Hey all,

I just got a Line 6 Helix today and I'm sort of needing advice (aka help).

I'm fairly certain that my issues are with the Helix, but throwing the Stepabout in there is making me wonder if I'm messing something up.

Here is the setup I'm using:
I have my Stick (Villex PASV4 pickup) in stereo mode (toggle switch pointing towards my right arm). Cable goes from the Stick to the Stepabout (ring into Input 1, Tip into Input 2). On Input 1 matrix, I have A selected, and on Input 2 matrix, I have B selected. Then I have Output A routed to my Guitar In on the Helix, and Output B routed to the Aux In. On my basic patch, I have the top input with "Guitar" set as my input (with a random amp and reverb effect), and on the second row, I have Aux selected as my input, and a random bass amp.


If I understand correctly, this should mean that my melody strings should be routing to my amp and reverb unit, and my bass strings should be routing to my aux row with just an amp (no reverb). I have two problems so far:

1) I have a terrible noise/static/hum that's coming through the headphone output of the helix. I don't know if it's a grounding issue or what, but I'm not sure what to do. I can put a threshold on it and set my guitar impedance so that it's not bad, but as soon as I kick the amp on, it becomes terrible again. If plug my headphones into each of the Stepabout outputs, the tone coming out is perfectly crisp and clean.

2) Despite the setup above, my bass strings will still have the reverb effect coming through on them, which makes no sense to me.

I'm extremely new to the world of effect units and amp modelers, so I'm really not sure what I'm doing. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Most of us using the Helix do not use the AUX input, but plug into a return instead. The impedance of the AUX doesn't match the Guitar input. Not sure if the Stepabout can give enough boost to correct that, I've never used one.

Try using the Helix without any other external effects to begin with.

For what its worth, I was using the StepAbout w/ the Helix, and while I LOVE the StepABout, I just did not need it in the signal path. I actually liked the sound w/just the Helix, but that is just to my ear. What MichNS said is sage advice!

Sure enough, that seemed to have fixed my issues. I had a reply on the line 6 forums saying to move my inputs to the returns (like you suggested) but still had the bad humming problem. Went straight from the stick to the helix, and everything seems to be hunky dory.

So does the "return" line also act like a pre-amp then? I could see the pre-amp being in the guitar input signal path, but I wasn't so sure on the return side, especially since I had seen some talk from people of having to use a DI box for that (unless I misread those posts).

I have the Helix (but not the Step About) and likewise use a Return for the bass side. If you want a preamp on the Return input, add a preamp in the signal chain. The routing in Helix is very deep. You can add up to four independent signal paths with the appropriate splits plus use effects from an iPad through the USB at the same time.


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There are impedance adjustments for various "inputs" - I don't recall specifically if the AUX had one, but if it did, it doesn't work with a Stick. Some people have used DI boxes or other signal boosters to get the AUX to work. If you are having signal loss in the returns, check the impedance control in case it's set to something odd. Keep in mind when you start adding amps or pre-amps to dual input paths, you lose DSP. I suspect others may be conserving DSP by adding an external pre-amp of some sort, in order to use more effects.

I really don't get why someone would add signal boosters to a Helix to get the AUX to work, there's so many send/returns - they must really have a ton of effects going. I've read a few posts on the Line6 forum as well, a few comments made me do a double take. If you have a favorite DI or a Stepabout, I could see that, but not for the sole purpose of getting the AUX to work.

If your Stepabout is giving you hum, I suspect there's an amp or preamp present in the Helix. Keep in mind if you are playing with a preset, there could be an amp/preamp in the signal path you are not paying attention to. Many presets do not have a foot switch assigned to them, so you have to look at the screen, not the digital scribble strips. Try setting up your own patch with basic effects and nothing else, and plug your Stepabout in, or if you are working with a preset and find something besides an effect, turn that extra item off. When I first got the Helix, I wasn't yet familiar with all of the symbols used for amps and effects, but typically I was clued in when the DSP cut out when I attempted putting in more things than I should.

Believe me, if I can use this thing without the Stepabout and sound terrific, I'm perfectly fine with that, and getting rid of the Stepabout. I was just under the impression that I'd need it still based on some other forums that I saw.

I think I've figured it out now...gimme a bit and let me see if my new routing setup works...

Like the Rush tune, "Show me don't tell me", here's one of my patches:



My first mistake was trying to make path 1 and 2 a Left and Right channel. Much easier to create dual inputs on a single path from my perspective. Delete path 2 and make room to extend path 1 so it's all nice and neat in a single view, or connect 2 at the end of 1 as shown. Notice a looper handling both sides. At times I may drop or remove a block from the bass side.

Yes! That was my problem. I was trying to do what you said with melody on the first row, and bass on the second, and couldn't get them to cross over.

I ended up figuring out accidentally how to make the "split" path in the single path instead. It's not very intuitive to do I have to say (I do kind of like the Axe FX editor's way of doing splits better, but I guess that's a small gripe).