Line 6 Helix

keir

TimmyO said:

keir said:

Maybe that's where I'll end up who knows. I've just ripped apart my pt-pro today so I can start weighing up what to sell and what to keep something I wouldn't have dreamed of a few months ago! I've just spent the last few months acquiring a load of Gigrig power bits which I'll probably be putting back up for sale along with my pedals. The cost of adding all the bits I wanted to give me the flexibility I wanted and powering it was just a massive headache. 

Is everyone going 100% helix or people hanging on to a few pedals and running them through the loops?

I had a gear clear out recently and kept a fair few of my 'nice' drive/dirt pedals with a view to this, but they have remained boxed thus far

That would be good if I could go full helix. I have a rat and a klone at the moment but I'm not a big fan of the Timmy with my amp so might need a low gain drive. 

Teetonetal said:

@keir. I have 8 pedals in the foot loops. Mainly to save dsp or get a specific sound.

Don't need them though. It's a luxury helix allows.

Interesting, what pedals are they? Do you have 2 per loop? What size board are they on?! 

Teetonetal

1 loop each
Moogerfooger mf104m delay.. clusterflux and ringmod

In a chain
Dd1959 double decker. Cali76 cd. Four eyes 

Sometimes when using vsts the chain gets replaced with a midi murf and boss slicer.. Via a patch bay.

Digital_Igloo

TimmyO said:

From nosing around the respective forums, the Helix does seem to have more than its share of nutters and idiots among its users :-/ 

European Helix users certainly seem to read and follow the update instructions more that those in the states. Some of us are like... "Gah! How much more obvious do we need to make it?!"

Sporky

keir said:

The possibilities are endless aren't they! I might get a reflex one of these days for extra madness. There are hardly any reviews / videos of it online though and they're quite expensive these days. 

Have I mentioned that I like mine?

There are so many interesting (and some useful) things you can do with it that you can't with the onboard expression pedal, plus you have LFO control of any controllable parameter, and you can change everything it does on a per-patch basis.

Plus with the MIDI clock stuff that came with the latest firmware you can sync the LFOs with the Helix's internal ones, and do clock divisions against them too.

I got mine when they were a useful chunk less expensive (blimey - just saw they're over £200 now). Thomann seem to have them for £169 which I think is worth it.

TimmyO

Sporky said:

keir said:

The possibilities are endless aren't they! I might get a reflex one of these days for extra madness. There are hardly any reviews / videos of it online though and they're quite expensive these days. 

Have I mentioned that I like mine?

There are so many interesting (and some useful) things you can do with it that you can't with the onboard expression pedal, plus you have LFO control of any controllable parameter, and you can change everything it does on a per-patch basis.

Plus with the MIDI clock stuff that came with the latest firmware you can sync the LFOs with the Helix's internal ones, and do clock divisions against them too.

I got mine when they were a useful chunk less expensive (blimey - just saw they're over £200 now). Thomann seem to have them for £169 which I think is worth it.

I'm going to use mine to try and get a more realistic ADT effect by modulating the delay time (and perhaps modulation amount) within tight upper and lower limits (probably set those on Helix itself) 

UnclePsychosis

@Drew_TNBD ;

I see you've got a RV-5 (or 6?) and a Polara. How would you compare them? I've got a Polara but I'm slightly tempted to swap it for a Boss... 

Drew_TNBD

UnclePsychosis said:

@Drew_TNBD ;

I see you've got a RV-5 (or 6?) and a Polara. How would you compare them? I've got a Polara but I'm slightly tempted to swap it for a Boss... 

It's an RV-5. Didn't you buy an RV-5 off me a while back?? I ended up picking up another! The mod algo on the RV5 is basically my only reason for keeping the pedal! The Polara is a great workhorse reverb, and has a shimmer mode which is a bit more restrained than a lot of the other pedals. Which I prefer.

keir

TimmyO said:

keir said:

Maybe that's where I'll end up who knows. I've just ripped apart my pt-pro today so I can start weighing up what to sell and what to keep something I wouldn't have dreamed of a few months ago! I've just spent the last few months acquiring a load of Gigrig power bits which I'll probably be putting back up for sale along with my pedals. The cost of adding all the bits I wanted to give me the flexibility I wanted and powering it was just a massive headache. 

Is everyone going 100% helix or people hanging on to a few pedals and running them through the loops?

I had a gear clear out recently and kept a fair few of my 'nice' drive/dirt pedals with a view to this, but they have remained boxed thus far

My band mates are having a mild meltdown since I announced that I'm basically scrapping my whole rig in favour of the helix, it's quite amusing. 

If I actually look at my rig for the past couple of years the only constants are my möbius, timeline and big sky really. My drive section is completely different and has probably gone through 3 complete swaps and everything else has been fluff that only I could notice. The möbius is mostly trem with a little bit of phase and rotary and the timeline again is only really basic stuff I'm sure I'll be able to easily replicate them with the helix. I might keep the big sky around for the short term and see if I can live without it and then maybe a low gain drive as I don't really like the Timmy. TimmyO said:

Sporky said:

keir said:

The possibilities are endless aren't they! I might get a reflex one of these days for extra madness. There are hardly any reviews / videos of it online though and they're quite expensive these days. 

Have I mentioned that I like mine?

There are so many interesting (and some useful) things you can do with it that you can't with the onboard expression pedal, plus you have LFO control of any controllable parameter, and you can change everything it does on a per-patch basis.

Plus with the MIDI clock stuff that came with the latest firmware you can sync the LFOs with the Helix's internal ones, and do clock divisions against them too.

I got mine when they were a useful chunk less expensive (blimey - just saw they're over £200 now). Thomann seem to have them for £169 which I think is worth it.

I'm going to use mine to try and get a more realistic ADT effect by modulating the delay time (and perhaps modulation amount) within tight upper and lower limits (probably set those on Helix itself) 

Id love to see some better demos of the LFOs on the reflex, I've only seen the one where it controls different sweeps on pedals at the same time. 

fretmeister

Digital_Igloo said:

TimmyO said:

From nosing around the respective forums, the Helix does seem to have more than its share of nutters and idiots among its users :-/ 

European Helix users certainly seem to read and follow the update instructions more that those in the states. Some of us are like... "Gah! How much more obvious do we need to make it?!"

Is there a plan to have an automated update process?

1 click backs up patches, downloads the updater and app and then updates the unit?

It's not difficult now and I've never had it go wrong, but I'm surprised at the amount of "I'm not updating because..." type shite on facebook.

keir

Another quick question....

Is there a way of changing from all snapshot to single stomps without going into the global settings?

John_A

keir said:

Another quick question....

Is there a way of changing from all snapshot to single stomps without going into the global settings?

Absolutely you just set it to all snapshots and hit the 'mode' footswitch and it flips to all stomps.  Personally there's very few times I do this, I find 4 snapshots and 4 stomps is more than enough for almost everything I do

keir

Ah cool thanks, so much to learn! I need to spend a day programming everything properly and see what suits me best. I suppose you can programme which 4 stomps appear across the top. It'd be cool to have it available per preset too. 

John_A

keir said:

Ah cool thanks, so much to learn! I need to spend a day programming everything properly and see what suits me best. I suppose you can programme which 4 stomps appear across the top. It'd be cool to have it available per preset too. 

Yes, you can choose which 4 stomps appear along the top, or anywhere for that matter, and yes you can do it by preset, so you can have your 'usual stomps' or a different selection for every preset.  Hitting 'mode' takes you to stomp view where you can have up to 10 stomps in whatever order you like and each of the stomps can be assigned to do different things like activate multiple pedals at once, or turn on the looper.

I've yet to find anything it can't do

Stinkfoot

Hi all,

Another +1 here just into the Helix fray. Have had the unit for a few weeks and did my first gig with it last night - just using as a pedalboard into my amp for now. I just wanted to initially replicate the sounds I was getting on my old set-up to get me through the first gig but I can see the potential in it to go way deeper than that already. It's the first multi unit I've ever used where I feel happy to ditch a separate analogue drive pedal - the drive sounds are very transparent and organic sounding I think. Also loving it's 'tweakability' in a gig situation.

Probably take a few gigs to get levels balanced and stuff, and then off into the world of presets, patches, and snapshots.....and then maybe even FRFR (gulp!)

On first impressions - extremely happy!

UnclePsychosis

Drew_TNBD said:

UnclePsychosis said:

@Drew_TNBD ;

I see you've got a RV-5 (or 6?) and a Polara. How would you compare them? I've got a Polara but I'm slightly tempted to swap it for a Boss... 

It's an RV-5. Didn't you buy an RV-5 off me a while back?? I ended up picking up another! The mod algo on the RV5 is basically my only reason for keeping the pedal! The Polara is a great workhorse reverb, and has a shimmer mode which is a bit more restrained than a lot of the other pedals. Which I prefer.

---Cheers. It was a dd7 I got from you I think, I've never owned an rv5 (at least I think I haven't...)

Digital_Igloo

fretmeister said: Is there a plan to have an automated update process?

1 click backs up patches, downloads the updater and app and then updates the unit?

Don't know if it'll be 1-click, but it'll be way easier than it is now. We need the plugin and new editor out first, then we can deal with the updating nonsense.

Drew_TNBD

UnclePsychosis said:

Drew_TNBD said:

UnclePsychosis said:

@Drew_TNBD ;

I see you've got a RV-5 (or 6?) and a Polara. How would you compare them? I've got a Polara but I'm slightly tempted to swap it for a Boss... 

It's an RV-5. Didn't you buy an RV-5 off me a while back?? I ended up picking up another! The mod algo on the RV5 is basically my only reason for keeping the pedal! The Polara is a great workhorse reverb, and has a shimmer mode which is a bit more restrained than a lot of the other pedals. Which I prefer.

---Cheers. It was a dd7 I got from you I think, I've never owned an rv5 (at least I think I haven't...)

Ahhhh I knew it was some Boss ting!

Drew_TNBD

Digital_Igloo said:

nonsense.

robinbowes

I did it. I went for the Rack/Control version. Arrived today. Not had chance to plug it in yet...

Looking forward to getting to grips with this thing.

R.

simonk

robinbowes said:

I did it. I went for the Rack/Control version. Arrived today. Not had chance to plug it in yet...

Looking forward to getting to grips with this thing.

R.

Nice one
I'm loving mine I have to say. I've spent an hour or so with it every night since Tuesday and already feel like I understand it pretty well. I grabbed some Celestion IR's too - liking them very much indeed.