Line 6 vs Helix Floor vs Fractal Axe FX III

I used Helix for over 3 years, two of those spent on the road. Through the same cab IRs the amp modeling differences aren't as huge as some claim, but they're there. The Helix can sound great but I do agree that Fractal is a step up in sound, feel, and effects. The thing with Helix is that you have to fight it to get where you want, whereas with Fractal you can just pull up any amp model, set the knobs where you would set the knobs on the real amp, pull up 57+121 IRs for a cab that goes with the amp, and you instantly have a very usable recorded or live tone with zero tweaking, and it feels great, as far as cleaning up with the volume knob or breaking up as you dig in, etc. Helix makes you work for it, as the knobs absolutely do not correspond to their real-world counterparts, and there is this weird high end that you have to manage by messing with EQ, high cuts, cab settings, and the amp settings. The high end on the Fractal is so smooth and nice, you can get an amp bright without any "digital weirdness." It's hard to explain but people who have used a Helix and compared them through the same IRs will probably agree with me on the high end. Best way to test it is to reamp some dry guitar through corresponding amp models on both units running the same cab IRs. It's very obvious in a direct A/B test like that.

The Helix is $1700 so to me the FM3+FC6 is an absolute home run at $1500 if you don't need to run two amps.


Native has exactly the same processing as the hardware. Any differences people experience are due to differences in the interface. If you use a Helix or HX Stomp as your interface (so you're controlling for the impedance and AD conversion), and set the input of your Native track to USB 7 (so Native is seeing the raw guitar input signal), they sound identical.
If i have a Helix in hardware format; you probably don't need to do a comparison to see if Native is "the same" :D As for the rest; agreed completely.
 
The only thing I found the helix does better is it comes with a mic pre. Other than that, I really don’t think they compare. The fractal is just way deeper.
 
I had the Helix for 10 months... It sounded good and would def be fine for most, however I always found that whenever I was trying to make tones that I could only get 90% of the way there. After trying numerous tricks and tips and trials, I gave up, sold it and bought an Axe Fx 3. The Axe gets me that last 10% and sometimes more. When setup properly I sounds exactly like the recordings you hear on every record. On top of that the sheer amount of fx and control over said fx is second to none. They release firmware update like twice a month or more and I'm not talking little bug fixes, new sh*t every time, it's the gift that keeps on giving.
 
I used a Helix for 2 years. I’ve been playing through an Axe FX III for the last year. The Axe FX is way faster to dial in a good tone, the amps are better, the stock cabs and effects are streets ahead on the Helix’s and the sheer flexibility of the Axe FX is in a different league.
 
I had a Helix for a while. The hardware seemed cool, and it was easy to set up patches. I liked the interface, having the foot switches. The problem for me, was that the presets mostly had that POD sound to them. I didn't feel like there was a lot of variation to it. The effects were kind of middle of the road, and maybe they got better with some software updates. I used to peg the CPU a lot trying things. I did never try any 3rd party IRs, but I did buy a few 3rd party patches. They were okay, but something was always still off on the amp modeling for me. I sold after putting in my order for my Axe Fx III. I was happy to pay the difference.

If I hadn't like the Axe, then I would have likely just gone back to my pedalboard, which I had kept. After enough time with the III, and some software updates, I finally sold off my pedals.
 
The only thing I found the helix does better is it comes with a mic pre. Other than that, I really don’t think they compare. The fractal is just way deeper.
The mic pre is incredibly useful, come on @FractalAudio should consider including one, we even had preamp modeling in Axe III. (I understand the previous reasoning on this topic why not having one, but I disagree)
 
I bought a line 6 helix floor shortly after it came out. Tried it for two weeks and returned it. It was hard to get a realistic tone out of it and for whatever reason i didn’t jive with it. After that experience it took a few years to try the Fractal as I thought modelers weren’t for me. The AX3 is miles ahead and I can’t see not having one moving forward. As a quick aside, I recently built out a model of my triple crown and Mesa 2x12 as a preset. I mapped all the values exactly as I had the settings on my real amp. I was amazed at how close the 2 are to each other.

All of this said without mentioning Fractals incredible customer support and the community.
 
My first all modeling rig was built around a Helix. The frustrating part was I also needed a Drop, and a BigSky on the board with it. There are some of the thicker, more modulated sounds in the BigSky that Helix can't do. I was able to get the tones I wanted, but there was something always "off" versus my amp/board rig it was replacing.

The first time I plugged in the Axe3, I grabbed a AC20, a splash of reverb, and the factory 57 and 121 IRs, and there it was, pretty much nailed my old tube rig. It's that last 5-10%, that the audience never hears, but is super important to me, that is what the Fractal gave me.

And now no BigSky or Drop necessary. I do still have my FreqOut tucked in my rack case wired in a loop though.
 
Have owned both the Helix Floor (twice) and Axe III as well as Kemper (for two years). The Axe III is in a league of it's own... seriously no contest. Kemper is a distant 2nd and the Helix a very distant 3rd. Axe III blows the others away in the most important factors for me:
  • Feel: Axe III feels like the real amp. So much touch sensitivity and depth. Kemper compresses every profile similarly, where with the Axe III a Matchless feels "squishy" and a Dumble "fights back". In both the Helix and the Kemper, the feel is very similar from amp too amp.
  • Out of the box tone: Axe III is simply gig-ready out of the box, while the Helix requires MAJOR tweaking to everything and the Kemper requires sifting through hundreds of profiles to find the "right" one.
  • Tube emulation: The Axe III sounds as good as my real amps (my main amp being a Matchless HC30). It's the only one of the three digital units where I've listened back to live recordings and thought "I'd never know that wasn't a real amp". The other two digital units have tell-tale signs that give them away.
 
I had the Helix for 10 months... It sounded good and would def be fine for most, however I always found that whenever I was trying to make tones that I could only get 90% of the way there. After trying numerous tricks and tips and trials, I gave up, sold it and bought an Axe Fx 3. The Axe gets me that last 10% and sometimes more. When setup properly I sounds exactly like the recordings you hear on every record. On top of that the sheer amount of fx and control over said fx is second to none. They release firmware update like twice a month or more and I'm not talking little bug fixes, new sh*t every time, it's the gift that keeps on giving.

One thing I love about the Helix over the Axe is the interface and the footswitches you can set and swap by just touching the pedals with finger tips. Line 6 really knocked it out of the park on the user interface of the hardware. I'm a Line 6 junky for better or for worse. I owned the GuitarPort, Spider, Spider III, Vetta II with 4x12 cab, pod x3, hd500, and lastly the helix floor. Honestly everything always felt like a minor compromise but I liked having the options and ability to use headphones. I just figured all modelling was like this. One of the bigger things for the Axe was it allowed my to ditch all my external pedals I was using with my Helix for some things that just weren't good enough like the Whammy DT.

The 90% tone I really feel. I'm a metal guy so most of the amps in the Helix were not my wheelhouse and the few that were never sounded quite right or gave me the level of distortion I wanted. I have EMG HetSet pickups as well and could not get any of the amps to clean up without wasting valuable block allocation to a volume block before the amp to bring the level down.
 
I had almost all iterations of line 6 modeler since the pod 2.0 I think.

could get usable tones from all, but something about the feel under the fingers drove me away from modeling for a few years.

always intrigued about fractal but not sure to jump back to modeling with what seemed to be “a lot of coin”. The fm3 gave me the opportunity to try and I’m a believer now. Fractal modeling is there tone wise but specially on the dynamics, touch response and feel.

According to some people it was probably user error, lack of ears and the fact that I didn’t use the l6 gear with the “right” ir. But it just take me 2 minutes to power the fm3 and play that first bassman factory preset to know this is in another level.

YouTube videos or recordings don’t tell me nothing. I know you can get good tones out of almost any device. But only playing it and feeling how it interacts with your playing can give you an informed opinion about the device.

kudos to FAS for this.
 
FWIW; I had a Stomp for about 2-3 days here a week or two ago? The feel itself is much improved from what I remember on the last Helix rack I had. Could be placebo; could be I stripped all my presets back and removed the avalanche of band-aid blocks to "sculpt the tone" (dual comps into 3 stacked OD's into bizarre eq chain blah blah blah). The amps are still far behind the Fractal. All the disclaimers and caveats aside.
 
FWIW; I had a Stomp for about 2-3 days here a week or two ago? The feel itself is much improved from what I remember on the last Helix rack I had. Could be placebo; could be I stripped all my presets back and removed the avalanche of band-aid blocks to "sculpt the tone" (dual comps into 3 stacked OD's into bizarre eq chain blah blah blah). The amps are still far behind the Fractal. All the disclaimers and caveats aside.
To me the Fractal amp modeling seems to have more granularity with pick attack and volume dynamics. Transitioning through gain thresholds is more nuanced.

Though I’m more likely to pay attention to those details in a quiet setting or with a direct A/B.

After awhile your ear and technique adapts to whatever you use all the time as a frame of reference....
 
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Add me to the list of those who have a Helix and various Fractals that have an easier time getting good tones from the Fractal.

Add to that, for me, the Fractal simply sounds and feels better when I have them both dialed in to a point where I don't think I can improve either.
 
I definitely prefer Fractal sounds. But I also have a Stomp as backup and efx with a real amp. The stomp is tiny, easy and flexible and can sound great. The fractals just have some special sauce that is hard to describe that makes it more natural (for me).
 
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