Helix 3.7: The Freeman Update

[pipelineaudio]

Its still amazing at how many Firmware Upgrades are offered on the Helix and Fractal, no other platforms even comes close
Kudos to both these outstanding companies

Unlike the fire and forget then toss in the dungheap Amplifi and Firehawk.

I'm over the moon on how much the Helix gets looked at. I really don't ever want to buy another modeler that ISNT also a VST plugin

 

[Digital Igloo]

Unlike the fire and forget then toss in the dungheap Amplifi and Firehawk.

A wholly different Line 6 back then. Remind me in a few years and I might tell y'all the whole sordid story.

 

[pipelineaudio]

A wholly different Line 6 back then. Remind me in a few years and I might tell y'all the whole sordid story.

Its sad, I still have the firehawk FX for shows at the school and for what it DOES do it is amazing, I wish it would have kept going!

 

[Rocco Crocco]

I had the Firehawk 1500 combo. It sounded great and was LOUD. Using my phone to edit vs having a PC editor was a PITA or else I may have kept it.

 

[molul]

I really don't ever want to buy another modeler that ISNT also a VST plugin

+1000. My helix LT is already great value for the money, but having a VST version is definitely something else.

I recently switched my band's Korg Minilogue xd synth to an Arturia Minifreak for the same reason. Being able to work on presets at home and then loading them to the hardware, or recording with the VST and being able to make any change at any moment is soo good.

 

[pipelineaudio]

+1000. My helix LT is already great value for the money, but having a VST version is definitely something else.

I recently switched my band's Korg Minilogue xd synth to an Arturia Minifreak for the same reason. Being able to work on presets at home and then loading them to the hardware, or recording with the VST and being able to make any change at any moment is soo good.

I'm probably WAY overdoing it, but over the past few years I have been using Helix Native as my FX for many more things than just guitar and bass

 

[norminal]

Not huge, but certainly bigger than 3.60.

While you’re at it, chance of adding a capacitor and toggle to the 2203 model so @James Freeman won’t have anything to complain about for a while?

 

[molul]

I'm probably WAY overdoing it, but over the past few years I have been using Helix Native as my FX for many more things than just guitar and bass

I've thought about it, but I don't want to do something that can't be reproduced live with the band yet (I'd have to get an HX Stomp at least).

 

[Alex Kenivel]

I'm probably WAY overdoing it, but over the past few years I have been using Helix Native as my FX for many more things than just guitar and bass

Same same. Love the delay effects on drums and vocals. Ran an old baby clip of my oldest daughter through the Placater Dirty and Cosmos Echo for this week's Do Something challenge. Pretty sure them drums have the either that delay or the Transistor Tape.

 

[James Freeman]

so @James Freeman won’t have anything to complain about for a while?

Hmm, what would I complain about next?
Probably separate power amps block, one of the most requested features since forever and such a low hanging fruit, so many new tones and uses.
Links from the 3.6 thread: link link link

Just go through the 3.60 and 3.70 threads again, plenty of great requests there.
Also, Ideascale has some highly voted requests that are completely ignored.

 

[James Freeman]

"Orion" feels like we'd be copping Fractal's astronomical names for modeling engines thing.

Notice we haven't talked about "HX" as a modeling engine in a while. Mainly because we've improved it considerably over the years and don't ever want someone saying "Oh, it's the same ol' HX engine from 2015."

Ares, Cygnus, etc. are just names to milestone updates of ALL the models, there are no untouched launch models in the AxeFx III.

A lot of the most important/classic amps in the Helix ARE using the 2015 or even earlier engine.
On one hand the engine is evolving all the time and new models with all the latest bells, whistles, switches, bright caps etc, and on the other hand we have 10 year old dinosaurs which are basically POD HD+, in the same modeler, not talking about the Legacy models.

edit:
Even if it is not the engine itself that is evolving but the huge amount of experience and understanding the sound design team acquired in 10 years, that directly affects the quality of the models.
If you model a Fender Twin Reverb normal channel today, would you skip the bright switch like on the launch model?
Why was the Fat switch on the Mark IV skipped but not the three Thick switches on the Lone Star? They do the same thing.

What prevents Line 6 from updating the very outdated models or add missing switches?
Has the Helix team been talking about this internally and is there a plan to do something about it, if at all?
Is the Helix 'too old' to invest in refreshing all model, if so does that mean you are working on the next modeler?

As a Helix owner in 2023 I can't help but ask the hard question, especially when looking to Fractal who perpetually update their models.

 

[laxu]

As a Helix owner in 2023 I can't help but ask the hard question, especially when looking to Fractal who perpetually update their models.

Or maybe Fractal are just more transparent about it? Since they list all the nitty gritty details in their release notes.

Having used Fractal since the first gen Axe-Fx, I feel even a lot of their major updates have been "sounds better somehow" type stuff and a lot of the small updates end up being something nobody noticed. If Line6 is updating their modeling behind the scenes and never telling anyone, most people are not going to notice.

I'm not saying it's not valuable work as it's going to add that extra bit of realism when those improvements start adding up. It's more like most people are not actually the "tone connoisseurs" they think they as long as their chosen modeler sounds great to them. Strymon hasn't updated the Iridium since its release and neither has UA for their amp sim pedals. Was it because those were perfect from the start? Nope, but people liked how they sounded and still do.

It might be interesting to compare current Helix Native vs first version of the plugin to see if the amp models sound exactly the same.

 

[James Freeman]

If Line6 is updating their modeling behind the scenes and never telling anyone,

Several major and minor things lead me to believe this is hardly the case.
How can you update models behind the scenes yet leave others obviously flawed for year on end?
This priority doesn't make sense to me, one would think they would start by fixing the flawed and most 'complained-about' models.

You said once yourself that small and highly experienced teams are what driving the current modelers market, I totally agree and I can sense that Line 6's team is either very small, very busy with other things, or straight up denied by higher-ups the time/money to evolve in a certain direction.

 

[Lysander]

This priority doesn't make sense to me, one would think they would start by fixing the flawed and most 'complained-about' models.

Maybe guitar forums are not the most representative sample for "complained-about" features?

Not that i would ever mind L6 updating their HX Marshall models, but it's not like that category of tones ain't well covered in the platform.

 

[EOengineer]

How can you update models behind the scenes yet leave others obviously flawed for year on end?
This priority doesn't make sense to me, one would think they would start by fixing the flawed and most 'complained-about' models.

Putting on my software engineer hat again - it can be shockingly easy for these sorts of gaps or oversights to happen, especially with a product as feature rich as the Helix.

However unlikely, maybe there is an awareness gap and L6 isn’t aware of the issues with those amps - that’s a reach but we rarely know an orgs blind spots. More likely, they’ve seen us and a small handful of others bitching about some amps, but don’t see it as an issue impacting enough users to warrant rectifying the half dozen or so amps that either have bugs or were just poorly configured/spec’d.

Furthermore, roadmaps are big deals these days. Every product I’ve engineered over the last decade has been accompanied by a 6-24 month roadmap that gets buy in from leadership, assigned budgets, engineering and design resources, etc. I imagine L6 having to go back to the business to renegotiate that roadmap because of what they may perceive as minor oversights isn’t the easiest conversation to have - especially if it involves sending more amps back through the modeling gauntlet.

That said, I do think @Digital Igloo and team Helix cares about accuracy and paying homage to the great, classic amps we know and love. In a perfect world I think they’d go back and nail it.

 

[EOengineer]

Not that i would ever mind L6 updating their HX Marshall models, but it's not like that category of tones ain't well covered in the platform.

As someone who owns a 1959 and 2204, I’m gonna have to respectfully disagree here. Those amps are NOT well represented in Helix.

 

[laxu]

Several major and minor things lead me to believe this is hardly the case.
How can you update models behind the scenes yet leave others obviously flawed for year on end?
This priority doesn't make sense to me, one would think they would start by fixing the flawed and most 'complained-about' models.

You said once yourself that small and highly experienced teams are what driving the current modelers market, I totally agree and I can sense that Line 6's team is either very small, very busy with other things, or straight up denied by higher-ups the time/money to evolve in a certain direction.

Line6's approach seems to be "don't break existing stuff." I don't think there's tons of people complaining about their models so they don't have a huge incentive to make fixing any individual model flaws a priority. Instead they might acknowledge the problem exists, put it at the end of a lengthy backlog of "more important stuff" and it just never gets high enough priority to get done and is silently fixed for their next gen products instead.

I would assume the Line6 team is busy dividing their time developing the next big thing (probably coming in 2025 at the earliest) and improving the existing Helix platform.

 

[ragingplatypi]

My guess is that it is definitely on their list but hasn’t made it to the top for … reasons. And the process can only go so fast. They could hire more people, but economically they’re probably in a sweet spot of overhead vs sales and customer satisfaction. Also, DI has said a few times that it’s hard to find folks with the talent and motivation for this work.

 

[Orvillain]

My guess is that Line 6 don't consider it broken.

 

[Lysander]

As someone who owns a 1959 and 2204, I’m gonna have to respectfully disagree here. Those amps are NOT well represented in Helix.

Those are hardly the only options for Marshall tones in Helix though.