Line 6 Helix Stadium Pre-Launch Discussion

[timbuck3]

It's not just a matter of slapping a touchscreen on, though. I'd put my money on Agoura modeling eclipsing Cygnus (or whatever FAS' latest is called) before FAS develops a UI/UX to rival the Stadium's. Thus far, FAS hasn't even expressed an interest in trying. But anything's possible I guess.

I get that. I doubt fas will add a touchscreen but they may make a better user friendly gui

 

[ian_dissonance]

On, this forum is there any one who doesn’t like Them

I like how they sound when other people use them. Hate playing through them, real or modeled.

 

[HotRats]

I feel bad about talking about this even as @Digital Igloo says Proxy leaves a bad taste in his mouth, but I JUST saw the @2112 video on the new Hotone Verbera convolution reverb pedal.



In addition to having a ton of modes and cool presets on its own, um....this MFer clones reverbs?!?!

If that's the case and that Pandora's box has already been opened, Proxy almost certainly is going to be able to clone time-based effects at some point.

Capturing IRs of reverbs (of real rooms or devices) is something exists since convolution reverbs became available almost 30 years ago.

Has been common practice in the recording studio world for decades and there are IRs of any hardware reverb imaginable.

 

[molul]

It's not just a matter of slapping a touchscreen on, though. I'd put my money on Agoura modeling eclipsing Cygnus (or whatever FAS' latest is called) before FAS develops a UI/UX to rival the Stadium's. Thus far, FAS hasn't even expressed an interest in trying. But anything's possible I guess.

Well, Cliff from Fractal said they were working hard on a new device that would make all modelers look like a Game Boy. I would expect that to include a totally new UI.

 

[laxu]

I'll bite. Let's play Guess The Missing Block Types©.

Number of items removed from the block table before sharing on TGF:

• Input: 1
• None: 1
• Amp: 1
• Preamp: 1
• Distortion: 1
• Reverb: 1
• Wah/Filter: 1
• Looper: 3
• FX Loop: 6
• Split: 1
• Output: 1
• Additional column A: 3
• Additional column B: 8
• Additional column C: 1

• Input: 1
  • Nexus?
• None: 1
  • Octagon, for when you want to fight Chuck Norris!
• Amp: 1
  • Dual Amp
• Preamp: 1
  • Dual Pre
• Distortion: 1
  • Multi-band drive, or drive that reacts to your playing similar to Fractal's Dynamic Distortion block.
• Reverb: 1
  • Convolution reverb
• Wah/Filter: 1
  • No idea
• Looper: 3
  • Maybe Showcase related that allow bringing a dry backing track into the signal chain to be processed by fx?
• FX Loop: 6
  • USB fx loop/send/return
  • Nexus fx loop/send/return?
• Split: 1
  • Banana split
• Output: 1
  • Nexus?
• Additional column A: 3
  • Proxy Amp
  • Dual Proxy Amp
  • Proxy Drive
• Additional column B: 8
  • Talent Boost. You know this is the most requested new block.
  • Shred block to make you play faster.
  • Jazzifier. Plays the wrong note twice randomly.
  • Autotune. When your bends or vocals just don't land. Or you want to make your voice sound like a bad video call connection. Up to you.
  • Cork Sniffer. Adds a randomly occurring voice to the signal that says things like "That doesn't sound like my real tube amp", "Real men play tube amps" or "I can hear the squirrels!"
  • Black Metalizer. Adds noise, sound clips of screams and 200 bpm double bass drums to the background. Also applies two Metal Zones in series to every guitar signal chain.
  • Freestyle. Adds an AI generated freestyle rap on top of what you play.
  • ChatGPT block. When you absolutely can't make decisions without the help of AI.
• Additional column C: 1
  • New amp model generator. Because some people will never be happy with what they have, it will generate a random amp model based on what's on the market, put a nice description of it including its boutique price tag. Why yes, this is totally an accurate amp model of that one-of-a-kind amp that you've never played but saw going for $10K on Reverb.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Btw, where's the poweramp category?

 

[MadMaxG79]

I feel bad about talking about this even as @Digital Igloo says Proxy leaves a bad taste in his mouth, but I JUST saw the @2112 video on the new Hotone Verbera convolution reverb pedal.



In addition to having a ton of modes and cool presets on its own, um....this MFer clones reverbs?!?!

If that's the case and that Pandora's box has already been opened, Proxy almost certainly is going to be able to clone time-based effects at some point.

Neat.

You've been able to capture reverb IRs in DAWs for a long time. Logic added Space Designer and a capture utility in 2013.

On the hardware front, the Sony DRE-777 ($12,000 new!) is from way back in 1999; we've clearly come a long way since then.

And a few neighborhoods over from us is Logidy, who, in 2014, released the EPSi, a convolution reverb pedal (playback only). A bunch of people asked them to make a cab IR loader with lower latency, so EPSi has two different versions of firmware, depending on whether you want reverbs or cabs.

My first time seeing it in a pedal, especially one from a guitar multi-effects company. I genuinely thought we were a little ways off from that, but I know you can't talk about future-leaning stuff.

This is definitely the wrong thread for this and I will most likely get lynched for it, but Headrush just released their newest firmware which includes a convolution reverb effects block. They've included 50 IRs to play around with but you can also import your own. Pretty neat.

 

[Sascha Franck]

This is definitely the wrong thread for this and I will most likely get lynched for it, but Headrush just released their newest firmware which includes a convolution reverb effects block. They've included 50 IRs to play around with but you can also import your own. Pretty neat.

Interesting.

I think that after cab IRs, NAM and long IR compatibility is what you might have to deliver at one point in time. Not too sure about NAM as a native format, maybe a conversion utility would do, but people just want this stuff, just as they wanted cab IRs.

 

[James Freeman]

Btw, where's the poweramp category?

Are you even the target audience bro? Do you even play in a church/worship band bro?

 

[molul]

Are you even the target audience bro? Do you even play in a church/worship band bro?

 

[HomespunEffects]

Imagine a time when P&W guys all carry their helixes in their backpacks but the other kids don’t know what’s in them but they want to fit in so the Helix Backpack becomes a trendy fashion accessory.

Hey, nice helix backpack. Do you play in the band?

No, this is my lunch and homework.

 

[GTR37]

Btw, where's the poweramp category?

Likely removed
I suspect not at launch but people have been begging line6 for years for mix and match preamp / power amp to make custom models
Change power tube types
NFB etc

 

[EOengineer]

He won’t answer that
But if that was a thing let’s say you could take a 5153 preamp into the 2203 power amp with 34s
How would the hype work ?
Would it follow the preamp or power amp topology ??

Or would it be disabled because you have created a custom hybrid

Just guessing, but given that we don’t have THAT many novel amp topologies out there, I’m wondering if hype might be doing similar things on similar groups of amps (Marshalls, Mesas, Fenders) or perhaps certain types of sounds (squeaky clean, EOB, crunch, high gain), so to some extent it repeats itself? But to your point, mismatches could get interesting.

Handling the edge case when mixing and matching is probably going to look like one of these options:
- both preamp block and poweramp block have independent hype controls
- select whether you use the preamp or power amp hype
- only enable hype on full amp models

 

[Sascha Franck]

Are you even the target audience bro? Do you even play in a church/worship band bro?

You never know...

Whatever, I've got a Soldano SP-77 that sounds gorgeous through the poweramps of my Amplifirebox (too bad it urgently needs servicing, otherwise I'd post a clip).

 

[mbenigni]

I get that. I doubt fas will add a touchscreen but they may make a better user friendly gui

Paul: Have to admit it's getting better!
John: It couldn't get any worse.

(Adding the touchscreen is a million times easier than designing the friendly GUI, FWIW.)

 

[mbenigni]

Well, Cliff from Fractal said they were working hard on a new device that would make all modelers look like a Game Boy. I would expect that to include a totally new UI.

But IIRC he specifically cited its power making other devices look like a Game Boy. Which is: a) the last thing FAS actually needs, and b) exactly what I'd expect.

"One FM9 Twin Turbo Quattrovalvole with Nitrous Oxide™ coming up! Be sure to use the PC editor."

 

[HomespunEffects]

But IIRC he specifically cited it's power making other devices look like a Game Boy. Which is: a) the last thing FAS actually needs, and b) exactly what I'd expect.

"One FM9 Twin Turbo Quattrovalvole with Nitrous™ coming up! Be sure to use the PC editor."

Wait, so he's making every other device look like the hottest selling thing of its generation? Good news for Line 6.

 

[Mongillo19]

But IIRC he specifically cited it's power making other devices look like a Game Boy. Which is: a) the last thing FAS actually needs, and b) exactly what I'd expect.

"One FM9 Twin Turbo Quattrovalvole with Nitrous™ coming up! Be sure to use the PC editor."

Yes, it seemed to be in direct relation to him stating it would have been considered a super computer a few years ago.

 

[mbenigni]

Wait, so he's making every other device look like the hottest selling thing of its generation? Good news for Line 6.

That's kind of the punchline, yeah. "We'll show them! Our next product will make their stuff look... fun by comparison! MUAHAHAHAHAH!"

(I'd argue that - in this regard - FAS has had everyone on the run all along.)

Pre-emptive:

 

[laxu]

(Adding the touchscreen is a million times easier than designing the friendly GUI, FWIW.)

You can look at FracPad for what you get if you take Axe-Edit, and turn it into a touchscreen software. It kinda works, but doesn't really improve the experience a ton. Virtual knobs have to turn into large zoomed in versions to make it possible to drag your finger to turn them and see what is going on etc.

Block and routing management would still be a pain in the ass with the system Fractal has atm with the shunts and whatnot.

Don't take this as me shitting on FracPad either. I think the developer has done a helluva good job reverse engineering the Sysex communication and Fractal should work with them to make something for next gen.

Line6 had a helluva easier time because their Helix UI was already designed for a touchscreen. Sliders work with touch even on a fairly small screen like on my Hotone A2 Stomp.