ChordInversion
Roadie
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I especially like how they skip the "several pounds of needless lumber" aspect of it. I like heads like that one.I really like how it looks.
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Digital Igloo (Eric Klein, YGG)
- Thread starter Digital Igloo
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Perrymusica
Groupie
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- 83
Why are the high and low knobs connected on the Killer Z? They're independent on the original Boss Metal Zone 2 pedal.
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- 1,030
That's way before my time, but effects models were limited to 5 parameters back then (UI constraint due to LCD real estate or M-Class knobs? Control harness constraint? Not sure), so maybe the Mid and Mid Freq knobs were seen by the sound designer as more important than separate Low and High knobs to dial in that particular sound? Perhaps we could dig into the 70+ Legacy tools and redo some stuff—like split the Contour knob into two—but it'd make way more sense to just remodel the thing.
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Perrymusica
Groupie
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- 83
Thank you so much for the reply, Eric! I really appreciate it. hug!
BahamaDada
Roadie
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- 654
I am very sorry if this has been asked and answered before, but how much does the SOFTWARE from now (3.8 or anything post 3.5) still have in common with that launch Helix? The older the Helix gets the more I hear "Yeah, it's okay, but it's a thing from 2015". Is it? Hardware-side: I guess? But I don't care. I seldom max out my DSP and the UI has peaked here for me (don't need touch). What's from the software-side? Is the Helix 2 we all want and crave already under our feet?
Edit: I know, that many amps and FX are still from launch or shortly thereafter, but I guess with newer software come better use of the same modeling? And in the end what's to update on a Tubescreamer..
Edit: I know, that many amps and FX are still from launch or shortly thereafter, but I guess with newer software come better use of the same modeling? And in the end what's to update on a Tubescreamer..
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Helix's firmware has been pretty radically rebuilt and updated over the years, often by necessity because earlier versions weren't capable of supporting newer features or models. To be honest, we initially thought Helix might do okay-ish sales-wise, and we were trepidatious because of its 3x price jump from POD HD500X. The whole thing was supposed to stick around for 3, maybe 4 years and get replaced (by something with my circa-2012 touchscreen-based design, the org assured me
), which was Line 6's MO at the time. But because Helix/HX has been so successful, we continue to squeeze an incredible amount of growth out of the family. Sometimes I imagine where we'd be had we designed Helix to support 10+ years of updates, and... <sigh...>My favorite Tube Screamer is UA's, in part because it was developed by ex-Line 6ers (and <shhh!> I was a beta tester). Ours could still improve.
BahamaDada
Roadie
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- 654
Thank you for the detailed and also honest answer. You know not many reps would be this open about it and I don't know why anyone shouldn't. This stuff gets read and people (can) understand why e.g. a Helix is not old stuff (sans hardware) bc its software got updated and rebuilt.
If I have one thing to add (a bit late): There should be way, way, way more focus on market the symbiosis between Helix (or HX) and Native. Yesterday I tracked bass for our band at home and I could use my main live preset (as "direct monitoring") while having a clean DI with Input 7 to Reaper. Then import said main live preset to Native and tweak it from there to fit the track. For me THIS is a gamechanger.
If I have one thing to add (a bit late): There should be way, way, way more focus on market the symbiosis between Helix (or HX) and Native. Yesterday I tracked bass for our band at home and I could use my main live preset (as "direct monitoring") while having a clean DI with Input 7 to Reaper. Then import said main live preset to Native and tweak it from there to fit the track. For me THIS is a gamechanger.
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laxu
Rock Star
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- 7,019
What do you feel is a right lifetime for a modeler?The whole thing was supposed to stick around for 3, maybe 4 years and get replaced (by something with my circa-2012 touchscreen-based design, the org assured me
For people who bought a Helix/Axe-Fx 3/Kemper back when they launched, it's been a sweet ride to get all those updates for 7-12 years old hardware, but at the same time it feels like the best sounding products on the market are starting to be behind the times in the hardware features and usability department.
Considering my Hotone Ampero 2 is a very straight ripoff of the Helix UI, it's interesting to use it as a "what if" product since it can be used as a pure touchscreen device, touchscreen + knobs, or operating it like the Helix with the Menu/Value knob acting kinda like the Helix joystick for moving a cursor. It quickly becomes apparent that the touchscreen+knobs is the superior way to work with it.
On one hand it sucks to see your flagship modeler price plummet the moment a new gen device launches, but the flipside is that you can then get something that might be more user friendly, more capable etc.
CakeEater
Roadie
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- 271
Are you thinking of a proprietary speaker or a classic? I think real speakers go a long way for amp modeling, and for all the options and amp variety out there, it's hard to go wrong with one creamback or two greenbacks. They tend to work well with Fender types, Vox types, and Marshall types alike.
For what it's worth, what I think the Fender Tone Master amps nailed was the lack of user interface. Maybe one knob to cycle through a couple of amps, but no screens or menus. Also, black tolex and black grillcloth is so boring these days. If you just look at the average Vox, Benson, or Supro, they all manage to look tasteful and boutique with just good choices in tolex and grillcloth.
For what it's worth, what I think the Fender Tone Master amps nailed was the lack of user interface. Maybe one knob to cycle through a couple of amps, but no screens or menus. Also, black tolex and black grillcloth is so boring these days. If you just look at the average Vox, Benson, or Supro, they all manage to look tasteful and boutique with just good choices in tolex and grillcloth.
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100%. I wanted Helix Native to be $99 for registered Helix/HX owners from the beginning but it took a while to convince everyone it was the right move.
Not sure there's a good answer for this. It really depends on the company, their hardware roadmap, their sustaining firmware roadmap, their business model, etc. If all Line 6 made were Helix Floor, Rack, and LT, replacements would've dropped years ago. If all a company does is copy someone else with a veritable army of low-wage developers who don't have to worry about SoCal rent/mortgages, their development schedule can be radically condensed. How long can Line 6 compete with that? Not sure, honestly. The sheer number of sycophants who blindly defend B£#®!n&£® to the death, believing that "clones" of smaller companies' existing products is somehow A) beneficial to the industry and B) a "charitable gift" to lower-income musicians at the expense of "greedy MI companies who charge too much" is sick and wrong.
But I digress. No one'll catch me arguing that 10 years is totally normal. Or even fine. Line 6 absolutely should've had a new flagship a while ago, but we've been too busy building and expanding the platform. Speaking of which, what's Kemper been cooking? Maybe it's another pivot to a whole different technology outside of the guitar realm, much like how Kemper was a radical departure from Access (which made Virus, one of the best synth lines of all time, R.I.P.). Christoph's a genius, so I'm sure it'll blow people's minds.
On the other hand, if you boot up a brand new Alesis SR-16 drum machine out of the box, the screen reads "©1990 Alesis." So...
Yeah, ToneMaster amps are exactly what they need to be; great move on Fender's part. Line 6 clearly has no legendary tube amps from which to do anything similar.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of players who would actively avoid an amp that looks like a Vox, Benson, or Supro. (All fantastic amps, but aesthetically, they're not really my vibe either.) I like how IK supports swappable grille cloths for their new full-range speaker. And how you can even get customized grilles for select Positive Grid amps. That's something we'd talked about forever.
Same reason why Fender made an EVH version of their FR12—metal players may not want a Fender-esque box behind them on stage.
Unfortunately, if you're only making one amp with one grille cloth designed to appeal to as many guitarist types as possible, you kinda have to make it innocuous and unoffensive, not unlike how everyone flipping houses embraces black and white modern farmhouse exteriors with an ultra-boring millennium gray in every room. It sucks, but the masses are finicky.
EDIT: I've been promoted to Shredder now? Wholly inaccurate, but cool!
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Stratzrus
Roadie
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- 872
I've had my Catalyst CX 100 for a couple of weeks and am really enjoying it.
I picked it up to be an inexpensive option for practicing and grab-and-go and it's been more than up to the task in that regard.
Those of us who spend way too much time on these forums sometimes expect the latest offerings to be the be-all-and-end all of the bleeding edge of amp development. I've always seen value in an amp that's "good enough", particularly if it's lightweight, reasonably priced, has good tone, and is feature laden.
My previous amp in that role was a Roland Cube 60 (sold for about the same price when new) and the Catalyst is better in every regard as far as I'm concerned. With some exploration I've dialed in a very good clean Jazz tone that sounds surprisingly like my Super Reverb. I could easily gig with it.
I'll be working on some gain tones next but so far I think the Catalyst CX 100 is definitely a keeper.
Well done Line 6.
I picked it up to be an inexpensive option for practicing and grab-and-go and it's been more than up to the task in that regard.
Those of us who spend way too much time on these forums sometimes expect the latest offerings to be the be-all-and-end all of the bleeding edge of amp development. I've always seen value in an amp that's "good enough", particularly if it's lightweight, reasonably priced, has good tone, and is feature laden.
My previous amp in that role was a Roland Cube 60 (sold for about the same price when new) and the Catalyst is better in every regard as far as I'm concerned. With some exploration I've dialed in a very good clean Jazz tone that sounds surprisingly like my Super Reverb. I could easily gig with it.
I'll be working on some gain tones next but so far I think the Catalyst CX 100 is definitely a keeper.
Well done Line 6.
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Lysander
Rock Star
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- 2,555
I've always wondered why more manufacturers don't do this. Sounds like an easy/cheap way to customize the look and feel of a speaker box.
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ragingplatypi
Shredder
- Messages
- 1,155
Without giving away any secrets, I’m curious if you can share lessons learned about the button and knob layout on the Helix.
Being someone who edits on the device exclusively I find the HX Stomp and PodGo to be more efficient than the LT. Coming from the smaller devices to the LT seems more luxurious though. It’s like the difference between a sports car and a Bentley. For example a dedicated save and hamburger buttons are unnecessary, but it feels nice to have them separate. However, I ultimately prefer the Stomp layout because I can do everything one-handed without having to reach across the board.
I might be more keen on the joystick if I had not heard about the part failing on these boards. Now every time I use it I can’t help but think “ugh I used up one of my 1000 toggles. Now I only have 999 left.”
Being someone who edits on the device exclusively I find the HX Stomp and PodGo to be more efficient than the LT. Coming from the smaller devices to the LT seems more luxurious though. It’s like the difference between a sports car and a Bentley. For example a dedicated save and hamburger buttons are unnecessary, but it feels nice to have them separate. However, I ultimately prefer the Stomp layout because I can do everything one-handed without having to reach across the board.
I might be more keen on the joystick if I had not heard about the part failing on these boards. Now every time I use it I can’t help but think “ugh I used up one of my 1000 toggles. Now I only have 999 left.”
ChordInversion
Roadie
- Messages
- 339
I've never directly asked this: Is there any chance that a different hardware design for the Helix is on the way? I have two types that would interest me:
- Something like the POD bean - a desktop unit. I expect a no here, as it appears such designs are not popular (nobody else has one, other than BOSS for a while there). I don't mean rackmount, for reasons that I hope are fairly obvious.
- A floor unit with the full size screen/interface from the Helix, but no expression pedal.
Frodebro
Rock Star
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- 2,601
I think that revisiting the Powercabs would be a good idea. There are people who wouldn’t be caught dead with a Tonemaster Pro who rave about the FR10/12, and I think there is room for a little more competition in the powered monitor market right now.
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POD HD500 (and later, HD500X) was five months from release when I joined Line 6. I'm not sure what the impetus was, but its UI board was virtually identical to that of the previous flagship, POD X3 Live, so maybe it was easier/cheaper to reuse the design?
I'm a fan of dedicated hardware buttons for things used often—Home, Save, page (if necessary), accessing the tonestack (Amp button)... Have discussed this before, but HX Stomp was supposed to have a one-axis joystick instead of two encoders to the right of the display. While designing POD Go, we realized that it was cleaner and faster than HX Stomp so we literally copied POD Go's cluster for HX Stomp, even though the later shipped much earlier.
Whoa, I actually found a photo of an early prototype with the joystick (and for some reason, a big volume knob which vibed less stompbox-esque, so we shrunk it):
Even in the circa-2012 touchscreen Helix design, there were dedicated Home, Amp, Save, and Page buttons. I absolutely loathe the whole tap-tap-scroll-tap-swipe-back-back-tap slog of minimalist touchscreen UIs. At the very least there should always be a Home button so if you get lost, you're a single button press away. And if Save is a tiny icon somewhere in the header (or worse, in a menu!), you might save less often and run the risk of losing work. Plus, quickly double-pressing a physical button provides more confidence than registering multiple screen taps, especially when confirmation engagement is in a different location.
Yeah, I agree that while editing, it makes the most sense to have all your controls to the right of the LCD. With Helix Floor/Rack/LT, we split buttons into the far corners of the LCD so the whole thing looked friendlier. I came from 2000s Roland, where big clusters of buttons all together tended to intimidate new users. (It took a while to get people to find the right button over the phone.) Plus, muscle memory works better when you don't have to hunt for something in a bunch.
Unfortunately, desktop units don't sell well, at least not in 2025. The thinking is that you need a floor controller for it anyway, and if it's for studio use, plugins are more powerful and convenient. Although a very early Helix Rack mockup (one of many) had a wedge-shaped chassis with removable rack ears (and antennas for digital wireless, presumably?), so the user could place it on a desk:
ChordInversion
Roadie
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- 339
Yeah, I figured. Funny thing to me is that so much gear sells to people who are neither active performers nor working in an actual studio (regardless of what they call the "smoke free" place where they play in their for sale ads). But often times, even those folks want the stuff they buy to feel more like a 'pro' studio.
I also get that, which again is obviously 100% true of real studios. As a writing/recreational player, I avoid plugins like the plague (even though I have some). I work at a computer all day, and it's more fun for me to interact with gear than with software. Again, I get that I am in the clear minority.
That was a pretty cool idea, though I can understand why they figured it wouldn't sell.
Pouring one out for the Bean, gone before Line 6 reached the Helix level. But I get it. Thanks for the background!
In that case, I can go back to hoping for a no-expression-pedal, full-size-screen-and-interface floor unit. That will spend most of its life on a table.
ragingplatypi
Shredder
- Messages
- 1,155
Yes! Putting the encoders between the buttons really does the trick for orienting my hand without having to look.
Thanks for the insight.
laxu
Rock Star
- Messages
- 7,019
Totally agree with this.
What I don't get is why so many compact designs opt for 3 knobs for parameter control. My least favorite thing about the HX Stomp is how much it gimps the great full Helix UI by reducing the number of knobs so much, which leads to a lot of paging especially with how stupid the parameter order is on Helix still. Even a 4th encoder would have gone a long way in reducing the amount of paging needed.
Yeah I would have preferred having all the buttons on the right side. Or if you wanted to avoid having an overwhelming number of buttons, then at least the Home and Amp buttons belonged to the right. I don't think I ever used the preset scroll knob either, but switched presets via footswitches.
I thought when I bought the Axe-Fx 3 that I would put it on my desk at an angled position to have better access to its front panel and use that more. Well, it made the fan inside become too noisy (it did not like being angled) so I quickly abandoned the idea and then the rack box sat on my side desk until I sold it. It took a lot of desk space for a "brain and I/O" box controlled entirely from Axe-Edit on my computer.
What I hate about plugins is that physical control is so complicated. Moving virtual knobs with a mouse sucks. While you can map MIDI controllers to various parameters...it's not something that lets you just plug in a controller and it works. It requires a lot of MIDI learn configuration and even then it's usually per preset which complicates things.
I want global mapping, and context based control so e.g MIDI knobs 1-6 sending e.g MIDI CCs 1-16 will control parameters 1-6 in the block I have open on screen, instead of having them mapped to specific parameters in a specific block. Yes, I know I can assign the Knobs in Helix Native, then control those via MIDI CC...but those are per preset so again they need a lot of work.
By comparison the Hotone Ampero 2 Stomp, barely larger than a HX Stomp, has been sitting on my desk comfortably and I use it from its touchscreen UI all the time, rarely opening its editor software because the physical knobs + touchscreen works quite comfortably.
I want to see more units like that. Compact, actually desk-friendly units with enough physical controls. Like take the Hotone, add a bit larger screen and a 4th encoder would go a long way. Even better would be something more like the full Helix Floor UI + 6 knobs in a compact form factor, max Quad Cortex sized.
These kind of things can double as desk and floor units without the big hulking rack format. Want to move it around? Throw it in a backpack!
Perrymusica
Groupie
- Messages
- 83
What does improving something in Helix depend on? If you find something that needs improving and know how to do it, why isn't it done? If it's beneficial for Line6,Helix's firmware has been pretty radically rebuilt and updated over the years, often by necessity because earlier versions weren't capable of supporting newer features or models. To be honest, we initially thought Helix might do okay-ish sales-wise, and we were trepidatious because of its 3x price jump from POD HD500X. The whole thing was supposed to stick around for 3, maybe 4 years and get replaced (by something with my circa-2012 touchscreen-based design, the org assured me
My favorite Tube Screamer is UA's, in part because it was developed by ex-Line 6ers (and <shhh!> I was a beta tester). Ours could still improve.