Line 6 Helix Stadium Pre-Launch Discussion

[toneseeker911]

Stadium being on par sound wise but also having great usability and eventually capturing, it really is ticking all the boxes and will seemingly excel in all areas.

I don’t know if sound is a given. I’ve seen “YouTubers” give great reviews for everything from helix, to fractal to nux , hotone etc. I don’t quite trust these reviews anymore. Helix was good, but it took a lot of tweaking to get on par with fractal in the raw amp sound.

 

[[Nathan]]

I don’t know if sound is a given. I’ve seen “YouTubers” give great reviews for everything from helix, to fractal to nux , hotone etc. I don’t quite trust these reviews anymore. Helix was good, but it took a lot of tweaking to get on par with fractal in the raw amp sound.

To truly know we'll need to see/hear A/B examples and that hasn't been done yet. The opinion poll on Stadium (from people who've tried it) is extremely favourable, and that's all we can really go off for now.

 

[banned]

But I should be able to get that out of the stadium, shouldn’t I?

No, you can't. Go ahead and cancel that pre-order.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Expand D10 only has ADAT out, not in,

Would the Stadium be ready to deal with more inputs, though, hence being prepared for a D20 box, offering ADAT in instead?
Thing is, as most of the stuff many people are doing, is happening ITB, they typically need more ins rather than outs (*check* for myself as well). So, for it to become a kinda centerpiece of a small studio (which I could pretty much imagine some people would love to be doing), more ins certainly would be a good idea - even if they can't all be processed internally but would just be passed through to your DAW (maybe with monitoring leveling options).

 

[timbuck3]

No, you can't. Go ahead and cancel that pre-order.

 

[StarF666]

Would the Stadium be ready to deal with more inputs, though, hence being prepared for a D20 box, offering ADAT in instead?
Thing is, as most of the stuff many people are doing, is happening ITB, they typically need more ins rather than outs (*check* for myself as well). So, for it to become a kinda centerpiece of a small studio (which I could pretty much imagine some people would love to be doing), more ins certainly would be a good idea - even if they can't all be processed internally but would just be passed through to your DAW (maybe with monitoring leveling options).

We would need way better drivers with much lower latency for that which I hope they'll provide eventually. But for studio use I'd rather invest in a dedicated interface. Especially if I need more inputs.

 

[Sascha Franck]

We would need way better drivers with much lower latency for that which I hope they'll provide eventually.

Defenitely. But I would actually expect the Stadium to come with drivers that are at least providing latency figures in the ballpark of affordable interfaces. I mean, Motu can provide 3.5ms RTL (at 44.1, 32 samples buffer) with an interface for a mere 200 bucks, so something like around 5-6ms should defenitely be doable.

But for studio use I'd rather invest in a dedicated interface. Especially if I need more inputs.

Well, I would usually agree, but then, if you are sort of guitar centric anyway, using a Stadium would make much sense as you wouldn't have to take care of any advanced routings, SPDIF connections and what not to always get the best quality recordings.
Personally, I wouldn't even need all the inputs to record, say, a fullblown drumset, but if there were like 8 ins allowing me to plug in anything at any time and possibly have a simple monitoring screen on the Stadium's touchscreen, that'd be pretty dope. And as it's all connected through a breakout box, you wouldn't have to deal with much cabling issues, either.
For my use case (and I'm sure it's kinda similar to what quite some project/rehearsal-room/home studios could do with) 8 ins and maybe 4 outs would be just great, ideally with a mixing matrix allowing you to create multiple monitoring scenarios. Controlling all of that from the touchscreen would be pretty terrific IMO.

 

[[Nathan]]

I’d always want to use an interface because I’d hate to move the modeller around and be connecting the monitors in and out constantly. Just easier to have an interface and have the modeller come and go. Audient and those type are cheap enough and good quality enough these days that if you’re dropping $2000usd on a stadium you might as well spend $200 on an interface to save headaches

 

[Orvillain]

A D10 and a floating AES cable connected to the rear of my RME UFXII will do me.

 

[Gary_W]

Well, I would usually agree, but then, if you are sort of guitar centric anyway, using a Stadium would make much sense as you wouldn't have to take care of any advanced routings, SPDIF connections and what not to always get the best quality recordings.
Personally, I wouldn't even need all the inputs to record, say, a fullblown drumset, but if there were like 8 ins allowing me to plug in anything at any time and possibly have a simple monitoring screen on the Stadium's touchscreen, that'd be pretty dope. And as it's all connected through a breakout box, you wouldn't have to deal with much cabling issues, either.

For my home use, I’m recording one thing at a time - it’s a tiny space so it’s just me unless either daughter is recording a vocal in there with me. The only time I need stereo input is to record an acoustic.

For this reason, I’m looking forward to hearing what the Stadium can do over USB; I’ve got a perfectly good Focusrite Clarett which I talk to from Kemper via SPDIF and I can certainly just keep it this way with stadium but if the usb side of stadium is quick enough then it’ll be good to experiment. The mic pre on the Stadium might actually be better than I have in my interface. If it is, it’s a bonus. If it’s not as good, I’ll keep doing what I’m doing now as I’ve got no current wish to upgrade the dedicated interface I have. On top of the potential for the mic input being better than I have, it’s less wires as you’ve mentioned by ditching SPDIF - at home, usb will be plugged in all the time anyway for the librarian / editor (unless that just goes wireless so ‘no point’?).

 

[Tito83]

But I should be able to get that out of the stadium, shouldn’t I?

That can be interpreted in a few ways...

If by "that" you mean "in the ballpark", sure. You can get in the ballpark with OG Helix... Even a POD maybe?

Some people will interpret as "being able to play the same gig". Heck, sure. I know I could play pretty much any gig with a Boss GT3 and still sound ok.

If you mean "something that sounds really close or just as good and feels just as good to play"... That's a very very tall order. Haven't played the Stadium obviously, but what I can say is that none of the similar current offerings in the market can deliver "that".

 

[ian_dissonance]

Would the Stadium be ready to deal with more inputs, though, hence being prepared for a D20 box, offering ADAT in instead?
Thing is, as most of the stuff many people are doing, is happening ITB, they typically need more ins rather than outs (*check* for myself as well). So, for it to become a kinda centerpiece of a small studio (which I could pretty much imagine some people would love to be doing), more ins certainly would be a good idea - even if they can't all be processed internally but would just be passed through to your DAW (maybe with monitoring leveling options).

I think D10 is meant to expand its live routing capabilities via Showcase (separate outputs to FOH for your tracks).

 

[GTR37]

Its Thursday

 

[mbenigni]

I’d always want to use an interface because I’d hate to move the modeller around and be connecting the monitors in and out constantly. Just easier to have an interface and have the modeller come and go.

But this is exactly the point for me: you wouldn’t be connecting/ disconnecting monitors, etc - you’d just be connecting the breakout box. Kind of like the docking station concept with laptops. (If I’d had a peripheral like this for my QC… I wouldn’t have two QCs LOL.)

Also: if you're just running audio out from your guitar processor to a conventional audio interface, you're not going to have independent control of content on multiple channels, unless you're connecting/ disconnecting a bunch of cables anyway. In a sense what I'm proposing (and what @Sascha Franck may be proposing if I'm not putting words in his mouth) is an audio interface of sorts, but with additional I/O that's more feature-rich and Stadium-centric, and a single digital connection to the Stadium itself.

 

[mikah912]

Its Thursday

5W Champ deep dive, part 1/4.....

 

[GTR37]

5W Champ deep dive, part 1/4.....

Lol maybe

 

[Whizzinby]

5W Champ deep dive, part 1/4.....

I’ll take just some thrash metal with an SD1 into an 800 at this point.

 

[GTR37]

I’ll take just some thrash metal with an SD1 into an 800 at this point.

Would you settle for a Hiwatt
With a tone of kings in front in drop D ?
W a coil spilt

 

[mikah912]

Would you settle for a Hiwatt
With a tone of kings in front in drop D ?
W a coil spilt

So, basically.....Tesseract?

 

[Desertdweller]

Agree with you on reverb...but not on amps. What is your monitoring system?

My monitoring system is fine. I find Line 6 models for high gain to be lacking. Bottom line.