Line 6 Helix

Jonathanthomas83

@Drew_TNBD my love for guitars (great guitars) has been restored now I'm not concentrating on pedals. Buy a really nice one for yourself! Or a couple! :-)

TimmyO

Drew_TNBD said:

I think I'm gonna ... *gulp* .... sell all my single stomps.... I've not really used them for months now. The Helix has pretty much replaced the following:

Timeline
DD500
Nemesis
Small Stone
Polara
DC5 PSU
OCD
Micro Amp
Ibanez DE7

Question is... what do I buy in their place!?! I'm very fond of the Timeline, DD500, and Nemesis... but there's very little point in keeping them.

Keep the bottom 5 as a mini board? 

John_A

TimmyO said:

Drew_TNBD said:

..........

Keep the bottom 5 as a mini board? 

Waste of time IMO, been there and done that, went from a big board that sat unused to a small one that did the same.  I bought two new guitars with the money I got from selling my pedals.  Still have a few sitting in the classifieds at knock down prices with little interest. 

Jonathanthomas83

John_A said:
I bought two new guitars with the money I got from selling my pedals.  

Me too, best thing I ever did! I'm happier with my guitars now than I ever have been because of the change of focus and mindset. Before, it would always be "let's upgrade the pedals", now it's "what Suhr or PRS do I want!", which seems more correct, to my mind, as a 'guitarist'!

menamestom

Any news on 2.30?  

sgosden

menamestom said:

Any news on 2.30?  

guessing focus is still on native for a little while

gearaddict

Not sure if this is the best thread for random Helix questions but...what's the easiest way to check if you are getting a decent tone using emulated cabs? I don't have a monitoring setup at home (yet?) but I want to experiment with going straight to PA at practice. It would be good to at least be able to monitor enough so I can select a cab that sounds vaguley decent before wasting everyone's time at practice.

I'm guessing the headphone socket isn't going to give a similar tone to what I get from the XLR - or is it good enough?

I notice that when I switch on the emulated cab my volume through my real power amp & cab is a lot lower than when I bypass it. If I run both at practice, what's the best way to balance the levels?

Thanks!

fretmeister

gearaddict said:

Not sure if this is the best thread for random Helix questions but...what's the easiest way to check if you are getting a decent tone using emulated cabs? I don't have a monitoring setup at home (yet?) but I want to experiment with going straight to PA at practice. It would be good to at least be able to monitor enough so I can select a cab that sounds vaguley decent before wasting everyone's time at practice.

I'm guessing the headphone socket isn't going to give a similar tone to what I get from the XLR - or is it good enough?

I notice that when I switch on the emulated cab my volume through my real power amp & cab is a lot lower than when I bypass it. If I run both at practice, what's the best way to balance the levels?

Thanks!

Spend a day at the rehearsal studio on your own and do the patches at gig volume.

Use volume blocks in the chain wherever you need them.

RMJ

gearaddict said:

Not sure if this is the best thread for random Helix questions but...what's the easiest way to check if you are getting a decent tone using emulated cabs? I don't have a monitoring setup at home (yet?) but I want to experiment with going straight to PA at practice. It would be good to at least be able to monitor enough so I can select a cab that sounds vaguley decent before wasting everyone's time at practice.

I'm guessing the headphone socket isn't going to give a similar tone to what I get from the XLR - or is it good enough?

I notice that when I switch on the emulated cab my volume through my real power amp & cab is a lot lower than when I bypass it. If I run both at practice, what's the best way to balance the levels?

Thanks!

I've spent very little time with my LT. I created a patch that I monitored using headphones and then used the same patch plugged into a PA at band practice. It sounded amazing through the PA (after sounding fairly decebtbthriugh headphones). I think youll get a decent opinion of cab sounds through headphones and then need to do some eq tweaking through PA

RMJ

Wowzers. Just hooked it up to my new HS7s. I'm playing quietly as kids are in bed but it's several levels up from monitoring through headphones, or playing through an amp at this volume. 

Wish I had done this a lot sooner

peteri

Spent the night with it again - I've now got two sets of patches - (for my LT) I'm happy with, one which is a small pedalboard for in front of an amp. Gives me all I need with four snapshots and four modifiers.

As I've said before sounds 95% as good as my G2/Wampler/Strymon main board. Honestly it sounds amazing until you compare it to the G2 rig, and I just can't close that 5% gap. There's a slight loss of punch or feel that no matter what I try I just can't get. The sound of the pick on the strings if you like - frustrating in principle but not a showstopper.

Other patch is basically the same sounds, but for headphones/PA - that sounds absolutely amazing. I'm completely maxing out the DSP to do it in snapshots but with a small bit of cleverness I've got it all where I want it.

So definitely keeping mine, happy I can make it work into an amp - with a very small compromise - and that it will absolutely kill into a PA/headphones.

Fretwired

A dumb question .. what's the difference between the Helix LT and the Helix .. it's not clear from the Line 6 website.

sweepy

Scribble Strips, Mic input and a few other bits and bobs iirc,

Sporky

http://line6.com/support/page/kb/_/effects-controllers/helix/helix-lt-comparison-r857

There's a link to a comparison chart there too.

sweepy

I still think its worth buying the full fat version though, you also get Native cheaper

Cabicular

Fretwired said:

A dumb question .. what's the difference between the Helix LT and the Helix .. it's not clear from the Line 6 website.

 The main one for me is 8 buttons available on the Lt vs 10 on the Full rack
those two make all the difference for me

digitalscream

Spent a couple of hours with my newly-arrived LT...this thing's basically witchcraft, as far as I can tell. I've already set up the patch for all of the stuff I currently do with my band - clean/crunch/lead channels of the SLO, two delays, reverb, phaser, some boosts and a cab, all controlled by 5 snapshots.

Interesting point: mine came with the 2.12.2 firmware, and I can't add a pitch block to the beginning of it (need some rumbly octaves for one song) due to lack of DSP capacity. However, Drew can add it on his Helix, which is on 2.21 firmware. It seems that the later version is more efficient somehow.

Sadly, I don't have time to muck around further today, so the update will have to happen tomorrow.

In any case, I'm absolutely stunned by it. Well played, Line 6. Well played indeed.

sweepy

I plumped for the Rack version too, a lot more useful for me, one neat touch is that the Brain module has no fan and is totally silent, unlike my Axe Fx2 which is on its 3rd fan and now has a speed controller fitted

Sporky

digitalscream said:

In any case, I'm absolutely stunned by it. Well played, Line 6. Well played indeed.

And to think I remember you all adamant that you needed a bazillion amps per patch so it'd never work for you.

To be fair I remember a lot of things that didn't actually happen.

Don't mind me.

digitalscream

Sporky said:

digitalscream said:

In any case, I'm absolutely stunned by it. Well played, Line 6. Well played indeed.

And to think I remember you all adamant that you needed a bazillion amps per patch so it'd never work for you.

To be fair I remember a lot of things that didn't actually happen.

Don't mind me.

No, I was adamant that Drew needed a bazillion amps per patch.

I just need three, and it does that just fine