Line 6 Helix Stadium Pre-Launch Discussion
- Thread starter Lysander
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Thanks for the heads up. I’ll definitely check it out.
EOengineer
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This guy is a fucking alien. I love it. I can’t wait to watch the rest of this.
Weird question for you all.
I’ve got my stadium XL pre order in and can’t wait.
I’m sorely tempted by the IK Media group buy that gets you tons of stuff (see the thread on this forum for more details). I don’t currently own a ToneX pedal / have never played with Tonex. I can get a physical ToneX pedal fairly cheaply and then get lots of captures / other ik software free of charge. It’s a killer deal but only if you’re going to use it…..
What I don’t want it to be wasting money on this if I’ll never use it again when I get Stadium….. it’s absolutely a cast iron bargain but I don’t want it to gather dust.
Would running it in the fx loop on Stadium add latency? Is there any point (I’ve loved the regular helix amps I’ve heard via a Native trial and I’m confident I’ll have more than enough to make me happy with Agoura). I know Proxy will be coming next year at some point so there will be more choice than I can cope with….
Forgive my lack of knowledge on different capture tech but….. I think DI said in one of the initial Stadium videos that they were still exploring their own Proxy tech and also considering Neural DSP or did I dream that? I am guessing that ToneX would never run native within stadium as IK sell their own hardware so that’d be a strange call…. If it would, the ToneX software captures would load into stadium but I’m almost certainly wrong with this aren’t I?
I’m reluctant to spend money on something if it won’t get used once I have Stadium but man alive that deal is calling to me!
I’ve got my stadium XL pre order in and can’t wait.
I’m sorely tempted by the IK Media group buy that gets you tons of stuff (see the thread on this forum for more details). I don’t currently own a ToneX pedal / have never played with Tonex. I can get a physical ToneX pedal fairly cheaply and then get lots of captures / other ik software free of charge. It’s a killer deal but only if you’re going to use it…..
What I don’t want it to be wasting money on this if I’ll never use it again when I get Stadium….. it’s absolutely a cast iron bargain but I don’t want it to gather dust.
Would running it in the fx loop on Stadium add latency? Is there any point (I’ve loved the regular helix amps I’ve heard via a Native trial and I’m confident I’ll have more than enough to make me happy with Agoura). I know Proxy will be coming next year at some point so there will be more choice than I can cope with….
Forgive my lack of knowledge on different capture tech but….. I think DI said in one of the initial Stadium videos that they were still exploring their own Proxy tech and also considering Neural DSP or did I dream that? I am guessing that ToneX would never run native within stadium as IK sell their own hardware so that’d be a strange call…. If it would, the ToneX software captures would load into stadium but I’m almost certainly wrong with this aren’t I?
I’m reluctant to spend money on something if it won’t get used once I have Stadium but man alive that deal is calling to me!
Chocol8
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Tonex hardware is very low latency but no one knows what the latency with one in a loop on the Stadium will be. Stadium latency and the impact of the loop is something that may improve with time and updates or maybe not. I am not sure even DI knows for sure yet.
I would expect Proxy captures for the Stadium to be very good, but we don't know when that will happen. Are you OK using Tonex for 3 months, 6 months, a year? I think there is a chance Proxy will run NAM captures or convert them, but I highly doubt they will run Tonex, NDSP, or Kemper formats unless there is a pending partnership we have not heard about yet.
I would expect Proxy captures for the Stadium to be very good, but we don't know when that will happen. Are you OK using Tonex for 3 months, 6 months, a year? I think there is a chance Proxy will run NAM captures or convert them, but I highly doubt they will run Tonex, NDSP, or Kemper formats unless there is a pending partnership we have not heard about yet.
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I think post-Stadium - and certainly post-Proxy - you're only going to use a ToneX if the idea of having a separate, smaller rig appeals to you. Otherwise, the Stadium with Proxy is a massive superset of everything the ToneX can accomplish.
That isn't to say ToneX doesn't have its place. You might want something you can throw in the front pocket of your gig back in a pinch. And the ToneX purchase will also give you the corresponding plugin. It will be a few months at a minimum until Proxy is running on Stadium, and Line 6 hasn't given an ETA for a native Stadium plugin of any kind yet. (Software at launch is described as more of a librarian app.)
I'm looking at that group buy too, but I can't seem to talk myself into the idea that I need a ToneX pedal. And as tempting as some of the software is, I don't know if I have the time (or drive space) to even install, much less tackle the learning curves. If anything, I'm trying to decide whether I need another iRig variant to throw on the pile (for iPad use, mainly) - in which case, I'd just pick a bunch of free-ish software for the hell of it.
But always remember: the things you own own you.
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Not Neural DSP—Neural Amp Modeler, which is an open-source capture technology. Yes, I know it's confusing.
Have mentioned this before, but unless we really drop the ball, Stadium will also have the majority of capture houses making Proxy clones. It's not like there'll be any shortage of amp, preamp, and pedal clones to choose from. A year or two from now, if there are a bunch of people complaining that the NAM or ToneX list of 789,450 amps to slog through contains the one magic capture not found in the Proxy clone list of 427,082 amps to slog through, they have bigger problems.
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Thank you Chocol8, mbenigni and DI - appreciate the replies and the sense check.
Difficult to resist a bargain but I’ll hold off. If I wasn’t on a pre order for the XL this deal would be a no brainer but, as that’s incoming, I’ll leave it alone.
Eric - I’ll read up on the Neural stuff out of interest. I’ve stuck with a single platform for many years now and haven’t kept up with developments (or even the terminology!) so I’m consciously ignorant right now. I’ll fix that. I suppose that makes me a disgrace to the gear buying community but I guess that makes it easier for me to justify a Stadium since I’ve not upgraded in a long, long time,
Difficult to resist a bargain but I’ll hold off. If I wasn’t on a pre order for the XL this deal would be a no brainer but, as that’s incoming, I’ll leave it alone.
Eric - I’ll read up on the Neural stuff out of interest. I’ve stuck with a single platform for many years now and haven’t kept up with developments (or even the terminology!) so I’m consciously ignorant right now. I’ll fix that. I suppose that makes me a disgrace to the gear buying community but I guess that makes it easier for me to justify a Stadium since I’ve not upgraded in a long, long time,
GTR37
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When you announce Proxy will you guys do a bunch of in house captures to be added as the Proxy update or work with a few current guys like Guitar Jon , Sadities , Amalgam , Studio Rats to have a bank of onboard captures for users to sample ?
Dom Mcsweeney
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Hey Gary - NAM (neural amp modeler) is a project that was started by Steve Atkinson around about 2019 or so..., but in the last 3 years it's become quite a big community which I've had the privilege of helping manage alongside Steve and since then independently of Steve's project, a few people myself included, started Tone3000 (formerly Tonehunt) which has become a website for uploading / sharing and more recently training NAM models in the cloud via remote GPUs. I help out across the board - so if you need any more information you are welcome to ask and there's a dedicated thread on this forum too where I'm sure anyone will be happy to help.
If you are on facebook, there's an official NAM community, and there is also a discord server for Tone3000.
Let me know if you'd like links to those.
As it's open source, lots of people are building out from both the training and the playback and processing perspective, so there are now almost countless products for windows, apple (mac and ipad), linux, and hardware.
Anyway, I'll leave it there, but in the context of this thread - I would love to see Line 6 Stadium offering some form of NAM support, be that natively or conversion to their Proxy format.
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Consider also whether you want any of the software, etc. that would come "free" with the group buy. If so, you could always buy in, keep the software, and sell the ToneX.
But yeah, in strictly practical terms, the Stadium is going to have you covered.
Chocol8
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I wouldn't expect there to be a shortage of captures for very long! The issue with compatibility (from the user perspective) really comes down to convenience and purchased captures. It would be great to be able to use the same captures across multiple devices, and even better to not have to buy new packs of stuff you already own for another platform.
From a vendor standpoint, I can certainly see reasons why Line6 and IK would probably not want to allow cross platform sharing between Proxy and Tonex, and even if both teams thought it was a good idea, at some point lawyers would have to get involved, and as someone who works with a lot of lawyers, that is rarely fun for business and tech people!!! It would still be great though! (but honestly Tonex or even NAM compatibility will not sway my purchase decision)
EOengineer
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Sounds great!
Dom Mcsweeney
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Yeah, I'm definitely impressed with those Bass tones and some great playing helped there too.
Lysander
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Karl Houseknecht
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So we’ve kinda run the gamut of sample bass and guitar tone videos. What’s next? Release?
CorrosiveMatter
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the Game Boy demo is what I am really waiting for.
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