Digital Igloo (Eric Klein, YGG)

[dronerstone]

[...] you can switch amp models via HX Edit or the hardware whilst playing, and there is no audible gap when you do this.

If I remember correctly, there is indeed a very tiny gap. Would have to check to verify tho.

 

[kartikg3]

Even if there was a gap, many people could live with it.

Absolutely

 

[kartikg3]

If I remember correctly, there is indeed a very tiny gap. Would have to check to verify tho.

Yes, which would be quite an acceptable compromise

 

[kartikg3]

Hi Eric,

Whilst I get that Line 6 don't like to straight up copy features from other manufacturers units, is there a technical reason why Line 6 couldn't come up with something akin to Fractal's channels, if only for a block or two per preset?

Consider a dual amp block, where only one amp is active at any one time.

You select two amp models to go into the block and the DSP allocation for the block would be set to the model with the highest DSP requirement. Each models parameters would be separate and distinct and the block would still have a single bypass state, but also have an "active" state for the one of the models.

The reason I ask is because you can select a new amp model via HX Edit, or by turning the model selection knob, whilst playing and the model change is essentially seamless, so it does seem to be that the Helix could switch at least one block model seamlessly.

Obviously if this worked for two amps in a single block, it should work for more than two, but I think keeping it at two would be sufficient and make a lot of people extremely happy, especially those with the HX Stomp.

I could also see some potential for dual effect blocks too (e.g. dual distortion, dual reverb etc), but I'd imagine you would eventually start experiencing audio gaps the more "dual" blocks you add to a preset.

A dream. +1. If this was on idea scale let me know and I ll vote up

 

[Stone]

I did this with my Helix at the time had 5 Separate snapshots in which I switched based on parts of the song, Never heard any gaps

 

[dronerstone]

I did this with my Helix at the time had 5 Separate snapshots in which I switched based on parts of the song, Never heard any gaps

Yeah, but using Snapshots, all the selected models remain loaded, of course. That's the huge difference.

 

[Stone]

Also With my Fm9 using channels and dual amps I dont notice any gaps... must be me

 

[Lysander]

Yeah, but using Snapshots, all the selected models remain loaded, of course. That's the huge difference.

FWIW, that's also the case for Fractal's channels. Things which cannot stay loaded (multiple amps, for example, which run on a dedicated DSP) will introduce audible gaps when block channels are switched.

Mostly depends on the unit type, and i understand Fractal can do gapless preset switching now so things might've improved, but channels don't magically let you add phantom processing blocks all over.

 

[Digital Igloo]

Hi Eric,

Whilst I get that Line 6 don't like to straight up copy features from other manufacturers units, is there a technical reason why Line 6 couldn't come up with something akin to Fractal's channels, if only for a block or two per preset?

Consider a dual amp block, where only one amp is active at any one time.

You select two amp models to go into the block and the DSP allocation for the block would be set to the model with the highest DSP requirement. Each models parameters would be separate and distinct and the block would still have a single bypass state, but also have an "active" state for the one of the models.

The reason I ask is because you can select a new amp model via HX Edit, or by turning the model selection knob, whilst playing and the model change is essentially seamless, so it does seem to be that the Helix could switch at least one block model seamlessly.

Obviously if this worked for two amps in a single block, it should work for more than two, but I think keeping it at two would be sufficient and make a lot of people extremely happy, especially those with the HX Stomp.

I could also see some potential for dual effect blocks too (e.g. dual distortion, dual reverb etc), but I'd imagine you would eventually start experiencing audio gaps the more "dual" blocks you add to a preset.

There's nothing stopping us from implementing something like Fractal's channels, but yes, there'd be a small gap. The first step would be to understand the point of friction and then solve it in a way that makes the most sense within our UI/UX framework.

A perfect example of this approach would be snapshots—we ignored how others solved the problem and dug into a dozen or more IdeaScale submissions to see if we could solve them all in one fell swoop.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Fwiw, global blocks would potentially solve quite some of these issues (depending on how they're implemented).

 

[HotRats]

Hi Eric,

Whilst I get that Line 6 don't like to straight up copy features from other manufacturers units, is there a technical reason why Line 6 couldn't come up with something akin to Fractal's channels, if only for a block or two per preset?

Consider a dual amp block, where only one amp is active at any one time.

You select two amp models to go into the block and the DSP allocation for the block would be set to the model with the highest DSP requirement. Each models parameters would be separate and distinct and the block would still have a single bypass state, but also have an "active" state for the one of the models.

The reason I ask is because you can select a new amp model via HX Edit, or by turning the model selection knob, whilst playing and the model change is essentially seamless, so it does seem to be that the Helix could switch at least one block model seamlessly.

Obviously if this worked for two amps in a single block, it should work for more than two, but I think keeping it at two would be sufficient and make a lot of people extremely happy, especially those with the HX Stomp.

I could also see some potential for dual effect blocks too (e.g. dual distortion, dual reverb etc), but I'd imagine you would eventually start experiencing audio gaps the more "dual" blocks you add to a preset.

To support this request I repost few lines I've written in this thread about why I'd love to have 2 channels per block (and two 10 stomp pages).

Yeah. My reasoning (for both ideas) is that with kitchen sinks presets or 4cm presets you can have more blocks (or way more blocks) than switches available (with helix floor/lt/rack at least)

You might have some blocks you use a couple of times in a setlist, like a compressor, a pitch shift, an alternative modulation or delay.

Or you might simply need to turn on a nosie gate only in few songs and just want to turn it on/off without using a dedicated FS .

Or, because you're anal about levels, you need two different solo boosts levels depending on the song and like to have the solo FS always in the same position.

There are tons of practical applications with a simple a/b "channels" implementation

 

[Digital Igloo]

Fwiw, global blocks would potentially solve quite some of these issues (depending on how they're implemented).

Are you suggesting a global amp block (with channels) could let someone swap any preset in which it's used with a different amp? Not sure that would work, as our amp models have a wide disparity in their DSP usage. For example, if your preset had a Roland JC-120 in it, and you wanted to switch channels into, say, Peavey Invective (3x bigger), we'd need to dedicate enough DSP to accommodate the Invective at all times, even if you never plan on using it. There's also the notion of only ever supporting amps that are the same or smaller, but if you start with the JC-120, you're pretty much then limited to it or the Fender Champ. That'd suck.

Fractal can accomplish channels handily because they dedicate an entire DSP to amps only, so there's always unused DSP with which to swap out burlier amps (channels) into the same block location.

For better or worse, our approach is full dynamic allocation, where you can use all DSP for nothing but effects, or nothing but Industrial Fuzzes, or four simultaneous amps and cab/IRs, or whatever. Not saying channels are impossible, but it's far more tricky in Helix land than elsewhere.

If that's not what you're suggesting, let me know.

 

[Digital Igloo]

I understand if it's too much to do in this iteration, but I hope whatever comes next will have it. I'm grateful you guys implemented block favorites. To me, Fractal's "Block Library" and channels are its two biggest assets, for usability. But I love Helix too.

I can't imagine we'd ever dedicate an entire DSP to amps, and that's the primary way I see it working. I imagine we'd rather dig into the underlying problems and figure out a different solution.

 

[Digital Igloo]

I just have found it to be an extremely elegant way of organizing a patch, for a given situation. I can easily have 4 amp channels, with a cab IR, phaser, OD, delay and reverb, and it's only 6 blocks. And then with patch-specific switching, I do the four channels of the amp, and then footswitches for each effect. It's basically like using an amp+pedalboard at that point. I'd kill for that on a Stomp.

I'm not saying it's not an elegant solution—it absolutely is.

Bill Hader has verbalized our approach to how customer feedback informs our designs way better than I ever could: If someone says something doesn't work, they're almost always right. If someone suggests how to solve what doesn't work, they're almost always wrong. "Do it like how Fractal does it" is not something we're interested in. Cliff has earned enough respect for us (and ideally, everyone else) to put in the work and figure out our own $#!‡.

 

[Sascha Franck]

If that's not what you're suggesting, let me know.

I'm actually not suggesting anything literal as there's plenty of ways to skin this cat.
And global blocks should be available for everything, not just amps (as there's different use cases).

But let me give you an example:
With global blocks, you could for instance tweak two patches as if they were one and would still only have to adjust (most) things in just one patch. You could for instance keep everything but the amp block the same (so in that scenario your, say, delays, reverbs, modulations and dirt boxes would be set to "global" (or rather assigned to a group of patches, more on that below...).
Now, when switching between these two patches, one would represent channel 1 of whatever amp, the other one would represent channel 2. No need to think about any DSP allocations, everything would just be the same as in any other patch.

On the larger units, you could even sacrifice path 2 in favour of gapless switching.
And in case you'd be running out of blocks, you could just create yet another patch - global blocks would again save you from having to edit eacj and everything in each and every patch. You'd always only edit those things per patch that you wanted to be different.
You could possibly think of all this as using patches as if they were snapshots (if that makes sense) with the additional options to actually exchange blocks. And with plenty of more DSP juice on tap as nobody would limit the amount of patches you could integrate into that scenario.

Ok, as far as this very global block functionality goes, it'd possibly be a better idea to not actually turn them into global blocks (from all I remember, "truly global" blocks seem to confuse Fractal and Boss users here and there...) but allow you to create "patch groups". Within these patch groups, any used blocks could be set to work globally - or rather, "patch-group-wide".
To make things more accessible for the user (and possibly easier to program as well, should anyone really go for it...), I think it'd be fine if any such a patch group would be based on the same baseline patch. All of the patches could for instance share the same signal path and same arrangement of blocks (note: not block types, you want to be able to exchange all of those not set to "group wide").
As said, this is really pretty similar to snapshots, with the additional bonus of being able to exchange blocks.

Yes, this would be a different kind of workflow compared to block channels, but it'd allow for so many great things. Clean channel too loud? Ok, let's turn it down on all patches used this evening. Etc.

Fwiw, I pretty much "hacked" this very functionality into the Helix using a Behringer BCR 2000 knob controller. I'll happily elaborate about the how-to. It at least sort of worked a treat - never used it though, because snapshots back then couldn't be separated from MIDI controlled parameters. And it'd work *way* more elegantly in case it'd be realized internally - but in case I can hack it with a 20y old knob controller, it can't be *that* tough, right? As said, let me know in case I should elaborate.

 

[holoholo]

Can one of the 100 lb brain guys tell me if they envision some solution in the future that will go past snapshots, scenes, channels?

 

[Digital Igloo]

I'm actually not suggesting anything literal as there's plenty of ways to skin this cat. And global blocks should be available for everything, not just amps (as there's different use cases).

I'm not against global blocks in the slightest and can totally see the advantage. Channels, however—whether global or not—aren't nearly as simple in Helix-land where there's a huge disparity in DSP usage within the same category. For 99.9999% of presets people would make, implementing per-block channels would result in a *massive* amount of DSP just sitting there, wasted, just in case someone wants to load the absolute largest model into a channel. Hell, that DSP could go toward making every model sound better.

For example, every distortion block would need to reserve, say, 41.33 chunks of DSP in case you wanted the stereo Carvin VLD1, so simply adding a mono BOSS MT-2 (a measly 4.67 chunks) would mean 36.66 chunks of your DSP is wasted. 36.66 chunks might be another amp or reverb or even higher oversampling for everything.

Admittedly, there are numerous funky and potentially confusing workarounds one could pursue, like if there isn't enough DSP to accommodate the biggest model in a particular category, the channel feature is disabled for that block... or amps that won't fit as alternate channels are grayed out... or the user can choose to enable/disable the channel feature on a per-block basis... but none of that's particularly easy to grok or all that elegant.

Can one of the 100 lb brain guys tell me if they envision some solution in the future that will go past snapshots, scenes, channels?

Yes.

 

[holoholo]

Yes.

 

[the-trooper]

like if there isn't enough DSP to accommodate the biggest model in a particular category, the channel feature is disabled for that block... or amps that won't fit as alternate channels are grayed out...

This is what I think people think when they ask for channels. If it fits, it sits. If not, not. Want to add another amp to second channel of the block, add it, as long as there's enough DSP overall. Not reserving it for the heaviest amp. If not, what can't fit is greyed out. Pretty much the same as is now except in one block instead of two blocks.
I don't use such crazy chains that an additional block or two mean anything to me, but I guess some see the value there. Could also be useful to those that use preset spillover. DSP might still be there to add what they want, but the blocks are used up.

 

[kartikg3]

This is what I think people think when they ask for channels. If it fits, it sits. If not, not. Want to add another amp to second channel of the block, add it, as long as there's enough DSP overall. Not reserving it for the heaviest amp. If not, what can't fit is greyed out. Pretty much the same as is now except in one block instead of two blocks.

@Digital Igloo Pretty sure that's what everyone is asking for, yes! Right @paisleywookiee @Foxmeister ?