I saw it before it went away and meant to give you one.
Line 6 Helix Stadium Pre-Launch Discussion
- Thread starter Lysander
- Start date
I saw it before it went away and meant to give you one.
I'm still saying "If" because I don't know what the terms are of vendors selling on the Line 6 Marketplace, and if they're favorable to these guys joining.
For example, I thought it would be a slam dunk for @GuitarJon AKA Sonic Drive Studio to sell presets and his homemade IRs there once he disassociated with Ownhammer and York Audio. But he only sells them through his Gumroad store.
Live Ready Sound already has a bunch of stuff there, but these other guys I listed don't - which is to be expected since they mainly just sell profiles.
We'll see.
molul
Shredder
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Which one is the modeler that shall not be named and why?
I've seen QC, Fractal, GT1000, Kemper, etc named here.Fractal is kind of synonymous with amazing Marshall models. I just assumed they had like 5 superbass models.
FWIW I have a 1959 clone that started life as a Superbass. Both are really cool, I sometimes feel like we overstate the differences between them.
On records, I can’t pick out a super bass from a super lead. I still want to play with a super bass model
D
Chocol8
Shredder
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Which one is the modeler that shall not be named and why?
The first one. Mostly because the company is run by people who may make Voldemort look like a nice guy.
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There's always been a low-level disdain for the Quad Cortex on TGF, so I sometimes feel like I'm sticking my neck out when I talk up its strengths.Which one is the modeler that shall not be named and why?
In a Line 6 thread, I feel like I'm being borderline confrontational, which is not my intention at all.
(I thought everyone loved Kemper, but lately it's become pretty fashionable to
on them too. I was making fun of Kemper before it was cool. 
)I was talking mostly plexis too. I still say fractal has more variety. I have both devices.
Brit trem is an interesting amp. It has the most aggressive bright cap of all of the helix Marshall’s though, not a smaller one like you state. Most of the Helix Marshall models have modded small values for the bright cap or no bright cap at all, don’t get @James Freeman started on this lol. Brit Trem was the first one that had much of a bright cap.
If you want the fractal plexis to be less aggressive like the helix plexis, remove or dramatically lower the bright cap. I actually do this on all of them as I’m not a fan of the huge bright cap for most things.
D
Mooselake
Roadie
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Corporate marketing strategies aside, I'd be surprised if the designers at L6 would sit around the water cooler and say "Fractal will always be better than us, so let's settle for second best in modeling and call it a day." That's not to say they'll successfully leapfrog Fractal to set the modeling bar higher with Stadium/Agoura, but I don't think they're pumping the brakes either. I agree many who are invested with/loyal to Fractal will stay there, and DI/L6 have more or less said they're not out to explicitly steal Fractal's customer base, but I also think they'll make their modeling the best they can and let the chips fall.
Karl Houseknecht
Roadie
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For the record, I've never once made fun of the product or the company.I was making fun of Kemper before it was cool.
(all of my critique was serious)
EOengineer
Rock Star
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FWIW a lot of the tribal stuff is superficial and I appreciate that you aren't self censoring, because you consistently provide well reasoned positions and are tolerant of other view points. I've never used QC. I don't think I'd support the company. However, that doesn't mean the QC is without merit or we shouldn't appreciate the things that device may do well.There's always been a low-level disdain for the Quad Cortex on TGF, so I sometimes feel like I'm sticking my neck out when I talk up its strengths.
In a Line 6 thread, I feel like I'm being borderline confrontational, which is not my intention at all.
(I thought everyone loved Kemper, but lately it's become pretty fashionable to
There are people behind all of these products, and as such, the products are rarely ALWAYS good or ALWAYS bad. They just get painted that way by some of us who need to boil things down to oversimplified binary arguments all the time.
Yeah, I don't think DI, Ben, Sam and the rest are the settling types either. They've said they respect the hell out of Fractal and they certainly have an Axe-FX on hand when they're doing testing. They have a QC and some other competitors as well.
That being said, the framing of them "catching up to Fractal" has always been off to me. Fractal is fantastic, and I have been a (mostly) happy FM9 owner for a while now. But it's not the best possible amp modeling throughout its entire range. At least, not to my ears. I prefer some TMP amp models to some of my FM9 models. I prefer some Helix models to some of my FM9 models (and Line 6 modeled a better version of the Bogner Ecstasy than Fractal did to boot). Heck, I preferred a couple of Quad Cortex models to Fractal when I owned a QC as well! Fractal has so much variety across most categories, however, that you can simply find an alternative that delivers what you want. And even if you don't, the easy access to topography and Saturation switches on every model make it not too hard to get there.
My point was more about consensus/perception more than anything else. Fractal has an implicit brand value and brand promise right now of being "the best possible quality" and "uncompromising". Line 6 has an implicit brand value and brand promise of offering a better user experience, more fun and also somehow compromising on sound compared to Fractal. Even if Agoura measurably and objectively nails realism in feel, response and sound beyond what's on the market now, it will take quite some time to change that brand perception.
Karl Houseknecht
Roadie
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I think that's a spot on observation. They didn't set out to create a "Fractal killer" device and yet they somehow ended up being serious competition.
paisleywookiee
Rock Star
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Yeah, no company is going to go “let’s go to the absolute best quality we’re capable of, and then back it off a couple notches. We don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.”
I don't need a million Marshalls. Just a few good ones - the Line6 list looks good to me. But....must.have.variac!
ian_dissonance
Shredder
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I’ve never had a preset sound good through an amp and cab just by defeating the cab modeling. Seems like an “emergency only” type of feature to me.
Chocol8
Shredder
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Yep, I have gravitated towards completely separate presets for different playback methods. Through a real cab, through my CLR at volume, and through headphones will end up being three separate presets even if the goal is basically the same. Each one gets dialed in at the volume I will use it at, and with a backing track or three to hear how it will sit in a mix.
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Depends on the physical amp and cab, and the virtual model/ capture. As with anything else, you want to listen to the results before employing them.
Yeah, a Variac'd Plexi would be cool, and they had a model for one back in the PodXT days.
But aside from that, many other variants are just the same Plexi or JCM800 circuit with additional clipping at various points in the topography, bigger poweramp sections and negative feedback controls to make them beefier.
Sascha Franck
Goatlord
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Be like Mr. Franck, just show your disdain for anything.
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FM3, ToneX... no one is safe.
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