Line 6 Helix Stadium Pre-Launch Discussion

Maybe it's easier to put an Helix Stadium in a rack drawer and have @Digital Igloo make a 1U rack display that shows preset/snapshot/whatever on front instead of a full rack unit?

I was thinking the same thing

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A rack unit would be very cool, particularly considering my fabled "Super Rig" concept - which was a Helix Rack + Axe FX III + Mark Five amp, with either one unit in the FX loop and one unit in the front, or both digitally connected together via SPDIF and then the whole thing in 4-cable-method; with the Axe3 slaved to the Helix via midi program changes or control changes.

Massively overkill, but would be amazerocks!!

On balance, if I had the choice, I'd go floor unit as a standalone thing. But racks do appeal as well.
 
A 1u rack display? We must have VERY different impressions of the size of 1u, unless you are talking about just a couple lines of text.

I 100% believe the key to a rack unit being viable is a completely remote user interface, touch screen, encoders, switches buttons etc all NOT on the device in the rack.
 
IMO a rack unit would be better served with a port to optionally connect an external touchscreen/control device or you make a solid mobile editor. I can’t see a world where even the 2u footprint has a worthwhile touchscreen.
 
A 1u rack display? We must have VERY different impressions of the size of 1u, unless you are talking about just a couple lines of text.

I 100% believe the key to a rack unit being viable is a completely remote user interface, touch screen, encoders, switches buttons etc all NOT on the device in the rack.

Yeah I mean only text for basic feedback.
 
WHen we were in a similar wait for 2015 Helix, DI did announce when they had release firmware ready to go, so he'll probably let us know now.

I still don't think it'll be October.
Gotcha.

I am betting on no later than US Thanksgiving for shipments to begin.
 
It's up to our users. Nexus is pretty open-ended, so sure, I could see a remote control for Stadium in the cards. It'd have to make sense financially, of course.

Unfortunately, Helix Control won't work because it doesn't have Nexus; the circuitry, data, and power handling is all totally different.Any time I see someone trying to shoehorn a 3rd-party MIDI controller into acting as their main Helix Rack controller, it makes me a sad panda. There's sooooo much functionality, speed, and feedback you miss out on.

We probably wouldn't put the touchscreen at an angle, but yeah, it'd most likely need to be 4RU. There's a tiny chance we might be able to squeeze it into 3RU, but the bottom edge of the encoders would need to almost align with the chassis bottom. Years ago I showed a 3RU mockup to our head of ME and he said "Uh... that's probably not going to fit but we can take a look."

Sure, we could design some crazy car stereo-like ID where the entire cluster slides out and pivots up but that's risky on a tour reliability front (not to mention the public perception of reliability problem) and it'd be a lot of work for something that will ultimately sell a small fraction of Stadium XL and Stadium numbers. (On a similar front, we could've gotten all clever with Expand D10's ME, but its run rate warrants a dead simple folded steel box.)

Stadium Rack's best chance (and I'm not implying the chance is all that good) is to be able to reuse as much ME and EE as possible.

1. Use the current Rack screen and chassis for the Stadium Rack
2. Put the touch screen on the Stadium FC or IPad app
3. Save on R&D and tooling costs
4. Profit???
 
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