Exluthier
Groupie
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Yes.
Helix Talk
- Thread starter Alex Kenivel
- Start date
They literally "advertised" via the release notes the engine-spanning upgrades for increased fidelity/oversampling (FW 3.1) and new cab engine (FW 3.5), just to name the latest.
There was a Guitar World profile for 3.5 (read here) and 3.1 (read here) as well.
Or maybe you were expecting a Super Bowl spot? Perhaps a trailer before the new Captain America?
Exluthier
Groupie
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What new buyer is going to go read release notes from prior updates? Or heck, how many current owners read the release notes aside from what new amps or effects are included?
norminal
Rock Star
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the-trooper
Shredder
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Those are for gear heads who hang around gear forums, normal people don't think like us. There actually are people who never update their digital gear.
For something to be seen it has to be marketed as new, get a new name and spammed around.
That doesn't exist in Europe, so, no.
Curb your fanboyism.
SillyOctpuss
Shredder
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100% I've got a friend from Seattle who bought a stomp on my recommendation and he loves it. But he hasn't updated it from the firmware it shipped with in 2022. He loves it as is and it does everything he wants so he doesn't see any need to update.
Not fanboyism. Just realism.
Let's try this: Name a modeling company that's "marketed" or "advertised" mid-product cycle engine upgrades to the mass audience.
Even the most cringeworthy and desperate-for-attention of them all, Neural DSP, saves its YouTube/IG/whatever marketing bluster for nonsense like a knob-twirling robot or "new features" like converting plugins to their hardware. Nothing on the firmware they released where they updated some of their launch amps and made the old versions accessible via a toggle.
Fractal Audio advertises....nothing, really.
Kemper's engine hasn't changed. BOSS? Nope.
You see my point. You're complaining because they're not doing something that....no one else does either. Seems like a slightly unreasonable standard.
the-trooper
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Fractal engine gets a new name every time Cliff turns on his PC
That's what I thought, that's how it's done these days. Did you really thought I was talking about TV time and magazines? But it actually has to be done! Besides two DI mentioned they haven't advertised other improvements. And even those two were "we changed something, you'll like it". Other companies would give it a new name, number, and parade it around the town.
And if you want people to notice it you have to do it, or face "it's 10 years old tech time to die" which is exactly what Helix is facing constantly.
Because they didn't change anything, Boss changing anything, what an idea.
I'm not complaining, it's not complaining, it's realism.
Fractal engine gets a new name every time Cliff turns on his PC
But is he advertising any of it? Again, NDSP is not advertising engine improvements or any behind-the-scenes stuff on its online videos. It's just flashy graphics and cringe-y music that pays lip service to TINA or some other pointless minutae that doesn't move the needle. Why they do it? I really have no idea.
But if that's the standard you're holding Line 6 to, they have extensive walkthroughs of their new firmware done in-house on their YouTube channel along with a bunch of other helpful content. It's a pretty nicely done social media outlet to "advertise" what they have going on.
The idea that Helix is facing "10 years old tech time to die" constantly....doesn't seem right either. They continue to develop new and profitable products using the same engine. Meanwhile, no competitor who was out at the same time Helix launched has a newer platform except Fractal which is just seven years old, so yay?
Vic Winters
Roadie
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Exluthier
Groupie
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Why would NDSP, or Fractal need to? Anytime you see a modeler in a rig rundown these days it's pretty much a QC or Axe Fx. Hell even Devin Townsend who tours with a Helix doesn't use it for his amp stuff just for ambient sounds.
They're getting plenty of PR from pros. No need to ride on how good their updates are.
ragingplatypi
Shredder
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Last night
It’s got to be confusing for Line 6 because we don’t know how long we should expect digital gear to last. Compared to a phone, the Helix is “built to last.” I see Flextones still selling on Craigslist and we’re all wondering how long will it keep working?
I was talking to a friend in tech the other night about how there’s a problematic paradigm set up by computers and (especially) smartphones where we need to upgrade every 3 years. That paradigm is clashing with the much older paradigm of machinery we now put computers into- cars, refrigerators, washing machines etc. I drive a 2007 Honda, and will keep driving it until I can’t. When I buy a new Honda, how long should I expect its digital parts to last for?That's fair. We discuss engine improvements on forums, sure, and Helix Core, Poly Pitch, increased oversampling, and the new cab engine were big-ish engine-centric messages, but yeah, we haven't been trumpeting "Helix 2.5 with HX engine 16.78b" or whatever. Perhaps we should.
Guess that's why I'm in Products and not Marketing.
It’s got to be confusing for Line 6 because we don’t know how long we should expect digital gear to last. Compared to a phone, the Helix is “built to last.” I see Flextones still selling on Craigslist and we’re all wondering how long will it keep working?
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Whenever someone tries to compare digital guitar processors to smartphones, I have to remind them that Apple's design resources are like 4 orders of magnitude larger than ours. We have exactly three people on our design team—Dale, Brandon F, and I—and Apple has... thousands, probably? Tens of thousands?
EDIT: The first time we showed Helix at NAMM, members of Apple's design team visited the booth multiple times and had lots of heady design-related questions. So that was cool.
And then there are the schmoes who insist multieffects should be getting cheaper, because TVs are getting cheaper. They straight up cherry-picked the one commodity item that isn't getting more expensive. The only way flagship multieffects will get cheaper is if a company outsources almost everything to the CM (including product, industrial, GUI, electrical, and mechanical design), who historically just copies months or years of someone else's design/layout/implementation work ($$$) and slaps their name on it. Parts are getting more expensive and if, say, we ever get around to making the now-mythical Helix 2: Electric Boogaloo, it'd likely be notably more expensive than Helix is now. Hell, Helix Floor would be $1900-2000 if we tried to make it today without grandfathered-in parts and labor pricing. Add in any upcoming additional tariffs, and... oof.
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Lysander
Shredder
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Yeah, it drives me a bit crazy when i see people applying what they know about PCs and phones to digital gear ("pfft, it uses old chips!") - but i understand where it comes from.
The truth is mainstream DSPs have been plenty powerful for guitar gear for over a decade now. The math for new products happens elsewhere: price, availability, vendor support, tooling, lifecycle plans, etc.
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Lysander
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Not that i disagree, and you have way more experience on planning and launching new hardware than i ever will, so apologizes in advance for the stupid question
but... aren't those figures maybe a bit too high? I see A-tier competitors launching new products below those prices, and most of them are comparatively small operations.Ooof indeed. Thank jebus the orange one found a way to drop that nonsense while saving some face.
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ian_dissonance
Roadie
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- 799
What A-tier offering has all the same shit as floor? The loops, the mic pre, the expression pedal, the scribble strips, the fully flexible signal chain, external control options? Headrush is probably closest and that’s like D-tier and no support. Everything else is either significantly short on I/O or gimped by needing additional hardware to meet the same level of control.Not that i disagree, and you have way more experience on planning and launching new hardware than i ever will, so apologizes in advance for the stupid question
Ooof indeed. Thank jebus the orange one found a way to drop that nonsense while saving some face.
Not that i disagree, and you have way more experience on planning and launching new hardware than i ever will, so apologizes in advance for the stupid question
Just curious, but who? Keep in mind the Helix Floor has some pretty extensive I/O and converters (e.g. Variax VDI, S/PDIF) + an expression pedal + mic preamp with phantom power + scribble strips + capacitive switches.
The Quad Cortex is missing the pedal, scribble strips and some of the I/O....and it's $1700, and they probably got their component pricing locked in 5-6 years ago. If they were starting from scratch today, they'd probably be in $1900-$2000 territory too.
pipelineaudio
Shredder
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If the Helix had a 5 year shelf life, that would be on the high end of a moore's law consumer device, the fact that we are going on ten years is a MIRACLE!
That said, I would love to see if it could be explored to somehow mod these with new mobos or daughterboards or something to double the DSP
That said, I would love to see if it could be explored to somehow mod these with new mobos or daughterboards or something to double the DSP
Wouldn't it be more convenient at that point to just get a $1000 laptop with Helix Native and a Bluetooth MIDI foot controller?
pipelineaudio
Shredder
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Not if it was inside the board, but I definitely could bump my "bringing the studio to the stage" series doing just that. Its been on hold since the convenience of the Helix hardware makes it not as enticing. That Paint Audio CME seems like the best of all worlds, but really, the CPU may be underpowered and not thrilled with what I am almost sure will the a TheSycon.de driver
While we are on the subject though, is there a bluetooth midi controller with scribble strips? THAT alone pretty much ended my computer based setup, its so crazy convenient on the Helix
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