Line 6 Helix

handsomerik

Cool. Thank you very much.

I have downloaded the manual and parameters are not listed at all for individual effects. Not very helpful is it!

I'm based in Suffolk.

johnny9fingers

GuitarGuitar in Epsom have had my deposit since Oct 30th. I called them today to ask how things were progressing and they prevaricated. A trifle pissed off right now.

rossyamaha

johnny9fingers said:

GuitarGuitar in Epsom have had my deposit since Oct 30th. I called them today to ask how things were progressing and they prevaricated. A trifle pissed off right now.

I understand you must be getting a little impatient. I just want to make sure you are aware it's nothing to do with GG. It's purely down to demand completely taking us by surprise. We knew it would be a good seller but nothing close to how well it's done. To give you an idea, I had an order from a dealer today. The next free stock will be March. We can't make them fast enough. Well, we probably could but then the quality would suffer which nobody wants.

I can't give any firm dates at the moment and certainly don't want to make any promises I couldn't keep. All I can ask is for you to sit tight. 

mellowsun

No stock till March? Interesting. So no/few sales over the Xmas and New Year period when demand will be greatest and people have money to spend. By March, there might be an alternative, and stock might be plentiful, but demand might be lower.

Will be interesting to see if there are any price drops in Q1 2016

monquixote

People don't tend to discount stuff that's selling faster than they can make it. 

rossyamaha

@mellowsun just want to clarify what I said. There will be stock but there are back orders. If an order goes in now, that will go on the waiting list which currently goes into March. We will have a few shipments before then, all of which are spoken for. 

mellowsun

monquixote;874187" said:

People don't tend to discount stuff that's selling faster than they can make it. 

Buzz Lightyear

handsomerik

MARCH!!!!!!! After lots of reading up and watching demo's I was about to start listing all my pedalboard gear for sale so I can change over to the Helix. I guess i'll have to simply forget about it for 4 months!

monquixote

handsomerik said:

MARCH!!!!!!! After lots of reading up and watching demo's I was about to start listing all my pedalboard gear for sale so I can change over to the Helix. I guess i'll have to simply forget about it for 4 months!

That's pretty much the position I'm in. 

I was planning to buy a Helix on interest free credit and then sell of a load of gear, but I guess that won't be happening. 

I'm considering an Amplifire as a much cheaper and more easily available option.

handsomerik

The amplifire's look and sound great in the demos but the main reason i'm considering the Helix is because of the HUGE versatility in assigning multiple things to single switches. It look like a dream come true, even down to the cool little touches like choosing whether a switch is momentary or latching. That would be so cool for just adding a touch of boost to a phrase or for octave up effects on individual notes in a solo. I hate tap dancing and to get close to the helix's versatility i'd need to get a boss ES-8 for my current pedals and then i'd have to get a load more lava cables to patch them all in. Get's pretty expensive pretty quick. I'd rather just have the helix as an all in one if it really is as good as it seems to be. :-) 

The only risk is, (and it's a big one) if it goes wrong, you've suddenly lost your whole rig and studio!! I'm not sure what the warranty is on it but i'm assuming a year. Not very impressive for such an expensive piece of kit. If it really is as kick proof and gig proof as they claim it'd be nice if they put their money where their mouth is like boss with their 5 year warranty or truetone/visual sound with their lifetime warranty. I hate it when things have a short warranty. It's like the company is admitting they only really expect it to function as it should for 1 year!

rossyamaha

I should probably point out that March is the next free stock for dealers. Customer pre orders may be cleared before then. Worth calling your local dealer to check what their list is looking like. 

monquixote

handsomerik said:

The amplifire's look and sound great in the demos but the main reason i'm considering the Helix is because of the HUGE versatility in assigning multiple things to single switches. It look like a dream come true, even down to the cool little touches like choosing whether a switch is momentary or latching. That would be so cool for just adding a touch of boost to a phrase or for octave up effects on individual notes in a solo. I hate tap dancing and to get close to the helix's versatility i'd need to get a boss ES-8 for my current pedals and then i'd have to get a load more lava cables to patch them all in. Get's pretty expensive pretty quick. I'd rather just have the helix as an all in one if it really is as good as it seems to be. :-) 

The only risk is, (and it's a big one) if it goes wrong, you've suddenly lost your whole rig and studio!! I'm not sure what the warranty is on it but i'm assuming a year. Not very impressive for such an expensive piece of kit. If it really is as kick proof and gig proof as they claim it'd be nice if they put their money where their mouth is like boss with their 5 year warranty or truetone/visual sound with their lifetime warranty. I hate it when things have a short warranty. It's like the company is admitting they only really expect it to function as it should for 1 year!

All of those thoughts have occurred to me. 

I think I'd be fine with the Amplifire as I've got a 4 loop controller which I'd use for comp, odx2 and fuzz + MIDI control and then use the Amplifire for reverb delay and modulation. 

I could then split the signal and run the un emulated into my amp and the cab sim into my IEM rig and the desk Very neat.

Drew_TNBD

rossyamaha said:

I should probably point out that March is the next free stock for dealers. Customer pre orders may be cleared before then. Worth calling your local dealer to check what their list is looking like. 

Might as well be yelling into space Ross, people round here don't like to read!!

monquixote

I get that it might be possible to get one before March if you get lucky, but if I stick an order for one somewhere now I can't see me getting it any time soon.

mellowsun

rossyamaha said:

I should probably point out that March is the next free stock for dealers. Customer pre orders may be cleared before then. Worth calling your local dealer to check what their list is looking like. 

The problem is that I don't have an existing pre-order, so if I put one in now I'm looking at March, unless I have misunderstood.

By which time I might have bought something else (Amplifire, or whatever Boss/Roland come up with in response to the Helix in the meantime)

sweepy

Time to bang one on eBay for £1500 , seriously though, the more people that actually sit down with my Helix and explore how easy it is to use, configure and get great usable tones, the more start seriously thinking about getting one .

impmann

I gigged last night with the other guitarist playing a Helix - patience, fellas... it's worth the wait. VERY impressive sounding, looking and feeling unit.

MtB

@impmann what was the other guitarist playing the Helix through - amp / monitor / straight into the house PA?

guitargeek62

@Sweepy Hmm, I'm actually impressed that I haven't seen any on eBay yet.

It's actually a little tempting to chuck mine on there for £1500 and see if anyone's foolish enough to bite; I'd just pocket the difference and put another order in though.

sweepy

I love how say it is to build custom rigs, even the most diehard Luddite would find it a breeze Maybe the next update will add a few more off the wall effects for us unhinged Belew loonies