Line6 Helix Stadium

[guitarcal]

It's a nice looking product. People should be aware that we haven't exactly been resting on our laurels. Our next-gen products have what would've been considered super-computing power just a few years ago.

It will make all these other products look like a Game Boy.

I hope Fractal will match helix on length of firmware update support. Helix has been around for 10 years and they are still planning to release firmware updates for it.

I know fractal supported the axe fx ii for a while after releasing the fx iii. I am more interested in fractal squeezing every last amount of performance out of the fx iii instead of moving onto the iv.

 

[ruso]

Watching this video, the UI is really impressive. And I can see Showcase being really beneficial to some musicians.

Very impressive. It makes other modeler UI’s look like a Game Boy Color.

 

[rog]

Very impressive. It makes other modeler UI’s look like a Game Boy Color.

I see what you did there.

 

[Dr.Lee]

Oops

Lots of glass for something you step on.

 

[vangrieg]

Watching this video, the UI is really impressive.

When I see skeuomorphic UI in modelers, it turns me off immediately. Why do you waste so much space showing stuff that doesn’t do anything? Forces you to switch views too much.

Plugins are horrible in this regard, incredibly inefficient UX. I use them in a performance host to hide this stuff.

 

[rog]

When I see skeuomorphic UI in modelers, it turns me off immediately. Why do you waste so much space showing stuff that doesn’t do anything? Forces you to switch views too much.

I'm not a huge fan of that either, but I don't think you're limited to that - I think you can view more traditional sliders, instead.

 

[vangrieg]

the other 2 have already played their hands.

I’m not so sure about that. They have a long path of improvements ahead of them. They can certainly work on better effects, and the whole ML modeling thing so far has very poor sound quality as it seems to produce a lot of aliasing. I know people are trying to overcome the problem with some moderate success, and it probably will require hardware upgrades, but no doubt capturing/profiling can get much better than it is now.

As much as I personally don’t care about capturing, it certainly has appeal to a lot of people - from professional musicians who just want a digital replica of their tuned hardware to hobbyists who want “exactly that sound” without tweaking. I imagine there will be folks who just don’t care about anything else, and some simple profilers are already making a dent in the modeler market.

Then these Line 6 products are very large, and that limits the audience, too. They probably will follow up with smaller versions later, but for people who prefer something like tonex pedals or the small qc with pedals for effects even the smaller Helix products are too big.

 

[vangrieg]

But even as far as competition to Fractal products is concerned, all other modelers have a huge advantage - anywhere in the world I can actually buy them, try them out, return, have them serviced if something goes wrong, without weeks or sometimes months of pain and suffering. Even NDSP has decent distribution now, and for Line 6 it goes without saying.

There is nothing worse than buying Fractal if you’re outside select few countries lucky enough to have good dealers or with direct sales.

Right now I’m not happy enough with the way other products sound so I still have to go back after trying everything else, but the experience is so off-putting that there’s a very strong incentive to go elsewhere when competition gets closer in terms of modeling quality.

Granted, in the core markets this may not be such a big problem, but still people can go to a store and try competing products, which is a big plus for them, I’d guess.

 

[Tonedeaf]

Let's dream about FX IV, so the best is the one with the biggest screen. Why not just leave a touch-sensitive screen without controls and a USB port and Bluetooth to connect a mouse? The interface can be the same as the editor, which is excellent. An image generated with AI. FootView attachment 156252switches above and below the screen so that they are not so close to each other, and it would also allow the screen to be used like the mini screens of the FM9

I like these so much I bought two of them

 

[VegaBaby]

just watched one of the official launch videos and I've never had that feeling before but for actually a lot longer than a minute I was very tempted to go back to real amps, vintage rack gear and pedals. not that I even thought about getting a Helix or dumping the Axe-Fx, but that's what this video triggered in my brain.

most likely I'm in the minority but there was absolutely nothing I liked about it. quite the opposite. reminded me of the old Korg M1 and how it was advertized or "one man band" organs from the 70s...

 

[vangrieg]

reminded me of the old Korg M1

M1 was a very successful product as far as I remember, so not sure any manufacturer would share your view of this association as a bad thing.

 

[Admin M@]

Well, the sound of the Korg M1 is essential for my tastes. That's a plugin I use all the time.
It was, however, way overhyped in its time.

 

[Telecosta]

The Stadium looks really cool( showcase is an awesome idea), the question for now is how good is the new amp emulation.

Because the old one, no matter what you can say, it was a weak point of the unit compared to something like Fractal.

If they nail that part, we have a serious contender.

 

[BINKEY1]

The x-/y morphing reminds me of the gnx4 I had a longggg time ago and was a cool feature to mix amps quickly into a custom tone.

 

[BINKEY1]

It does look cool but like the gt1000 when I had it I liked the x amps but there were too few. They are releasing it with the old helix stuff in it if it’s a new engine and I don’t like having to wait for them to move everything over to that new engine
I mean, if what they’re saying is true the new agora amps will sound better so why would you wanna go back to the old amps?

 

[VegaBaby]

Well, the sound of the Korg M1 is essential for my tastes. That's a plugin I use all the time.
It was, however, way overhyped in its time.

yes, the M1 had some good sounds, but that wasn't really supposed to be my point. maybe I should have just said "do it all in one box" workstations.

like I said, I'm most likely in the absolute minority with my opinion, but if that's the future, I'm definitely going back to the past ....

 

[vangrieg]

"do it all in one box" workstations

I find the idea very attractive. Many people even move to rigs entirely consisting of a laptop (or even an iPad), an interface and maybe a footswitch. I’ve been trying that for a while, and the only reason why I’m going back to hardware is that I’m not happy with how plugins sound. But the benefit of minimizing the number of items in a rig is truly great. Complexity, cost, size, the need to get all the cables, power supplies, goes away, you don’t need to update multiple things, etc.

I always disliked pedals for the reason that there are just too many of them and the whole concept of pedalboards full of stuff always felt kind of silly to me. So since now that’s not needed technically, not sure why anyone would oppose it.

 

[Telecosta]

It does look cool but like the gt1000 when I had it I liked the x amps but there were too few. They are releasing it with the old helix stuff in it if it’s a new engine and I don’t like having to wait for them to move everything over to that new engine
I mean, if what they’re saying is true the new agora amps will sound better so why would you wanna go back to the old amps?

I owned an LT and a stomp. The effects part was really cool, but the amp modeling…I will never understand how so many people liked that modeling. And fact they now are exploring new algorithms it really validates my opinion about them. It wasn’t good, not even close to Fractal or even plugins like SGear ( the feel part was always so flat…).

It seems that for now they will just have a palette of the basic high gain/ mid gain /clean tones with more to come.

But it’s also promised that early next year they will roll out their profile algorithm (and Line 6 delivers, they aren’t called Neural).

That will ease the wait for new models in my opinion. But again, my biggest question and concern is how good is the new modeling. I want to see some comparisons against Fractal units, that for me are the standard in component modeling.

That said im seriously considering buying one, but first I want to see what’s Fractal response to all this. For sure we are getting a new unit.

 

[BBN]

Can't wait to see the next gen of Fractal products with a touch screen.
I had an Ampero II Stage in my position and rehearsed with it last night.
The tones are 'ok', but I found myself missing my FM3.

What I will say is - the touchscreen is awesome. I could edit anything, quickly....without fear of f'ing up my preset.
If I'm going to edit my FM3 or Axe III at a gig, I bring my laptop.

My only other gripe on the Hotone...and QC....and Helix is - the buttons are too close together.
I really think Fractal's approach of spacing them out so you don't hit the wrong button, is a smart design.

I still have yet to play another digital device that makes me want to ditch my Fractal gear. But I cannot wait for a touch screen!

 

[Rock Chalk]