Line 6 Helix Stadium Talk

[Lysander]

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.

Welp, i'd argue we mostly record performances. The tones we listen usually take final shape well after sound has left a cab speaker - or a modeling device.

With modelling and profiling being where they are today, across the board, a device which feels good to play through is more important than an extra 0.5% in modelling accuracy. Kempers remain very popular to this day for that reason.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

Welp, i'd argue we mostly record performances. The tones we listen usually take final shape well after sound has left a cab speaker - or a modeling device.

With modelling and profiling being where they are today, across the board, a device which feels good to play through is more important than an extra 0.5% in modelling accuracy. Kempers remain very popular to this day for that reason.

I’d say we can have both already, but I think everyone’s opinion will vary and it’s not really quantifiable. There’s plenty of killer modelling that is both accurate and feels excellent.

FWIW I find some real amps to not always feel amazing to play but it inspires a certain performance. Sometimes a real 2203 or Rectifier can feel a bit stiff, but that in turn forces you to adapt your performance a bit. It’s maybe another reason I’d rather things sound and feel like the real deal. Maybe others would prefer something to feel uniformly to their own taste across the board.

Real amps don’t uniformly sound or feel better (or worse) than digital, IMO it’s another reason to aim for accuracy rather than someones subjective taste.

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?

For sure. That’s true of any gear video though. If you care about how an amplifier sounds in a recording environment, listening to audio of it being recorded has value. I fell in love with Rectifiers and 5150’s based on how others made them sound on albums I loved, not from me playing the amplifiers first. I only played the amps after I knew I liked the sound of others playing them.

Someone else might be buying a modeller to make their touring rig more practical, and listening to tones is probably way lower in what they care about.

 

[Orvillain]

I'm not willing to go as far as to completely poo-poo Youtube as a source of tonal comparison. I think in the main it can do a good job of conveying differences in audio sources. The problem is really one of taste. There are very few people who play the way I want to hear being played through this kit. That's the first major hurdle. Guys like JNC or Paul Hindmarsh (sorry both!!) are basically about as useful to me as a chocolate teapot.

But then guys like Ola or Fluff, who are far too metal orientated for me and don't use enough effects and don't actually really experiment all that much and only have like 1 or 2 sounds ... pretty much the same. Can be engaging, but I rarely learn anything.

@GuitarJon has a similar idea to cleans, crunches, high-gains as I do, and he plays in similar tunings, and he uses a lot of the same kind of chord shapes that I do. So right out of the gate, he's far more representative to me. Whereas I would guess for someone who worships at the altar of Bongelamassamassa or whatever, then Jon probably isn't their cup of tea.

And since in these comparisons, the gear is all going through the same medium with the same audio compression and what not, I think the relative differences are what are most important.

At the same time, because you're not the one behind the wheel, a YT video can never be 100% representative. I've bought pedals based on liking what I heard in YT videos, and then failed to connect with them on any meaningful level, and ended up selling them within the year. I've also heard YT videos and not really fancied the gear until I tried it myself - actually the Universal Audio pedals are a perfect example of this. I don't know why, but very few of the gear demos gave me the horn for those, until I tried them in a shop.

I think this dichotomy is probably why we have so many guitartubers in the first place. Coz everyone basically wants to hear what THEY would do with a thing.

 

[laxu]

At the same time, because you're not the one behind the wheel, a YT video can never be 100% representative. I've bought pedals based on liking what I heard in YT videos, and then failed to connect with them on any meaningful level, and ended up selling them within the year. I've also heard YT videos and not really fancied the gear until I tried it myself

That's why you should watch multiple sources of the same gear. When the Vox style Victory VC35 head came out, there was maybe a dozen videos on YT about it and I watched all of them. When I got my amp, it matched pretty well to my expectations - a mix of the tones I heard on record. Same thing with my Mark V 90.

actually the Universal Audio pedals are a perfect example of this. I don't know why, but very few of the gear demos gave me the horn for those, until I tried them in a shop.

For me it was the opposite. I got to try them in a store through big Genelec 8040 speakers (quite similar to my Genelec M040), and came out with "what's the big deal about these?" as I felt I could get those kind of tones out of other gear just fine.

I do agree that feel does not really come through from YT videos that easily. E.g with the Mark V 90 the feel changes a lot between the different power scaling modes, the variac power or the tube rectifier, but in a video these would probably end up sounding very similar if you were to just play e.g a loop through the amp and made sure the volume levels matched.

 

[Fireproof]

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.

That’s a lot of stomps. Would be quite the pedalboard if analog.

 

[Orvillain]

brb

 

[laxu]

That’s a lot of stomps. Would be quite the pedalboard if analog.

I tried building my current Strymon pedalboard in a Helix preset, and it would take every fx slot to fit every possible mode of each pedal (e.g 3+3 modes of reverb/tremolo on a Flint) into a single preset. Obviously you don't need to have all the options available at once, but it was a cool exercise.

That's still something where real pedals have their own advantages in experimenting with tones, like "what if I swap nothing but the fx type for another one but keep every other setting."

 

[Orvillain]

I tried building my current Strymon pedalboard in a Helix preset, and it would take every fx slot to fit every possible mode of each pedal (e.g 3+3 modes of reverb/tremolo on a Flint) into a single preset. Obviously you don't need to have all the options available at once, but it was a cool exercise.

That's still something where real pedals have their own advantages in experimenting with tones, like "what if I swap nothing but the fx type for another one but keep every other setting."

That was sorta my hope for the gigrig G3 but the noise pissed me off too much and the menu diving and overall experience. Meh. Multis rule when you want very complex and every changing rigs

 

[Mooselake]

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.

Thanks. Anyone know if there's a way on the unit to distinguish which amps in the non-legacy section are Agoura vs OG?

Yes, that's the one. And I'm glad you decided to do that. I've heard Super Bass/MegaBass mentioned, but I'm one of those folks who would probably not have thought to try it. I especially liked the cleaner snapshots, but even the more straightforward 'drive' snapshots have something about them that felt 'right' to me. I'll have to do some more diving into how the snapshots are set up.

 

[CrazyD]

What I am missing is the comparison between HX Amps on OG Hardware to HX Amps/Agoura on the Stadium.
Eric had said that the HX amps will also sound "better" on the new hardware anyhow.
Did someone here compare that already?
And is there a difference in the subjective "feel" territory?

 

[Orvillain]

Light bit of shopping this morning. Gonna have a cuppa tea, some toast, and get this bad boy up and running.

 

[EOengineer]

Haven’t heard or seen much about the Stadium backpack but just found this.

 

[EOengineer]

View attachment 55237

Light bit of shopping this morning. Gonna have a cuppa tea, some toast, and get this bad boy up and running.

@Orvillain be sure to check out that SuperBass. It’s awesome.

 

[Mooselake]

... With modelling and profiling being where they are today, across the board, a device which feels good to play through is more important than an extra 0.5% in modelling accuracy. Kempers remain very popular to this day for that reason.

I'm certainly not versed in every 'real' amp out there, nor all of the higher grade modeling options--for the last 8 years I've been very immersed in Helix OG via the LT.

I'm not even sure about the 'feel' aspect of it all. I do have to say that aside from the literal feel of being in the proximity of a loud speaker cabinet, I was a little skeptical about how a digital device at bedroom levels could feel any way at all. But on the Stadium, going back and forth between an OG model and it's Agoura counterpart last night, I did perceive a difference that I suppose 'feel' is maybe the best word to describe it, almost like the strings were more elastic. Definitely a case of mind over matter. And for the 10 minutes I had to check in with the Stadium this morning, it was still there.

It didn't tale me long with Helix LT to come to the same conclusion that I quoted above, though I thought of it more as a device that lets you get tones that inspire you (which elicits a different sort of feeling than those of hands on a guitar), it doesn't seem important to worry about the last 2% of fidelity to a single real world realization of the physical amp. To me, anyway. I got no objection to those who are hardware fidelity aficionados or prefer other modeling platforms/conventions.

I'll probably wind up with a very low member number in the Stadium fan boys club, though. It's fun and with something like it at hand I'm apt to pick up a guitar on some of those evenings I otherwise might not.

 

[Digital Igloo]

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.

It’ll get better.

 

[Orvillain]

One thing I haven't seen anyone say - MUCCCCCHHHHHH quicker and logical update experience than the Quad Cortex. I'm not talking about boot time. I'm talking about actually logging into a user account, grabbing the latest update, download time, and all the rest of it.

 

[Orvillain]

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.

Fully get this perspective. But also factor in that Line6 aren't RME, and they're not writing drivers from scratch. My guess is a customized TheSycon driver, which everyone uses, basically.

There will most likely be improvements, and upcoming ASIO support native to Windows may very well help too.

I'm just glad that for me personally, it isn't a big issue, because I don't care about how it functions as an audio interface. But I can totally see how it would be an issue for others. Let's hope they address it.

 

[JiveTurkey]

I'm gonna have to bite the bullet and watch another Jsad video. Footswitch methodologies are somehow eluding me. I know what you can do generally speaking. But just how to get there is where I need a bit of direction.

 

[LP59]

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.

Just curious, what are you doing that you care about the USB RTL?

 

[2dor]

I'm gonna have to bite the bullet and watch another Jsad video.