Line 6 Helix

Sporky

I wonder if Line6 or any of their competitors will issue an SDK to let people build their own effect blocks.

Mine would be awful.

fretmeister

But probably fun for at least the length of time it takes to say "what the hell was that? Stop it!"

Sporky

In my defence I have done DSP programming before, and some of it was moderately successful. And I have a very good book.

professorben

Drew_TNBD said:

I feel like I've just watched a David Lynch trailer. 

professorben

Teetonetal said:

It's the one box versatility that gets me.

Wednesday I had it as recording interface.  Thursday as a board for acoustic gig handling guitar mic and stompbox. Friday as 4cm with my pleximan.

Pete Thorn mentioned using a 3rd party IR for acoustic live, have you tried that? 

Cabicular

I have
uaing the Taylor 314 or that is available
gives boxier sound to piezos. I use it with the Mandy and my Yamaha silent (although it does just fine by itself)

guitarfishbay

If I'm totally honest having skimmed through both comparison clips posted (as in I listened to the clips but not all of the talking) I think the biggest difference is in the high gain amps and the low end response of those, which actually wasn't where I expected the differences to be given how people often say it is the clean/mid gain sounds modellers don't do well.

In the Ola Englund test when he's playing them both through his own impulse (3:16 onwards) IMHO the Helix consistently sounded like it had more resonant upper bass/lower mids and less lower bass/sub bass.  Fine if you like that sound but IME that is the area I'm fighting most with high gain playing and the Fractal gives cleaner sounding chunk down there.  It also sounds closer to what I expect from a real high gain amp, especially the snap from the open notes at the end of each phrase, at least the way he's dialed it in the Helix sounds flatter dynamically.  

In the Mitch video I thought the Helix Panama sounded ok, but the Rectifier totally didn't have the 'size' of tone I was expecting.  There was a smaller difference in between the SLOs in Mitch's video but again I thought the Axe FX had the chunk/snap thing (really hard to explain) down a little more dynamically than the Helix.

I'd be happy with the cleans and mid gain on the Helix, but as I'm mostly a 5150/Rectifier type player I'm also happy to stick with my Axe FX 2.  Between the AX8 and the Helix though I'd probably go Helix just for the flexibility, as I do need two amp models in a patch.  @Drew_TNBD has sent me a couple of clips he's done with his Helix and I've always thought it sounded good, so I guess where I'm at is that personally I see no benefit for me to switch, however if I was buying today I'd definitely give the Helix a proper look because on balance it is a very capable unit.

Teetonetal

professorrben said:

Teetonetal said:

It's the one box versatility that gets me.

Wednesday I had it as recording interface.  Thursday as a board for acoustic gig handling guitar mic and stompbox. Friday as 4cm with my pleximan.

Pete Thorn mentioned using a 3rd party IR for acoustic live, have you tried that? 

Yes. It works well though is a little bright. It removes some of the harshness a piezo brings.

andyoz

When did these things increase from sub £1100 to £1225...Brexit?

Cabicular

Yes 

siremoon

Yes and No.  There have been 2 price increases since they came out.  They went from 1080 to 1140 in the spring and then to 1225 post Brexit

Fiftyshadesofjay

Hello all. So all of a sudden my Helix sounds absolutely awful and I'm not sure why. Is it broken or am I just doing something wrong?

It's hooked up directly to my studio monitors, recorded directly into reaper via USB. 

This is the Soldano model with a Friedman 3 Sigma Audio IR. No tweaking on the amp, this is how it is when you load it up. Using an ESP Eclipse with EMG's, sounds the same with passives as well. Sounds similar on all amps with any gain.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bjspbemayekp3ur/Helix Test.wav?dl=0

Sporky

Fiftyshadesofjay said:

Hello all. So all of a sudden my Helix sounds absolutely awful and I'm not sure why.

What changed from it sounding not-awful to it sounding awful?

Fiftyshadesofjay

No idea, that's the problem! I haven't changed anything except for the firmware update but I did that when it came out, not recently. I've got awful digital clipping whenever I play it now. Just done a test today and I'm getting nasty clipping on clean tones as well. Sounds like this but worse - 

http://line6.com/support/topic/20355-nasty-digital-distortion-with-some-amps/

It's a tad worse with high output pickups but it's there whatever.

Cabicular

Back up your patches and do a factory reset?

andyoz

Cabicular said:

Back up your patches and do a factory reset?

That very statement makes me wary of this type of thing!

I sit here at work fighting with tech. way more than I should have to... email, even getting PC's to work on bloody W10...when I go into the guitar room I'd like to well away from that in a very analogue space.

I'll still end up buying one FFS.

andyoz

siremoon said:

Yes and No.  There have been 2 price increases since they came out.  They went from 1080 to 1140 in the spring and then to 1225 post Brexit

I remember thinking it was too cheap at launch at £1,080 considering what it was meant to be capable of - so I was right!

Cabicular

andyoz said:

Cabicular said:

Back up your patches and do a factory reset?

That very statement makes me wary of this type of thing!

I sit here at work fighting with tech. way more than I should have to... email, even getting PC's to work on bloody W10...when I go into the guitar room I'd like to well away from that in a very analogue space.

I'll still end up buying one FFS.

I've never had to do it and I gig the thing regularly 
but as trouble shooting goes it's a fairly standard response

siremoon

Fiftyshadesofjay said:

No idea, that's the problem! I haven't changed anything except for the firmware update but I did that when it came out, not recently. I've got awful digital clipping whenever I play it now. Just done a test today and I'm getting nasty clipping on clean tones as well. Sounds like this but worse - 

http://line6.com/support/topic/20355-nasty-digital-distortion-with-some-amps/

It's a tad worse with high output pickups but it's there whatever.

Are you saying it was fine, then you did the firmware upgrade and now it isn't?  Or are you saying you did the firmware upgrade and it was fine for a while and now it isn't?

If the former then was this upgrade from V1.xx to V2.00 or V2.01?  If so did you do the resets specified in the upgrade instructions?  Many of the problems experienced subsequent to upgrading from V1 to V2 have been caused by failure to do the specified resets.

Fiftyshadesofjay

siremoon said:

Fiftyshadesofjay said:

No idea, that's the problem! I haven't changed anything except for the firmware update but I did that when it came out, not recently. I've got awful digital clipping whenever I play it now. Just done a test today and I'm getting nasty clipping on clean tones as well. Sounds like this but worse - 

http://line6.com/support/topic/20355-nasty-digital-distortion-with-some-amps/

It's a tad worse with high output pickups but it's there whatever.

Are you saying it was fine, then you did the firmware upgrade and now it isn't?  Or are you saying you did the firmware upgrade and it was fine for a while and now it isn't?

If the former then was this upgrade from V1.xx to V2.00 or V2.01?  If so did you do the resets specified in the upgrade instructions?  Many of the problems experienced subsequent to upgrading from V1 to V2 have been caused by failure to do the specified resets.

I did the firmware upgrade following the instructions including the reset etc and it was fine for a while, then it started playing up. It'll be going back to Line 6 (via Guitar Guitar) to be looked at as it's pretty much unusable sounding like that so we'll wait and see what they say.

As an aside, I've been speaking to the head of operations at Line 6 via The Gear Page and he's been absolutely fantastic in helping me, can't fault Line 6 customer service in that respect.