Line 6 Helix Stadium Pre-Launch Discussion

[ian_dissonance]

Watching all the Summit coverage I am seeing lots of positive on Stadium also line6 has done a pretty good job about not letting out off the floor clips
If there is one area of concern that I do see come up , Paul from the Studio rats said it ,
The latency between switching presets was quite noticeable he did say it was beta firmware and still being optimized but it was someone that needed to be improved compared to competitors
I know Line6 is working on a solution to be able to get the Helix spillover up and running

I hope it will not be too long or there will be some communication as I would hate to see such a cool device getting slagged by the influencers day 1 for switching speed and have that be a bone of contention
Especially at the price point
You know they will

I can’t imagine they wouldn’t at least down what Helix did. Limit the signal chain for instant switching or use Snapshots in kitchen sink presets. It was pretty much never a problem on the OG Helix, doubt it will be here unless you don’t want to have to figure out how to use the unit for your needs.

 

[mbenigni]

Don't forget to use TWO HOT MITTS with that Wolf oven of yours.



Bonus contextual content: the band kinda look like South Park Canadians at the beginning of this video.

 

[EOengineer]

While gear influencers will defenitely hop on that, I can't imagine a situation where I needed to switch patches within a single tune. I mean, I never even switched patches at all on any single gig in my Floor days.

Ok, there's possibly an alternative patch handling solution, such as what was possible with the Floor already, namely going for easier patches and then being able to switch between them without any gaps. For me personally, that'd however require a global block functionality of some sorts to be present.

I agree. It is SO RARE that snapshots can’t handle every change I need within a song that I’m not sure how much of an issue this would be.

I guess I understand the desire for instantaneous switching, I’m just not sure it’s table stakes when the core problem is so easy to overcome from the user perspective.

Use snapshots.

 

[mbenigni]

Well, fuck him anyway! Plus, I am not one to let facts get in the way of a good rant!

Spoken like a proper American.

 

[mikah912]

I agree. It is SO RARE that snapshots can’t handle every change I need within a song that I’m not sure how much of an issue this would be.

I guess I understand the desire for instantaneous switching, I’m just not sure it’s table stakes when the core problem is so easy to overcome from the user perspective.

Use snapshots.

Indeed. Patches have up to 48 blocks, routing is more flexible than ever and amp channels (for most Agoura amps) are accessible within a single switch in a single block. I cannot fathom the need for more than one preset per song.

 

[Gary_W]

Just a couple of points - firstly, I'm in the UK like you, but more importantly the country of origin for the Stadium is very unlikely to the the US for units shipped into the EU and UK, because they are almost certainly made in the far east and will be shipped directly to the EU/UK rather than via the US.

Thank you - I hadn’t understood that correctly and hopefully that will help here :)

 

[molul]

The latency between switching presets was quite noticeable

In OG Helix I have 3 multi-preset songs because of DSP limit. It was easy to configure them so switching to next preset is unnoticeable (I only need a 1s silence in the song).

Normally I'm perfectly fine using snapshots in the same preset.

 

[GTR37]

Indeed. Patches have up to 48 blocks, routing is more flexible than ever and amp channels (for most Agoura amps) are accessible within a single switch in a single block. I cannot fathom the need for more than one preset per song.

I don’t have an issue but I think that also will depend on expectations if say someone wants an Agoura Princess
Revv red , JCM800 with poly shifts Can they do that in one preset?

 

[Sascha Franck]

I cannot fathom the need for more than one preset per song.

Basically me neither, but I can still see how you might want to dedicate a preset to one sound type, say cleans, and then use another preset for dirt. Kitchen sink presets, while I like them, get tough to keep track of sometimes.

 

[paisleywookiee]

Agoura Princess

 

[molul]

I don’t have an issue but I think that also will depend on expectations if say someone wants an Agoura Princess
Revv red , JCM800 with poly shifts Can they do that in one preset?

I really hope that, despite Agoura amps are more DSP intensive, the Stadium DSP allows for at least a couple of them plus some other DSP intensive effects.

 

[mikah912]

I don’t have an issue but I think that also will depend on expectations if say someone wants an Agoura Princess
Revv red , JCM800 with poly shifts Can they do that in one preset?

Probably not completely, but that should be easy to work around. You could stand in either the HX Revv Red or the Line 6 Oblivion and greatly reduce the amount of DSP being hit. From what I've seen, there's enough DSP - even at the currently moderate levels of optimization - to run Poly Pitch on the 1/2 lane, and then move those amps to the 3/4 lane below.

 

[Dez]

Low hanging fruit, but instead of dollars I'm gonna start calling the currency of the US 'tim bucks' from now on.

Mods can we get the word dollars to auto-correct to Tim Bucks?

 

[ian_dissonance]

I don’t have an issue but I think that also will depend on expectations if say someone wants an Agoura Princess
Revv red , JCM800 with poly shifts Can they do that in one preset?

If it doesn’t fit you make compromises for live use. If you’re using all three amps simultaneously you’re probably just sending a bunch of stereo garbage out to FOH anyways, lol.

 

[GTR37]

I can’t imagine they wouldn’t at least down what Helix did. Limit the signal chain for instant switching or use Snapshots in kitchen sink presets. It was pretty much never a problem on the OG Helix, doubt it will be here unless you don’t want to have to figure out how to use the unit for your needs.

They are not implementing that same use half your DSP to do gapless switching this time DI has said that they are looking into other ways to do it not so taxing in the CPU so it is conceivable that OG Helix will have quicker switching on launch

 

[GTR37]

If it doesn’t fit you make compromises for live use. If you’re using all three amps simultaneously you’re probably just sending a bunch of stereo garbage out to FOH anyways, lol.

Not simultaneously but can you actually have 3 Agoura amps in a single preset we don’t know that
Fractal has channels so they can use 4 amps per preset if you wanted to obviously 1 at a time but the capabilities are there

 

[mikah912]

Basically me neither, but I can still see how you might want to dedicate a preset to one sound type, say cleans, and then use another preset for dirt. Kitchen sink presets, while I like them, get tough to keep track of sometimes.

That's fine, but that's only to have a buffet of certain types of tones on tap in the studio. You could also have your preferred cleans and dirt saved as favorites for quick recall too.

If we're talking about live, time-sensitive use, you can have clean/dirt/lead/whatever live in a single preset with snapshots. Snapshots/scribble strips help make it easier to keep track of, and Showcase will make it even easier for live use.

 

[GTR37]

For the record I am just playing devils advocate here
I am not saying I want or need 3 Agoura Amps but you know someone will

 

[mikah912]

For the record I am just playing devils advocate here
I am not saying I want or need 3 Agoura Amps but you know someone will

Always going to be edge use cases, and "needing" 3 Agoura amps specifically live in a song is one of 'em.

 

[dk_ace]

I cannot fathom the need for more than one preset per song.