Line 6 Helix Stadium Talk

[HotRats]

Am I the only one who feels it would be cool if Line 6 just went all in and made it possible to record straight to the tracks in showcase? Would be too demanding? It would be such an amazing creative tool to start with drum track wave and start adding guitar other tracks to songs.

Unlikely they’ll go that route, they specifically said it’s not supposed to be a DAW. But I have a feeling even more people would use it if it could capture ideas and save them?

I think that at the moment they want to avoid showcase to become or even be seen as a daw, beacuse that would open to an infinte flood of feature requests, some of them probably impossible to fulfill.

Time will tell what showcase will become.

 

[ian_dissonance]

I think that at the moment they want to avoid showcase to become or even be seen as a daw, beacuse that would open to an infinte flood of feature requests, some of them probably impossible to fulfill.

Time will tell what showcase will become.

I think being able to import MIDI would be killer even if it’s just for markers and tempo, but yeah, don’t try to do too much with it. If it’s half-baked DAW it’s going to feel that way. But if it’s just a live playback engine the expectation is easier to manage. I already feel like there’s too much stuff in there for the bugs to be ironed out by the time the non-XL hits the market. Hopefully they get the guitar amp and multifx usability figured out first.

 

[paisleywookiee]

No, you can't load a midi files and I don't think is somenthing is planned for the future.
After all you can easily convert your midi into audio and then load the wav file.

That is too bad. Converting the midi to audio isn’t quite the same as running the midi to the drums and synth modules already wired up a certain way for rehearsals.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Yes 100% a basic daw on the go or travelling would be killer

Dunno, really. I'd rather have them concentrate on other things, especially given that even a lower level iPad running Garageband and a USB cable would take you there with much more comfort.

I can understand how people could get use out of Showcase as a live playback system (even if I'd never use it myself), but a DAW, even a simple one, would likely be overkill.
Just imagine all the additional issues and feature requests that inevitably will rear their ugly heads.

 

[EOengineer]

That is too bad. Converting the midi to audio isn’t quite the same as running the midi to the drums and synth modules already wired up a certain way for rehearsals.

Because my project usually rehearses silently with E-Drums, I’ve also wondered whether I might be able to swap in a MIDI file to keep sessions going when the drummer can’t make it, or to offload certain parts live, etc.

I understand L6’s need to put guardrails on this thing lest they end up getting reluctantly dragged into building and maintaining a proprietary DAW with very limited processing resources (compared to my Mac, at least) for the next decade. I do think being able to load in a MIDI file could be helpful for those of us who are in these types of scenarios where they play with MIDI driven devices. @Digital Igloo

For now I’m just going to print some of the MIDI stuff to audio stems and mute them if I don’t need them. MIDI track would be really nice.

 

[ian_dissonance]

I think I changed my mind. I’m just thinking about unsmooth just trying to get two different DAWs to work with MIDI and audio that has gradual tempo changes or multiple consecutive time signature changes and I don’t want to do that on a floor processor. BUT, being able to detect transients for markers would be cool.

 

[mbenigni]

I think that at the moment they want to avoid showcase to become or even be seen as a daw, beacuse that would open to an infinte flood of feature requests, some of them probably impossible to fulfill.

Time will tell what showcase will become.

Being able save looper audio contents persistently (between power cycles) on a per preset basis (to SD card or whatever) would be enough to make me happy. I don’t have a Stadium yet; this may already be supported for all I know…

 

[Sascha Franck]

"Oh, now that we have MIDI sequence playback, can we alter the quantization, please?"
"I'd like to cut some audio and edit parts in a sample editor!"
"I want a click changing from 6/8 to 7/4, we need a bar-oriented timeline!"
"Can we please have a mixer and some mixing plugins?"
"How about adding some virtual instruments?"

 

[JiveTurkey]

"How about adding some virtual instruments?"

 

[Sascha Franck]

I knew you'd smell the trumpets already.

 

[ian_dissonance]

"Oh, now that we have MIDI sequence playback, can we alter the quantization, please?"
"I'd like to cut some audio and edit parts in a sample editor!"
"I want a click changing from 6/8 to 7/4, we need a bar-oriented timeline!"
"Can we please have a mixer and some mixing plugins?"
"How about adding some virtual instruments?"

These things are all part of my music writing process and I’ve put some time into customizing my DAW for these tools to be fast and easy. Too many variables and need for quick, easy editing to try and make it work on a floor modeler. I am really curious to see where Stadium ends up with all of this, but there’s just so much shit going into it that there are better options for that I have zero GAS towards the platform (for now).

 

[Dom Mcsweeney]

"Oh, now that we have MIDI sequence playback, can we alter the quantization, please?"
"I'd like to cut some audio and edit parts in a sample editor!"
"I want a click changing from 6/8 to 7/4, we need a bar-oriented timeline!"
"Can we please have a mixer and some mixing plugins?"
"How about adding some virtual instruments?"

PCOM confirmed.

 

[Orvillain]

Showcase is not a DAW.

 

[ian_dissonance]

Showcase is not a DAW.

I think we’re all in agreement there. But where does the feature set end that makes sense? Obviously virtual instruments probably aren’t going to be there, but MIDI import for tempo mapping makes perfect sense if it’s for playing back tracks. And if you can import MIDI you should probably be able to send it out to hardware for lights or drums or keys on a different device since it’s just data.

 

[HotRats]

"I want a click changing from 6/8 to 7/4, we need a bar-oriented timeline!"

Afaik the timeline is already bar oriented and I'm sure you can program time and BPM changes.

MIDI import for tempo mapping makes perfect sense if it’s for playing back tracks

100% even only importing tempo and meter track from a midi file, without having the midi file on the timeline, would be nice.

 

[OG-T]

I'd rather have the high end that's missing from the models than another DAW.

 

[paisleywookiee]

I think we’re all in agreement there. But where does the feature set end that makes sense? Obviously virtual instruments probably aren’t going to be there, but MIDI import for tempo mapping makes perfect sense if it’s for playing back tracks. And if you can import MIDI you should probably be able to send it out to hardware for lights or drums or keys on a different device since it’s just data.

Yup. While it's true that it can obviously get out of hand, they've somewhat opened a small can of worms by even having the feature. MIDI-only playback on the outputs isn't an outlandish request, especially since it's they've already got drum trigger functionality.

 

[HotRats]

Yup. While it's true that it can obviously get out of hand, they've somewhat opened a small can of worms by even having the feature. MIDI-only playback on the outputs isn't an outlandish request, especially since it's they've already got drum trigger functionality.

I agree but the drum trigger is more a remote switch you can give to the drummer (but not necessarily him) to control things.

In my head I imagine the drummer hitting the lowest floor tom triggering pyros via helix.

 

[paisleywookiee]

I agree but the drum trigger is more a remote switch you can give to the drummer (but not necessarily him) to control things.

In my head I imagine the drummer hitting the lowest floor tom triggering pyros via helix.

I mean, ultimately what I’m talking about is literally accomplished by a lowly $350 iPad anyway, so I guess it’s not a big deal. It’s why I’ve already done anyway, ran from Logic for iPad. But it was just a thought.

(This was just rehearsal: no, I’m not playing golf courses).

 

[Sascha Franck]

Afaik the timeline is already bar oriented and I'm sure you can program time and BPM changes.

Ooops. Well, then let's see what this will end like...