I have been playing guitar for twenty years. I am not bad. I learned plenty in those two decades. I can play songs. I know my chords. My power chords are tight. I have decent timing and I can hold my own in most situations.
The catch is that I spent those twenty years playing metal and hardcore. Downtuned riffs. Chugging palm mutes. The occasional breakdown where everyone in the room loses their minds. I got very good at a very specific type of guitar playing. The kind where subtlety goes to die and the only dynamic is loud versus louder.
I owned the original Helix Floor and loved it. That thing could conjure tones that made my ears genuinely happy. The amp models were solid, the effects library was extensive, and the workflow made sense once you wrapped your head around it. But there was always this nagging limitation that drove me absolutely nuts: DSP. The Helix Floor is incredibly DSP limited, and if you’re someone like me who loves pitch effects, you learned to compromise pretty quickly.
I’ve been using automatic guitar tuners for years now. The concept is simple: you place the device on a tuning peg, pluck the string, and the motorised tuner detects the pitch through vibration and rotates the peg until you’re in tune. No pedals, no cables, no staring at a screen while you turn the peg yourself. It should be the fastest way to tune a guitar, especially when you’re constantly switching between tunings.