Line 6 Helix Stadium Pre-Launch Discussion

[ragingplatypi]

Why are we controlling drum trigger inputs again?

It’s actually so we can control everyone else’s levels to turn them down when the solo comes.

 

[Digital Igloo]

With a few months between Stadium XL and non-XL Stadium releases, will some of these features perhaps land in a fw update right around non-XL model's release?

Are we talking about "these are on our roadmap but nobody is working on them yet" vs "these features are well underway but won't be 100% complete/tested by the time the XL releases"?

Out of these, the one I'm most interested in would be the user customizable Focus zones. That seems like such a powerful feature, basically "presets within a block".

Nearly every feature we discussed during the keynote (and many dozens—or hundreds?—more we didn't mention) were defined back in September 2017. So the architecture and infrastructure (hardware, firmware, software, web services) have been built with 2035 (or whenever) in mind. But each feature is actually made up of many smaller efforts, and most of those efforts have dependencies on tangential features and processes. "Oh man, this feature is so close, but we need this other thing finished first to complete it so I guess it can't be 100% at launch" is a common sentiment here, even if no customer notices what's missing. In other words, if a user says "Oh man, I wish [new feature] also did this!" it could be we already have "this" waiting in the wings.

So thankfully, nothing anyone's seen so far is a massive lift (except for maybe Proxy, because of where we want to take it); it's just brute-force engineer hours to lock things in, tighten it all up, and test the crap out of it. At no point did we show anything where we don't have a solid map on how to get there in a timely fashion, although "timely fashion" means different things to different people; for example, how many people are pissed we didn't also announce stomp, rack/remote, and plugin SKUs at the same time, despite the fact that almost no one EVER does this? (Floor and Rack in 2015 notwithstanding.)

Yes, I suspect we'll see quite a bit of additional stuff by, I dunno, NAMM? And certainly updates before then. Now I just gotta convince Simon and Nick to budget for a NAMM booth party again.

Why are we controlling drum trigger inputs again?

Why not? There's a tiny bit of (affordable for a flagship) circuitry to accommodate it, but it's not like they eat up precious I/O real estate—you simply choose whether Control A, B, C, and/or D is an EXP Pedal In, FS In, Trigger/Contact Mic In, or Amp Control out.

 

[molul]

and many dozens—or hundreds?—more we didn't mention

This is like waiting for your girlfriend to come back after spending a semester abroad.

 

[JiveTurkey]

Nearly every feature we discussed during the keynote (and many dozens—or hundreds?—more we didn't mention) were defined back in September 2017. So the architecture and infrastructure (hardware, firmware, software, web services) have been built with 2035 (or whenever) in mind. But each feature is actually made up of many smaller efforts, and most of those efforts have dependencies on tangential features and processes. "Oh man, this feature is so close, but we need this other thing finished first to complete it so I guess it can't be 100% at launch" is a common sentiment here, even if no customer notices what's missing. In other words, if a user says "Oh man, I wish [new feature] also did this!" it could be we already have "this" waiting in the wings.

So thankfully, nothing anyone's seen so far is a massive lift (except for maybe Proxy, because of where we want to take it); it's just brute-force engineer hours to lock things in, tighten it all up, and test the crap out of it. At no point did we show anything where we don't have a solid map on how to get there in a timely fashion, although "timely fashion" means different things to different people; for example, how many people are pissed we didn't also announce stomp, rack/remote, and plugin SKUs at the same time, despite the fact that almost no one EVER does this? (Floor and Rack in 2015 notwithstanding.)

Yes, I suspect we'll see quite a bit of additional stuff by, I dunno, NAMM? And certainly updates before then. Now I just gotta convince Simon and Nick to budget for a NAMM booth party again.

Why not? There's a tiny bit of (affordable for a flagship) circuitry to accommodate it, but it's not like they eat up precious I/O real estate—you simply choose whether Control A, B, C, and/or D is an EXP Pedal In, FS In, Trigger/Contact Mic In, or Amp Control out.

I guess I didn't realize triggers use 1/4" inputs like the rest? Interested to see what happens then!

 

[mikah912]

This is like waiting for your girlfriend to come back after spending a semester abroad.

I'm good with the wait. Doing a lot of gigging with my FM9, and I'll watch new Stadium content and/or info nuggets as they come. When it hits and Sweetwater ships my XL pre-order, I'm sure I'll love the hell out of it.

 

[James Freeman]

Why not? There's a tiny bit of (affordable for a flagship) circuitry to accommodate it, but it's not like they eat up precious I/O real estate—you simply choose whether Control A, B, C, and/or D is an EXP Pedal In, FS In, Trigger/Contact Mic In, or Amp Control out.

Nice.

 

[Digital Igloo]

This is like waiting for your girlfriend to come back after spending a semester abroad.

Shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, but right before a major launch, things are rough in the office. Scheduling and feature prioritization meetings are the worst. Rock bottom for me was when the forum-facing FAQ—which had been written two years ago in anticipation of the launch—was revisited through a June 11th lens and I realized literally EIGHTY fi&¢%ING PERCENT of the bullets under the What's New In Helix Stadium? question had to be either gutted to the point of negligibility or omitted entirely. It was pretty damn sobering, and ultimately, we decided to not distribute an FAQ at all.

Making flagships is hard. Yeah, yeah, tiniest violin and all, but still... there's a LOT more to come. If Stadium isn't attractive at a certain point in time, check it out a year later and it very well could be.

 

[mikah912]

Shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, but right before a major launch, things are rough in the office. Scheduling and feature prioritization meetings are the worst. Rock bottom for me was when the forum-facing FAQ—which had been written two years ago in anticipation of the launch—was revisited through a June 11th lens and I realized literally EIGHTY fi&¢%ING PERCENT of the bullets under the What's New In Helix Stadium? question had to be either gutted to the point of negligibility or omitted entirely. It was pretty damn sobering, and ultimately, we decided to not distribute an FAQ at all.

Making flagships is hard. Yeah, yeah, tiniest violin and all, but still... there's a LOT more to come. If Stadium isn't attractive at a certain point in time, check it out a year later and it very well could be.

I thought you guys were aiming for a phased approach with information and sound samples anyway - even if you had everything buttoned up and ready to go on June 10.

With 3-6 months to go before these get into customers' hands, I'm sure you want to have several cracks at sustaining the growndswell of public interest and keeping the conversation going.

 

[timbuck3]

Is it any easier since helix was such a success and maybe helped to build off of? Vs say starting from zero? Or is every flagship like starting from zero?

 

[Digital Igloo]

I thought you guys were aiming for a phased approach with information and sound samples anyway - even if you had everything buttoned up and ready to go on June 10.

Perhaps. It's more "Crap, June 11 is coming up quick and we have so much left to do."

With 3-6 months to go before these get into customers' hands, I'm sure you want to have several cracks at sustaining the growndswell of public interest and keeping the conversation going.

I'm sure Marketing and Sales do. I just wanna sit at a desk, design gear, and occasionally smack trolls down.

 

[mikah912]

"I'm sure Marketing and Sales do. I just wanna sit at a desk, design gear, and occasionally smack trolls down.

Understood. But y'all have already conquered the toughest bits of B2C marketing (Awareness, creating the use case). Now, it's just closing the deal for those still at the point of decision.

I don't envy what a crazy workload you surely have in front of you, but from this vantage point - it's gonna be a fun ride getting to launch.

 

[Digital Igloo]

Is it any easier since helix was such a success and maybe helped to build off of? Vs say starting from zero? Or is every flagship like starting from zero?

Oh definitely, even though outside of HX amps and effects, there's almost no shared code. A lot of the trickier things (dual-DSP signal flow, snapshots, Command Center, bypass/controller assignment, etc.) had been figured out long ago, plus Focus view came from Stagescape M20d's Smart FX screen, Stadium's touchscreen layout/navigation was figured out in 2012, and Showcase was conceived over two decades ago.

Also, our experience has taught us what not to do and ten years of input from Helix users has been incredibly valuable. Steve's part of the keynote wasn't lip service.

 

[timbuck3]

I think the stadium is gonna outsell the helix because a guitar center. They said they had 970 on order already. That was not just that store but in their system at the time.

 

[Mongillo19]

I think the stadium is gonna sell the helix because a guitar center. They said they had 970 on order already. That was not just that store but in their system at the time.

I wonder what the conversion rate is from preorder to actual purchase

 

[Digital Igloo]

I think the stadium is gonna outsell the helix because a guitar center. They said they had 970 on order already. That was not just that store but in their system at the time.

It probably won't, if only because of how red the competitive ocean is right now (and how many damn Helices we've sold over the last decade). Big reason why we're finally patenting the hell out of everything we can.

 

[TheTrueZoltan!]

It probably won't, if only because of how red the competitive ocean is right now (and how many damn Helices we've sold over the last decade). Big reason why we're finally patenting the hell out of everything we can.

Hell Uli awaits.

 

[timbuck3]

It probably won't, if only because of how red the competitive ocean is right now (and how many damn Helices we've sold over the last decade). Big reason why we're finally patenting the hell out of everything we can.

I personally think the touchscreen is huge on this thing and going forward it’s just going to be and has become a staple of modelers and their complexity being able to be used effectively and easily for the average user
I know a lot of people don’t care for them because their floor units and they can get cracked or stepped on or liquid can fall on them and what not in a live situation plus it’s on the floor so touching the screen bending over is a pain in the butt, but I have to say as a home user at this point I really prefer it although I still use my old valve Tronics SE by box that huge paddleboard thing and then what I loved about it and still do is every knob is accessible and tweak ball just from the interface, but it’s a huge interface while the screen is very small I like that you can control everything through a knob and I know it’s old and antiquated, but there’s something to say about units that offer this kind of an experience as well.

 

[Digital Igloo]

I know a lot of people don’t care for them because their floor units and they can get cracked or stepped on or liquid can fall on them...

In 2025, there's effectively zero additional reliability issue with a large touchscreen LCD vs. a large non-touchscreen LCD. It was only ever-so-slightly less true in 2012, but this very misconception (or rather, the worry that users would freak out) is what forced us to pivot from the touchscreen-based Helix Floor design.

It's like having to change your Global Settings icon from a globe+gear icon to a ratchet+wrench icon for fear of alienating flat earthers. Never Placate Ignorance©.

 

[GTR37]

Shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, but right before a major launch, things are rough in the office. Scheduling and feature prioritization meetings are the worst. Rock bottom for me was when the forum-facing FAQ—which had been written two years ago in anticipation of the launch—was revisited through a June 11th lens and I realized literally EIGHTY fi&¢%ING PERCENT of the bullets under the What's New In Helix Stadium? question had to be either gutted to the point of negligibility or omitted entirely. It was pretty damn sobering, and ultimately, we decided to not distribute an FAQ at all.

Making flagships is hard. Yeah, yeah, tiniest violin and all, but still... there's a LOT more to come. If Stadium isn't attractive at a certain point in time, check it out a year later and it very well could be.

Regarding proxy obviously
You guys have the marketplace set up so I am guessing you will have some tone partners like Amalagam etc in due time as well as a sharing community
Do you think you will also have Line6 captures in updates for amps that don’t have planned models in Helix like a Badlander or Toneking imperial , Mezzabarba etc

 

[timbuck3]

In 2025, there's effectively zero additional reliability issue with a large touchscreen LCD vs. a large non-touchscreen LCD. It was only ever-so-slightly less true in 2012, but this very misconception (or rather, the worry that users would freak out) is what forced us to pivot from the touchscreen-based Helix Floor design.

It's like having to change your Global Settings icon from a globe+gear icon to a ratchet+wrench icon for fear of alienating flat earthers. Never Placate Ignorance©.

Well, I will say it looks amazing and feature full of really cool stuff to do on it, which is pretty much what drew me into make a pre-order being that I’m more of a visual oriented person
I know a lot of my friends are very technical oriented so they’re OK with more interfaces like the old helix or even the fractal stuff but my brain works visually more. I think so complex technical things for me are much more user-friendly with a visual interface or as I stated above more hands-on where you have controls for every single thing, the unit does right there
I own a few cog since like the old M series, and the new Kronos, as well as the novation supernova and what I love about the supernova is every single thing on that synth is knob or slider able from the users perspective to move and have it affected immediately