Privacy

• Your presets are opened, parsed and edited on your device. Nothing about a file leaves it unless you sign in and choose to save it, with one automatic exception in the apps: for a preset on your pedal near its DSP limit, the list of blocks on each path, as Line 6 model ids, is sent under that random id, with no names and no settings. A report you send includes more only if you tick it.
• Helrig sets no cookies of its own, and the usage analytics set none either; they keep a random id in local storage. Signing in is the one thing that sets a cookie, and only where signing in exists.
• There is no advertising, no tracking pixels, no profile sold to anyone, and no session recording.
• If you never create an account, Helrig holds no record of you beyond usage counts tied to a random id.

A .hlx file you open is read by JavaScript running on your own device. It is not uploaded to be parsed, converted or rendered, and there is no server involved in editing at all — the editor is a static site, which is why it keeps working with everything below switched off.

While you are working, the preset and its undo history are kept in your browser’s session storage so a trip to another page and back doesn’t lose your work. That storage belongs to the tab: it is cleared when the tab closes, it is never sent anywhere, and a new tab starts empty.

Exporting writes the file straight to your downloads folder from the browser. In the Helrig apps, writing to a connected pedal happens over USB, on your device, with no network involved.

Helrig does not set cookies. It does use two kinds of browser storage, which stay on your device and are readable only by the site that wrote them:

• Session storage — the preset you are editing and its undo history, so navigating between pages doesn’t discard your work. Gone when the tab closes.
• Local storage — your light/dark choice, your text-size and contrast settings, the random analytics id described below, whether you have dismissed the mailing-list prompt, and — if you use a library — how you like its list sorted and filtered. In the desktop app, also the analytics events that have not been sent yet.

Four things can set a cookie, and all of them are things you go looking for. Signing in to a preset library, where that is offered, uses Clerk, which keeps you signed in with cookies on its own domain, plus a small flag on this one that says only whether a session exists. Helrig reads that flag — so a page can skip loading the sign-in machinery entirely when nobody is signed in — and otherwise talks to the library with a short-lived token rather than a cookie. And the forms load Tally only when you open one, which may set cookies of its own at that point. A form that lives on Tally’s own site — a link from here rather than an embed — sets nothing on this domain at all, because you have left it.

A video does the same. YouTube is contacted only when you press play on one of the videos embedded in these pages, and it may set cookies then. Until you do, the still image you see is served from this site rather than from YouTube, so reading a page with a video on it reaches nobody else — pressing play is the choice, and it is yours.

The fourth is the checkout. Paddle’s checkout script is loaded by the plans page, and by the page a payment link opens, on the website only, so that it can show prices and take payment. Opening the checkout on the plans page loads Paddle’s checkout, which may set cookies of its own for the payment. The apps have no checkout.

So: if the app you are using shows no sign-in, and you never open a feedback form, play a video or open the checkout, no cookies are set at all.

Usage is measured with PostHog, configured deliberately: no cookies, and no session recording. A random id is kept in local storage so returning visits aren’t counted as new people — clearing site data resets it, and it is never tied to your name or email unless you have an account.

What gets recorded is page views and product events: a preset was loaded (and whether it came from a file, the sample, a backup, a device, a conversion or a library), a preset was edited, exported, converted, saved or opened. Your display settings ride along with each event — the text size and contrast you chose, your browser’s own font size, and an estimate of its zoom level — so that how many people need larger or higher-contrast text, and on what kind of device, is a question with an answer. Clicks and page structure are captured too, as most analytics do. The contents of your presets are never sent — not the file, not the name, not the settings. Only that something happened, with one exception in the apps, described below. When you edit a preset, they also count how many changes of each kind you made to it — parameters, blocks, snapshots, controllers and so on — as numbers, never what was changed.

In the desktop app, the same analytics also record the app’s version, your operating system and its version, whether your computer is Intel or ARM and whether the app you installed was built for it, and which pedal model is connected (for example “HX Stomp”). They record how working with the pedal went: whether connecting, reading a preset, live editing and sending to the pedal worked and how long it took, and — when a connection ends — why, as far as the app can tell: unplugged, reset, a USB error, or you disconnected. Live edits are counted, not sent one by one. Nothing that identifies your pedal is sent, not its serial number, and nothing that passes over the cable. When your computer is offline, each event is kept on your computer, in the app’s local storage, until it can be sent. A few thousand are kept at most, and past that the oldest are discarded.

In Helrig for Android, the same analytics also record how working with the pedal went: whether connecting, reading a preset, live editing and saving to the pedal worked and how long it took, which pedal model was involved, and — when a connection ends — why, as far as the app can tell. Live edits are counted, not sent one by one. Nothing that identifies your pedal is sent, not its serial number, and nothing that passes over the cable.

The one exception: presets near the DSP limit. In the desktop and Android apps, when a preset read from your pedal uses 95% or more of a DSP path by Helrig’s estimate, the analytics also get the list of blocks on each path, as Line 6 model ids (for example “HD2_AmpUSDeluxeNrm”), with the DSP Helrig estimated for each. Your pedal runs that preset, so this is how I check the estimate and make it more accurate. It is tied to the same random id as everything else here, and nothing else about the preset goes with it: no preset, block or snapshot names, no settings or parameter values, no setlist or slot. It is sent once per preset.

Like any web request, these carry your IP address, which PostHog uses to derive an approximate location (country/region). Helrig uses PostHog’s EU region, so that processing happens on servers in the European Union. Page-load speed is measured by Vercel Speed Insights, which also sets no cookies.

Accounts exist so you can keep a library of presets and reach it from another device. Everything in this section applies only if you sign in — and only in a version of Helrig that offers it.

• Who you are — handled by Clerk. Depending on how you sign in, that is an email address, or the account identifier Google or Apple hands over. Helrig’s own database stores Clerk’s user id, your plan, and how much of your quota you have used.
• What you save — the preset file itself, stored as you sent it, plus what is needed to list it without re-reading every file: its name, the device it targets, its size, a content hash, the blocks and snapshot names it contains, and anything you wrote yourself — labels, notes, and the setlists you group presets into.
• Your devices — the models of pedal you have connected, such as “HX Stomp”, so they are listed first wherever you choose a device, and, for each pedal you connect in the desktop or Android app, a code made from its serial number, so Helrig recognises the same pedal the next time. The serial number itself is never stored: the app sends it over an encrypted connection, and the server turns it straight away into a keyed hash (HMAC-SHA256, with a key only the server holds), keeps only that, and never writes the number to a log. You can remove a pedal under Your devices, which deletes its entry; deleting your account deletes all of them.
• Your 7-day trial — when you start a trial of using your pedal over USB, Helrig keeps two separate records that cannot be linked to each other: one with your account and the trial’s start and end date, and one with the keyed hash of the pedal’s serial number and the same dates, but no account. The first lets every pedal on your account share one trial; the second makes sure each pedal gets one trial only, on any account. Both are deleted three years after the trial started, and the account record sooner if you delete your account; the pedal record holds nothing that identifies you. The legal basis is the contract for the account record, and my legitimate interest in preventing repeated trials for the pedal record.
• Versions — every save is kept as a new version rather than overwriting the last one. That is what makes “restore what I had yesterday” possible, and it means an old version of a preset stays in your library until you delete the preset.

Deleting a preset puts it in the trash, where you can restore it for 30 days; after that a scheduled job removes the rows and the stored files permanently. Deleting your account removes your presets, their versions, their stored files and your row in the database.

Your library is yours: every request is authenticated and scoped to your own user id, none of it is listed or browsable by anyone else, and nothing you save is used to build anything shown to other users. Nobody can search your library or discover what is in it.

Two things can take one preset out of that, and both are things you do on purpose, one preset at a time: a share link, and publishing to the Community Library. Everything you do not do either of those to stays private.

A share link makes that one preset — its name, its blocks, its snapshot names and the file itself — readable by anyone holding the link. It carries nothing else: not who you are, not your other presets, not your labels, notes or setlists. A share link shows the save it was made from rather than your later edits, its page is kept out of search engines, and you can revoke it at any time. Deleting a preset revokes its links too, and restoring it from the trash does not bring them back.

Publishing to the Community Library is the one thing here that is meant to be found. A published preset gets a page of its own that search engines are invited to index, and it is listed in a public directory anyone can browse without an account — so treat it as public writing rather than a link you control the spread of. Three differences from a share link are worth knowing before you publish:

• It can carry your name — a published preset shows the handle on your account as its byline. Publishing anonymously puts it up with no byline at all.
• It follows your later saves — where a share link is frozen to the save it was made from, a published preset shows the current one — so an edit today changes what the world sees.
• It is a copy someone can keep — anyone can download the file without an account. Unpublishing takes the page down and removes it from the directory, and deleting your account does the same — but neither reaches a copy already downloaded, or a search engine’s cache of the page until it recrawls.

Helrig Connect and Helrig Pro are sold through Paddle.com, which is the merchant of record: the seller you buy from. Paddle collects what a purchase needs (your name, email address, country or address for tax, and payment details) and uses it under its own privacy notice, as a separate controller rather than on Helrig’s behalf. Card details go to Paddle and never touch Helrig’s servers. What Helrig records is which plan you are on, when it renews, the quota that comes with it, and Paddle’s customer id, so that a payment can be matched to your account.

The occasional “what’s coming” mailing list is run by Loops. It is double opt-in — an address is only added after you confirm it from the email — and every message carries an unsubscribe link. Your address is used for that list and nothing else.

The “Report a problem” window sends what you write straight to Helrig, in the website and in the apps alike: whether it is a problem or an idea, your message, the app’s version and platform, and a random identifier the app made up for itself, which says nothing about you or your computer. Your email address goes with it only if you type one in, and it is used only to reply to you. The preset you have open, in the desktop and Android apps the log of what the app and your pedal said to each other, and on Android the app’s own log, go only if you tick the box for each, for that one report. None of them is ticked for you. If you are signed in, the report is linked to your account. Reports are stored in Helrig’s database and kept until the problem is dealt with or they are no longer useful; ask at the address below to have yours deleted sooner.

From time to time a survey or a signup, such as a feedback survey, is hosted by Tally. Some are embedded in these pages and some are a link that takes you to Tally’s own site; either way, whatever you type into one goes to them and then to me. A form put up for a particular round says on the form itself what it is for and what becomes of the answers. Email sent to the contact address below arrives at an ordinary mailbox and is kept until it is no longer useful to keep.

Helrig is a small operation standing on a few services. Each one sees only what its job requires:

• Vercel — hosts the site and, where the library is offered, its API. Like any host, it records ordinary request logs (including IP addresses) used to run and protect the service.
• Clerk — accounts and sign-in.
• Paddle — sells Helrig Connect and Helrig Pro as merchant of record: checkout, payment, tax, receipts and billing questions.
• Neon — the database holding library metadata.
• Cloudflare R2 — the stored preset files. The bucket is not public — every read goes through the API, which checks that the file is yours.
• PostHog — product analytics, as described above, on its EU region.
• Loops and Tally — the mailing list and the forms.

Nothing is sold, rented, or handed to advertisers. Data is disclosed beyond this list only if the law actually requires it.

Depending on where you live — the UK and EU (GDPR), California and elsewhere — you have the right to see what is held about you, get a copy of it, correct it, delete it, or object to a use of it. Helrig tries to make most of that a button rather than a request: you can download any preset in your library as a file, delete presets, and delete your account.

For anything a button doesn’t cover, email hello@helrig.com and I will handle it myself. If you are in the EU or UK, you also have the right to complain to your local data protection authority.

When this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. If a change materially affects people with accounts, they will be told directly rather than left to notice a new date.

Questions, corrections, or anything on this page that reads as wrong: hello@helrig.com.