Anyone using a Line6 Helix?

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MT
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Anyone using a Line6 Helix?

Post by MT » Sat Jan 26, 2019 1:42 am

I’m basically a night time home player. I’m not out gigging and my space is pretty small. I have 4 amps, a Torpedo Live box and an iso cab which all work pretty well for what I do, although each has its limitations.

I’m seriously considering selling all but one amp and buying a Helix (LT probably). I already use the Line6 HX FX so I’m already familiar with the effects and I’ve played the Helix in a local shop so I’m familiar with the amp sims.

Anyone here using the Helix? How have you found it? Likes / Dislikes? If you went with the Helix LT, do you wish you’d gotten the one with the extra inputs instead?

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s_mcsleazy
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Re: Anyone using a Line6 Helix?

Post by s_mcsleazy » Sat Jan 26, 2019 3:18 am

i dont own one but i've tried one. i wanted to see what all the fuss was about since so many people on forums keep saying "it's the future of music, it will replace all your gear" which is what people seem to say about every big leap forward in modelling/multi effects. personally, i dont get the hype. but it's one of those things i think people should check out for themselves
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Re: Anyone using a Line6 Helix?

Post by wooderson » Sat Jan 26, 2019 6:19 am

I had an LT. It sounded fine clean but there was a strange quality to it at the edge of breakup that I couldn't deal with (like a distorted sound on top of the guitar tone - I've seen it referred to as Helix 'squirrels'). It was especially prominent in headphones.

I've thought about going back for variety's sake, through someone with easy returns like GC, but I'd want the big Helix with the scribble strips, not having them was surprisingly annoying.

My headphone solution is one of the new Suhr Reactive Load IR boxes - it's by far the best headphone experience I've found.

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Re: Anyone using a Line6 Helix?

Post by apreswho » Sat Jan 26, 2019 11:30 am

Of the 3 of us, I’m the only guitarist in my band that DOESNT use one. They both really love them, and they do sound very good. Apparently line 6 models components in circuits rather than the sounds the circuits produce, which is interesting to me.

There’s a lot of crazy functionality depending on how deep you want to get, my one guitarist mentions the “4 cable method” often, whatever the hell that is. All the simulation sounds pretty damn good to my ears, lots of options regarding splitting your signal, maybe into one side with effects and amp simulation, the other side with effects but no amp sim to run out to an amp. DI sounds surprisingly good, we even used it for a recording project we did (it was a pretty specific project and convenience was a big help.)

I cant really speak to how intuitive or easy to use the UI is, but I’d imagine the demographic for the Helix isn’t afraid of diving deep into digital possibilities regardless of the menus or method of scrolling or whatever.

I don’t think I’ve actually PLAYED the thing myself, despite having a fair bit of experience with the sound, so i cant really speak on how it feels/how responsive it is. I personally just get scared of work stations because one thing fails and you’re totally done, i like my pedalboard where if one thing fails i usually already was suspicious of it and i can just rip it out and move on with my life.

Another interesting thing I hadn’t considered is you can set it up like a pedal board (IE, each button controls an effect or effects) or you can build it out per song, with each button controlling a whole world of parameters and vastly changing the sound. Personally, if I were going the digital workstation route, the former of those approaches seems a little silly to me.

From what I understand, as already mentioned, its worth it to get the big boy vs the LT model or whatever its called, and always a good idea to buy from a place like guitar center if a possible return is even within the realm of possibility. I’m happy to ask them specifics if there’s anything you’re looking to know, but that’s my somewhat-experienced assessment haha

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Re: Anyone using a Line6 Helix?

Post by Embenny » Sat Jan 26, 2019 5:15 pm

I own a Kemper and a Fractal AX8. I like both more than the Helix, which I spent some time with as well.

The Kemper takes longer to get a usable sound out of, but has the most authentic feel once you do. The AX8 gets the widest variety of great-feeling and sounding tones the easiest. The Helix's tones just don't sound or feel as good to me. It has better effects than the Kemper and a more versatile form factor, but I'd take the AX8 over the Helix any day (and I did).

Having said that, it's not a bad piece of kit. It's just my least favourite out of the "big three" of the modeling world.
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Re: Anyone using a Line6 Helix?

Post by B » Mon Jan 28, 2019 4:03 am

I own an HX Stomp and I am pretty fond of it. Replace everything else?... No. But it is pretty amazing in that for $599 you can configure it to replace 3 or 4 other pieces of your gear at an exceptional sound quality level and have 900 million other things to play around with and explore should you want to. I couldn't see spending the money on the big one, but the Stomp is a no brainer.

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Re: Anyone using a Line6 Helix?

Post by uraniumwilly » Sat Feb 09, 2019 7:55 am

Helix Native owner. I'm generally pretty floored by it. The Sadites videos on youtube are a gold mine of tone for Helix, even if not native, still fantastic tones.

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Re: Anyone using a Line6 Helix?

Post by jellodog » Sat Feb 23, 2019 7:06 pm

I own a Helix LT and it's the single best piece of guitar related kit that I've ever bought. I don't gig with it, though - I just record and play at home.

A guy made a comment further up about fuzziness especially in headphones. The Helix headphone output is designed to drive high impedance studio cans ( > 250 ohms), and it will sound fuzzy if you plug in something like smart phone ear buds ( ~ 35 ohms).

https://line6.com/support/topic/26959-t ... t-answers/

I'm not trying to say that he didn't have a genuine underlying issue there. Only wishing to add that low impedance headphones will add more fuzz on top of whatever else was going on.

Anyway, I'm (obviously) an avid Offset lover and I also love my Helix, so feel free to shoot me some questions if you have any.

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Re: Anyone using a Line6 Helix?

Post by MT » Sun Feb 24, 2019 6:39 am

uraniumwilly wrote:
Sat Feb 09, 2019 7:55 am
Helix Native owner. I'm generally pretty floored by it. The Sadites videos on youtube are a gold mine of tone for Helix, even if not native, still fantastic tones.
I downloaded the free trial of Native on the weekend. Pretty impressed with it so far. I’ll take advantage of Line6’s $99 price for Helix HX owners when the trial runs out. Upgraded some bits of my laptop and it runs with pretty much no latency. The HX plus Native removes the need to buy an LT or Floor.

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Re: Anyone using a Line6 Helix?

Post by BlueSparkle » Fri Mar 08, 2019 5:27 pm

I too would like to know how helix owners feel after a year or two.

I know two guys who have had helixes and offloaded them. One has gone a step further and tossed his Kemper.

Both have said similar things which seem anecdotal to me "too long to profile and setup "clinical" "couldn't get the tone balance perfect" stuff like that.

I'm the least digital of the three of us, and while we all like what we have, I am wondering why they are all eyeing off my board and talking about G2, but what I have noticed more is that they have also ditched their amps, and have gone for more boutiquey head/cab combos with remote switched loops and multiple voicings in the amp, so their pedal boards are even smaller and fewer switches. So perhaps we are all just on different squares on the same footpath - all roads lead to Rome etc. "the journey is more important than the destination" blah blah blah....

My board just keeps getting bigger and more analog every year. I've just ditched my timeline and bigsky, trying to off my mobius (and having trouble trying)

I liked the fractal. to me I think it offers a better deal than the helix or kemper, but that is just me. I'm not really a DSP lover - I save that for my kurzweil and mac, when I am in the mood to fk around with waveforms
s_mcsleazy wrote:
Sat Jan 26, 2019 3:18 am
i dont own one but i've tried one. i wanted to see what all the fuss was about since so many people on forums keep saying "it's the future of music, it will replace all your gear" which is what people seem to say about every big leap forward in modelling/multi effects. personally, i dont get the hype. but it's one of those things i think people should check out for themselves
I agree. Absolutely try before you buy. because everyone is different and does things differently - so my choices are always going to be different to someone elses.

In the end it's more about assessing the relative technical specifications and how they suit your needs, than how they 'sound' because you could pretty much guarantee that with enough time, you could make all three sound exactly the same. This is part of the reason I don't buy into it. in 6 months it will be worth next to nothing and someone else will bring out a better unit (bigger better faster more power)...
:o)
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Re: Anyone using a Line6 Helix?

Post by Steadyriot. » Fri Mar 15, 2019 12:15 am

apreswho wrote:
Sat Jan 26, 2019 11:30 am


There’s a lot of crazy functionality depending on how deep you want to get, my one guitarist mentions the “4 cable method” often, whatever the hell that is.
The four cable method is pretty easy; you use the Multi-effect as a pedalboard.
You run the drive segment before your amp (cable 1 = guitar to Multifx, cable 2= multifx to amp input) and the time / modulation segment in the effectsloop (pre-amp out to multifx = cable 3, cable 4 is multifx to return on amp).

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Re: Anyone using a Line6 Helix?

Post by Embenny » Fri Mar 15, 2019 2:47 am

Yeah, the 4CM intimidated me before I first tried it about 5 years ago. It's really simple in practical terms. It just puts each effect where you would normally want it in your signal chain on a pedalboard.
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