BigRedX

I think you should take the time and patience to point out why xgsjx is wrong, because I think he's pretty much hit the nail on the head.

Exactly. It's the physical connections that are the problem. IMO they are just about fine for gentle use in an office environment, but completely unsuitable for use in a live gigging situation.

I don't think anyone serious uses Windows for live music for exactly those reasons. ;-)

Do what I am currently doing and built everything into a flight case, with a removable top. At the gig I simply open the case and switch on the laptop. All external connections are made via gig-worthy plugs like XLRs and all the fragile computer connectors are hidden away inside the case. The laptop is held in place with hard flight case foam and all the connections going to it are cable tied into place so that they can't move. I'll take some photos of my set up when it's finished and showing how it's constructed if you want.

What DAW are you using? Many come with drum software included, so no need to spend any extra money.

We’ll the way mine is working at the moment if I save the patch with the volume set to 0 then that’s how it will be when I recall that program.

My main rig is BassPod>Tech Soundsystems Black Cat Amp > EBS Proline 410 + 210, but recently I've been using a TecAmp Puma and Dr Bass 612 + 210 Cabs for rehearsals and live use as it's a bit more "portable". When I was setting up the sounds at home volume I was a bit worried that I was missing a bit of the low-mid presence of the bigger rig, but in the rehearsal room, if anything I had slightly over-cooked the bottom end and could have done with a bit more clarity and definition in the high mids. There was actually a noticeable bass being transmitted through the solid floor of the room which definitely wasn't there with the Dr Bass cabs. Maybe that's due to using the RCF in its wedge position? One thing that was very gratifying with the Helix and RCF combination was that all my different patches sounded a lot more "balanced" straight off and I don't think I'll need to do anything like as much level adjustments as I had to with the BassPod. I'll be doing some tweaks between now and the next rehearsal, and then the real test will come next Friday when I'll be gigging it for the first time. That will be interesting - especially as I think the opening band will be hoping to use my rig (IIRC the headlining act doesn't have a bass player). I may have to create a couple basic Amp/Cab patches for others to use.

Martin Sims

Thanks! I'm finding the whole Line 6 site fairly un-user-friendly for new users. Once I've figured out (or been told) where the relevant information is, I'm OK but finding exactly what I want and where to look isn't as simple as it should be. It isn't helped by various parts of the site being off-line at times over the last week or so. And am I the only one who thinks that since Line 6 are now only supplying manuals as PDFs they should be updated more often? Supplying the Firmware V1 manual with a Firmware V2.1 Helix is pretty bad, but there should also be more frequent updates - especially when something major like the 2.5 firmware with loads of new modules is released.

All I'm going to say is that there have been times when the combined value of all the musical equipment (Guitars, Basses, Keyboards and Recording Equipment) I owned exceeded that of my home...

First rehearsal done, the Helix and RCF745 performed very well. However it has thrown up a niggle with the way the volume pedal works with the Helix. It appears that position of the pedal is being saved as part of the patch, so if I fade a song out at the end using the pedal, when I select the next patch the volume is immediately set to full (because that is how it was saved) even though the pedal is in the minimum volume position. This could be a problem if I need to use the pedal on the next song because as soon as I move it the value jumps to the pedal position, and on one song it should start with me fading in a very noisy overdriven sound, but instead it comes on abruptly at full volume as soon as I select the patch. Is there a way to make the volume pedal work like it does on the BassPod with the Shortboard, where it acts as a non-programmable output volume? I had a look in the Global settings but couldn't see anything obvious. Which also brings up another point. The PDF manual which was on the memory stick that came with the Helix is now very out of date (it's for Firmware V1.0). Is there a more up to date manual? I can't see one in the downloads section of the Line6 site.

I'm registered (from ages ago) but haven't had an email.

What is Ideascale and where do I join? Multiple versions of patches are no good to me as I have between 1 and 4 patches for each song. Also, since one of the bands I'm in uses backing, I'm hoping to sync the patch changes via MIDI so I don't actually have use the footswitches live. And therefore I need to ability to do a master EQ tweak that I can save an recall without simply writing down the settings. And BTW I found a way of setting the footswitch assignment to one row of patches and one row of stomp switches so the bank select just moves one bank at a time. Success! Slowly but surely getting there. I'll be using my new set up for the first time at rehearsal tonight. I've got most of the major variations in sound set up and copied to the relevant locations I'll tweak them as we practice the songs. From the Helix Edit application I saved a Set List. Has that backed all my patches up to my Mac? It wasn't very obvious. EDIT: and the routing suggestion worked although I did have to play a lot with the gain structure to get everything sounding right. BTW is there any visual indication of clipping in the signal path? I've found that it's possible with some modules to add a lot of signal boost. The BassPod had a section of the LCD display that lit up if you were overloading at any point.

It doesn't matter. It's so vastly overpriced given the condition that it won't sell.

All PMs from before the forum update have gone.

Not at all 70s glam rock. Did you mean 80s?

Can't see anything on their website or Facebook page.

Send them an invoice for the use of your photography. £150 per image used should be about right. :-)

This K & M small mixer stand is the best I've come across.

Right after a lot of head scratching I think I might have an answer: Path 1 Guitar Input > Return 1 > Main chain of effects > Output Path 2 Aux Input > EQ > Send 1 > physical patch cable going from send 1 to return 1 Helix gurus, does that sound feasible? Anything I should look out for? And now another stupid question: Is it possible to save the settings for each individual FX module so I have a set of presets for each module that I can choose from when making a new patch? And most importantly can I save the settings for the global EQ module? This will be most useful when I have to use someone else's amp and cab at a gig, so I can create a set of global EQ presets which can be loaded quickly at the soundcheck.

Not as much as the wonky pickup. That one on eBay is made from what is probably the blandest piece of wood never to have been covered by a solid paint finish.

And some more stupid questions... I want to use the Guitar and Aux inputs to allow me to have both my main bass and backup connected permanently to the Helix. So i've set the top path input to Guitar and bottom path input to Aux. I've then added a Volume and EQ section on the bottom path which will even out the volume and tonal differences between the two basses. Now I want to route the bottom path so that it merges with the top path before the first effect on the top path, but I can't work out how to do this. The manual has a page of info on Split and Merge modules but I can't work out how to add them. I'm obviously doing something very stupid here. Any help? Secondly. Is it possible to set the bank control to move the banks up and down one at a time rather than two? I simply can't use the upper set of foot switches because the lower ones are in the way and from my experience with the Shortboard, I'm always pressing a lower switch by accident with my heel when I'm trying to press an upper one with my toe. So at the moment any patches in the even number banks are wasted spaces unless I can work out a way to move them to the lower set of switches. Any ideas?

It's already been released. The keyboard player in one of my bands has one. I think the problem at the moment is they can't make them fast enough to keep up with demand. If you want one, you'll either need to pre-order one of the next available batch or wait until later in the year when hopefully the demand won't be quite so high (and maybe there will be some on the second hand market).

Some questions for the OP that may help to tailor the advice more specifically to his needs 1. Is this for The Angry Badgers or is it a solo project? 2. Are you going to gig the songs? And if so will you be doing the complete album from start to finish? 3. What packaging do you have in mind for the album?

Those look great. Proper well-thought out presentation. Unfortunately, too often, home made means chopped out with a pair of blunt safety scissors and crappy obvious recycled images where the design is mostly about being able to get all the information as big as possible in the available space.