In actual blind tests people haven’t been able to tell digital from actual for quite some time.
Line 6 Helix Stadium Pre-Launch Discussion
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Dom Mcsweeney
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Before this escalates, I’m partially tongue in cheek. What we want are devices that allow us dumbass guys to to get to “that” spot quickly and easily. But as I said a long time ago, you can’t evaluate Jack shit about tone via the intertubes other than yep, guitar tone.
dean701
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in a mix absolutely you're right.
Not in a mix there are audible differences. Kemper gets blasted all the time for having more flub than the original. Tonex is close but has a weird gain capture thing going on and an inherent high cut, v2 is better. Fractal comes close on many amps yet Cliff still persists with new code versions all the time because he finds new things he feels are important. Neural captures have less sustain and an inherent high cut. NAM is very close but null tests still reveal things.
With feel, nothing is 100% there yet.
Regardless, my point is that some are seeking as close as a representation as possible.
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Not in a mix, just A/B device to real. Your statement about feel is another example “can’t evaluate that on the intertubes.”
dean701
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I never said you could
dean701
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agreed. since the product isn't out and line 6 keep posting sound clips, there's not much else but anticipation and speculation.
Sascha Franck
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I'm not.
Lysander
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I play post rock and post metal. Aint none of the vegan chumps in the headline band beating me up.
EOengineer
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Since modeling has reached the pinnacle of perfection, should we assume you won’t be bothering with the new hardware?
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Some people.
@Deadpan can probably attest, there are a number of people here - me and my golden ears being one of them!!! - who have a very high ratio of being able to tell a valve amp recording from a digital one; specifically when comparing captures of the amp against the real thing, recorded at the same time as making the capture.
Obviously comparing a model or a capture of a different amp, to any valve amp at an earlier or later setting, in a different room etc, isn't comparing apples to apples.
I probably wouldn’t be able to tell simply because I’ve only had a couple of decent valve amps in my years of playing and neither of them are modelled in Helix / never saw any Kemper profiles for them! For that reason, I’m probably easier to please than some of you folks here who have had much wider exposure to some of the real ones on offer….. unless I get out then playing live again (I haven’t in a while) then it’ll be me playing through studio monitors and occasionally via a 1x12 with a Loudster providing the push. There will 100% be folks here who can pick out the real thing but I’m not one of them :)
Even though I’ve got no means (or experience) to a/b them, I still seek accuracy as a concept. But it’s a concept only - it’s what I think a Plexi sounds like and where am I getting that perception from? From records? I suppose that’s reasonable in a way as I’m playing back via the same studio monitors. If I’m honest, a fair bit of my perception of a plexi is from previous modellers. Sad but true and I doubt I’m alone.
Why do I want (need? :) ) a Stadium? Tone-wise I’m looking forwars to Agoura and also quite a few of the existing helix amps (I don’t have a helix). Improvements I’m expecting to hear vs what I have now will be from improved dynamics and ‘does it make me smile more than the old one’. That might make me sound like an absolute bedroom warrior (and I am these days unless I get out there again at some point) but what I’m describing here is probably true for a fair few people buying this (or any other) modelling unit. How many of us have photo-finish memories for the amps modelled in these things? It’s why it cracks me up when folks are upset at ‘only’ 16 Agoura amps and umpteen cabinets. I gigged with a single channel amp and a pedal board with several home-made dirt pedals for flavour. No-one left and everyone had a great time. Our love of accuracy is probanlg more to please ourselves and that’s entirely fair enough if we acknowledge that along with where we’re getting our ideas from!
A lot of my reasons for getting this are the other things it will do (focus view looks incredibly useful for someone like me who isn’t used to dialing in a real AC30 plus tons of other useful things) and the likelihood of cool stuff down the road via upgrades. Of course, buying futures is always risky but it’s got enough in there now to have caused me to buy and they’ve convinced me that it’s got sufficient hardware improvements over the previous generation to support upgrades for years - I could not convince myself of this with Kemper MK2 and they seemed uninterested in changing my mind on that!
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Looks more like a Behringturd Fraud Tampax™ to me.
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Well, the QC's UI is very similar to the Helix's (a point not lost on Line 6) and mainly benefits from having a touchscreen. Obviously, the Stadium closes that gap, so here we go...
Maybe I was expecting too much, but was anyone else disappointed that you could only select the five zones? I was hoping to play around with blending the different sounds — what's that middle area between Grunt and Chaos sound like?
Oh, well. Soon enough.
Do we have a tracker for the container ship as it crosses the Pacific?
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