bluefade
New Member
Have any of you lads demoed a line 6 HELIX pedal board ? If you have, please post what you liked and disliked about it...THANKS.
Effects Pedals
- Thread starter bluefade
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BrianC
more toys than talent
Waaaaay too expensive imho - though it looks and sounds great from what I have heard.
WeFixFlats
Respect The Clave
I went to checkout the Helix tonight at a Guitar Center here in Austin. There were about 20 or so people there, 3 guys around me already have one.
The 'demo' was a very good guitar player(using an esp with the distortion nearly always on) talking through a power point presentation(that crashed at one point) No company banner(small but important detail if you're promoting a product, no matter what it is, right?) and the unit was on the floor so you couldn't see it either. The best he could do was to show, on a monitor, the modeling examples with static(not interactive)screen shots of what it was trying to emulate. For example, the two amp SRV setup where they're mixed(Fender/Marshall) and the usual scooped Mesa/Boogie tone(you know that one), though he did do a Roland Jazz Chorus setting(which always sounds great thru most any modeler).
But, to me, here is what was shocking. There is no GUI software application that you can use(connected with a usb cable) to your desktop/laptop to see a virtual picture of the foot controller and then change/modify/save presets using either a keyboard or mouse. Everything must be done and saved using the footswitches and control knobs. And I asked him more than once if this feature was available: negative. The controller display is small and hard to see/read standing up. The company guy said he had to put the unit on his desk to configure his presets. My lowly $200 and now obsolete RP-355 has what's called 'X-Edit' software. If I want a Marshall Lead 100, Fender Twin, or any of the other Digitech built in amp presets, I just drop down, select it, change gain/tone add reverb/delay and other effects and save it to a filename of my chosing right then and there for recall.
Basically it was just him stomping on the board, playing metal riffs. On the other hand, you CAN select different microphones, amp sag/bias parameters, and a whole lot more. But frankly this is too complicated, not user friendly for me and simply WAY over my talent level, hearing, recording expertise and budget. These are for advanced guitar players/studio engineers with time on their hands to tweek it for specific recording/live performance requirements, in my opinion.
One final observation: Over 45 years later, everyone is still chasing the Jimi Hendrix tone because he had a preset for him.
The 'demo' was a very good guitar player(using an esp with the distortion nearly always on) talking through a power point presentation(that crashed at one point) No company banner(small but important detail if you're promoting a product, no matter what it is, right?) and the unit was on the floor so you couldn't see it either. The best he could do was to show, on a monitor, the modeling examples with static(not interactive)screen shots of what it was trying to emulate. For example, the two amp SRV setup where they're mixed(Fender/Marshall) and the usual scooped Mesa/Boogie tone(you know that one), though he did do a Roland Jazz Chorus setting(which always sounds great thru most any modeler).
But, to me, here is what was shocking. There is no GUI software application that you can use(connected with a usb cable) to your desktop/laptop to see a virtual picture of the foot controller and then change/modify/save presets using either a keyboard or mouse. Everything must be done and saved using the footswitches and control knobs. And I asked him more than once if this feature was available: negative. The controller display is small and hard to see/read standing up. The company guy said he had to put the unit on his desk to configure his presets. My lowly $200 and now obsolete RP-355 has what's called 'X-Edit' software. If I want a Marshall Lead 100, Fender Twin, or any of the other Digitech built in amp presets, I just drop down, select it, change gain/tone add reverb/delay and other effects and save it to a filename of my chosing right then and there for recall.
Basically it was just him stomping on the board, playing metal riffs. On the other hand, you CAN select different microphones, amp sag/bias parameters, and a whole lot more. But frankly this is too complicated, not user friendly for me and simply WAY over my talent level, hearing, recording expertise and budget. These are for advanced guitar players/studio engineers with time on their hands to tweek it for specific recording/live performance requirements, in my opinion.
One final observation: Over 45 years later, everyone is still chasing the Jimi Hendrix tone because he had a preset for him.
Dusty Chalk
alberngruppenführer
Yeah, not having a presets editor is kind of pre-1980s. Even MIDI keyboards & synthesizers had editors.
Yes, but they were third party editor/librarians. MOTU, Opcode, others made them. That was in the late 80s. In the early 80s, you had to use hardware editors, little boxes that you'd attach via a MIDI cable to control the parameters more rapidly. Roland had them, etc.
Line 6 does make an editor for the Helix, but it's fairly primitive at this point, and lets you rearrange presets, handle impulse responses, etc. No real editing features.
If you want a superb machine that supports wireless editing and librarian functions, the Eventide H9 is the ticket. It works with a computer, an iPad or an iPhone, as well as other devices. The only problem is that it can only do one algorithm at a time, so if you need to do what the Helix does, you need several of them.
The Fractal FX8 will allow you to hook up a USB cable to a computer for editing/librarian functions. But to me, that's still inferior to being able to do it with an iPad or even a phone.
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