Line 6 Helix Stadium Talk

[fr8_trane]

I finally got around to trying out the new US Super Black model. I have no rapport with its real world counterpart but it's a pretty nice model that I got some nice cleans out of, as well some fun pushed sounds by throwing the Prize Drive in front of it. It's another I have a note to spend some more time with. For reasons I can't elaborate on, I never got on super well with the OG Helix Fender models. The Agoura ones I'm finding myself liking.

The Super was a late addition to the OG helix amp lineup and it is the best of the bunch. The next best was the Deluxe normal channel IMO. I didnt like any of the other BF fenders or tweed fenders and NONE of them (including the super) distorted well. I always put a timmy in front for edge of breakup.

 

[bucephalus]

Maybe I just don’t know, but what is sub par about them?

It's a bee in his bonnet for sure.

I'm not convinced they're even the same ones from previous gen but I'm not on that.

 

[Sascha Franck]

If anything; the Stadium is a QUANTUM leap in usability. LED quality be damned.

Spoiler

Most of my time with it was spent going "WEEEEEEEEEEE!" and playing around on the touchscreen

So how many gigs did you play with it so far?

 

[Sascha Franck]

Maybe I just don’t know, but what is sub par about them?

Use them on any daylight gig and you'll know.

 

[Sascha Franck]

I'm not convinced there even the same ones from previous gen but I'm not on that.

They 100% look alike and there's been zero talk about them being improved. I even asked and noone said they were improved.

 

[Mongillo19]

ARE WE HAVING FUN YET?

 

[Sascha Franck]

ARE WE HAVING FUN YET?

NOT AS LONG AS THE AMPS AREN'T 100% SUUUUPER DUUUUPER ACCURATE!

 

[EOengineer]

ARE WE HAVING FUN YET?

Here’s a fun story. Currently stranded in the shit sticks of PA at my wife’s fat, bitter sister’s place waiting to be thoroughly fornicated by the local Honda dealership who doesn’t even open until tomorrow.

I was smart enough to pack my Stadium XL, a Telecaster, cans, and an extra set of strings. Unfortunately I was NOT smart enough to remember THE POWER CORD. Im losing it here.

IF I DONT GET TO HAVE FUN NOBODY IS HAVING FUN.

 

[Mooselake]

The Super was a late addition to the OG helix amp lineup and it is the best of the bunch. The next best was the Deluxe normal channel IMO. I didnt like any of the other BF fenders or tweed fenders and NONE of them (including the super) distorted well. I always put a timmy in front for edge of breakup.

I was playing around with the SuperBlack again last night. It's holding up over time. Maybe I'll add the OG Super to the preset and compare it to the Agoura. I had noticed I didn't much like the way the OG "US" family broke up, and I always felt they felt a little too stiff when dialed in for a cleans or mostly cleans. I did briefly dabble with the OG Super when it came out, but didn't invest much time with it. I saw an influencer, JNC I think, messing around with a preset and one of the Stadium 1.1 Fender models. He added the OG version in parallel and got what I thought was a really cool quasi-AT semi-clean/EoB tone out of it, which is something I'd like to try. Wish I would have bookmarked that video, lol.

 

[Sascha Franck]

The Super was a late addition to the OG helix amp lineup and it is the best of the bunch.

Most excellent amp. Would never need any other clean amps.

 

[MIJLOVER]

I’ve been enjoying using Showcase for practice backing tracks and have been playing around with flags to change between snapshots. Very intuitive and works well.

I decided to have a go at using the looper flag and did a Moises stem extraction of ‘Where is my mind’ by Pixies. Idea was to play the intro (with a click) for one bar. Then get it to play that back whilst my fingers get ready to do the riff. I thought it’d be a fun one to do with Showcase and a good learning experience for setting the looper within a song but I’ve hit a couple of issues. One is a ‘me’ issue that one of you lovely folks might be able to help with and the other is either a Line 6 issue or it’s a ‘me not knowing how to use the thing properly’ issue. Probably (b) but we’ll see!

My first issue is that Moises claims it’s 82bpm, ‘the internet’ claims its 81bpm. I think the truth is somewhere in between so……. Any tips for getting this song lined up with the grid 100% so the looper has a fighting chance of working for me in automatic mode?

Next issue…. I put on a ‘record’ looper flag. I then put on a ‘playback’ looper flag. This works perfectly (albeit not lined up as mentioned above) but….. when I stop the transport within Showcase, the loop just keeps playing back. I can’t think of a reason why, if you’re using the looper within Showcase and otherwise playing to a backing track, why you’d want the loop to carry on playing when the Showcase transport is stopped. Is there a way I can alter this behaviour? Or can one of you educate me as to why this is actually a good idea because my brain isn’t seeing it that way right now but, given evidence, I’ll always reconsider :)

I know @Digital Igloo mentioned something about beat detection coming but not sure if that means it could automatically adapt to the track, but that would be awesome though.

Regarding the looper: the way I understand it is that it’s simply giving a command, like record here, play here, etc. so could you simply add a flag when the song stops to say “stop looper”? Or would that not work?

 

[MIJLOVER]

Most excellent amp. Would never need any other clean amps.

The last amp I tried in Native before Stadum landed and I went “this sounds epic”. With Stadium it feels sooooo good to play and is a monster broken up!

 

[sashimi]

I was playing around with the SuperBlack again last night. It's holding up over time. Maybe I'll add the OG Super to the preset and compare it to the Agoura. I had noticed I didn't much like the way the OG "US" family broke up, and I always felt they felt a little too stiff when dialed in for a cleans or mostly cleans. I did briefly dabble with the OG Super when it came out, but didn't invest much time with it. I saw an influencer, JNC I think, messing around with a preset and one of the Stadium 1.1 Fender models. He added the OG version in parallel and got what I thought was a really cool quasi-AT semi-clean/EoB tone out of it, which is something I'd like to try. Wish I would have bookmarked that video, lol.

I know what you mean about the OG super being a bit stiff when clean, and the older blackface models are even worse. I never enjoyed playing the old twin or deluxe personally. The only one that got close to the super is the princeton. Tonally I think the HX super is great, but I find I can get almost the exact same tonality out of the grammatico GSG and with a better feel, so I only use the super when the gsg is too dsp heavy. Those two amps make up about 95% of my use in HX. I run them clean and get all my dirt from pedals anyway. I don’t know if there is an Agoura GSG yet but that one should be awesome.

 

[MIJLOVER]

I know what you mean about the OG super being a bit stiff when clean, and the older blackface models are even worse. I never enjoyed playing the old twin or deluxe personally. The only one that got close to the super is the princeton. Tonally I think the HX super is great, but I find I can get almost the exact same tonality out of the grammatico GSG and with a better feel, so I only use the super when the gsg is too dsp heavy. Those two amps make up about 95% of my use in HX. I run them clean and get all my dirt from pedals anyway. I don’t know if there is an Agoura GSG yet but that one should be awesome.

There’s no Agoura GSG yet I’m hoping for that to come very soon, along with the Matchless. The OG GSG does sound very good in Stadium (and it was what I was using in Helix and Catalyst earlier this year)

 

[StarF666]

Do you envision using the Proxy feature when that drops? Or are you solely on modeling?

I'm on modeling only though I own a ToneX One and one of the best sounds I ever got out of any digital gear was a tweed Tremolux on a Kemper a few years ago. So I'm looking forward to proxy. I think it will be a great addition to Helix/Stadium and pushes it even more in the Swiss army knife direction. Also interested to see how it does on DSP.

I would use channels to have just one delay and reverb block but have different settings to recall. I know I can do this with snapshots but I like the idea of having recallable micro presets for each block/effect. Make this even global and I'm in flexibility heaven. Or give me more blocks (and DSP). The DSP thing is exaggerated. If you stay away from poly stuff and multi (Agoura-) amp setups you're probably fine anyway.

 

[HotRats]

My point was only that you can compare any devices that have like functionalities despite their pricing.
I agree with many things you said but I don't believe I am trying to pass off my opinion as gospel.
Due to manufacturing costs, sometimes vendors are limited on how low they can go so. Sometimes similar functionality is available at different price points.
In the comparison between the FM9 and Helix, you could potentially throw the FM3 in there as well. Add a $200 MC6 and you have your button count. I have owned all 3 (FM9, FM3, Helix), and if memory serves I was able to put more blocks on my FM3 than the Helix, plus with channels I had more readily available options per preset and the Fractal routing between blocks is more flexible.
If Behringturd did one of their questionable moves and released a duplicate version of some modeler at 1/2 cost, unfortunately it would be comparable to the original.
I don't expect you to agree with me and that's fine.

Speaking of UA, I wonder with the design of Paradise Studio if they have intentions of entering the all in one modeler market.

I wasn't referring at you but at those who place stupid comments on social media, comparing a mini pedal to a full featured modeller, only because they both make sounds.

 

[JiveTurkey]

So how many gigs did you play with it so far?

None. Sent it packing. Played a ton of gigs with the original Helix and had no problem seeing it in outdoor gigs.

 

[bucephalus]

None. Sent it packing. Played a ton of gigs with the original Helix and had no problem seeing it in outdoor bedrooms.

FTFY

 

[JiveTurkey]

FTFY

 

[Sascha Franck]

Played a ton of gigs with the original Helix and had no problem seeing it in outdoor gigs.

More power to you. I have pictures with the Floor and Stomp turning completely invisible. It's a wellknown issue, too.