Line 6 Helix

rossyamaha

Strat_a_tat_tat said:

rossyamaha said:

I can find good in anything. If you met my wife you would realise how truthful that statement is.  

Seems a bit harsh, mate!

I'm sure she's lovely.  

She's awesome. I merely jest. 

duotone

RMJ said:

.....

That Helix thing is proper mental.  I think I've now convinced myself its too much for me. It'd be like using a Lambo for the fish n chips run.  

)
Watched some of the vids last night, looks really good. Really nice colour display screen as well.  I see its £1070 available for preorder on the Andertons website. For me personally it would be like the Lambo/fish n chip run, but I can see this being a really big hit for Line6. 

Look forward to seeing more vids as time goes on.

guitargeek62

Fortheloveofguitar said:

Does anyone know what the full list of amps are?

I can't find anything

Amp list

Cab list

I'd have like to have seen a 10" loaded Fender model on there, either a Princeton DR or Vibrolux, and as already mentioned, a Two-Rock would be nice too. Still, looks like a pretty comprehensive amp & cab list, plus it has the third-party IR model support for additional cabs.

Mic list

FX list

I'm toying with dropping the majority of my home rig (and plans for new pedals) and just getting one of these. I'd probably get rid of my amp too though as it would/should become redundant, particularly as I'm a stay-at-home player.

Has anyone seen any ambient type demos from one of these yet? That's the way my gear purchases have been going lately, so the routing options and multiple delays etc look promising.

Also, what would be a simple monitor setup for one of these at home? Studio monitors?

guitarfishbay

Monitors would be fine, don't go small if you like low end punch, I find 6 inch - 8 inch work better than 4 or 5 for guitar stuff if you're transitioning from a traditional amp. Brand/model depends on taste and budget.

Fretwired

rossyamaha said:

Drew_fx said:

Another thing that lots of people don't know. Jeff Beck recorded one of his albums, I forget which one, almost exclusively with a POD 2 and a Flextone 2. That was pretty cool. 

That was the 2003 album called Jeff. He used the POD 2 to record demos of his tracks but thought some of the solos were excellent so he used the POD versions rather than re-recording them via his amp. Bill Nelson of Be Bop Deluxe used a POD 2 for over 10 years on all his albums and only stopped when he dropped and damaged it (the early scroll logo PODs sound better than the later ones - Line 6 changed the processor).

Fortheloveofguitar

guitargeek62;754085" said:

Fortheloveofguitar said:

Does anyone know what the full list of amps are?



I can't find anything





Amp list

Cab list



I'd have like to have seen a 10" loaded Fender model on there, either a Princeton DR or Vibrolux, and as already mentioned, a Two-Rock would be nice too. Still, looks like a pretty comprehensive amp & cab list, plus it has the third-party IR model support for additional cabs.



Mic list

FX list





I'm toying with dropping the majority of my home rig (and plans for new pedals) and just getting one of these. I'd probably get rid of my amp too though as it would/should become redundant, particularly as I'm a stay-at-home player.

Has anyone seen any ambient type demos from one of these yet? That's the way my gear purchases have been going lately, so the routing options and multiple delays etc look promising.

Also, what would be a simple monitor setup for one of these at home? Studio monitors?

Many thanks @guitargeek62

rsvmark

Having watched the YT vids, and acknowledging that the sound quality 'may' be a bit suspect on YT, let's assume for a moment that the sound is good/great/stellar.

Looking at the 'economics' of it for a moment, one might reasonably spend £150 on a psu, say £100 on a board, maybe some nice Strymon, Wampler, H9, a compressor, 2-3 tasty dirt pedals, fuzz, a chorus, phaser etc etc....so are going to do at least a grand. Add Maybe a G2 unit or some form of loopy switcher, a wah, expression pedal, and maybe a whammy.

My simple point is that on the face of it this unit represents great vfm. Then on top of all that you get all that routing, amp and cab modelling. So will I buy one?

 

No. And that has nothing to do with whether I want one or not. Bloody love one!

1. As much as I would like to, I don't have £1000 spare just now

2. I would spend more time arsing about with settings than playing and I fear this would make it worse

3. I have enjoyed the last year in assembling my pedal board.... And plan to continue making small acquisitions, swaps, etc for fun and giggles

4. As a shit guitarist I should probably spend money on lessons and time on practising

Grumpyrocker

If I was gigging at the moment or doing church stuff I'd preorder the Helix in a second.

I have a HD500 and have been mostly happy with the sounds. I've had a lot of issues with the unit - but these have been functionality, signal path and features - not the core sound. Given some of the ropey gear I've happily gigged with a HD500 is classy. I think we can get too up our own chuff about "tone" when it's not related to the ultimate goal of getting the songs out to the crowd.

Looks like the Helix fixes some of the really stupid awful routing problems the HD500 has - though a cynical me might suggest some of those could have been fixed by firmware but never have been. I hope at least the loops on the Helix aren't horribly noisy as they are on the POD HD.

I've been really impressed with what I've seen of the Helix. 

Drew_TNBD

rsvmark said:

My simple point is that on the face of it this unit represents great vfm.

Definitely. Looking at my board now, and the pedals that are just sitting on my shelf, I've easily got £1300 in pedals. Ignoring sounds for now... on paper the Helix would just about replace every single one of them.

Teetonetal

Drew_fx;754286" said:

rsvmark said:



My simple point is that on the face of it this unit represents great vfm.

Definitely. Looking at my board now, and the pedals that are just sitting on my shelf, I've easily got £1300 in pedals. Ignoring sounds for now... on paper the Helix would just about replace every single one of them.

But still has 4 loops incase there are any must haves in your collection...

Drew_TNBD

Teetonetal said:

Drew_fx;754286" said:

rsvmark said:



My simple point is that on the face of it this unit represents great vfm.

Definitely. Looking at my board now, and the pedals that are just sitting on my shelf, I've easily got £1300 in pedals. Ignoring sounds for now... on paper the Helix would just about replace every single one of them.

But still has 4 loops incase there are any must haves in your collection...

Yeppers. Like my H9 for instance. I've grown quite attached to it since getting my replacement, and it does a bunch of a effects that the Helix doesn't do yet. Like reverse delay for instance.

rsvmark

Drew_fx said:

Teetonetal said:

Drew_fx;754286" said:

rsvmark said:



My simple point is that on the face of it this unit represents great vfm.

Definitely. Looking at my board now, and the pedals that are just sitting on my shelf, I've easily got £1300 in pedals. Ignoring sounds for now... on paper the Helix would just about replace every single one of them.

But still has 4 loops incase there are any must haves in your collection...

Yeppers. Like my H9 for instance. I've grown quite attached to it since getting my replacement, and it does a bunch of a effects that the Helix doesn't do yet. Like reverse delay for instance.

So (if it's not too nosey) how much do you have tied up in amps? 

Assuming the unit represents good vfm for fx only, if you add the amp modelling into the equation, it's a no brainer? (Again assuming the sound is up to snuff)

Drew_TNBD

@Digital_Igloo @Rossyamaha

Lets say you're using Helix with an amplifier that takes midi. Is it possible to have the four buttons across the front do something like this:

Switch 1 - amp channel one via program change, bypass the tubescreamer block and bypass the volume block

Switch 2 - amp channel two via program change, bypass the tubescreamer block and bypass the volume block

Switch 3 - amp channel two via program change, bypass the tubescreamer block but enable the volume block

switch 4 - amp channel three via program change, enable the tubescreamer block and bypass the volume block

Essentially using the Helix to solve a missing 4th channel, and to tighten up the high-gain channel.

rossyamaha

@Drew_fx 99% certain you can do that yes. Also, unless I'm mistaken, you will be able to change the signal path so that you bypass the preamp of your main amp and use Helix as a preamp into the FX loop return. That way you get all the tones from your amp but are able to utilise amp models from Helix using your amps power stage only. Sean Halley does that on one of his own videos. He switches from the Bogner he is using to a Deluxe Reverb model into the power amp. Quite clever really. If thats how you want to roll of course. 

If I'm wrong I'm sure Mr. Igloo will correct me. 

DavusPG

After a year of buying a lot of gear, thinking I was set and finally starting to play gigs, this is the last thing I needed!

I agree, the Helix seems like excellent value and as I have a midi enabled valve amp it seems like a great option - full control of my amp plus the ability to use the Helix's amp models, fx and perhaps keep my H9 as it's my favourite pedal. 

I still have my Eleven rack on the shelf so I should probably experiment with that and my amp + cab using the 4 cable method to see if it floats my boat. If so then I can see a Helix in my not too distant future.

This might sound pretty dense, but assuming I'm using the power stage of my amp and a 2x12 cab to amplify an amp model then I don't need a simulated cab too? Or can that yield interesting results? Try it and see I guess.

Fortheloveofguitar

DavusPG;754448" said:

After a year of buying a lot of gear, thinking I was set and finally starting to play gigs, this is the last thing I needed!

I agree, the Helix seems like excellent value and as I have a midi enabled valve amp it seems like a great option - full control of my amp plus the ability to use the Helix's amp models, fx and perhaps keep my H9 as it's my favourite pedal. 

I still have my Eleven rack on the shelf so I should probably experiment with that and my amp + cab using the 4 cable method to see if it floats my boat. If so then I can see a Helix in my not too distant future.

This might sound pretty dense, but assuming I'm using the power stage of my amp and a 2x12 cab to amplify an amp model then I don't need a simulated cab too? Or can that yield interesting results? Try it and see I guess.

Just switch off the cab sim

DavusPG

Does anyonee know if the Helix has preset spillover?

Say you're on a high gain lead preset with delay and reverb, would that fade away as you changed to a cleaner preset?

Drew_TNBD

DavusPG said:

Does anyonee know if the Helix has preset spillover?

Say you're on a high gain lead preset with delay and reverb, would that fade away as you changed to a cleaner preset?

Not at launch.

DavusPG

Ah ok.

Would having say a Strymon Timeline or H9 in one of the loops fix that?

hugbot

Mmmmaybe. We'll have to wait till someone actually gets their hands on one to test that.

To be honest I wouldnt see myself using more than one preset per song anyway. Especially if you can assign switches to do multiple things. One button to switch multiple routings? Who needs other presets?

I'm curious about how the looper works.