AXE 8 VS. Helix GAME Over!!!

[atquinn]

Here we go. A real demo, sans hype. Only great playing and sounds.

If that was a Helix video, everyone would be ripping on the crappy quality and why didn't they record it direct, etc... But anyway, we already know it sounds awesome (it sounds like an Axe FX 2 after all!). I want to see a video explaining the interface and switching. But if that'll push the shipping date back even a day, nevermind. I'm sure I'll be able to figure it out
-
Austin

 

[ethomas1013]

My thoughts exactly. That's not a great demo, just some nice clips from the amp show with some exceptionally talented musicians. You can't make any reasonable conclusions of the AX8 from that.

 

[scottburrow]

It's not really a Demo. Youtube makes things sound like crap. I was in the room all day Saturday, so I was listening to it all day. To me, to be honest, it's almost to good to be true. How does this thing that is the size of an MFC sound and feel so familiar to me. All this sound fitting in a floor controller. All I kept thinking in my head was, what about the processor, it's a smaller processor how can it sound and feel exactly the same. Cliff's a genius, I don't care what he says.

Cliff had said to me that it is going to work for 99% of musicians out there, I totally agree with him. This is going to be on stages everywhere, next year.

How many people want the Axe-fx but smaller, this is it. Yes there are a few limitations, but for 99% percent of the folks, who only use one amp, what are you waiting for. Get on that list.

 

[zenaxe]

My thoughts exactly. That's not a great demo, just some nice clips from the amp show with some exceptionally talented musicians. You can't make any reasonable conclusions of the AX8 from that.

+1. The youtube compression is pumping so severely I can barely stand it.

 

[jjdpro]

Those clean tones coming out of the AX8 are Sweeet!!! That's what I'm talking about!!! That dude who was "chicken picking" had that Tele talking!!

Fractal I would love if you would reach out to the "Smooth Jazz" community ( Norman Brown, Lee Ritenour, Pete White, Earl Klugh)..

 

[jjdpro]

One of the best assessments :
From Line 6 ( Staffer)zbadman, on 14 Oct 2015 - 01:59 AM, said:
Kemper is quite a different beast. It effectively samples the Amps one point, and then guesses how to make adjustments to that to give control. So, it is perfect at the exact point it was sampled, and less so at guessing alterations to that.

HELIX design philosophy is much closer to AxeFX2. They both sample the Cabinets, but they also model the sections that make up the design of the original models. So, they are much better at "guessing" the changes to an amp than a Kemper, but maybe they are not quite as accurate as the Kemper on the sweet spot that the amp was sampled at for the Kemper.

That's a fair assessment, although I'd say that every possible knob position in Helix could be considered a sweet spot, depending on how you dial in your amps.

Kemper's big advantage is the ability to sample your own amps—especially those that have unique characteristics that may be lost from serial number to serial number. And of course the gigantic library of profiles available. It's really a clever platform.

A good analogy might be the difference between a comprehensive Moog sample library (Kemper) and a hyper-detailed analog-modeled Moog softsynth (Helix). The sample library will have a ton of snapshots of a particular state of the Moog, and the filter and envelope knobs may work, but they don't necessarily behave exactly like the Moog's filter and envelopes. (Imagine applying an Akai or Kurzweil low pass filter instead of the Moog ladder filter—it may sound great, but it's not quite the real thing.) The analog-modeled softsynth may have fewer presets, but you can totally nail the nuance and behavior of every filter, envelope, LFO, etc., and even alter them in real time during a performance.
Both approaches have their advantages and disadvantages; it's more of a philosophy difference than anything. Regardless, one would have to really hate life to not be happy with a Kemper, AxeFX, or Helix.

 

[DavidE]

Those clean tones coming out of the AX8 are Sweeet!!! That's what I'm talking about!!! That dude who was "chicken picking" had that Tele talking!! QUOTE]

And when they told him that the patch was going to come as a preset....

I saw Rascal Flatts this summer. Bad ass guitar playing.

 

[Gasp100]

My thoughts exactly. That's not a great demo, just some nice clips from the amp show with some exceptionally talented musicians. You can't make any reasonable conclusions of the AX8 from that.

I think it's pretty clear by the vids something is sounding really good in the room... not that hard to take a leap of faith, take in to account the room tone / ambience, etc...
Very similar to many real amp demos I've heard from the same type of shows. Bogner Helios comes to mind... maybe recorded a bit better but you can get the gist it's capable of sounding pretty fucking awesome. Not sure why this is even a question LOL.

 

[chris]

i feel like some people can NEVER make reasonable conclusions about gear no matter where it is

 

[Zapa]

i feel like some people can NEVER make reasonable conclusions about gear no matter where it is

And no matter what gear it is

I was listening to some excellent demos of the AmpliFire yesterday but somehow some naysayers found a way to diss it and promote their preferred gear instead... and it sounded really excellent :shock

 

[ethomas1013]

My point is if that was a demo of brand L or brand K you guys would be complaining that it's a camera mic over YouTube. But since it's the AX8 it's suddenly a great demo.

You can't have it both ways.

I'm not saying it doesn't sound good for what it is. But those guys could make a Gorilla amp with a Metal Zone pedal sound great!

 

[jcikotas1]

So I had a Helix on Order from Guitar Center before the AX8 was announced. Seeing as how the AX8 won't ship for a few weeks at the earliest, I didn't cancel my Helix order and it arrived earlier this week. In summary, I played with it for less than an hour before I boxed it back up and took it back to GC. Still sounds like a Line 6 product with harsh and shrilly amp models (the ones I would use anyway) Some of the effects were OK but I was not blown away by it AT ALL. I was at the LA Amp show and tried both the AX8 and Helix there briefly and my own in home comparison confirmed that there is no comparison between the two. I think Line 6 will be seeing a lot of returns...

 

[jproxu]

I ordered the Helix not knowing about the AX8. My favorite tube snob friend came over and we ran the Helix through my CLR. We both liked just a couple of the sounds and I do think that the Helix sounds significantly better than anything Line 6 has made in the past. This is a step up for all Line 6 enthusiasts for sure! THEN we plugged into my Axe Fx II and it was GAME OVER... Fractal is still light years ahead of Line 6 on the high end! Needless to say the Helix went right back and I'm on the list for the AX8.

 

[hippietim]

So I've tried to remain pretty positive about the Helix because let's face it, if there was no other game in town it's pretty darn good. However, if there was not other game in town would it be as good as it is? Obviously, we'll never know. And as it turns out, that other game in town is just better sounding. I've had the Helix for a bit now. I've been through a lot of modelers so I know my way around this stuff pretty good. There are decent tones in that box for sure but when I would compare similar tones with the Axe II the Helix loses every time. The screen is nice but not used to great effect IMO. There are a bunch of little usability issues. Out of the box, it is optimized for bedroom players and/or people that will be using it with low end monitors - the exaggerated lows stand out in particular. The builtin cabs are a disappointment. Being able to load IRs should rectify this in theory but I haven't bothered yet. I've already concluded that the AX8 is what I want so I've decided to get rid of my Helix. Line 6 has come a long way but they still have further to go in the tone department.

 

[atquinn]

I had the Helix for about a week. I felt like the tones were there (assuming you know what you're doing, are familiar with the particular idiosyncrasies of the unit, etc), but I sold it to someone on TGP. I had the following issues with it.

1) Anyone buying the Helix is clearly getting in at ground level. I already had that experience with the Axe FX 2 and don't really feel like reliving it. Helixes are experiencing lockups that force you to factory reset them, they just found out that the presets included with it don't have the correct cabs assigned to them, the rotary option on the joystick is a bit too touchy. This is all stuff that can (and I assume will) be ironed out, but why bother when I can
A) Play my Amplifire that I'm already getting inspiring tones from at this point with very little effort
B) Wait for the AX8 on the horizon

2) The GUI is very cool, but I found out I don't actually like the design philosophy too much. Yes, you can have two amps at a time. However, to get everything to work, you have to micromanage the DSP usage. So for example, I had a dual amp path and I wanted to throw in a rotary. Not enough DSP! O.k. so now I have to shuffle blocks around to try to free up enough DSP (not knowing if I'll actually be successful beforehand). On a Fractal unit, you can certainly run out of DSP as well, but I'm already used to the ways of handling it (for example, just switch the reverb to low res) and, I might be biased but the ways of handling it seem to make more sense on the Fractal side. Again, this is something that could change down the line if enough users ask for it, but at this point it's a headache when you just want to dial something up and go and it's in direct opposition to the rest of the interface which is very much "dial it up and go" making it even more glaring.

If Line 6 supports it and continues to improve it I think the Helix will be a winner, but at this point it's a bit undercooked for me.
-
Austin

 

[guitarno]

I’m a first time poster here on the FAS forum, and I hope to be an AX8 user soon. I also had a Helix on Order before the AX8 was announced, and was thinking about switching to the FX8 when they announced the price (I was very surprised), but I decided not to cancel my pending Helix order and just see how it went. I have used a number of Line 6 modelers in the past so I was familiar with using them (the good and the bad), and they were always in my comfort zone as far as familiarity and price. I was pretty excited about the feature set of the Helix, and the promise of better modeling and tone.

I had seen many videos of the Fractals in the past and some clips were just outstanding, and I really envied that tone, but the price always seemed prohibitively expensive to me, so I never seriously considered buying one (in retrospect though, if I had all the money I wasted on gear that didn't work out over the years, I could have easily afforded one).

So the Helix arrived, and I spent about two weeks testing it out, and although I do think the interface is a big leap forward (outside of a few flaws), and the routing options and other features could be very useful to me, I have been seriously underwhelmed with the tone. A lot of the amps when pushed into distortion have a grainy quality with an edge of rattling raspy breakup that just doesn't sound right to me (discussed in detail on the TGP mega-helix thread). They also have a commonality of tone, a kind of "sameness" from one amp to the next that seems a little strange (maybe an artifact of the modeling process). I spent a lot of time going around in circles, trying to dial out this un-natural quality to the breakup, mostly without great results. In the end I decided the tone was not compelling enough to spend that kind of money on, and I need to try something else, so I boxed it up and sent it back from whence it came.


I'm really looking forward to trying the AX8 when it's available (I'm on the list). I hope I'm able to learn to harness its power and get some of the tone I've heard from posted AXE clips I've heard. I will find other ways to replace the other features that the helix had that the FX8 lacks. Maybe my ears or tastes have changed, but right now getting the best tone and feel I can trumps everything else.

 

[smfelton]

Thank you, good to hear your 'real-world' experience. Looking forward to reading your 'follow-up' once you receive your AX8.

 

[Dealmaker]

I have had my Helix for about a week - and admittedly whilst I haven't had a lot of time to play with it -I have been able to have few hours with it.

I have it on my desk running in stereo through a CLR and RCF NX12SMA. I have a few issues that came to light quite quickly that I don't really like. Firstly I have gotten very used to running "scenes" and the Helix doesn't have that facility - so the simple solution is to use presets for each section of a song...BUT...there is a significant delay when switching presets - I think its about three times the amount of lag to say my FXII. Now I do think with some tweaking you could use some of the programmable foot switches to select/deselect a series of effects etc - to replicate the concept of scenes albeit it doesn't give you the same level of ultimate flexibility.

Secondly the standard presets are woeful.....shame on Line 6 for shipping the unit with these - I am sure that better presets could have been included to better illustrate the potential of the unit. (more on that shortly).

The much lauded interface........yes indeed its easier to use than the multi page FXII version...BUT........its not as good as using a full editor - and if I am creating a patch, a 15" Retina screen is even better than the Helix screen! ......I tend to leave my presets alone once I've programmed them......other than the odd venue dependent EQ tweak...so for me the larger screen isn't that much of a benefit. However the problem I find with the Helix unit is that, for me, with admittedly four years or so of FXII experience under my belt,....I simply don't find it as intuitive to use and programme as the hype would have you believe ? I know I am easily twice as fast building a patch using Axe Edit than I am on the Helix - thought that will improve with time no doubt...and Line 6 are saying an Editor will be available eventually.

I don't like the way certain controls feel on the Helix - there is an inconsistency across some of them - and I can't help feeling that some of the controls are a bit exposed, particularly the Volume pedal for instance - and have visions of some errant feet causing me some mid gig sound issues.

Crashes - I have had four total system failures with the Helix - with no particular common reasons for lock-ups. This is obviously a major concern. I purchased the Helix with the view that it would be a simple one-box floor mounted set up for quick turn around gigs where there is limited set up time......so whilst it may address that issue - its clearly of no use if I can't trust it for an important gig....or any gig for that matter.

Tone's - it is possible to get some decent sounds out of the Helix - the stock Cabinets IR's sound a bit thin - I'm told loading third party IR's can improve this. The base amp models seem OK but not up to FXII standards IMHO.......but hey I could certainly live with them in a gig set up. The FX are OK but not up to the same standard to say the FX8 - which I set up on the desk to compare (albeit thorough a Mesa MKv:25) - with both units back to back in 4 cable method. The Helix base FX just sound slightly more "lo-fi". I am waiting to get some of the presets used by the Line 6 demonstrator as his sounded much better than anything I have been able to create myself.

Delay's - the Helix doesn't, at present have any high definition modulated delay type units included (TC2290 or Korg SDD3000 style) - and so for us Edge fans - theres not much to go at - as yet.

So overall I am a little disappointed in it - I think perhaps Line 6 firstly over-hyped it - and secondly I think they launched it too soon - I think some of the initial glitches (particularly the lock up problems) and issues , some decent presets presets, as well as the editor should have been available before they went live. I'm torn between hanging onto it for a few more weeks to see if they sort out some of these issues ( I hear there's a new firmware today for example) - or just sending it back.

In any event I have an AX8 on order and I suspect that the AX8 will become the main gigging device with FX8 and FXII for home use - so maybe I don't have a Helix sized gap in my requirements.

 

[atquinn]

Looks like the firmware update today fixed the BSOD problems and also fixed the cabinet issue. So things are progressing. I should also mention that the post above reminded me of how I accidentally kicked the volume knob on the Helix while I was playing a time or two. Definitely not a fan of the exposed controls. I imagine at some point they'll be fixing that by letting you hit a button to toggle on a "performance mode" where it will turn off the capacitive footswitch function and ignore anything you do to the knobs.
-
Austin

 

[DavidE]

I'll just offer another opinion after putting the Helix side by side with a friend's AxeFx. Deluxe to Deluxe, they both sounded similar. Same with Twin and 2204. AC30 they sounded similar, but there was something the Axe captured that was still lacking in the Helix. Still, the Helix wasn't horrible. My friend with the AxeFx said he heard a sameness to all models on the Helix but couldn't put it into words and it wasn't something I really heard. Yes, all of my own presets were definitely brighter and to me more open sounding while many of his sounded dark and I wasn't sure how they would sound in a mix. I asked people on TGP to explain in words this sameness they're hearing in all the Helix models and they couldn't do it either. Does that mean it's not there? No. But I'm not convinced it's there. I also didn't notice any real difference in the feel. Overall, the Helix and Axe were much closer in sound than I expected. I was hoping the difference was huge so I wouldn't have anything to think about. If the Axe guts and sound were in the Helix box, I'd buy the Axe. But there may be enough in the routing, switch assignment and scribble strips for me to keep Helix for many live uses.

My friend said he thought the Helix sounded like Axe Ultra level. I remember how Axe users claimed the Ultra was near perfect when that's what they had. Since then it's gotten "more real." Does that mean the Ultra was awful?

I'm definitely buying the AX8. Will I return the Helix? Maybe, and maybe not. It has a lot going for it. It has issues that need to be ironed out. It's new. The effects/amp routing isn't as intuitive as I'd hoped although it's pretty easy to use with some practice. Yet I still haven't touched the second dsp, made custom scribble strip labels, etc.... I also have some concerns that are as simple as accidentally hitting the volume knob during a gig. But what I plan to do is set the global function so that the volume control does not affect the xlr front to house and only affects the 1/4" outs that will go to my personal monitor. That way I can adjust my personal stage volume without changing my volume in the house pa.

My conclusion at this point is that it's not such a slam dunk, though I expect that the AX8 will sound better and will continue to sound better in the future. With these two choices, I think there is something for everyone and it will be difficult to go wrong with either one if there's something about one unit or the other fits your needs and wants better. It's a good time to try amp/cab modeling that's for sure.