Digital Igloo (Eric Klein, YGG)

norminal said:
@Digital Igloo there’s been a lot of discussion about how some manufactures release firmware updates for their flagship hardware, which eventually trickles down to their more affordable models. This sometimes takes weeks, if not months. Occasionally, these firmware releases get delayed even further because the flagship model has already gone through additional revisions before it’s ported to the more affordable models.

This tends to create disruption amongst owners in the public forums, often causing people to experience FOMO or an attitude that priority is given only to those willing to fork out money for the flagship product.

Line 6 seems to release firmware for their Helix line all at once. Is this done on purpose to alleviate potential negative discourse or is it simply a result of the entire line sharing similar architecture?
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Digital Igloo said:
All Helix and HX SKUs (except for HX One) use pretty much identical architectures and DSP libraries; HX Effects, HX Stomp, and HX Stomp XL simply have one DSP instead of two. If a change is compiled for one, it's compiled for all of them.
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As I thought.
 
Stratzrus said:
As I thought.
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I'm not suggesting it's the best way to develop a product line, nor am I suggesting we'll stay the course in the future. It's just what we've done with Helix/HX boxes so far. It absolutely, positively wouldn't work for most other multieffects companies.

It's not really my place to say, but screw it. This line of questioning appears to have come from a Fractal thread, and from my perspective, given the type of customers who gravitate toward Fractal products (and this includes a not-working-at-Line-6 alternate universe me), I'd argue they're doing exactly what they should be doing to be successful. In no way shape or form would I suggest our way of doing things is better; in fact, I truly wish Line 6 was in a position where we could crank out updates—we just have so many other things we're working on, and administration can sometimes be a bottleneck.
 
Digital Igloo said:
I'm not suggesting it's the best way to develop a product line, nor am I suggesting we'll stay the course in the future. It's just what we've done with Helix/HX boxes so far. It absolutely, positively wouldn't work for most other multieffects companies.

It's not really my place to say, but screw it. This line of questioning appears to have come from a Fractal thread, and from my perspective, given the type of customers who gravitate toward Fractal products (and this includes a not-working-at-Line-6 alternate universe me), I'd argue they're doing exactly what they should be doing to be successful. In no way shape or form would I suggest our way of doing things is better; in fact, I truly wish Line 6 was in a position where we could crank out updates—we just have so many other things we're working on, and administration can sometimes be a bottleneck.
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Of course, and I think you guys are doing a great job.

My post was in response to a post by nominal ("It works for Line6. I haven’t seen any Helix or Helix Rack owners complaining about firmware being held up due to focus on say, the HX Stomp.", in effect, that if Line 6 can release updates for multiple models at once, why can't Fractal?

I responded "It's possible that Helix firmware development doesn't require significant time between models."

He responded "Perhaps. But I think it’s more likely that they just wait to release them all together to prevent the FOMO and drama. Maybe @Digital Igloo could shed some light on their practices."

Your post confirmed my suspicion, thus my "As I thought." reply.

I was trying to keep it brief and succinct in order to just move on.
 
Stratzrus said:
Of course, and I think you guys are doing a great job.

My post was in response to a post by nominal ("It works for Line6. I haven’t seen any Helix or Helix Rack owners complaining about firmware being held up due to focus on say, the HX Stomp.", in effect, that if Line 6 can release updates for multiple models at once, why can't Fractal?

I responded "It's possible that Helix firmware development doesn't require significant time between models."

He responded "Perhaps. But I think it’s more likely that they just wait to release them all together to prevent the FOMO and drama. Maybe @Digital Igloo could shed some light on their practices."

Your post confirmed my suspicion, thus my "As I thought." reply.

I was trying to keep it brief and succinct in order to just move on.
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Gotcha. My response was more for the collective group anyway. :giggle:

Yeah, there will always be people upset that the particular box they bought isn't getting all the new toys first, for whatever reason.
 
zib said:
Hi Digital Igloo, someone asked on tgp "Anyone know if the FLUX feature will come to Helix floor ?".
I know everything written in this room is top secret but maybe...
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Can't talk about what may or may not be coming to Helix, but no one should ever assume Flux is coming to other Helix/HX SKUs.

Probably shouldn't admit this, but there was a long lost firmware for POD HD that included three additional controllers—LFO, step sequencer, and envelope follower. Any of them could be assigned to any parameter(s). It was pretty slow to use; you had to remember yet another press-hold (or double-press?) shortcut to access the page. IIRC, it never made it to the public because POD HD didn't have enough firmware storage to accommodate both these new controllers and existing features, se we'd need to rip out other stuff to get them to fit. No one's seen this firmware since last decade (nor does it currently exist on any hardware AFAIK) and it might take Brandon a while to even track it down. (The whole thing reminds me of the old Roland VS-880 from the late 90s, where there were two variations of the same firmware rev—one for backing up to DAT tape and another for backing up to Iomega Zip/Jaz drives—as the hardware's firmware storage couldn't accommodate both.)

We wouldn't make that mistake again.

So Helix of course has plenty of room for Flux, and the UI/user-facing implementation of both it and dozens of other cool features that may or may not ever make it have been fully designed since, like... 2012, 2013? The big question is how much these things might impact development of the other stuff we're feverishly working on. Answer: Sadly, likely quite a bit.
Edit: Just a link for fun, in case Line6 Helix fan missed it (commercial presets) : Crazy bass sound with HX stomp (thanks to René Flächsenhaar)
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That link is great! Sharing internally now...
 
Digital Igloo said:
. (The whole thing reminds me of the old Roland VS-880 from the late 90s, where there were two variations of the same firmware rev—one for backing up to DAT tape and another for backing up to Iomega Zip/Jaz drives—as the hardware's firmware storage couldn't accommodate both.)

We wouldn't make that mistake again.
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I recorded an album with my friend’s and my VS-880s midi’ed together. I sank so much money into those Iomega Zip drives.They’re etched into my mind as a symbol of the late 90’s.
 
ragingplatypi said:
I recorded an album with my friend’s and my VS-880s midi’ed together. I sank so much money into those Iomega Zip drives.They’re etched into my mind as a symbol of the late 90’s.
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Roland sold so many VS-880s back in the day that they threw one particular Christmas party on a big yacht. This was before my time there, however.

I remember it being a complete bear to use, but man, that box did everything. Probably would've gotten one myself but by that time, I was neck deep in Akai DR4d and later, DR16.
 
Digital Igloo said:
Roland sold so many VS-880s back in the day that they threw one particular Christmas party on a big yacht. This was before my time there, however.

I remember it being a complete bear to use, but man, that box did everything. Probably would've gotten one myself but by that time, I was neck deep in Akai DR4d and later, DR16.
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Yeah it was a bear to use, but at the time I naively had brand loyalty to Roland, so it actually seemed intuitive compared to the keyboards I had before. Also, it was more affordable than a computer that could run Cubase, so I just put up with it.

Funny to hear the corporate story as it’s hard for me to imagine that many of any musical gear item being sold.

I actually heard that the inventors of the Zip drive sold to Iomega for something like a million dollars, and were torn apart with regret because it was right at the beginning of the tech boom and they realized they could have made so much more.
 
Stratzrus said:
My post was in response to a post by nominal ("It works for Line6. I haven’t seen any Helix or Helix Rack owners complaining about firmware being held up due to focus on say, the HX Stomp.", in effect, that if Line 6 can release updates for multiple models at once, why can't Fractal?
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With Fractal you can follow Axe-Fx 3 updates and as a FM3/FM9 owner go "I want all that too!" Then when those updates seem to be slow, people get antsy about it.

Helix owners aren't complaining because they don't know what to expect. We have very little idea what Helix 3.8 will include beyond some hints dropped by Digital Igloo.
 
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