GEAR UPDATE
HELIX USERS : NEW LINE 6 3.15 FIRMWARE UPDATE | Bradford Mitchell
If you are a fellow Line 6 user , we just recently got a new update . This one seemed to catch most people off guard and was loaded with a lot of new and quirky effects , a new amp , a few killer verbs and some of the old legacy effects from POD Farm . Owning a Helix is the gift that keeps giving . All these effects we keep getting are making this unit an insane inspiration station and making the unit punch in way above its actual price point . And with each new amp that gets added the unit sounds better and better slowly blurring the line between digital and analog . 3.15 , while a sleeper of an update , is amazing !
This update ’ s new amp is a Ben Adrian creation - the Ventoux . Ben is the Sound Design Manager at Line 6 . A couple of his other brilliant creations are actually two of my favorite things in the Helix - the Cartographer amp and the Adriatic delay . So , seeing that Ben created a new amp for this update I knew I was going to love it .
“ This model comes from a physical amp idea I had a while back . I was going to build it as a tube amp first . There are only so many hours in a day , though . The idea was to create a “ coveted boutique amp ” that had a different origin story . Most coveted boutique amps come from modified black panel Fenders or modified Marshall circuits . I wanted to do the same thing but base it on the early 70s Orange circuits and the mid-wattage Fender Tweed circuits .”
You can ’ t help but hear the Orange and Tweed characteristics in this thing but don ’ t let that fool you into thinking it ’ s only a dirty rock amp . The cleans on this amp are chimey and tight giving it a lot of flexibility on its own or the perfect amp to pair with something on either side of the tonal spectrum . A new fave for me !
The other next big addition this time around is probably one of my new favorites - Dynamic Plate . In 3.10 we got Dynamic Hall , a massive and dense hall verb that is the best verb to date ( in my opinion ) on the HX units . The Dynamic Plate is a close second . This plate can do the plate thing , but it can also get very big and decay into infinity . You can dial it in to be bright and shimmery like you would expect a plate to be , or you can dull it down to give you a chewy and smooth verb trail . Very much gives some Jeff Buckley ‘ Hallelujah ’ vibes and instantly inspired me to play that .
Other stellar verbs worth mentioning are a dynamic room and a new shimmer . These are just great sounding standard verbs . While we already have versions of these in the Helix , these are just more refined and even better . The room verb is great to make your guitar sound like it ’ s “ in a room ” and would be a good choice for an always-on type verb . The shimmer adds some nice sparkle and shine to swells and ambient lead lines .
We also got a handful of quirky delay / sample / loop type effects . Some of these might not seem super practical in a worship set but even then … this just adds to the fun , versatility and value of the Helix . Heliosphere is a delay with reverb in the feedback loop . ADT is a double tracking tape emulation to give some width , texture and depth to your sound in a studiolike manner . Crisscross is a dual delay that you can set to have your repeats dance between interacting in series and parallel . This gives you a real swampy sound that cleans up and weaves in and out of that . Tesselator is a sample and hold type effect that gets whacky . You can have it just play back what you captured in various speeds or it adjusts pitch and steps up and down however you tell it to . Rachet is said to be like a more stripped back version of the Tesselator . So if all you want is a fun sample and hold kind of thing - that ’ s your ticket . Just hit the switch and play something and Ratchet starts doing its thing .
In terms of updates to the utility of the unit , Apple Silicon users will be happy to know that there is now support for Helix Native without using Rosetta . There are some new features for utilizing snapshots and additional MIDI functionality as well .
All in all , while this update was not expected by most , we still have some amazing things to
check out and have fun with . If none of these things are really a “ need ” for you , you at least got some fun new toys to try out for free ! Technology and just anything Line 6 creates in general is amazing ! Welcome to 2022 .
You can find the release notes with more detailed descriptions of each effect from the Line 6 site
here .
You can watch my video from Worship Tutorials walking through some of the new effects and some sound samples . Click the video above .
Bradford Mitchell Bradford is part of Worship Tutorials where he specializes in making patches for various units and teaching songs and basic guitar concepts . www . WorshipTutorials . com