Line 6 Helix Stadium Pre-Launch Discussion

[laxu]

I think they get excited to show what this new thing can do and the preset designers throw everything at it. It becomes a caricature. I mean Devin Townsend would be like “I can use this” but us regular mortal people want what we would get by plugging a guitar into the amp with no other effects or just a touch of reverb (not the caverns of Valhalla). Keep them simple.

Bah, just let me do it.

That's a common pitfall for sure. It's definitely easy to make a box give a strong first impression if you lather everything in delay/reverb, add a stereo widener at the end etc.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

They want to buy a modeler, and they want it to sound like the heavens from the first chord. These are the folks who are buying paid presets, or their "I've gigged this for 3 years" preset is literally a marginally tweaked factory preset because that worked well enough when they first found it.

I think a decent cloud and search largely negates the need for the device to have a library full of shite though.

Much better for a user to have their easiest method of preset selection to be from a cloud with thousands of presets that cater to exactly what they want (which they can even listen to audio examples of, read information about, maybe even see nice pictures), rather than just playing wheel of fortune through a load of totally unconnected random sounds with shortened names and metaphors before they get half way there. I think the whole “huge list of built in presets” is dated and not really an intuitive or quick way of achieving what those users want.

 

[AlbertA]

View attachment 46955

@Digital Igloo really? Meaningless? I guess I completely disagree.

Imagine this



Where they just talk about the knob's and the switch and replace all the pedal audio with just their breathing sounds.

meaningless?

 

[JiveTurkey]

Honestly; I get having no sound clips. Everyone knows what the Helix sounds like. This will be a "higher res" version of those same sounds. I don't know how you could unleash a batch of clips without the "it all sounds the same crew" chipping in with their masters on .75, presence on 1.3 presets that are dialed in to be YT friendly and nowhere near "what you would set the amp in real life" friendly. The HX is a known and proven quantity and it's really going to take getting it in the individual player's hands for them to see if it's a "step up" for them.

 

[OneEng]

I've seen people saying things like "You can't know what the gear actually sounds like because Pete Thorn makes everything sound good". You can't win no matter what. "Too good" is apparently a thing for them.

To me it's "If this great player got this great tone out of it, so can I." Hearing the best possible outcome to showcase the true capabilities. With that gear, the only thing holding me back is my knowledge of how to use it and my playing chops. Both which you can improve for no additional cost but time.

There's a group of people who won't trust anything that isn't some person in cargo shorts and flipflops playing in a low quality video/audio shot entirely with a smartphone. I can bet that you could take that Fractal stock preset sound, and if you just make it look like the person is playing through <insert fancy boutique amp>, then people would go "Wow, that sounds so good man!" because they are so heavily biased to what they see.

When the Stadium comes out, I can bet e.g Andertons will go through a pile of stock presets, then show how to dial in one themselves. Presets have been an achilles heel for a lot of modelers, so I hope Line6 makes some great ones out of the box.

I agree, yet this is likely that presets are the only way most people will "audition" the unit ..... especially in the store. Knowing this, I am confused as to why MOST digital amp makers don't spend much more time making sure that AT LEAST the first 10-20 presets are outstanding.

 

[JiveTurkey]

The SW vid posted shows Ben interactinb with the touchscreen for a brief second and that thing looks SLICK AF. I actually don't know if I really care for the skeumorphic/wtfever you want to call it angled amp view

 

[Chocol8]

I agree, yet this is likely that presets are the only way most people will "audition" the unit ..... especially in the store. Knowing this, I am confused as to why MOST digital amp makers don't spend much more time making sure that AT LEAST the first 10-20 presets are outstanding.

Even better question is why they would include any presets that are not outstanding? I would think 30 well done presets would be better than 150 mediocre to crappy ones. Heck, 10 well done ones would be better.

 

[Mongillo19]

The SW vid posted shows Ben interactinb with the touchscreen for a brief second and that thing looks SLICK AF. I actually don't know if I really care for the skeumorphic/wtfever you want to call it angled amp view

The Worship Tutorial guys also mentioned how nice the touchscreen is and that it is considerably better than the QC. They compared it to a smartphone

 

[JiveTurkey]

Even better question is why they would include any presets that are not outstanding? I would think 30 well done presets would be better than 150 mediocre to crappy ones. Heck, 10 well done ones would be better.

One person's outstanding is another person's

 

[JiveTurkey]

The Worship Tutorial guys also mentioned how nice the touchscreen is and that it is considerably better than the QC. They compared it to a smartphone

If there were poo switches; 1000% Bye Felicia to the others in that realm I'd say

 

[molul]

They compared it to a smartphone

An iPhone, in fact.

 

[Mongillo19]

An iPhone, in fact.

Not to be an ass, but solely because I haven't had an iPhone in about 15 years, are the touchscreens different between say android and apple?

Probably about to start a war

 

[molul]

Not to be an ass, but solely because I haven't had an iPhone in about 15 years, are the touchscreens different between say android and apple?

Probably about to start a war

I dunno. I've always had Android and never cared to try an iPhone xD

 

[synthpenguin]

@Digital Igloo really? Meaningless? I guess I completely disagree.

Imagine this



Where they just talk about the knob's and the switch and replace all the pedal audio with just their breathing sounds.

meaningless?

tbf this product was available for sale and in stock in stores when this video came out—the Stadium isn't even (officially) available for preorder yet. I'm sure Line 6 will provide plenty of audio demoes in the future.

When they do put out audio demoes, I personally hope they do the full UA-style marketing push with them, having the Beatos and Shulls etc do comparisons like someone else said, as well as demoes from people like Ola and Leon Todd and Pierce and WT. Some of us might roll our eyes at the sudden parade of influencer videos, or may not like one or any of those personalities, but for the average guitarist (someone who isn't spending time on forums lol) it does a good job of creating an impression that cuts through bias against modeling or a brand. Along with the interface, it's a big reason why those UA amp sim pedals had such a strong reputation before anyone had even played one, I think.

 

[dk_ace]

Honestly; I get having no sound clips. Everyone knows what the Helix sounds like. This will be a "higher res" version of those same sounds. I don't know how you could unleash a batch of clips without the "it all sounds the same crew" chipping in with their masters on .75, presence on 1.3 presets that are dialed in to be YT friendly and nowhere near "what you would set the amp in real life" friendly. The HX is a known and proven quantity and it's really going to take getting it in the individual player's hands for them to see if it's a "step up" for them.

This all day.

D

 

[laxu]

I agree, yet this is likely that presets are the only way most people will "audition" the unit ..... especially in the store. Knowing this, I am confused as to why MOST digital amp makers don't spend much more time making sure that AT LEAST the first 10-20 presets are outstanding.

It's probably close to impossible, when you don't know what output system will be used in a store etc. At most they can try.

NeuralDSP is the only one that comes to mind for universally successful presets on their plugins, but I don't remember if the QC factory presets were that interesting bar the few that did wacky things like changing pitch drones by pressing the footswitches.

 

[laxu]

I think a decent cloud and search largely negates the need for the device to have a library full of shite though.

Much better for a user to have their easiest method of preset selection to be from a cloud with thousands of presets that cater to exactly what they want (which they can even listen to audio examples of, read information about, maybe even see nice pictures), rather than just playing wheel of fortune through a load of totally unconnected random sounds with shortened names and metaphors before they get half way there. I think the whole “huge list of built in presets” is dated and not really an intuitive or quick way of achieving what those users want.

Most people want to just get going right away, hence a library of factory presets. All they need to do is be good enough to convince the person to buy, or keep the unit they bought.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

Most people want to just get going right away, hence a library of factory presets. All they need to do is be good enough to convince the person to buy, or keep the unit they bought.

I’m not disagreeing, but I think a good cloud/preset search can be much faster and more intuitive than trawling a list of random presets if it’s implemented right. I don’t think the factory presets need to be saved to the device

The devices clearly have a ton more metadata and organisation advantages that can reduce the need for lists of randomly organised contextless presets.

 

[Tito83]

Since the hardware is the problem, what if there was one or two Agoura model added Native, or even as a separate plug-in with a dead simple UI so users could try?

 

[laxu]

I’m not disagreeing, but I think a good cloud/preset search can be much faster and more intuitive than trawling a list of random presets if it’s implemented right. I don’t think the factory presets need to be saved to the device

The devices clearly have a ton more metadata and organisation advantages that can reduce the need for lists of randomly organised contextless presets.

Isn't the point of that metadata to also provide the context for those factory presets, the very thing every other modeler is missing?

You want some onboard presets for a fast start to know it's working, and after you've trawled through your first 10 that cover a variety of sounds, maybe then you go searching for further factory presets, or the library of online presets. Not sure how it separates the two.