Line 6 Helix Stadium Talk

[JiveTurkey]

The originals are just modded versions of real life amp circuits they've already captured, tho. Cliff's FAS Stealth Blue, FAS Brown or FAS Modern, Line 6 Badonk or Aristocrat or Oblivion......these are all great amps you're depriving yourself just because of a couple of characters in the menu.

This is exactly why the Stadium menu lumps Agoura, HX and Originals all in the same menu with no way to distinguish. it already got you to give the Mandarin Rocker a try when it's not an Agoura amp (but is a very realistic take on Rockerverb already). One of their best high-gain models, in fact....

I know what they are. But if I am waiting on Mark whatever or Rectifier to get Agourafied; I'm not grabbing whatever original oddball HX amp. I'll just go back to the FM and play through the pile of Rectifiers and Marks I already have if I can't play through the pile of real life Rectifiers and Marks sitting in my jam room. You're gonna Jehovah's Witness me into returning this thing

 

[EOengineer]

On speaker impedance curves, I haven’t found a situation yet where I would want it turned off. It just sounds worse to me.

There aren’t many real life scenarios where we’d experience a tube amp without its output being affected by the load to which it’s attached. IMO having the option to bypass SIC isn’t that useful, and likely becomes a total non issue if Agoura preamps show up.

 

[JiveTurkey]

I'm pleased to report I imported the JT Industries IR and ended up sticking with the Orange 2x12 with the 57 on V30s.

 

[banned]

What do you guys think of this?

I think this is a very important video - thanks for making this Jon.

The main element is feel - to me, that's even bigger than tone. The feel inspires you to play and once you get the right feel, you can play with almost any sound.

I think the key video is going to be the one where you compare it to the real amp.

It is important to understand what amp model captures feel best.

I'm purchasing the Stadium to be an improvement over Helix in terms of tone and feel - however, I just don't want a model which gives super pleasing compression and sag characteristics (Hi Kemper....looking at you. Fractal too sometimes) at the cost of accuracy. Yes, that sells units but I'm spending $2K+ to obtain models that are the equivalent of a hot-swap for the real amp - it should be like nothing ever changed.

If the time-characteristics of the model response are not there, I wouldn't be interested in Stadium as much as I'm not into all the other mega features like Showcase, Proxy etc. The core models take priority first for me.

 

[JiveTurkey]

The Stadium feels (sorry Watt) GREAT to play. Very immediate.

 

[mikah912]

I know what they are. But if I am waiting on Mark whatever or Rectifier to get Agourafied; I'm not grabbing whatever original oddball HX amp. I'll just go back to the FM and play through the pile of Rectifiers and Marks I already have if I can't play through the pile of real life Rectifiers and Marks sitting in my jam room. You're gonna Jehovah's Witness me into returning this thing

No, I'm not. Haven't even gotten mine yet. But I already know you have particular workflow and tastes, and I respect it, bro.

1.2 is bringing sumthin, sumthin new amp wise in December, which is just a few weeks away.

In the meantime, I'm reeeeaaaaaaally curious to see how you get along with the Agoura Bogner Ecstasy Red. That's an amp that can provide a lot of different high-gain tones with all of the switches, and definitely with different drive pedals in front of it.

 

[Jarick]

There aren’t many real life scenarios where we’d experience a tube amp without its output being affected by the load to which it’s attached. IMO having the option to bypass SIC isn’t that useful, and likely becomes a total non issue if Agoura preamps show up.

Exactly. I think it’s one of those things a forum can get obsessed over which doesn’t have much impact on real world usage. And it’s cool that cliff thought of that and many other things but realistically shouldn’t be a deal breaker for 99.5% of users.

Not factoring in speaker impedance curves at all is of course a major issue which is why so many of the early fender TMP videos sounded so bad. Note that barely anyone released new videos after it was fixed. I think that’s part of why people assume the modeling is so bad, as it was broken in 2023 while using IRs.

Helix always had speaker impedance properly sorted and wasn’t really a question until a few years ago when cliff made that a very visible parameter to adjust.

 

[EOengineer]

Helix always had speaker impedance properly sorted and wasn’t really a question until a few years ago when cliff made that a very visible parameter to adjust.

so I’m going to follow up my agreement with a disagreement.

My understanding is that on Hx the SIC is always set to that which matches that amp models default cab - even if you change the cab. That can produce some big accuracy differences if you’re cab swapping a lot.

Agoura is better if not correct in its current behavior, though I’d still prefer a setting at least until/if preamp models show up.

 

[Orvillain]

I don't think comparing legacy models on a Stadium to Agoura is the correct way. I think comparing legacy models on Helix Floor/Rack/Lt to Stadium, is the correct way.

Even with Legacy models, you're benefiting from a ton of hardware improvements in the signal path. For all we know, you're also benefiting from extra undocumented and unmentioned DSP engine changes that improve the legacy effects as well.

 

[brianwahl]

'm sure there will be many of these comparison videos to watch, but here is a look at the HX vs Agoura Deluxe Reverb (vibrato) amp model:



Playing the two models side by side, you can definitely feel/hear a difference. But you have to be able to A/B between them quickly in the exact same listening environment. You'd be VERY hard pressed to hear a tone in a mix, or sit down and play something without knowing what it is, and say, "Yes that's an Agoura amp model, and not an HX model".

That said, I definitely heard and felt what I would describe as a significant improvement.

It's interesting how people attribute fizz to 'digital' (or 'digital harshness'). Having captured close to 100 real amps with mics on cabs, there is often a LOT of fizz that you hear in real amps, and things like mic choice, placement, speakers, post-EQ, compression, etc have a huge impact on how much fizz you hear, or how harsh it is.

That said, I find the Agoura Deluxe model to be much less 'fizzy'.

 

[Orvillain]

Having captured close to 100 real amps with mics on cabs, there is often a LOT of fizz that you hear in real amps

This is absolutely true. And claims about aliasing cannot be proven with ears either. You need scopes and sweeps and measurements.

Welcome @brianwahl btw !!

 

[fr8_trane]

There aren’t many real life scenarios where we’d experience a tube amp without its output being affected by the load to which it’s attached. IMO having the option to bypass SIC isn’t that useful, and likely becomes a total non issue if Agoura preamps show up.

The preamps on the Helix were useless IMO. The full amps ALWAYS sounded better to my ears through ANY power amp than the preamp versions. I tested with SD170, FX return of a tube amp and a KSR PA50 tube power amp.

 

[GuitarJon]

Not meant for people on this forum per se, but are there any Fractal Audio fans out there who can be like "cool unit, good for line 6, enjoy guys!". Cause, I'm seeing much more of the other approach...

 

[paisleywookiee]

I don't think comparing legacy models on a Stadium to Agoura is the correct way. I think comparing legacy models on Helix Floor/Rack/Lt to Stadium, is the correct way.

Even with Legacy models, you're benefiting from a ton of hardware improvements in the signal path. For all we know, you're also benefiting from extra undocumented and unmentioned DSP engine changes that improve the legacy effects as well.

@Digital Igloo even said that the Legacy stuff would sound better, due to all those improvements.

 

[brianwahl]

Was Signal Theory created bc no one would take a worship tutorials high gain demo seriously? It's literally the same dudes

Brian here ( I created Worship Tutorials, and Bradford and I created Signal Theory).

We have been discussing starting a new brand for years now, and finally it seemed like the time was right. Worship Tutorials was original intended to make.... worship tutorials, ha. In the beginning that's really all I did - teach how to play worship songs in church.

Over time we focussed our content more and more on gear, presets, captures, etc. It always felt strange for us to do that on a church/worship channel, and we also felt it would be difficult for guitar players outside of the (admittedly odd at times) sub-genre of modern praise and worship to either be interested at all in our content, or to take us seriously.

We also wanted to split the business of our presets and captures away from a Christian/church centric brand. I made both Def Leppard and Slash signature presets this past year. Putting those on Worship Tutorials feels... weird.

So we wanted a brand that was solely focussed on gear/presets/catpures, etc. And we wanted Worship Tutorials to be able to go back to its initial vision of providing content specifically for church players.

So, in a round about way, yes - we created Signal Theory because nobody would take a high gain demo from Worship Tutorials seriously .

We do have some Stadium content on Worship Tutorials on Youtube, but it's us using it to play worship songs. OK - back to Stadium talk.

 

[Orvillain]

Not meant for people on this forum per se, but are there any Fractal Audio fans out there who can be like "cool unit, good for line 6, enjoy guys!". Cause, I'm seeing much more of the other approach...

The internet is proper chef's kiss isn't it.....

 

[EOengineer]

'm sure there will be many of these comparison videos to watch, but here is a look at the HX vs Agoura Deluxe Reverb (vibrato) amp model:



Playing the two models side by side, you can definitely feel/hear a difference. But you have to be able to A/B between them quickly in the exact same listening environment. You'd be VERY hard pressed to hear a tone in a mix, or sit down and play something without knowing what it is, and say, "Yes that's an Agoura amp model, and not an HX model".

That said, I definitely heard and felt what I would describe as a significant improvement.

It's interesting how people attribute fizz to 'digital' (or 'digital harshness'). Having captured close to 100 real amps with mics on cabs, there is often a LOT of fizz that you hear in real amps, and things like mic choice, placement, speakers, post-EQ, compression, etc have a huge impact on how much fizz you hear, or how harsh it is.

That said, I find the Agoura Deluxe model to be much less 'fizzy'.

So this comparison brings me back to…why does the Agoura Deluxe Reverb have SO LITTLE gain compared to the Hx model. It’s immediately apparent in this comparison. It’s not a small difference. Sure, we’re not usually looking for a deluxe to breath fire…but it’s an interesting detail.

The preamps on the Helix were useless IMO. The full amps ALWAYS sounded better to my ears through ANY power amp (I tested with SD170, FX return of a tube amp and a KSR PA50 tube power amp) than the preamp versions.

I’ve used the Cali Lead preamp into my Simul 2:90 with fantastic results - MUCH more realistic than using the amp model. I think results are just highly variable.

 

[brianwahl]

Listening to the Signal Theory / Worship Tutorials vids, and yeah the best overviews so far.

Deluxe and AC sound predictably good, as established. Plexi too.

That Hiwatt was very unexpected to me. Not amps I am very familiar with. Sounded fantastic and seemed very fun to use.

And the Bassman!! Standout for me. I never got along with the Helix Bassman, despite best efforts, so this is great news for me.

Champ was nice too. Seems way more usable than the Helix one, which I only really liked with a mid cut (and I like the real thing).

Love the Princeton and Twin too. Those were already strong on Helix imo, so I expected as much, but yeah they really nailed the Fender sounds.

Thanks so much! Yeah the Bassman is my favorite new Agoura model so far. Followed by the Plexi.

 

[JiveTurkey]

So this comparison brings me back to…why does the Agoura Deluxe Reverb have SO LITTLE gain compared to the Hx model. It’s immediately apparent in this comparison. It’s not a small difference. Sure, we’re not usually looking for a deluxe to breath fire…but it’s an interesting detail.


I’ve used the Cali Lead preamp into my Simul 2:90 with fantastic results - MUCH more realistic than using the amp model. I think results are just highly variable.

I think with the preamps and a James Freeman find originally(?) that you needed that volume block in addition with a 12db(?) boost to match the levels you would normally expect when just using the preamp vs the full model. IIRC. I stopped tracking Helix quite some time ago.

 

[ian_dissonance]

Not meant for people on this forum per se, but are there any Fractal Audio fans out there who can be like "cool unit, good for line 6, enjoy guys!". Cause, I'm seeing much more of the other approach...

Reasonable fractal enjoyers are playing guitar, mostly.