I recently join Brian Wahl and his team at Worship Tutorials headquarters to walk through a step-by-step guide on the Line 6 Helix
I sat down with Brian and he showed me how to:
Get the Helix up and running
How to start building my own patches
How to find some pre-made patches to achieve a great sound for my worship guitar rigs
Why choose the Helix Modeler?
Brian’s reasoning is that the Line 6 Helix will do everything an amp, pedal board solution will do and microphones and pre-amps and everything.
It has XLR outs or a quarter inch outs just direct to your board.
You get the same sound everywhere you go
No amp which means it eliminates stage volume
Perfect for small churches
$1,500–it’s pricey but it eliminates the need for all the other analog gear. You don’t need to buy pedals or amps or power supplies and cables so you will actually save a ton of money.
How to get Line 6 Helix up and running
Hardware
You just need the Helix and the cable to connect to your computer.
Software
Update all the free firmware and download the software from Line 6
Figure out how you’re going to monitor it:
Brian hooks it up to his recording interface via XLR out, and then he listens to it from his studio monitors.
Or you can just plug a pair of headphones in and start listening to it, which is great because you can play completely silent at home.
How to build a basic Line 6 Helix patch
After you get it setup, you’ll probably want to start building your own patch.
To get started with that, think about it as you would the real world equivalent with a volume pedal, a compressor, a driver, an amp, reverb and delay.
Let’s set up a few of them.
Protip: It’s easiest to do this on your computer, but it’s not difficult at all to edit and organize everything on the Helix itself.
Assign Volume
Press the Dial button (Brian’s hand is covering it) to bring up all your available effects
Screen: Displays all your options
2. Select Volume > Assign volume to Expression Pedal 2
Rectangle 1: The button you press to reassign the feature
Rectangle 2: The label/name of the feature. In this case it’s under “Expression Pedal 2”
Rectangle 3: The Pedal itself
Assign Overdrive
Tap the Dial again > Select Distortion > Select Minotaur
Rectangle 1: Press and hold it to assign the Minotaur to whatever button you want by pressing and holding it down
Rectangle 2: The screen will ask: Do you want to assign this effect to this button?
Hit Ok
3. Now the Klon is assigned to that button
Assign Vox AC30 Fawn NM Amp
This is really simple, just do the same thing that you’ve been doing to assign the volume and klon
Tap the Dial > Select Amp > Guitar > AC30 Normal (NM) Amp
Adjust the parameters
Rectangle 1: Dials that allow you to adjust the parameters
Rectangle 2: Switch to other parameters
Then add a cab
Use the dial to select Cab > Single > Select 2x12 Match G25
Save the the patch
After you’ve set up everything in your patch, saving it is really simple.
Rectangle 1: Hit the Save button
Rectangle 2: Use the dial to scroll through the letters
Watch demo of Line 6 Helix patch
Free AC30 Preset from Worship Tutorials
If you’re not an expert and don’t want to build the patches, Worship Tutorials offers a really great free patch called the AC30 patch which sounds amazing and is available for download
Helix Patch Setup for Sunday Morning Worship
Brian then walked me through his Helix setup for Sunday Morning Worship.
On Sunday, he played:
Lion and the Lamb
Good Grace
Overcome
Yes, I Will
First Song loadout: Lion and the Lamb
Button 1: Intro for song
Button 2: First chorus, swells
Button 3: Verse 2
Button 4: Big Chorus
Button 5: Bridge
Button 6: Rhythm
Button 7: Preset. All he has to do is tap that to move onto to the next song, Good Grace
Changing the Global Settings on Line 6 Helix
It’s also important to know how to change what's displayed on the little screens (rectangles 3 & 4 below) in the Global Settings.
Rectangle 1: Hamburger Menu at the top left > Menu > Global Settings > Presets Mode
Adjusting the Presets Mode will changes what’s displayed on rectangles 3 and 4.
To change the display of the screens, just turn the 2nd dial under rectangle 2
Preset/Stomp: Presets are on rectangle 3. Stomps are on 4
Stomp/Preset: Stomps on 3. Presets on 4.
Preset/Snap: Presets on 3. Snap on 4.
Snap/Preset: Snap on 3. Presets on 4.
Snaps/Stomps: I think you get the idea
Stomp/Snaps: Vice/versa
8 Snapshots: Brian’s preferred choice. Hitting the mode button on the far right of rectangle 3 lets you switch between your Stomps and your Snapshots.
Recap
Thanks to Brian, I have a much better understanding of the Line 6 Helix with all of its advantages and capabilities.
It costs a fair bit of money up front, but its flexibility with various instruments and the ability to get professional, pre-made patches will save you a ton of money in the long run.
To access more tutorials and actionable information for your worship team, check out Worship Tech School.
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