Line 6 Helix Stadium Talk

[JiveTurkey]

It seems to be hanging in there okay with the extender close to it. The connection to the editor spontaneously went down twice in about an hour of using it, and it connected right back up but it seems you have to do that manually--they don't seem to try to reconnect themselves.

Did your PC go to sleep? There is an auto-connect setting iirc?

 

[Cactusprick]

I would bet Helix at launch sounded more or less similar to HD500.
my point being look how far it came along.

Helix Stadium would only be amazing here and on.
hell, wish I could afford one.

 

[banned]

I had ~30 mins with Stadium tonight and honestly it's impressive. The hardware is BEAUTIFUL. It's sleek and robust, tour worthy for sure. @Digital Igloo you all should be proud.

I'm going to focus on initial impressions of Agoura here because its the feature I most care about. No disrespect meant to the other new features.

SO...

I played the Agoura SLO, BFDR, SFPR, Plexi, 800, SuperBass, Tweed Champ, Tweed Bassman, and the Revs. I hate saying this because its not helpful, but you'll get it once you play through it. We can argue about tones all day, agoura's feel and playing experience is light years ahead of Hx. There is more weight and solidity under the fingers. It's like you can feel the transformers. It feels solid like when I track my 2204 through the Suhr RL and a good IR.

There is more dynamic content, more and finer gradients to those dynamics, and it just feels like playing a nice piece of tube gear. I particularly enjoyed the volume knob cleanup on the marshalls and fenders. There are really pleasing overtones and lots of natural sustain, even when not using tons of gain. Straight up the SuperBass model might be the best feeling digital amp model I've ever played. Kudos to the L6 guys.

For the high gain folka, I only checked out the Revs...I'm sorry. There are definitely cool sounds in there but I was playing a telecaster with single coils. Im going to sweep back later with a LP with humbuckers and see what I can get out of the EVH and Bogner amps. I'll probably hit the Marshalls again too. This was a very exciting preview though.

In short - the feeling of playing through agoura is the win here...for me. This thing stays and I'm pumped for some eventual Mesa goodness.

FINALLY!

Thank you kind sir for taking the time to detail what Agora sounds/feels like. That's what's most important to me. I appreciate it!

 

[Mooselake]

From the peanut gallery, here's what I think so far. It's very preliminary.

Initially I just played through a few of the presets. I tweaked a couple a little more to my liking. They make decent starting places.. I spent the most time with the BritMegaBass amp. It was fun.

Then I dropped some of my OG LT presets into Stadium. I picked my everyday Marshall2203 and played through it. It was impossible to tell if it sounded any different than it did on the LT. But it sounded good. Then I dropped the Agoura 2203 model into a copy of it. I preferred the Agoura amp in that context.

There's something a little different in the Agoura models that I don't think is just a matter of dialing in with enough accuracy. There's something that to my ear, such as it is, sounds like a difference in the harmonic content/overtones. They seem to lay together a little more musically. People have talked about the low midrange, and that seems to be where it's most noticeable, but if you listen for it, it shows up all over.

Assuming it's not psychoacoustics getting the best of me, that is. I admittedly want them to sound different, so maybe some confirmation bias, but I dunno ...

I'll revisit it with fresh ears tomorrow.

 

[Mooselake]

Did your PC go to sleep? There is an auto-connect setting iirc?

Nope, that computer is setup to never sleep...it runs my DAW. When it does connect I see an auto connect button under the disconnection notice. But it seems that for it "auto connect" means if you push it, it will automatically connect to the device. Whereas, if you gust hit the "connect" a menu pops up and you have to manually select the device.

I'll look around to see if I can find a setting that tells it to automatically try reconnecting to a device if the connection was lost.

 

[EOengineer]

Hype is pretty cool. I’m not always using it, but it provides a useful way to juice things up if you need the extra excitement.

 

[Digital Igloo]

Agree regarding feel, but feel only exists for a fleeting moment solely for the person playing the device, and is based on all kinds of factors. A recorded tone exists forever and can be heard by anyone at any opportunity. Both are valid experiences, one doesn’t negate the other. Feel can’t ever be judged on any recording - be it a 192kHz 32 bit wav file, or mp3, tape or vinyl or wax cylinder. So judging that will always depend on actually playing a unit, as well as the playback system etc. same goes for any real amp too. I wouldn’t comment about feel on a gear video in the same way that I wouldn’t comment on the taste by watching a cooking video.

100%. But if one is considering buying a multieffect, are they not going to actually, y’know, play through it? Or are they buying it for someone else so they can watch videos of that person playing through it?

 

[brianwahl]

I've played around with a couple of the presets. I've found them to be pretty usable, although I do like to make little tweaks for them to slide right into what I prefer. I'll probably say more later or tomorrow but so far I'm impressed with the Agoura amps. I got stuck on the 4th preset with the BritMegaBass amp. I'm not even sure if it's an Agoura model or not but I'm digging it

Same. I spent A WHILE in that preset with some minor tweaks. Crazy good.

The Brit MegaBass is an Agoura model in the bass amp section, but it's based on a Marshall Super Bass - super cool amps, and I think Tom Bukovac made a video talking bout how he thinks it's the best Marshall ever made.

If you're talking about the Brit MegaGuitar factory preset, I made that one - glad you like it! I wanted to make something to showcase that amp because I figured most people might never try it based on the fact that it's in the bass amp section. It's a lot cleaner/warmer than your typical 1959 Super Lead plexi. I have one of the newer 1959 Mod Super Leads that Marshall recently put out. That amp lets you mod the bright cap, which makes the amp much cleaner and warmer at lower gain settings (below 5 on the volume). The MegaBass model really reminds me a lot of the 1959 mod with the bright cap mod engaged.

 

[Elf]

Is there a A B hardware comparison between OG Helix and Stadium playing the new amps somewhere?

 

[AlbertA]

Latency stuff

TLDR:

• Straight from guitar input to 1/4" output, empty line => ~2.25ms
• Amp or Amp + Cab with Imported impulse => ~2.65ms
• Distortion pedal (minotaur) + Amp + CAB => ~2.73ms
• Empty line with just FX LOOP (with a loopback cable) => ~4.5ms

1. Straight from guitar input to 1/4" output, empty line => ~2.25ms

Amp or Amp + Cab with Imported impulse => ~2.65ms

Distortion pedal (minotaur) + Amp + CAB => ~2.73ms

Empty line with just FX LOOP (with a loopback cable) => ~4.5ms

 

[AlbertA]

USB loopback measurement (USB 3/4 => USB 3/4) on macOS

 

[TheTrueZoltan!]

USB loopback measurement (USB 3/4 => USB 3/4) on macOS

View attachment 55227

So the USB RTL is still really bad. And that's with a 16 (!!!) samples buffer. I guess most people would use 32 or 64 samples, and then the latency will be even worse. As excited as I am about the Stadium, this is really shitty. And I wonder why there is such a huge difference between measured and reported latency. To be honest, I'm quite disappointed that Line 6 doesn't seem to have made any improvements here compared to the previous generation.

 

[bigmenace]

Take that QC

shhhhhhhh..

 

[StarF666]

USB loopback measurement (USB 3/4 => USB 3/4) on macOS

View attachment 55227

Honestly I didn't expect better USB RTL (though I hoped for). I don't see this as crucial for most (of my) use cases but still should be much better for today's standards and the claim this could be the centerpiece of your show (with a lot of players doing bedroom rather than stadium). I guess this could be fixed with drivers but it wasn't a top priority with OG HX and DI at some point said, they simply don't have the resources for better driver development.

 

[Orvillain]

Latency stuff

TLDR:

• Straight from guitar input to 1/4" output, empty line => ~2.25ms
• Amp or Amp + Cab with Imported impulse => ~2.65ms
• Distortion pedal (minotaur) + Amp + CAB => ~2.73ms
• Empty line with just FX LOOP (with a loopback cable) => ~4.5ms

1. Straight from guitar input to 1/4" output, empty line => ~2.25ms
View attachment 55222


Amp or Amp + Cab with Imported impulse => ~2.65ms
View attachment 55223


Distortion pedal (minotaur) + Amp + CAB => ~2.73ms
View attachment 55224


Empty line with just FX LOOP (with a loopback cable) => ~4.5ms
View attachment 55226

Hmmmmm.... these figures are higher than what I measured with Helix Floor:

Thread 'Helix - I/O latency measurements'

Jan 5, 2024

So....

We have a click source as audio. This is being routed out of my Presonus Quantum, into my Reamp box, and back into the 1st input on the Quantum. We can see that the input and output are exactly matched in terms of timing. Those with a keen eye will see the first sample of the looped back recording, is slightly malformed compared to the input signal.

So.... next level..... putting the Helix in the chain. So reamp box, into the Helix guitar input. Then out of the Helix main output, into the 1st input on the Quantum. The Helix patch is completely empty. Just a straight...

• Orvillain
• Replies: 55
• Forum: Digital & Modeling

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[Orvillain]

Take that QC

shhhhhhhh..

 

[Orvillain]

Holy willy flaps. Steve Sterlacci just taught me something... I totally spaced on Helix Stadium having Stomp A and Stomp B views... ie.... two pages of stompo's !? That's killlerrr.

 

[laxu]

Latency stuff

TLDR:

• Straight from guitar input to 1/4" output, empty line => ~2.25ms
• Amp or Amp + Cab with Imported impulse => ~2.65ms
• Distortion pedal (minotaur) + Amp + CAB => ~2.73ms
• Empty line with just FX LOOP (with a loopback cable) => ~4.5ms

1. Straight from guitar input to 1/4" output, empty line => ~2.25ms
View attachment 55222


Amp or Amp + Cab with Imported impulse => ~2.65ms
View attachment 55223


Distortion pedal (minotaur) + Amp + CAB => ~2.73ms
View attachment 55224


Empty line with just FX LOOP (with a loopback cable) => ~4.5ms
View attachment 55226

I linked this and the USB latency posts in one of the reserved posts in OP.

It doesn't seem our forum software has the Threadmarks plugin for linking useful posts, but if you find posts that you think are very useful, please point them to me and I'll add them.

 

[laxu]

USB loopback measurement (USB 3/4 => USB 3/4) on macOS

View attachment 55227

Yeah that seems really bad.

I tested the Hotone Ampero 2 Stomp at some point and it had a RTL in line with an average audio interface? Couldn't find it in my RTL Utility logs tho so I won't list any numbers. I would expect Stadium would have at least similar latency for a class-compliant, no dedicated MacOS driver device.

It would be great if any HX Stadium owners using Windows could verify what the performance with the Helix ASIO driver looks like.

 

[crispsandwich]

I really like JNC's playing and he seems like a really nice guy .... BUT F.F.S .... enough with the 4 video's per day - not always but incrasingly - about pointless shit.

We are less than 2 Days into a new ground up product with a possible/probable project life-cycle design of 8 - 10 years and he puts out a f*ckinig +28 minute video entitled "The Good, the Bad and the Weird" !?!?!?!?!?!??

Whats on tomorrow " Everything Fractal Got Wrong with the Axe IV "

I used to like his videos. Now he is just another YT ‘star’ who thinks his opinions are important and spams with stupid video titles. Monster player, but I stopped watching years ago.