Helix Talk

[MirrorProfiles]

Why the amp models still output sound with Gain and/or Master on 0.0?
Please don't say to prevent some fool form panicking.

I’m obviously not DI but I asked STL’s dev about this on their plugins recently.

With STL at least, it’s to do with the mathematical circuit where setting a resistor value to 0 gives a conductance of 1/0=infinite. So to avoid that, it’s common to set the smallest values to something like 0.000000001 rather than 0 so things don’t go nuts.

 

[laxu]

My old business partner was a ProTools engineer for The Underdogs (writing camp who produced songs for Michael Jackson [oh jeez the STORIES], Justin, Britney, Christina, Brandy, Monica, etc.). The amount of effort he took to learn key commands and shortcuts to be able to track, comp, edit, and tune at the speed of thought was insane. He was literally faster than the screen redraws and had to lift his hands up every 20 seconds or so to let the Macs catch up. (This was in the early 00s.) The one thing I learned is that if something takes X seconds to accomplish, there's a notably lower chance a user will bother compared to something that takes half the time. If instead of "okay, so I tap this and open this and swipe here and do this" you think "okay, now it's done," you're constantly in a state of DO activity instead of incessantly cycling through WHAT > HOW > DO. Muscle memory is king.

Even though I consider the "turn Helix joystick to change model" default to be terrible, I feel like just having the joystick as your main cursor movement is a much better solution than e.g what Fractal does.

When I had the Helix and FM3 at the same time, I felt I was always doing a lot more hand movement from one area to the other on the Fractal, because the under screen knobs and the navigation buttons are very far apart. Even on my Axe-Fx 3 I regularly find myself using the big knob just because it's less hand movement than going to the knobs under the screen and then immediately back to go to another page or something.

IMO the Helix's left side preset knob is highly redundant though. Could be just a button called "Presets" that you navigate with the joystick.

I do feel modelers still have a long way to go in providing that muscle memory driven approach. Compared to all of them I can absolutely fly editing my Strymon pedalboard where nearly everything has a dedicated knob or button. It lets me play "mad scientist" in a way complex modelers just don't.

To me the "edit one block at a time" paradigm used by all modelers is especially a big limitation that I hope Line6 has considered in next gen products. Ability to e.g pin a block next to another would be massive as there's often adjustment relationships like drive1-drive2, drive-amp, amp-cab, delay-reverb etc.

 

[Sascha Franck]

I feel like just having the joystick as your main cursor movement is a much better solution than e.g what Fractal does.

I think the joystick is a pretty bad idea, especially as it serves no real joystick purposes at all. Instead it's pretty much made to break with various amounts of forces applied in a whooping 7 directions - for that to be a decent experience, you typically want military grade components, but the Helix joystick unfortunately is the opposite of that.
Seriously, a jog wheel a la Boss plus some cursor keys would take you every bit as far and possibly be every bit as efficient to use, too.

 

[laxu]

I think the joystick is a pretty bad idea, especially as it serves no real joystick purposes at all. Instead it's pretty much made to break with various amounts of forces applied in a whooping 7 directions - for that to be a decent experience, you typically want military grade components, but the Helix joystick unfortunately is the opposite of that.
Seriously, a jog wheel a la Boss plus some cursor keys would take you every bit as far and possibly be every bit as efficient to use, too.

I mean, Fractal uses exactly that setup and I find it very inconvenient due to the way the buttons are arranged. While instead of a joystick I would have gone for a D-pad for navigation, the joystick works well for me. Did not manage to break it during the years I had the Helix. My only complaint is the knob on it, it can be too easy to turn that plus press a direction.

 

[Sascha Franck]

due to the way the buttons are arranged.

Yeah, but that's got to do with their placement. I still remember being very quick on the GT-10 with it's jog wheel and buttons next to it.
Fwiw, my Helix joystick kept working all the time, too - but as it started to feel pretty "lush", I tried my best to almost never use it.
Fwiw, Zoom have their MS-50G navigation covered pretty darn well, too.

 

[laxu]

Yeah, but that's got to do with their placement. I still remember being very quick on the GT-10 with it's jog wheel and buttons next to it.
Fwiw, my Helix joystick kept working all the time, too - but as it started to feel pretty "lush", I tried my best to almost never use it.
Fwiw, Zoom have their MS-50G navigation covered pretty darn well, too.

I can't speak for the GT-10 as I've never used it. The last - and only - Boss GT-series I had was the GT-6 and I absolutely hated how it operated beyond the dedicated knobs.

 

[laxu]

Here's an unintentionally funny video of the Boss GT-10 in action. The guy sounds like he's narrating an audio book of a romance novel. "Her loins quivered as he slowly scrolled through the amp models..."

 

[Sascha Franck]

was the GT-6 and I absolutely hated how it operated beyond the dedicated knobs.

Yeah, those were the "old jog wheel" days. Not good. The GT-10 did a lot better IMO. I guess I still had prefered a smaller encoder (not all that wheel-ish), and I'd possibly be just fine with typical arrow buttons, too. But once I was used to it, things went pretty smooth. Obviously, having dedicated buttons for each possible block helps a lot - I'd defenitely like to have something like it again, just that with todays huge CPU capabilities, you'd have to go for an enormous amount of buttons. But then, that's what touch screens with icons are for.

 

[dbagchee]

Yeah knobs are much better for tweaking parameters, and figuring out a way to have multiple blocks to a bank of knobs would be great. Theoretically that could be done with the existing Helix hardware (6 assignable knobs across multiple stomps wouldn’t hurt!) but would be cool to see if they could take some of the M13/M5 pedalboard style tweaking and bring that to the next Helix.

Also don’t sleep on editing by foot - it’s so handy to be in a preset standing up playing and going into the reverb or delay and adjusting the mix with out having to bend over or have another device with an editor open.

 

[Sascha Franck]

o see if they could take some of the M13/M5 pedalboard style tweaking and bring that to the next Helix.

Yeah. I loved the M13 while I had it. Too bad the switches were of really, really bad quality and mine was pretty old when I bought it already, so I was fighting them quite a bit during owning it. Today I think I should've just taken the plunge of replacing them with something decent. Obviously, I won't rebuy one (the used algorithms clearly showing their age), but had I kept it, I'd likely be still using it in one or the other setup.

 

[laxu]

Yeah. I loved the M13 while I had it. Too bad the switches were of really, really bad quality and mine was pretty old when I bought it already, so I was fighting them quite a bit during owning it. Today I think I should've just taken the plunge of replacing them with something decent. Obviously, I won't rebuy one (the used algorithms clearly showing their age), but had I kept it, I'd likely be still using it in one or the other setup.

I also liked the M13. The drives weren't that great but otherwise a good unit. I didn't have any technical issues with it. Sold it when I got the first gen Axe-Fx Standard.

 

[dbagchee]

Yeah the M13 was a pretty great design with some hardware challenges. An HX level take on that would be pretty cool. I guess the HX effects is sort of the successor to that but we need more knobs!

 

[SwirlyMaple]

Why the amp models still output sound with Gain and/or Master on 0.0?
Please don't say to prevent some fool form panicking.

That’s where they modeled leaky capacitors and failing potentiometers.

 

[SwirlyMaple]

Even though I consider the "turn Helix joystick to change model" default to be terrible

Couldn’t agree more. I can’t count how many times I turned it when trying to navigate and accidentally changed a block to a different model, losing all my settings in the process. Plus, scrolling through a list that way isn’t very useful unless you have the list memorized.

I was glad when I found that you could switch the function of that knob so turning it navigates along your path. It’s way more efficient and prevents unintentional changes.

 

[SwirlyMaple]

Here's an unintentionally funny video of the Boss GT-10 in action.

Holy guacamole the distorted tones in that thing sound… very not good

 

[Sascha Franck]

Holy guacamole the distorted tones in that thing sound… very not good

At least my memory is trying to suggest that I was able to get much better tones out of it. Maybe I should get it out of the basement, blow the dust away and give it a try.

 

[HotRats]

@Digital Igloo

Is it possibile to invert the led behaviour of a footswitch assigned to a group of blocks (or a single one)?
I mean led off when blocks are all active, led on when they are all bypassed.

I know you can reverse the behaviour when blocks states are mixed (some on, some off) but I can't do that when they are all aligned.

Edit: I can add a dummy gain block set to unity and get it done but I'm curious about this one.

 

[CakeEater]

@Digital Igloo

Is it possibile to invert the led behaviour of a footswitch assigned to a group of blocks (or a single one)?
I mean led off when blocks are all active, led on when they are all bypassed.

I know you can reverse the behaviour when blocks states are mixed (some on, some off) but I can't do that when they are all aligned.

Edit: I can add a dummy gain block set to unity and get it done but I'm curious about this one.

We could really do with an Active State boolean parameter for footswitch assignments, especially when we have multiple assignments like switching between amps etc.

 

[HotRats]

I'm experimenting with this layout.

Helix is hooked to a mini jubilee in 4cm.
The goal is to use ch1 for cleanish and crunch sounds using the jubilee rythm clip option; ch2 for leads.

Yellow Circled FS activate a compressor and an eq in front of the amp reducing the overall level in order to get a cleanish sound. Activates also a gain block after the loop to compensate for volume loss. These block are in path B because I need them to be out of the way when I use amp ch1

Red circled FS switch to ch2 and A path in the helix

I'd love to have the Yellow Circled FS led off for cleans and on for cruch. It's a minor thing but my brain prefer to see it that way.

For the curious ones:

Purple circled FSs are snapshots that activate single modulations (as per their names) or deactivate them (FX OFF). I've set it up this way because I can toggle between effects with one push.
I'd love the see on the helix the implementation of Toggle groups: meaning a way to link footswitches with an X-OR logic.

Minotaur and the two delays are direct and independent (snapshot bypass set to off) FS assignments.

 

[CakeEater]

I'm experimenting with this layout.

Helix is hooked to a mini jubilee in 4cm.
The goal is to use ch1 for cleanish and crunch sounds using the jubilee rythm clip option; ch2 for leads.

Yellow Circled FS activate a compressor and an eq in front of the amp reducing the overall level in order to get a cleanish sound. Activates also a gain block after the loop to compensate for volume loss. These block are in path B because I need them to be out of the way when I use amp ch1

Red circled FS switch to ch2 and A path in the helix

I'd love to have the Yellow Circled FS led off for cleans and on for cruch. It's a minor thing but my brain prefer to see it that way.

For the curious ones:

Purple circled FSs are snapshots that activate single modulations (as per their names) or deactivate them (FX OFF). I've set it up this way because I can toggle between effects with one push.
I'd love the see on the helix the implementation of Toggle groups: meaning a way to link footswitches with an X-OR logic.

Minotaur and the two delays are direct and independent (snapshot bypass set to off) FS assignments.


View attachment 12040

Interesting, presumably Lead! switches both split blocks from B 100% to A 100%? What does Clean/Crunch toggle on and off? What distinguished Clean from Crunch?

Edit: I also have The Elephant Man and Transistor Tape is series, they're a great combination!