1500 bucks, you say, Line6?

Rotti said:
It's getting panned by me because...
1) that big established company has zero track record of making anything comparable in sound quality to the AxeFx,
2) I own an AxeFx and am happy with it,
and 3) I haven't heard this thing yet with my own ears outside of two short unimpressive clips on youtube.
...but I can't speak for why others might not be interested.

Sure, I'm naturally skeptical about a lot of things, but I still find my position more reasonable than those who are chomping at the bits to thrown hard earned cash after this thing ALSO having not heard it.

If I'm wrong, I might get an "I told you so" on a forum. If you're wrong, you'll not only get an "I told you so," but you'll also be out $1500 of which you could probably recoup about half listing it on TGP.

...not so crazy being the "wait and see" guy now, is it?
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I actually agree with everything you are saying... except the 'panning' part...I like cool tools that help me make music.
 
Smilzo said:
Think about this. You have 4 cars each with 200Hp, and one F1 with 800Hp. You think 4 cars running in parallel can go as fast as F1? ;)
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No, but they can still pull the same weight as an 800Hp F1. ;)

I get what you're saying, but it's still hard to grasp for a layman in microelectronics how the differences in processing power can be so huge depending on the purpose.

At one point in hardware evolution, we had 4Ghz single-core general-purpose CPUs before the trend for multi-cores started. It's like DSPs are living 15 years in the past.


@Topic:
After almost 3 years of using the Axe and an MFC, I can only say that I'm still not sold on all-in-one floor solutions. I know how my rack AXE FX2 looks after 3 years of usage. And I know how my MFC looks after the same 3 years of usage. All I can say is that I definitely wouldn't buy anything expensive lying on the floor anymore. ;)
On the bright side: it's still working flawless, despite it's rugged looks.

Just thinking of all the delicate LEDs and displays that can break on the Helix makes me shiver.
 
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tallcoolone said:
Why? Because YOU DON'T HAVE ANY IDEA IF WHAT YOU HAVE IS BETTER. I paid $3500 for my Fractal rig and I post live videos of my band enjoying it all the time, I'm as much in the 'club' as anyone. But you guys trying to convince each other that something you have zero clue about isn't as good as the box you chose to purchase is whackadoo--misplaced loyalty or not...
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Whats it to you whether I am whackadoo or not. Why are you yelling at me. Why are you working so hard to convince us. Suspect.

I see it this way. Believe what you want its your prerogative, but don't assume that you are smarter then other people, who know the marketing game. Been there got the tee-shirt.

if it's awesome, that's awesome. Let's hear it. Sweetwater is a distributer, they can just sit there and go through each amp without effects, and create a flac file so I can hear the nuances that I want to hear. And even then, there is something to be said about loyalty to brand that has consistently delivered after the purchase, without the need to purchase something else.

big companies, can't do that because they have shareholders, Fractal can.
 
nicolasrivera said:
BUt the truth is that there is NO other hardware box in the market right now better then the Axe Fx, no matter what you say, that is the truth.
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And I own the entire rig so I guess I agree with you. But I played a gig in Boston last weekend where I had to walk 3 blocks then up 2 flights of stairs. Lemme explain to you what would have been 'better than' that 60lb rack case...NO rack case We don't all keep our gear at home
 
tallcoolone said:
And I own the entire rig so I guess I agree with you. But I played a gig in Boston last weekend where I had to walk 3 blocks then up 2 flights of stairs. Lemme explain to you what would have been 'better than' that 60lb rack case...NO rack case We don't all keep our gear at home
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Tallcoolone, I totally agree with you on weight and size. I would love something smaller. So I can get in play a few songs and get out with little fuss. Man that excites me, to think having the same tone, but smaller. I used to use a lot of Effects, but have slimmed down a lot. An amp a delay a reverb, bam done.
 
tallcoolone said:
And I own the entire rig so I guess I agree with you. But I played a gig in Boston last weekend where I had to walk 3 blocks then up 2 flights of stairs. Lemme explain to you what would have been 'better than' that 60lb rack case...NO rack case We don't all keep our gear at home
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60lb?? hahaha thats nothing compared to my Egnater Tourmaster head and the cab i had to carry....

Any ways, its seems you dont need the Helix either then... go get the Atomic AmpliFire or FlyRig and be a happy man!!!... forget the Helix, its too heavy compared to those options.
 
nicolasrivera said:
BUt the truth is that there is NO other hardware box in the market right now better then the Axe Fx, no matter what you say, that is the truth.
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I know people who disagree with your absolute statement. A few incredible players i know tried the AxeFX and couldn't stick with it because they felt it was missing something in the feel. They later tried a Kemper and were blown away by the sound and feel. The point being that there are no absolutes and all of this is somewhat subjective.
 
Quote Originally Posted by FractalAudio View Post
I think what they are saying is that there are two DSPs and two MCUs (micrcontrollers). Although I don't understand why they are using an MCU for audio "duties".


I asked that specific question on TGP. Not sure if it was answered, but it's in a separate thread I started with that topic.
 
Bojangles said:
yeah they would be around though not common i guess, however he is using the x3, i had one of those, worst thing id ever bought, constantly broke, buggy firmware that would over right patches when changing, crappy software, just about impossible to dial in

I'm guessing he at least isn't using the x3 anymore

[edit]
And that is a line 6 channel video
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No argument from me, you posted that you had never seen a rig rundown on a line 6 product so I posted one :lol.
 
DavidE said:
I know people who disagree with your absolute statement. A few incredible players i know tried the AxeFX and couldn't stick with it because they felt it was missing something in the feel. They later tried a Kemper and were blown away by the sound and feel. The point being that there are no absolutes and all of this is somewhat subjective.
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Sure.. they just didnt know how to dial the Axe Fx.. Absolute terms end with the Axe Fx, it is the best, thats it.

:devilish:
 
nicolasrivera said:
Sure.. they just didnt know how to dial the Axe Fx.. Absolute terms end with the Axe Fx, it is the best, thats it.

:devilish:
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Only a Sith deals in absolutes! Welcome to the dark side. =)

Honestly though, "best" is completely subjective. Several years ago my Digitech GSP2101 was the best. Later it was my GNX3K, then it was my L6 HD100 head. Next up was my L6 Vetta II combo. Today it's the AxeFX. Tomorrow is anyone's guess, but with Cliff's commitment to this wicked little black box, I don't see "tomorrow" happening for quite some time.
 
aleclee said:
"Better" is a subjective term but "capable"would definitely be accurate. For a lot of what I do, the Atomic Amplifire makes for a "better" rig.

I'm actually considering a Helix for the role currently filled by the Atomic. It's about the same size and weight as my Atomic board and the UI and integration are cleaner.
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Once Line6 comes out with a Helix like unit prices at $600 and in the form size of the Atomic unit, that unit will die... IF the modeling of this new L6 is better, we still dont know yet, sure the demos sound promesing, but most company demos do any ways....

I want the Helix, i want it to deliver what the HD line could not, $1,500 is a new price rage for that kind of L6 unit so L6 has a lot of convincing to do.

My first FX floor unit was a Yamaha GW33, it is an all plastic unit, the footswitches are little contacts soldered on the motherboard, got it in 1993 and it was my main unit for over a decade of gigs until i bought a L6 modeler. The Yamaha unit is still in working order and it was one of the first all in one units to have cab emulations, i love it and have a very sentimental attachment to it, as i do to the Flextone and the X3, those L6 units have never failed me and they deliver tone with in what was good back then, then i bought the HD500 and thoguht it was great aside from the fact that the amps emulations sounded terrible to me, reverbs, love em, delays, love em... but the amps and cabs SUCK IMO.

Now we have a great marriege between two companys i love, Yamaha/Line6... i want the Helix to be the unit that gets me back to that love state.
 
Zwiebelchen said:
At one point in hardware evolution, we had 4Ghz single-core general-purpose CPUs before the trend for multi-cores started. It's like DSPs are living 15 years in the past.
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No, they are not. DSPs are specifically optimized for real-time signal processing, and are highly efficient for common signal-processing operations involving repetitive calculations, such as FIR filters and FFTs.
The execution time of instructions is much more predictable and consistent, resulting in a steady (and low) latency for the processing of incoming signals.
The memory architecture is different in DSPs (Harvard architecture vs Von Neumann architecture) - data and program code are kept separate.
DSPs can be implemented without an elaborate host system (such as PC/Windows/Linux/Mac/whatever) and can have much more direct I/O communication (eg direct connection to DAC, as opposed to Soundcard through PCI bus with Drivers etc etc).

So, although general-purpose CPUs may have higher clock speeds (and multiple cores), that's not all there is to it. If you look at the early development of the axe-fx, Cliff said in an interview that he initially persisted with PC environments for a while, and then got frustrated with it, and switched to DSP.
 
Let me straighten all this out.

1. The Axe-Fx II is still the most powerful guitar processor ever created. A TigerSHARC is about twice as fast as a SHARC clock-for-clock. Additionally the TigerSHARC's we use run 33% faster than the fastest SHARC. The Axe-FX II has two of these. Therefore it's got about three times the power of a Helix.

2. The upcoming AX-8 has the exact same DSP complement as the Helix. It will therefore be equal in processing power. We also have many years of experience in code optimization. I've been writing DSP code for Analog Devices DSPs for over 20 years. I guarantee our algorithms are at least as efficient if not more so.

3. Our modeling algorithms are the best in the world. They are very detailed and require lots of processing power. We could've easily designed the AX-8 to run four amp models but the decision was made to use the same algorithm as the Axe-Fx II. This algorithm is extremely detailed and only one instance would run with the available processing power.

4. The Helix is a "check the boxes" product. It's all about features. If a myriad of features is what you want then it's the product for you. A big, color LCD is pretty and all but it doesn't improve the sound quality. It's also very expensive which means that you can be sure that pennies were pinched elsewhere to meet the cost target. Our research shows that most people do their editing on a computer so why put an expensive color display into something when it's not necessary. Put the money into the important stuff like signal path and processing power.

5. We don't skimp on the design inside. All Fractal Audio products use full-differential analog processing which is expensive. I can almost guarantee that the Helix will be a single-ended design as all their previous products are single-ended. We also use premium op-amps and film caps whereas competitors use cheap TL07x op-amps and electrolytic caps. The results of this philosophy are manifested in the FX-8. It is the first all-digital effects processor that has zero "tone suck". No one else was able to do it until now. But it wasn't cheap to do that. It requires expensive components and careful design.

It's about a difference in design philosophy. Do you want something that looks pretty and has a bunch of bells and whistles or do you want something that is purpose-built for the absolute best sound quality. The Helix is an attractive product with a lot of features. Our products aren't as pretty and don't have all those features. But they are the best modelers in the world and that's our design philosophy. Do you want an Olympus or a Leica. I'll take the Leica.

Edit: I want to be clear that I think the Helix is a fine product (as I said earlier). It's a different design philosophy and if that philosophy resonates with you then you should buy that.
 
Zwiebelchen said:
No, but they can still pull the same weight as an 800Hp F1. ;)

I get what you're saying, but it's still hard to grasp for a layman in microelectronics how the differences in processing power can be so huge depending on the purpose.
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Ok, lets's talk about convolution. You have to process X*Y, X Y being vector of, say, 100x1 1x100 item each one. In a standard processor you have to make a loop i=0, sum=sum+x(i)*y(i), next i until 100. In a DSP it's a single istruction S=X*Y. The hardware have differnt RISC function, the standar processor is (at least)100 times slower, not taking into account memory access. Even with multitasking and 4 core, the RISC will be 25 times faster in this kind of task.

I hope no serious programmer will suffer significant harm reading my post. Apologize me for the imprecison! :)
 
FractalAudio said:
It's about a difference in design philosophy. Do you want something that looks pretty and has a bunch of bells and whistles or do you want something that is purpose-built for the absolute best sound quality. The Helix is an attractive product with a lot of features. Our products aren't as pretty and don't have all those features. But they are the best modelers in the world and that's our design philosophy. Do you want an Olympus or a Leica. I'll take the Leica.
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Dammit I want both! :)

The analog bits in the Fractals are amazing as are the algos.

I do like the scribble strips and an integrated expr pedal though. For me, those are great features for any controller.
 
FractalAudio said:
4. The Helix is a "check the boxes" product. It's all about features. If a myriad of features is what you want then it's the product for you. A big, color LCD is pretty and all but it doesn't improve the sound quality. It's also very expensive which means that you can be sure that pennies were pinched elsewhere to meet the cost target. Our research shows that most people do their editing on a computer so why put an expensive color display into something when it's not necessary. Put the money into the important stuff like signal path and processing power.
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Amen ! Putting the sound quality first is the best philosophy.
Also, Spot on about the display, Cliff. I do all my editing on a PC. At a gig, pretty much all I want to see on the display is the name of the patch.
 
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