressing and unipressing it it wont be so much of an issue